c. to come to us in Consultation and let us know their Sence and many came And I remember not one Man that dissented from what we offered you first which was Archbishop Vsher's Primitive Form which took not down Archbishops Bishops or a farthing of their Estates or any of their Lordships or Parliamentary Power or Honour unless the Advice of their Presbyters and the taking the Church Keys out of the hands of Lay Chancellors cast you down 3. That when the King's Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs 1660. granted yet much less Power to Presbyters and left it almost alone in the Bishops we did not only acquiesce in this but all the London Ministers were invited to meet to give the King our joyful Thanks for it And of all that met I remember but two now both dead who refused to subscribe the Common Thanksgiving which with many Hands is yet to be seen in Print And those two exprest their Thankfulness but only said That because some things agreed not to their Judgments they dursâ— not so subscribe lest it signified Approbation but they should thankfully accept that Frame and peaceably submit to it All this being so I appeal with some sense of the Case of England to your self and common reason whether it be just and beseeming a Pastor or Christian or a Man to make the Nation believe 1. That we are Presbyterians 2. And against Bishops 3. And therefore that we are Schismaticks 4. And therefore that we must be Imprisoned or Banished as those that would destroy the Church and Land Would a Turk own such dealing with his Neighbour Is this the way of Peace Will this bring us to Conformity Was it Anti-Episcopal Presbytery which the King's Declaration 1660 determined of Nothing will Serve God and the Churches Peace but Truth and Honesty or at least that which hath some appearance of it II. I find that almost all the Strength of his Book as against Presbyterians who are his Fanaticks is his bare word saying that they are Schismaticks and that they forsake the Judgment and Practice of the Universal Church by forsaking Episcopacy And will this convince me who am certain that I am for that Episcopacy which Ignatius Tertullian Cyprian c. were for and am past doubt that the Episcopacy which I am against is contrary to the Practice of the whole Church for 200 Years and of all save two Cities Alexandria and Rome for a much longer time If I prove this true which I undertake must I then take his turn and desire the Banishment of the Contrary-minded Bishops as dangerous Schismaticks for forsaking the Practice of the Church III. I understand not in his Platform of the Rule which denominateth Dissenters Schismaticks Pag. 353. what he meaneth by the very highest Power most necessary to be understood in these words The Laws and Orders of the Church Vniversal to which every Provincial Church must submit What the Scots mean by a General Assembly I know and what the old Emperors and Councils meant by an Vniversal Council Viz. Universal as to that one Empire But I know no Vniversal Law-givers to the whole Church on Earth but Jesus Christ neither Pope nor Council If I am mistaken in this I should be glad to be convinced for it is of great moment And is the hinge of our Controversie with Rome IV. He doth to me after all give up the whole Cause and absolve me and all that I plead from the guilt of Schism and lay it on your Lordship and such as you if I can understand him when he saith Pag. 363. It is clear that in the Church of England there is no sinful Condition of Communion required nor nothing imposed but what is according to the Order and Practice of the Catholick Church there can be no pretence for any Toleration c. And Pag. 360. There is no Question to be made but where there is an interruption in the Churches Communion there is caused a Schism and it must be charged on them that make the breach which will lye at their Doors who by making their Communion unlawful do unjustly drive away good Christians from it neither doth such a Person that is driven away at present from the external Communion cease to be a Member of that Church but is a much truer Member thereof than that Pastor that doth unjustly drive him from his Communion This fully satisfieth me and if you will read my late small Book called The Nonconformists Plea for Peace you will see what it is that I think unlawful in the Impositions And if you will read a new small Book of your old troubled Neighbour Mr. Jo. Corbet called The Kingdom of God among Men I have so great an Opinion that by it you will better understand us and become more moderate and charitable towards us that I will take your reading it for a very obliging Kindness to Your Servant Ri. Baxter December 11. 1679. Add. V. His terms of Communion are not right as I have proved VI. He speaketh against Toleration so generally without distinction as if no one that dissented but in a word were tolerable which is intolerable Doctrine in a pretended Peace-maker VII He inferreth Toleration while he denieth it in that he is against putting us to Death How then will he hinder Toleration Mulcts will not do it as you see by the Law that imposeth 40 l. a Sermon For when Men devoted to the Sacred Ministry have no Money they will Preach and Beg Imprisonment must be perpetual or uneffectual for when they come out they will Preach again And it contradicteth himself for it will kill many Students being mostly weak as it kill'd by bringing mortal Sickness on them those Learned Holy Peaceable and Excellent Men Mr. Jos. Allen of Taunton Mr. Hughes of Plimouth and some have died in Prison And he that killeth them by Imprisonment killeth them as well as he that burneth them or hangeth them And the Prisons will be so full as will render the Causers of it odious to many and make such as St. Martin was separate from the Bishops the same I say of Banishment Dr. Saywell's Principles infer as followeth I. Schismaticks are not to be Tolerated They that are for the sort of Diocesane Prelacy which we disown are Schismaticks Ergo not to be Tolerated The Major is Dr. S's The Minor is proved thus They that are against that Episcopacy which the Primitive Universal Church was for and used are Schismaticks The foresaid Diocesane Party are against that Episcopacy which the Primitive Universal Church was for and used Ergo they are Schismaticks The Major is Dr. S's The Minor is thus proved I. They that are for the deposing of the Bishops that were over every single Church that had one Altar and those that were over every City Church and instead of them setting up only one Bishop over a Diocess which hath a Thousand or many Hundred Altars and many Cities are against the Episcopacy
Against the Revolt to A Foreign Jurisdiction Which would be to England its PERJURY CHVRCH-RVINE and SLAVERY In Two Parts I. The History of Mens Endeavors to introduce it II. The Confutation of all Pretences for it Fully stating the Controversie and Proving That there is no Soveraign Power of Legislation Judgment and Execution over the whole Church on Earth Aristocratical or Monarchical but only Christ Especially against the Aristocratists who place it in a Council or College By RICHARD BAXTER an Earnest Desirer of the Churches Concord and therefore an Enemy to all false Terms and Dividing Engines and Self-exalting Sects and a Defender of Christ's own assigned Terms which take in all the true Christians in the World and are Injurious or Cruel to none To be offered to the next Convocation beseeching them to own the Doctrine of Foreign Communion but to note with Renunciation the Doctrine of Foreign Jurisdiction and to Vindicate the Reformed Church of England from the Guilt and Suspition which the French and Innovators injuriously seek to fasten on them Luk. 22.24 25 26. And there was a strife among them which of them should be accounted the Greatest And he said to them The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise Authority upon them are called Benefactors But ye shall not be so but he that is greatest among you let him be as the Younger and he that is chief as he that doth serve 1 Thess. 5.12 We beseech you Brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you 13. And to esteem them very highly in love for their work sake and be at Peace among your selves London Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and 〈◊〉 Crowâ—â— at the lower end of Cheapfiâ—â— near Mercers Chapel 1691. To the Reverend and deservedly Honoured Dr. JOHN TILLOTSON Dean of St. Paul's Church Reverend Sir THE Message on which this Epistle cometh to you is to intreat you to Present this Treatise to the next Convocation and to endeavour their publick renunciation of Foreign Jurisdiction and their censure of the Books that are written here for it The Reasons of my request are I. The Canons condemn them that deny the Convocation to be the Church of England Representative And they that have written for and promoted this Doctrine and Design have not only been Chief Men in the Church but have laboured to fasten their Doctrine on the Church which yet before the time of Bishop Laud the Church disclaimed and openly condemned and took Foreign Bishops and Councils for Brethren and a laudable means of Communion while they did their proper work but not by Jurisdiction to be the Governours of us and all Christian Kings and Kingdoms as their Subjects And who can be Ignorant that when at the present the Papist Bishops are very Many to One Protestant Bishop they will accordingly carry it by their Votes in Councils And if the Major Vote be the Collegium Pastorum that have the Chief Government in the Interval of Councils we are now Subjects to the Bishops and Church of Rome And if 〈◊〉 Roman Petrus Primus must call the next Council or there must be none till all Christian Kings agree to call it the present College is like to be long the Universal Aristocracy The Representative Church of England is so nearly concerned in this great Matter both for the moment of it and the imputation of this Design unto it that we cannot think they will lightly pass it by without their censure Which will be the more expected because of the Owning of Dr. Beveridge's Sermon to them which I have here examined Dr. Whitby's Reconciler of Protestants escaped not the Oxford censure and we hope the Representative Church of England will not be more favourable to Subjection which is more than Reconciling to the Foreign Papists Lest they cherish the Suspicion that the desire of so much Concord with France in Church Constitution and Government will intimate a preparation to another Relation to them which England cannot bear with ease And we are loth to be disabled to confute the Separatists that will never be reconciled to the Church of England if they can say that it is revolted to a Subjection to the Papists But why should we doubt whether the Convocation will renounce that which both themselves and all the Church and Kingdom are Sworn against even all Ecclesiastical Foreign Jurisdiction II. The Reasons why I presume to desire you to be the Man that shall present this Book and Motion to them Are 1. Because it is said that Custom maketh the Dean of Pauls usually to be chosen the Prolocutor to the Lower House I speak but by hearsay having never been one of them For the Clergy of London choosing Mr. Calamy and Me for their Clerks of that Convocation that made the Materials of the late differencing Impositions Bishop Sheldon by Prerogative excluded us to our great Ease and so the City of London consented not by their Clerks to any of those Acts. 2. And you are the Man that Published that Excellent Book of Dr. Isaac Barrow which unanswerably against Mr. Thorndike and such others confuted the Pretences to a Foreign Jurisdiction 3. And you are known to be so firm a Friend to Love Concord and Peace like your Father in Law Bishop Wilkins who once by appointment treated and agreed with us in a Vniting Form of Concord that I may confidently expect your best Assistance If any should be so adverse to this Necessary Work as to turn it off by diverting to Accusation against me or the Nonconformists I pray tell them how impertinent that is to the present Business And if it be needful shew them my Treatise for National Churches and that of Episcopacy and my English Nonconformity stated and argued And whereas I am said to have refused a Bishoprick because I was against Episâ—opacy be it known that in 1661 â—he Pacificators never offered any â—hing lower than Archbishop Vsher's Model of the Primitive Episcopacy â—nd when the King's Declaration â—anted us less we Published a â—hankful Acceptance And I gave 〈◊〉 Writing the Reasons of my Refusal to the Lord Chancellor Hyde That If that Declaration were Confirmed by a Law I would be no Bishop because I would not disable my self to perswade as many as I could to Conformity by drawing them to say that I did it for my own Ends. Which Answer satisfied the Lord Chancellor I think every Bishoprick in England hath Buried many of its Bishops since my refusal who am now near Dying in the 76th Year of a Painful Life and intreat you though I be Dead to do this Office for the Endangered Church of England and for your truly honouring Brother Ri. Baxter TO THE READER THis Book being Written at several times most of it many Years ago and some lately and answering many Persons who use the same Arguments it hath one blemish which I am ashamed of in
French Papists than the Italians For the Italian Party are at so visible a distance that they can design no way for their advantage but a Toleration unless they could get the Government And their Toleration would a while but make the Nation better know them and more dislike them But the French Party cry down Toleration and trust wholly to a Coalition and to force They hope to do their work before it s known what they are doing They will cry down Popery meaning only the Pope's absolute Power above Councils It is but abating the Latine Service Transubstantiation Priests Marriage granting the Cup to the Laity and two or three more such things and crying up nothing but the Name of the Church of England though changed by Subjection to a Forreign Jurisdiction and then crying up Obedience and Conformity to it and crying down Schism as an intolerable thing and the Papists shall seem to turn to us and not we to them and then no Dissenter shall be suffered Mr. Thorndikes Book of forbearance of Penalties tells us of no other hope of sufferance but on supposition that we all agree in subjection to the thing called The Vniversal Political Church And a Learned Tribe by Interest and Opinion engaged in the Cause may be ready by confident triumphant Writings and Disputes to make good all this and scorn and tread down Gainsayers as Schismaticks And the Coalition will take in the parts and labours of those that now are called Papists who are trained up in Militant Arts. XX. But as long as God and the King are against them we need not much fear the Success of their Endeavours Such a Care hath the King had to secure the Land against all suspicion of Popery in himself that a severe penalty is to be inflicted on any that shall so defame him Yea he hath passed Acts for the Clergy Corporations Vestries the Militia Nonconformists in which they are all obliged by Promise or Oath never to Endeavour any Alteration of the Government of Church and State And again I say what sober Man can be so sottish as to think that to subject the King Clergy and whole Kingdom to the Forreign Jurisdiction of a pretended Universal Sovereignty Monarchical Aristocratical or Mixt is no alteration of the Government of the Church yea of the Church-specifying Form XXI This is a great secondary reason why we cannot be for such a change because we cannot Consent that Church Vestries Corporations Militia c. should be all perfidious or perjured Yea all the Land that have taken the Oath of Supremacy against all Forreign Jurisdiction We accuse not others but excuse our selves Yea what Crime is it against King and Kingdom to make them the Subjects of a Forreign Power I leave to other men to enquire XXII God seemeth purposely to have confounded them in their Design by leaving them no Materials for their Fabrick I can imagine no pretences of possibility but in some of these following ways 1. That it is the Colledge of Bishops diffused over the Earth that must exercise Legislation and Judgment by Consent or by Majority of Votes And I shall never fear the prevalency of this Opinion till an Epidemical Madness turneth us into a Bedlam 2. That it must be a true General Council that must Govern us And this is no more to be expected than that all the World fall under one Monarch or that all Christians save one Kingdom Apostatize which God prevent 3. That Patriarchs with such Metropolitans as they will call be taken for the Governing Representers of all the Bishops and Churches on Earth But there is no possibility left us of this way For it must be either by the five old Patriarchs or by new ones 1. If the old ones Gods Judgments have made that way unpracticable 1. The Cities of Antioch and Alexandria are destroyed where two of the Patriarchs should be Bishops 2. The Turk is Lord of four of the old Patriarchal Seats and none can be chosen rule or come to Councils without his Consent And he can get almost whom he will Chosen and so the Turk should be our Chief Church Governour And the Places are bought with Money and the Possessors answerable Ludolphus tells us that the Patriarch of Alexandria is some unlearned ignorant Person that scarce knoweth Letters and that Men are made Clergy-men there against their wills all Men shunning the Office because of the Sufferings from the Turk which they must undergo They have no just Qualification Election or Power There are three nominal Patriarchs of Antioch chosen by three several Parties besides the Popes They are utterly uncertain which of them is right or rather certain that none of them are or can be such All the four Nominal Patriarchs are against the Romans and several against each other And many of the chief Christian Churches own none of them as their Governours and none own them all as such And must our Kings and Kingdoms be Subjects of ignorant Subjects of the Turk because once Men were advanced to high Titles over Towns now destroyed in one Christian Empire now dissolved or turned Mahometans 4. There is therefore but one way left which is for the Pope and his Privy Council of Cardinals to be the standing Governour by Judgment and Execution and to call when Princes force him to it such European Councils as he can and as he doth to make four Nominal Patriarchs of Const. Alex. Antioch and Jerusalem as Men make Kings Queens and Bishops on a Chess-board and to call these General Councils as he did that at Trent and to keep the people ignorant enough to believe it As for the making of a sort of new Patriarchs there must go so much to agree who they shall be among all Christian Princes and Nations and then to prove that they are the true Representers of all others and that the Representers or represented have any Universal Legislative Power that I am in no Expectations of any such Sovereignty I have proved against Mr. Hooker that the Body of the people as such are not the Givers of the Power of their Govern ours nd therefore cannot give power to an Universal Supream XXIII When I had seen all Mr. Thorndikes Books and Dr. Heylins and some other such and A. Bishop Bramhall's Book against me with a long and vehement reproving Preface I purposed to have again detected the design and have answered that Book But my Bookseller Nevill Simons told me that Mr. Roger Lestrange then Overseer of the Press came to him and vehemently protested that he would ruine him if he printed my Answer to it And when it might not be Printed I forbore to Write it Since then among others Mr. Dodwell hath appeared with most Voluminous confidence whom I have answered who I doubt not will want neither Ink Paper Words or Face for a reply My Conference with Bishop Guning I thought it against the Rules of Converse to publish But his Chaplain Dr. Saywell
sheweth that Councils have been against Councils and the Arrian Hereticks had more Councils than the Christians and sheweth their uncertainty Pag. 19. As to the Authority of Councils Augustine saith Ipsa plenaria Concilia saepe Priora ◠posterioribus emandantur And of the Succession and Ordination of Bishops he saith Pag. 131. If there were not one of them that turned from Popery or of us left alive yet would not therefore the whole Church of England fly to Lovaine Tertullian saith Nonne Laici sacerdotes sumus Ubi Ecclesiastici Ordinis non est Consessus offert tingit sacerdos qui est solus Sed ubi tres sunt Ecclesia est licet Laici And frequently he saith The Church is found among few as well as among many And he was for Lay Mens Baptizing X. The first Canon commandeth Preachers Four times a Year to declare That All usurped foreign Power forasmuch as the same hath no Establishment nor Ground by the Law of God is for most just Causes taken away and abolished And that therefore No manner of Obedience or Subjection within His Majesties Realms and Dominions is due to any such foreign Power The 12th Canon Excommunicateth ipso facto any that shall affirm That it is lawful for any 〈◊〉 of Ministers to joyn together and make 〈◊〉 Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's Authority and shall submit themselves to be ruled and governed by them Therefore none may go beyond Sea to Councils without his Authority And the Canons of Foreigners are not to be made a Rule without his Authority And is not other Princes Authority as necessary in their Dominions The Canon which bids Prayer 55th describeth Christ's holy Catholick Church to be the whole Congregation of Christian People dispersed throughout the whole World But such a Church hath no Legislative or Judicial Power XI The Controversie is about an Article of Faith I believe the holy Catholick Church The Humanists say It is an universal Political Society Governed by one humane Supream Monarch Aristocracy or mixt under Christ. Protestants say It hath no universal supream Ruler but Christ. Now the Generality of Protestant English and transmarine who write on the Creed expound this Article accordingly in the Protestant sence as he that will peruse their Books may find which sheweth what is the sence of the Church of England XII Though King Edw. VI. was but a Youth when he wrote his sharp Book against Popery lately printed It sheweth what his Tutors and the Clergy of his time who were called the Church then thought of these Matters XIII If the Parliaments of England all the days of Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles I. and II. knew what was the Doctrine of the Church of England about a Forreign Jurisdiction it is easie to gather it in their Votes and Acts. Let him that would know whether they were for a Coalition with the French on such terms read Sir Simon Dewes Journals Rushworths Collections or Prins Introduction ad annum 1621. or any other true Historian and he will see how far they were from owning any Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But the contrary minded would make the World believe that all these Parliaments were of some Sect differing from the Church of England But what call they the Church of England but that part of the Clergy who conform to the Laws And did not the Law-makers understand the Laws Or if they more regard the sence of the Clergy let them read A. Bishop Abbot's very plain and bold Letter to the King in Prin's Introduct pag. 39 40. and Dr. Hackwell's c. and they may know what was then the sence of the Clergy With whom concurred the Bishops of Ireland Insomuch that Bishop Downame expressing his sense of the Papists there and his contrary desires presumed to add And let all the people say Amen at which the Church rang with the Amen And though he was questioned in England for it he came safe off His Neighbour Bishops also declaring Popery to be Idolatry and the Pope Antichrist XIV The Bishops and chief Writers of England have taken the Pope to be the Antichrist Cranmer Whitguift Parker Grindall Abbot all A. Bishops of Canterbury Vsher Downame Jewel Andrews Bilson Latimer Hooper Farrar Ridley Robert Abbot Hall Allig and abundance more Bishops The Martyrs Sutcliffe Fulke Sharp Whittaker Willet Crakenthorp and most of our Writers against Popery Sure then they were for none of his Jurisdiction here XV. The Prayers have been and are to this day added in the end both to our Bibles and Common Prayer Books which shew how far the Church of England was from desiring a Coalition with the Papists by submitting to any Forreign Jurisdiction They say to God Confound Satan and Antichrist with all Hirelings whom thou hast already cast off into a reprobate sense that they may not by Sects Schisms Heresies and Errors disquiet thy little Flock And because O Lord we be fallen into the latter days and dangerous times wherein Ignorance hath got the upper hand and Satan by his Ministers seeketh by all means to quench the light of thy Gospel we beseech thee to maintain thy Cause against those ravening Wolves and strengthen all thy Servants whom they keep in Prison and Bondage Let not thy long-suffering be an occasion either to increase their tyranny or to discourage thy Children c. Though A. Bishop Laud put out all these Prayers from the Scots new Liturgy we had never had them still bound with ours to this day if the Church of England had not at first approved them There is also a Confession of Faith found with them describing the Catholick Church as we do XVI The Oath called Et Caetera of 1640. saith that The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England containeth all things necessary to Salvation Therefore Obedience to any Forreign Jurisdiction is not necessary to Salvation And therefore not necessary to the avoiding of Schism or any Damning Sin XVII The Church of England holdeth that no Forreigners Pope or Prelates have Judicial Power to pronounce the King of England a Heretick Or Excommunicate though as Bishop Andrews saith in Tortura Torti even a Deacon may refuse to deliver him the Sacrament if uncapable much more that Pastor whom he chuseth to deliver it him For it 's known by sad experience how dismal the Consequences are exposing the lives of the Excommunicate to danger among them that believe the Pope and his Councils and rendering them dishonoured and contemned by their Subjects We know how many Emperors have been deposed as Excommunicate and what Queen Elizabeth's Excommunication tended to And if our Laws make it Treason to publish such an Excommunication sure the Law-makers believed not that either Pope or Prelates had a Judicial Power to do it In Prin's Introduct p. 121. the Papists that were unwilling to be the Executioners had no better plea than That no Council had yet judged
Italian Papists 2. Nor with the moderate Papists that are for the Councils of Constance and Basil For he takes them for Papists with whom he hath no Communion 3. Nor with the Church of France because they have Communion with Papists Though many of them are no Papists in their Principles 4. He hath no Communion with any Protestant Churches that have not Bishops 5. Nor with any Protestants that have Bishops not Ordained by Canonical uninterrupted Succession from the Apostles at lest presumptively 6. With none of the Greek Church that have Communion with the Church of Rome or with any Schismaticks or that want such Succession or refuse the Laws of the Church which is all 7. With none of the remote Nations called Jacobites Nestorians c. Because they are judged Hereticks or Schismaticks or Communicate with such or have a notorious interruption of Succession 8. Not with the Maronites or any Sect that Communicate with Papists 9. Not with the Nonconformists of the Church of England whom he endeavoureth to prove Damnable Schismaticks 10. Not with the true and old Church of England who professed to hold Communion with those Foreign Protestants whom he calleth Schismaticks Nor with any of the present Bishops and Conformists who profess the same Communion For his Rule is that they are Schismaticks who Communicate with Schismaticks Who then hath he Communion with It seems none but those few new Men in England of his own Mind who perhaps may call themselves the Church of England 11. Nay not with those among them who profess Communion with the Church of Rome except with the Jesuited part 12. And with those of them who are for one Supreme Universal Aristocracy or Legislative College Council and Judicature over the Universal Church And now can you tell which is the Church that he is of Or is there a more notorious Separatist or Schismatick than he § 6. And now can any Man tell which is that Church which he speaketh such wonderful things of as the One Body Politick of Christ with one visible human Government Which be the Bishops and Church that have all that Leviathan-like Power of Heaven and Hell which he describeth and asserteth Is it only the uncertain relicts of all these § 7. Mr. D. hopeth justly that none or few of his friendly Readers will read what I write against him and therefore when I detect his Fraud and putid Errors he puts it off with saying I do but put many new Questions and answer nothing accurately But for the sake of them that will read I will ask him 1. Whether his little invisible Church be a Body meet for the Glorious Elogies which he giveth the Church of Christ I profess I know not one Bishop that is of his professed Principles Archbishop Laud was not that took a General Council to be a Court of Pretorian Power to be externally obeyed by all the Church Bishop Guning is not as the foresaid Evidence sheweth 2. And I would ask him whether his Church have all the Power of Heaven and Hell which he describeth over those that are without the Church or only over those within Paul saith What have we to do to judge them that are without And if so how narrow is the Power of his magnified little Church Let their own Subjects escape their Damning Power how they can it seems none of all the people on Earth whom he counteth Schismaticks or Hereticks are within their reach For these with him are all without If it be said They were within when they were Baptized I answer 1. What they were and what they are is not all one 2. But he saith that the Sacraments are but Sacrilegious Acts and Nullities that are done by such And if so they were never Baptized and so never in the Church § 8. But let us come to his new Book and Method And first I will tell him once more what our different Church Principles are that he may not accuse he knows not what 1. Christ is the only Head Prophet Priest and King to the whole Church on Earth both of Influence and Government Constitutive Specifying and Unifying and hath no Deputy or Vicar under him Aristocratical or Monarchical that hath any such Capacity Power or Obligation 2. Therefore the Church though Compaginated in all its parts is only one Politick Body of Christ and not of Man and hath no other Soveraign 3. Therefore neither Pope Council or College of Bishops have any Legislative or Judicial Power over the whole Church Collective but only the several Pastors are such to their several Churches 4. Yet are they obliged to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and Love and to do all in Concordant Observation of Christs Laws And all Churches and Christians to help others to their Power 5. And when they afford such Counsel or help for Concord to other Churches they do it not as Lay-men but as Pastors in the Universal Church though not as Pastors to other Mens Flocks As Physicians of several Hospitals and Judges of several Courts or Mayors of several Corporations or Kings of several Kingdoms may advise for Concord without Usurping each others Government 6. As God only by Moses made the Jewish Law and the Priests were not to make more but only to Rule by it it being a Prophetical and Mediatorial Work So Christ only by himself and his Spirit of Infallibility and Miracles in the Apostles made the Christian Universal Law and no Men are to make more such but to Rule by that so made 7. As Gerson truely told the Pope Christs own Law is sufficient for the Government of the Church Universal else Christ had not been a perfect Law-giver And they that pretend by Supplements or Emendations to add or do better are not his Ministers but Accusers 8. Therefore those Popes and Councils that have presumed to make Laws for the whole Church have Usurped Christs Prerogative and are false Prophets or Traytors against Christ. 9. Therefore none should own them as such nor is it Schism but Duty so far to disown them 10. Nor should any own these Bishops as such who own this their Usurpation As no Soldiers of the Kings Army should follow those Captains who subject themselves to and take Commissions from an Enemy Usurper or Foreign Princes 11. The Power of Bishops under Christ as to Laws is only to keep and teach Christs Laws and Rule by them and determine themselves of undetermined circumstances or accidents which vary as time and emergent occasions vary and are unfit for Universal Obligation and this Power they have only over their single Flocks though by contract they may join in such things with others for Concords sake 12. When the case of many Churches is alike and their common good requireth Concord in any such accidents all are bound to observe such Concordant Agreements by virtue of Christs command for Concord 13. But if on this pretence Pastors will turn Agreements for Concord
and then I said May it Please Your Majesty This reverend Dr. Guning just now accused us as if we would let in Socinians and Papists We suppose that this is not intended as our deed The King answered There be many Laws against the Papists I replyed We understand this to be for a dispensation with those Laws There was no more said and that was the Conclusion of the day III. In 1662. came out a Declaration for Liberty of Religion naming the Papists to have their part in it but not a Toleration I was desired to get the City Ministers to Subscribe a Thanksgiving for it I told them that it was the King's Work and not to be done by us But I knew it was the Bishops design to cast the Odium of a Toleration of Popery on the Nonconformists while they would gratifie the King by forcing us to Consent But they should never do it They should do it themselves or it should not be done And it presently died IV. The Lord Bridgman called Dr. Wilkins and his Chaplain Dr. Hez Burton and Dr. Manton and me and Dr. Bates after as by the King's Order to attempt an Agreement for a Comprehension to the Presbyterians and a Toleration for the Independents We agreed of the Comprehension in terminis and Judge Hale drew it up into the form of an Act But when we came to the other part the form proposed was for a Toleration of all not excepting the Papists I told the Lord Keeper that we could not meddle in measuring out all other mens Liberty but only to declare what we desired our selves Others must be consulted about their own concerns we were not for severity against any But it was the King's Work and we unmeet to be his Counsellors in it And so all was cast off by the Parliament by that means and the Act forbidden to be offered § 8. At last the King himself broke the Ice and Published a Declaration for Licensing a Toleration The Cruelty of the Prosecution of the Nonconformists being still the seeming Necessity for all But the Parliament broke it and it did the Papists much more harm than good for the Nonconformists continued to Preach though Persecuted § 9. The Clergy now would lay all the Severities on the Parliament and wash their own hands as guiltless of all But 1. It was they even their chief Bishops and Drs. that when the King Commissioned them to Agree on such Alterations as were necessary to tender Consciences after all importunity concluded that no Alteration was so necessary 2. And it was the Bishops and Convocation that altered the Book for the worse and put in new matter harder than before 3. And the Bishops in Parliament were the Chief Agents in all the Laws by which we are undone 4. And it is known that it was the Interest of the Bishops and their Church way that engaged the Long Parliament in all their terrible Acts against us Viz. The Act of Uniformity the Acts for Banishment the Five mile Act the Corporation Act the Militia Act the Vestry Act and others 5. And who knoweth not that it is they and their Disciples that make the great stir against our Healing in jealousie of their Interests which nothing but their own over-doing is like to overthrow 6. And when did they ever once Petition any Parliament to reverse the dividing wicked Laws or to restore the Silenced Ministers or to free them from dying with Rogues in Jails or to prefer the Ministers of Jesus before Barabbas or to request that the Eminent Ministers of Christ might have no greater Punishment for Preaching Christ than debaucht Whoremongers Drunkards Swearers and Blasphemers usually have in England 7. Yea if a Godly Conformist do but write against their Cruelty to the Nonconformists such as are Mr. Pierce Mr. Jones Mr. Bold they have for it Persecuted him as if he were a Nonconformist himself And that you may know that it is not the old Church-men nor yet a few single Persons when Dr. Whitby Prebend of Salisbury who had wrote against Popery did write an excellent Treatise for Peace and Reconciliation the Oxford University Decreed the Publick burning of it together with my Holy Common-wealth The Lord Convert and Pardon them that they prove not the burned fewel when Reconciliation and a Holy Common-wealth are prosperous c. God shall judge at last § 10. All this time from Laud till now it is a hard Controversie which of the two Parties is to be called The Church of England Both Parties pretend to it and some call both of them the same Church But the Infamous Roger L'Estrange set the Name of Trimmers on the old and reconciling Party pretending that the other were the Genuine Members of the Church And was imployed by his Genius and the Court and the Papists and the New Clergy-men to do a work so truly Diabolical as I never read of the like in History even for many Years together to Write and Publish twice a Week a Dialogue called Observations mainly levelled against Love Peace and Piety to perswade all men to hate their Brethren and to provoke men to destroy them whom he Nick-named Whigs and to render odious all save the Wolves whom he called Tories as if he owned the Irish Robbers so that a Trimmer with him was the same as a Peace-maker Blessed by Christ and Cursed by L'Estrange § 11. But whether the New Clergy or the Old be the Church of England and whether both be of one Church remaineth still doubtful But whoever hath the Name that one Name is equivocal when applied to Parties contrary and inconsistent 1. That Church which owneth a Foreign Government and Jurisdiction cannot be one and the same with that Church which renounceth and abhorreth it and owneth only Christ's Universal Government and a Foreign Concord and Communion But this is the difference between the Old Reformed Church of England and the New that call themselves the Church Two Kings make two Kingdoms For the Form denominateth And the Relative Vnion of the pars Imperans and Subdita is the Form That Church which hath a Human Head above National must have a Form and Name above National that is Above a Church of England which makes them all talk so much of The Universal Church in this false humane Form An Universal Church hath an Universal Soveraign Power which is only Christ. If the Pope be Antichrist it is his claim of this that maketh him so because it is Christ's Prerogative which no mortal Man or Council or College is capable of And if so is it not a Papal or Antichristian Church that these Foreign Subjects own and are of whether it be of the French or Italian Form if one be Antichristian both are so when the Claim of Universal Jurisdiction is the Cause I have voluminously detected the mistake of these deceived Men who are deluded by the Name Oecumenical Catholick and Universal which they find in the Councils and Fathers and
hold their other grossest Errours as Transubstantiation Image-Worship Praying in an unknown Tongue forbidding to read the Scripture translated and such like They would be still Hereticks though not Papists 3. But if they only retain some tolerable Errours we should be willing to receive all such to our Communion 2. If the change must be in the Protestants what is it that they must change If it be any Truth or Duty which they forsake or any Sin which they must commit they cannot honestly so change But if it be any Errours or Sins that we must forsake that is a very desirable Change Some men do ignorantly charge some Errours on the Papists which they are not guilty of or lay the Errours of some few upon the most Some make Errours which are but de nomine to seem to be de re and lesser Errours seem great Some take divers Truths to be Errour And some are ready to call some lawful Customs of the Papists by the name of Popery and Antichristian Some would deny Papists the common Civilities and Liberties which are their due All such things as these we would have changed And if altering any indifferent Practice of ours would win them from their Errour to the Truth we should so become all things to all men to save some § 6. IV. But if Papists must come to our Churches whilst Papists without any other Profession of a Change 1. If it be but to hear Sermons which Heathens may do and if they voluntarily do it I know few that will be against it 2. But if it be to our Sacramental Communion I have these Reasons following against it § 7. I. Local Presence will make us really no more of one Church if different Religions make us uncapable than if we met at several places Turks and Hereticks are not of our Church if they should receive the Sacrament with us if they renounce not their Infidelity and Heresie if it be known II. The Bishops say now that the Conformists whose hearts are against Conformity are more hurtful and dangerous to the Church than the Nonconformists as using the publick Encouragements against them How much more will Papists be more dangerous among us than without our Churches III. It will be a Prophanation of God's Ordinance to give that Sacrament to an uncapable person And if they be forced against their will to Communicate the Prophanation will be the greater The Sacrament delivereth to the due Receiver a Sealed Pardon of all Sin and a gift of Christ and right to Salvation And unwilling Persons are utterly uncapable of these willing consent even to the forsaking of all for it being the condition IV. It must be gross hypocrisie and dissembling in the Papists to come to our Communion They take Protestants for Hereticks and Protestants take them for Hereticks And their Doctrine is against admitting Hereticks to Communion They must hear with us their own Doctrines and Practises condemned and they must hear ours asserted which they abhor And what Peace will this hypocrisie keep V. It will tempt the Preachers to give over Preaching against any of their Popish Errours when they know how offensive it will prove to the Auditors And so the Protestants also will be wronged VI. It will overthrow all serious true Church Discipline when our Church Communion is crouded with men that hold the same Principles which Protestants take to be Heretical and Treasonable against Christ and practise what they call Idolatry and are indeed of another Church and under a Foreign Jurisdiction How can our Church Governours censure and cast out any others that be not greater Sinners than these men whom they would draw in And what a Church will that be that taketh in all Sinners not worse than these VII How will it look in the Eyes of God and all just Men that our Church should ipso facto Excommunicate all those Protestants how Learned Pious and Peaceable soever that do but say that any thing in the Church Government Liturgy and Ceremonies is unlawful according to the Can. 5 6 7 8. and silence Protestants for scrupling Subscription or a Ceremony at the same time offer Communion to all the Papists that will accept it and come in VIII It will unavoidably cause a far greater Schism in the Church of England than hath yet been made For it will drive out the best if not the greatest part from its Communion Can they think that such men will Communicate with the Papists meerly because they come into our Churches who have charged them with Antichristianity and such a Mass of Heresies and Errours as have done Bishop Downame Archbishop Vsher Bishop Morton Bishop Hall Bishop Jewell Bishop Carlton Dr. Whitaker Dr. Willet and a multitude of such Will they joyn with them that have charged them with Idolatry as Dr. Reignolds Dr. Stillingfleet c. have done What though they commit not Idolatry in our Churches will that expiate the guilt of all the rest IX Will this do more to Convert the Papists or to Confirm them when they hold us to be no Church they will not take themselves to be Constitutive Parts of the Church they come in To tell them that all their Errours and Sins are no greater than are consistent with our Communion and when we shall tell them that their Roman Church is a true Church and we come so much over or nearer to them sure they will rather look we should come one step further than that they should come to us X. If we think it hard to keep out Popery now how much harder will it be when they are one Body with us and have the most familiar Conversation with us and stand on equal terms When masked and Church-Papists have served them most effectually For my part I fear no mans Censure for my open profession that I hate all Cruelty to Papists or by Papists and that I would have nothing done to their hurt unless our own necessary defence against their hurting us will hurt them And I am so far from desiring that they may be forced to our Communion either by the Writ de Excommunicato Capiendo or any other way that I would not give them the Sacrament if they voluntarily came to it without profession of a change of their Understandings Hearts and Lives If the two Parts of the Design Conjunct 1. Subjecting the Church and Kingdom to a Foreign Jurisdiction 2. And opening our own Church Doors wide enough for the Papists to come in and be imbodied in our Communion be the way to Cure or keep out Popery I confess I am mistaken in the way Chap. VIII Why the Papists abating their Innovations of the last Four hundred Years or keeping them to themselves will not make a Coalition lawful as Archbishop Bromhall thought § 1. AS to their keeping them to themselves and not imposing them on us it leaveth them still as guilty of Rebellious Heretical and Schismatical Doctrine as before and as Antichristian in Usurping
a Universal Soveraignty or Legislative and Judicial Power And therefore uncapable of our Coalition more than an Impenitent Murderer is of Church Communion § 2. And there are not a few nor small Matters that are above Four hundred Years old that found Protestants will never Unite with And though Mr. Thorndike give us so much quarter as to say that It is the Authority that must necessarily be owned and not the Canons if that Authority will change them 1. It is the usurped Authority that we most disown 2. And we have no assurance what Canons that Authority will change And Mr. Thorndike's Mr. Dodwell's and such Mens great rule of Unity is that none of us must question whether any of the Canons of that Authority are contrary to God's Word nor appeal to God and Scripture against them Multitudes of Papists themselves renounce such Doctrine § 3. I. And first All this is built on the Sand I have largely proved long ago in several Books that it is impossible for them to certifie us who have this Authority Who it is that we must hear as the Catholick Church and take Universal Laws from when there is no General Council Or what Councils we may be sure are General or what not Besides none were General but of One Empire When they condemn each other and when each call the other Heretical or Schismatical and when as Great a Number were at one as at the other and the same Authority chose and called both sorts How shall we know which we must obey Is it by Scripture Reason or Authority of Councils themselves that we must Judge They cannot tell us § 4. II. The Cause which I am pleading against is exprest by their Champion the Lord Primate of Ireland Archbishop Bromhall in the words forecited viz. To wave their last Four hundred years Determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary Causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their Old Patriarchal Power and Dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both Name and Thing By this we see what the Protestant Church of England must be or else be Schismaticks in the Judgment of these Learned Men. I will here tell you why this will never Unite us and why the old Church of English Protestants could not close with Rome on these mens terms § 5. I. Salmasius de Ecclesiis Suburbicariis circa finem granteth them that by their Imperial Constitutions the Bishop of Rome was not a meer Patriarch but more than a Patriarch a Caput Ecclesiae This was not Christ's Institution but the Emperours and their Clergies in one Empire But call it Patriarchal or what you will it contained such Power as Christ having not given and Dead men of another Kingdom being none of our Rulers we are not obliged to obey nor indeed lawfully can do 1. A Patriarch and Primate hath some degree of Governing Power or else wherein doth his Primacy consist He calleth Councils Precedeth c. And if he cannot command Archbishops how can they command Bishops And if they are not Commanders of Bishops why do our English Bishops in their Consecration Profess Promise and Swear all due Obedience to the Archbishops And 1. We cannot yield to bring England under the guilt and brand of Perjury by submitting to the Foreign Jurisdiction of a Roman Primate or Patriarch contrary to the Oath of Supremacy 2. We know already how many false Doctrines and Practices the Roman Church and Patriarch have espoused And we can no more receive all these Errours from a Patriarch than from a Pope § 6. II. But we will freely confess to you that we neither are nor can be such a sort of Protestants as the Regnant Church of France is which persecuteth the Protestants nor as these Men called the Church of England in such Proposals would have us be I will give you a Catalogue of some Determinations of above Four hundred Years old which the Church of England before Bishop Laud could not receive § 7. I. Mr. Thorndike also consenteth to rest in the Canons sent by Pope Adrian to Carol. M. about An. 773. And C. 23. ex Clem. is That Arch-Bishop Presbyter or Deacon taken in Fornication Perjury or Theft be deposed but not Excommunicate II. Can. 28. is That a Bishop who obtaineth a Church by Secular Power be deposed And yet we are called Schismaticks for not obeying alas I dare not name the things the Bishops that have many Score or Hundred Churches by Secular Power And must we Unite in this III. Can. 11. is Condemned Clerks shall never be restored if they go to the Emperour And must we Confederate against such Bishops in England IV. C. Laodic there recited 33. is that None Pray with Hereticks or Schismaticks When we knowing how the Roman Party are counted at the best Schismaticks by Greeks Syrians and Protestants and all these counted Schismaticks by them it will be but Schism to separate from almost all Christ's Church on Earth as Schismaticks V. Ex Can. Sard. 2. That a Bishop that by Ambition changeth his Seat shall not have so much as Lay Communion no not at the end VI. Ex C. Afric c. 15. That there be no Re-ordaining or Translation of Bishops VII No man must receive the witness of a Lay-man against a Clergy-man VIII The Second General Council at Nice setteth up the Adoration of Images cursing all from Christ with Anathema that are against it or doubt of it IX Even the contrary Council at Constantinople of 338 Bishops anathematizeth all that do not with a sincere Faith crave the Intercession of the Virgin Mary as the Parent of God and Superior to every Creature visible and invisible And all that confess not that all who from the beginning to this day before the Law and under the Law and in the Grace given of God being Saints are venerable in the Presence of God in Soul and BODY and seek not their Intercessions Yet they conclude with the Conc. Nice 2. That Christ's Body Glorified is not proper Flesh Def. 7. X. The said Second Council at Nice saith Every Election of a Bishop Priest or Deacon which is made by Magistrates shall remain void by the Canon which saith If any Bishop use the Secular Magistrate to obtain by them a Church let him be deposed and separated and all that Communicate with him Thus our English Bishops and Parish Ministers are deposed and all their Communicants to be Excommunicated XI Ibid. Can. 4. Those that for Gain or Affection of their own shut out any Ministers or shut the Temples forbidding the Divine Ministry are sharply condemned which would fall on Silencing Bishops XII Can. 15. Forbiddeth one man to have two Churches which would break our Clergy specially the Bishops that have Hundreds XIII Can. 7. Forbiddeth any Temple to be Consecrated without Relicts and ordereth Temples that have no Relicts to be put down XIV A Council
are oft equal in Argumentation Greatly dishonouring Christ as if so near the end of the World the Albigenses and Waldenses and some Papists that found fault with the Papal Miscarriages had been all the known Church for Eleven hundred Years To tell the Mahometans that the Kingdom of Jesus after so long endeavours was scarce bigger than Wales is not the way to honour Protestants or Christ. And then they think to repair the dishonour by their Prophecy of the Millennial Kingdom which tieth the knot harder than before § X. Running from them into Errours on the other extream and spotting the Reformation with many such Errours hath greatly hardened and increased Papists Especially those Antinomian or Libertine Opinions that overthrow both Christianity and Morality and that which inferreth these which too many have promoted such are the wrong Opinions about Reprobation and the Cause of Sin and the extent of Redemption and the false sence of the Imputation of Christ's Righteousness and of Justifying Faith and of the meaning of Works that justifie not and that to Believe we are justified and elected is to believe God's Word or is Fides Divina and that the Covenant of Grace hath no Condition and is made only with Christ and that both obeyed and suffered in our Person in Law sence so that we did in Law sence suffer in and by him and yet fulfil all righteousness by him and were reputatively sinless from first to last that therefore we are justified by the Law of Innocency or Works that condemneth us having perfectly kept it by Christ that our works being not meritorious are not rewardable Too many such Doctrines are Published here and abroad by such as Maccovius Cluto Cocceius and some before them And when Papists find one gross falshood they think all our Religion is such § XI It greatly confirmeth Papists when they find our Writers falsly to accuse them of any Doctrine which they hold not which is very ordinarily done by those that never read them on the meer credit of some Reverend Ministers that so accused them before For instance of the Point of Merit when men read their Books of Self-abnegation Annihilation Self-abasing and Nothingness renouncing Merit even in distributive Justice c. Some have wondered and said How much further are the Papists from trusting to or boasting of their Merits Works and Holiness than we are § XII But Protestants have no way promoted Popery more than by their manifold Divisions and Sects and their mutual enmity and miscarriages I need not name them God hath made Unity and Concord so necessary and amiable to Man that Nature and Grace abhor the contrary Satan is the Divider of Christ's Kingdom and a Kingdom divided cannot stand Multitudes turn and continue Papists not knowing where among so many Sects to fix their choice especially when they see and hear us Revile Censure Silence Imprison and Persecute one another as intolerable they think they may do so by us all and judge of us as we do by one another And to vilifie us is to value themselves Which Sect say they would you have me turn to if I turn § XIII Specially if we fall into odious Scandals as well as Sects the Crimes of Men seem the fault of our Religion When they have recited the Miscarriages here from 1642 till 1660. they think they have decided all the Controversies And also when they can recite the Munster Madness and others such § XIV Hath the Silencing of Two thousand such Ministers and shutting the Church Doors against desired Unity and Concord and keeping out Candidates and giving advantage to Papist Rulers to give full liberty for Popery done nothing to its increase What hath done more to advantage Popery by disabling Protestants and disgracing their Ministers of each Party and keeping up the hopes of Foreign and Domestick Enemies than casting the Nation into a kind of Intestine Hostility and keeping it so by the Dividing Laws and Canons which though it was principally the effects of secret Popish Projects yet had no Anti-Papists by false Prejudice Malice Revenge and worldly Interest had a hand in the effecting and since in defending it they had been more innocent And I would the Provocation had not driven many Nonconformists into harder thoughts of Bishops and Liturgy than they deserve or than they had before the experience of their usage But it 's hard when for Innocency and Duty men must lye and many die in common Jails and have all they have taken from them and be left to Beggary or Charity to keep up as great an esteem of the Authors or Abettors of such Hostility as if they were men of Love and Peace When they see men Hang'd for taking away a small part by Stealth or Robbery it must be more than ordinary Patience and Love that shall cause men to think and say no harm even by honourable and Right Reverend men that even by Law and Judgment said to be just shall take away all and much more than all We had not procured hatred by our importunity in 1660 and 1661. in Pleading and Petitioning to prevent all this if the certain foresight of it in its Causes had not seemed very dreadful to us And yet we do not see the End The Hostility continueth if not increaseth even while the Blood and Flames of Germany Hungary Transilvania Savoy Flanders and Ireland and partly Scotland loudly cry to us Fire Fire and instead of avoiding the like we are as busie as ever to bring more fewel and increase the flame And O dreadful odious Case All is as for God and Religion and the Church that is thus done against God Religion the Church and the whole Land our Posterity § XV. And by our several ways of Unjust and Causeless Impositions we have hardened the Papists in defending their more numerous Snares They say If an Independent Church may bind its Members to take their Covenants to submit to thei◠popular Examinations and Discipline to avoid Communion with the Parish Churches and not to forsake their Church but by tryed Reason or Consent And if a Convocation may impose what is done in England on terms so sharp why may not the Pastors and Councils that have greater Charge and Power do as much and more § XVI The Sectarian weak-headed part of Protestants have greatly advantaged Popery by their ignorant calling every Ceremony and Form and Opinion that they distaste by the Name of Antichristian and saying O this is Popish or taken out of the Mass-Book when some of them know not what Antichristianity is saving as every Sin against Christ is Antichristian nor know they what the Mass-Book is nor what Popery is And it s well if some knew better what Christianity is When men hear that a Bishop a Surplice a sumptuous Church Edifice a Ceremony the Liturgies a Holy-day and it 's well if not the use of the Creed and Lord's Prayer be Antichristian they are tempted to think
all Children be taught to read and learn Catechisms and Scripture and use the Lords day in pious Exercises and submit to their Teachers and forbear profane contempt or abuse of Persons or Things I think the whole Matter is decided in these ten Particulars § 4. II. Now de nomine the question is what is to be called the FORM and what but the MATTER of the Church as National For of a Church as Congregational or as Diocesan or a Provincial we have no controversie No more than of a City or School And seeing every Politick Society consisteth of the Pars Imperans and Pars Subdita all grant that the Pars Imperans as related to the Pars Subdita is the Specifying or Unifying Form and Head it is then clear that all the Clergy being but the Pars Subdita under the Government of the summa potestas whether Kings alone or King and Parliament or an Aristocracy they can be but the Matter of the Church as National and not the Formal Head For a Body Politick of one Species can have but one Head of that Species So that to make a Primate or two Metropolitans or a Synod of Diocesans or a Convocation representing all the Clergy to be more than the Matter of a Church as National is to make them the summa potestas or Soveraign and to depose King and Parliament § 5. Obj. But the Regiment being of two Species so is the Policy Society and Supremacy Each is Supreme in sua specie Ans. 1. So then you would have two National Churches and Soveraigns If you 'll extend the Controversie but to the Name it may be the better born But then acknowledge the Equivocation and give us the definition of each Church and use not the Name of the Church of England for your own Form only 2. But a Subject Policy is not the Supreme and denominating Policy It 's private and subordinate as to National The Physicions the Soldiers the Marriners c. though they are in hoc fit to over-rule the King and Parliament are not therefore the Soveraign Power of the National Body Politick § 6. Obj. But their 's are matters of small moment but the Clergy are Rulers in matters of Salvation Ans. Unhappy dividing Rulers they have been here and in most of the Churches But 1. I have proved that Kings are Rulers also in matters of Salvation as great as theirs and over them 2. Was not Moses and David and Solomon and Jehoshaphat and Hezekiah and Josiah c. the Soveraign Rulers of Church and Priests though an Vzziah might not offer Sacrifice or Incense 3. The proper Governing power of Bishops is but over their own Flocks and they may not Rule in other Mens Diocesses much less over King Parliament and Kingdom further than the Soveraign giveth them Political Power § 7. Obj. They may command Kings and Kingdoms in Christs Name to obey God and forbear Sin Ans. True so did every Prophet so may any one Minister Yea a Foreigner a Salvian a Luther c. But this is Gods Government Nunciative and not Political And so if the Metropolitans Diocesans Convocation or a General Council command as in Christs Name and prove their Commission as Messengers from him we will obey Christ in them But if one Man bring better proof from Scripture that he speaketh from Christ he is to be obeyed before a Council that proveth no such thing This sort of Divine Authority lyeth in Evidence which most Bishops on Earth now have not of the truth of their Message and is but Nunciative and worketh only on voluntary Believers and Consenters And if the Controversie de nomine be whether a Christian Kingdom as such may be called A CHURCH what pretence have the deniers Not à notatione nominis The Church in the Wilderness is a Scripture Name And sure the Jews Church was not denominated from the Priests only Moses is ofter named as its Head than Aaron § 8. Obj. But are not Judges and Bishops a part of the Pars Imperans as well as the Soveraign Ans. Only subordinate in their Provinces They are but as the Kings Hands and Tongue They are Subjects themselves and have no Political Power but what he giveth them 2. If you might so far distinguish of them as Imperant under the King and as Subjects as to say that Judges and Bishops are as the Wife in the Family that hath a Governing power over Children and Servants that maketh her not the denominating Head of the Family but a Subject of the highest Rank § 9. Qu. What if a Christian Kingdom had no Pastors Ans. Then they were but an Embrio or half Christian and not materia disposita for a full formation The Matter and Privation that is Dispositio receptiva are Essential to the Body though they be not the Form 10. Qu. But what if under an Infidel King a Christian Nation be confederate under Bishops Ans. They are no Christian Kingdoms but a Christian Nation and are many confederate Churches and may be called One Church equivocally and secundum quid as confederate Kingdoms may be one Kingdom But they are but materia disposita sine forma as to a National Church properly so called and as such § 11. Qu. Are those of the Church of England that are not Conformists Yes if they conform to Christianity and are Subjects of the same King § 12. There is an odd Writer that hath lately published a book to prove that the Act of Toleration freeth not Nonconformists from the guilt of Schism Doleful is the case of such a Church and Land where the Learned men after near thirty years silencing imprisoning and ruining multitudes know not to this day what they are or what they hold and who it is that they do all this against How can such wink so hard as not to know that we took it for no Schism to assemble for Gods Worship before the Act of Toleration while they have done all this against us for so doing Could they think us so mad as to suffer Jails and Ruine and Scorn and Death to many for known Schism And if we took it for a duty before how can we take the Act of Toleration to be it that must justifie us But such men Englanâ— suffers by that cannot distinguish between Foâ—m Divinum and Humanum We believe that Goâ—s Command justifieth us in foro Divino for obeying it But the Law justifieth us in foro humano Gâ—ds Law and Judgment will keep us from Hell aâ—d at last silence our silencers But the Kings Laws bring us and keep us out of Jails and from thâ— Jaws of them that envy our Liberty and Lives § 13. It 's a question considerable whether England be a Protestant Church or not if it have a Papist King To which I say we must distinguish between a profest Papist and a concealed one 2. And between a King that hath the total Soveraignty and Legislative Power and one that hath but
the review that is The too oft repeating the same things especially in my four Letters to Bishop Guning occasioned by our oft repeating them in Conference The thing is usual in long Disputations as in the Schoolmen in Dr. Twisse Vind. Grat. and such others the Adversary making it needful But I am far from justifying it Had I intended it as one orderly Treatise at first and not written the Parts on several Occasions or had I yet Time and Strength to have cast it into a more regular shape it might have been partly amended But I had rather it came out thus than not at all Whoever is displeased at it by guilt or different judgment I will please my Conscience whose Peace I find possible and quietting while such Mens hath been neither hitherto to me I know that Age and Natural Weakness hath been part of the Cause of my forgetting oft that I had written the same before But while I confess this Infirmity I will tell the Reader two Stories for his use of it I read in a great Man that oft repeating in the Pulpit the same thing was a sign to the Hearers that their Teacher spake not crudely and rashly that he had never digested or well studied nor light things that he valued not but that which he thought necessary and had long considered I heard of a Preacher that would needs have his Servant tell him what Men said of his Preaching And being urged but loth he said They say Sir that you very often repeat the same things And to tell you the truth I think it is too true For the last Day you repeated that which you had said divers Days before Saith his Master Tell me what it was He Paused a while and said I remember not the words now Saith his Master Didst thou so understand them as to tell me the Matter and meaning of them But he could tell neither Nay then saith his Master I will repeat them yet again for thy sake and such as thou art Till they are understood and remembred I have not said them oft enough God be merciful to us Sinners THE CONTENTS Of the First Part. AN Historical Preface Chap. I. The Protestant Church of England is against all Humane Vniversal Soveraignty Monarchical and Aristocratical and against all Foreign Jurisdiction Chap. II. This whole Kingdom and Church is sworâ— against all Foreign Jurisdiction and against all Endeavours to alter the Government and must not be Perjured Chap. III. What Endeavours were used by Papists to bring England under a Foreign Jurisdiction in King James's time The Bishop of Ambrun and others wrong him Chap. IV. Of the Papists Endeavours in K. Charles time and the great Injury they did him especially the Irish. Maimburgh Declaration of the Dutchess of York Chap. V. The Foreign Leaders of the English Conciliators who are for a Foreign Jurisdiction Gerson for the sufficiency of Christ's Law to rule the Church Chap. VI. Grotius's Judgment in his own words Chap. VII The several sorts of Peace-makers about Popish Controversies Chap. VIII The Doctrine of Archbishop Bromhall defending Grotius Chap. IX The Judgment of Archbishop Laud as delivered 1. By Dr. Heylin 2. By himself Chap. X. Dr. Peter Heylin's own Judgment Chap. XI The Judgment of Mr. Herbert Thorndike Chap. XII The Judgment of Dr. Sparrow Bishop of Norwich and divers others Chap. XIII Bishop Sam. Parker's Judgment Chap. XIV Dr. Saywell's Arguments for a Foreign Jurisdiction considered Chap. XV XVI XVII XVIII Four Letters to Bishop Guning about a Foreign Jurisdiction Chap. XIX Mr. H. Dodwell's Leviathan again Anatomized and his Second Part considered called A Discourse for One Altar and One Priesthood Chap. XX. Of Dean Th. Pierce and Dr. Hamâ—nd cited by him Chap. XXI That this sort of Prelatists who have been for a Coalition with the French or Roman Church have been the great Agents of all the Diâ—iding Silencing Persecuting Laws which have brought and kept us these 27 Years in our lacerate staâ—e Chap. XXII How they have been stopt and what Danger there is yet of them Chap. XXIII Postscript against Dr. Beveridge's Convocation Sermon An Historical Prologue as a Key to understand our English Differences § I. IT is a dreadful Instance of the sottish deceivableness of Mankind that one of the most happy Kingdoms on Earth should be almost consumed by their own hands in Divisions infamous through the World and that to this very day the Cause and Matter of them is not known except by the contrivers among our selves by such who madly continue the Divisions Nor is it known who is in the fault but they strive on accusing one another And it 's one of the saddest notices in this World that studious Learned Pastors that are grown old in Studies and profess all to be devoted to Truth and Love are so far from having skill and will to heal us that they are the men that cause the wound and keep â—t open and are greater hinderers of our Concord and Peace than Princes Lords or any Seculars And what one judgeth the certain Cause of the Worlds Divisions another as confidently judgeth the only way to heal them And both sides confess while they lay it on each other that it is the Clergy that are the deadliest Enemies of Peace § II. It is not the noise of Drums and Trumpets which tells an Army the causes of the War The Masters of the War can chuse their own Trumpeters and talk loudest of that which they would have divert men from the true cause Episcopacy and Liturgy and Ceremonies and Conformity are the things that make the greatest noise But Jewel Bilson Hooker c. differed not about these nor Sir Edwin Sandys the Author of Europae Speculum Nor the English Clergy and Parliaments in Bishop Abbots days who were of their mind when the Differences began to rise and threaten us § III. It 's certain that the fundamental universal Quarrel through the World is between the followers of Cain and Abel the Serpents and the Womans Seed or the Servants of Satan and of Christ For the carnal mind is enmity to God and neither is nor can be subject to his Law Selfishness is the sum of wickedness and Holiness of Moral good Uniting in one God is possible and safe But to the selfish there are as many Religions and Ways as sandy self-interest requireth Good men will do good and bad men will do evil under every Form of Government Because Great-Good men are so rare to keep Bad men from doing hurt is not the smallest use of Laws Good men of different Opinions can live in Love and Peace I never knew any called Puritanes who did not love and honour such Conformists as Bishop Jewel A. Bishop Grindal A. Bishop Abbot A. Bishop Vsher Bishop Davenant and many such and such as Mr. Bolton Dr. Sibbs Dr. Preston Mr. Whateley and all such other yea while they wrote against some of them as Bishop Morton Hall Downame
have all men forced to the Sacrament Others would have them forced to hear some allowed Teachers but not to be compelled to the Sacrament because it is the investing of men in the Pardon of sin and right to Salvation which no unwilling Person is capable of Of this see in the foresaid Author p. 177. the Excellent Speech of Mr. Aglionke and of others I mention this because the late Reconcilers have made the mixture of Papists and Protestants in Communion the first ten years of the Queen to be the desireable state to which they would have had us reduced Of which more anon But the Queen here also restrained them and would have all left to her and the Bishops Mr. Yelverton told them how perillous a President it might prove for worser times for the Parliament to be so restrained Where saith he there was such fulness of Power as even the right of the Crown was to be determined and by warrant whereof we had so resolved that to say the Parliament had no Power to determine of the Crown was High Treason Ibid. page 176. § 6. The Invasion 1588 and many Treasons and the Popes Excommunications increased the Parliaments Zeal against Popery and the Clergies also And when the Case of the Queen of Scots was referred to the Council of the Parliament they earnestly urged the Queen by many Reasons to execute the Sentence of Death which was past upon her seeing while the Papists hoped for her Reign neither the Life of the Queen nor the Kingdom could be safe See Sir S. D' Ewes page 400 c. These were their apprehensions then of Popery § 7. In K. James's time the horrid Powder Plot to have blown up King and Parliament and the Murder of Two Kings in France successively H. 3. and H. 4. and other Inhumanities increased this Kingdoms Zeal against Popery As the Oaths of Allegiance and Supremacy were made for their discovery so multitudes of Learned Men were employed in confuting their pretended Sovereignty and manifold Errors And the common Preachers had ordinarily in their Sermons One Vse as they called it for the Confutation of the Papists Besides that the Homilies and Jewels writings against them were to be in every Church And as many of the Bishops in Queen Elizabeth's first time were such as had been Exiles and Suffered by the Papists so many both in her days and K. James's were Learned and Godly Men who remembred former times and were greatly desirous of the Extirpation of Popery and of the increase of able Preachers and of the Concord of Protestants to that End And the Books of Martyrs written by John Fox being common in all parts of the Land increased the peoples hatred of Religious cruelty But some few Bishops specially A. Bishop Whitguift and Bancroft exceeded the rest in their prosecution of the Nonconformists And though before by connivance they had enjoyed more quietness yet when once the Canon was made and Executed for Subscribing that there is nothing contrary to the Word of God in the Liturgy c. and the Excommunicating Canons five six seven c. the reconciliation of the Protestants seemed hopeless Yet even the hottest prosecuting Bishops were firm Adversaries to Popery yea Whitguift thought Arminianism came so near it as made him consent to the ill-framed Lambeth Articles And that unhappy Controversie called Arminian which I have largely proved to be over-aggravated on both sides for want of a distinct way of Examination in my Cath. Theol. increased the Division much The Jesuits being most hated by the Protestants the Arminians were taken to incline to Popery though the Dominicans who had been on the contrary side had been the Bloody Masters of the Inquisition And when our English Arminians were accused of approaching Popery it inclined some of them to think more favourably of a Reconciliation with those whom they were likened to And the Papists never ceased their diligence secret or open for the restoration of their Forreign Jurisdiction and their Errours § XII The Councils at the Laterane Lyons and others having so set up the Pope above Kings as that those whom he Excommunicates may be deposed and are then no Kings And their Most Learned Doctors writing this the Pope came to lay much of his strength upon King-killing and it hath proved too successful Had it been only against Rebellion Kings had their defence But what can one do against a Desperado who is promised Preferment if he escape and taught if he so die for the service of the Church to look for as much greater a Reward than Martyrs as his service is more voluntary and of more publick benefit than theirs When Henry the Third was so murdered in France Henry the Fourth turned Papist it 's like much for fear And when the first Knife had but struck out his Teeth the next dispatcht him King James here was not a fearless man He had known of the many Treasons which Queen Elizabeth escaped The Powder-Plot thundred to him though it took not fire King Henry's Stabs did yet speak louder He was told This shall be your End think not to escape Instruments will be found who prefer the Church before their Lives if you repent not What a strait now is a King in whose Life is thus at the mercy of a thousand deluded desperate Slaves of the Pope That which kindleth revenging anger in a Kingdom or Senate may rationally cause fear in a single man For it is easier to kill a King than a Kingdom or a multitude § XIII The unhappy Differences about the five Articles in Belgio in which I am past doubt both Parties there were much to be blamed involved the Learned Hugo Grotius in sufferings The Contra-Remonstrants were too violent and trusted to the Sword of the Prince of Orange and Grotius being condemned to Imprisonment and by his Wife got out in a Trunk on pretence of carrying away his Books becoming the Queen of Swedens Resident Embassador in France no doubt exasperated and falling into intimate acquaintance with the French Jesuits especially Petavius grew to that approbation of the Moderate French Popery which I have here after proved and to that desire of reducing the Protestants to them which not only Valesius Orat. in Obit Petavii but his own Writings fully testifie And his design was to bring Rome as the Mistress Church to Rule not arbitrarily but by the Canons of Councils securing the Right of Kings and Bishops and casting aside the Schoolmens subtil vain Disputes and reforming the bad lives of the Clergy and some small mutable things and in this to draw in the Church of France and England to agree and the Queen of Sweden and if possible the Lutherans and to crush the Calvinists as unreconcileable And he tells us how many in England favoured what he did though those whom he miscalleth Brownists were against it § IV. The Church of England and the Parliament being before discontented at the Marriage-Articles as to
Toleration and at the Popes Agents and Nuntio's here in London were much more offended at the changes suddenly made by Bishop Laud. The blotting out the name of the Pope and Antichrist and the Zeal for Altars and Bowings and the report of a Treaty for Union with Rome Printed by some with the particulars and their conceit that Arminianism lookt towards Popery and the casting out many Conformable Ministers and many such things especially when they thought the Liberty of their Persons and their Properties had been Invaded and that A. Bishop Laud and the new Clergy Men Sibthorp Mainwaring Heylin c. were the Cause of all I say These things raising in men a dread of Popery our greater distances were here begun And though in A. Bishop Abbot's days the Church of England was against the Syncretism and few went with Bishop Laud at first he afterwards got many to adhere to him He that would see all the Case in an unsuspected Author let him read Dr. Heylins Life of A. B. Laud where he shall find much of the proceedings and the Articles and Reasons of the Treaty with the Papists And if he add Laud's Tryal and Rushworth's Collections he may see more Heylin tells us that the Design was but to bring the Papists in to us by removing that which kept them out They that feared a Toleration of Papists did much more fear a Comprehension or Coalition though their Conversion they desired For they knew that they must still be Members of the false Universal Papal Kingdom and that we must in the greatest points come to them who without changing their Religion could not come to us And if we could hardly now keep out the Pope what should we do when he had got so much more advantage of us Besides all other Changes we must change our very Church-species or else we should not be of the same Church though we sate in the same Seats For a Church which is but a subject part of a Sovereign greater Church is no more of the same species with one that is subject to no other but Christ than our Cities are of the same species with a Kingdom § XVI These distances between the old Church-men and the Laudians having increased to that which they came to in 1641. suddenly on Octob. 23. the Irish Rebellion Murdering two hundred thousand and Fame threatening their coming into England cast the Nation into so great fear of the Papists and next of Bishop Laud's new Clergy who were supposed to be for a Coalition as was the Cause where-ever I came of Mens conceit of the necessity of defensive Arms and this was increased by two or three Opinions which many were then guilty of who had not Learning enough to know which side was right according to the Law One of their Opinions was That the Law of Nature is the Law of God Another was that no men have Authority to abrogate it Another was that the Law of Nature inclineth men to Love their Lives and to private Self-defence Another was that every Kingdom or Nation hath by the Law of God in Nature a right of publick Self-defence against professed Enemies and apparent danger of its destruction And another was that They whose profest Religion obligeth them on pain of Damnation to do their best to exterminate or destroy the Body of the Kingdom are to be taken for its profest Enemies if they renounce not that obligation Especially if they or their Confederates Murder two hundred thousand Fellow-Subjects and apparently strive for power over the rest These Opinions being then received and by many ill-applyed things then ran to what we saw § XVII When the old Churchmen and Parliament on one side and we know who on the other side began the War necessity caused them to call in the Scots as Auxiliaries who brought in the Covenant and attempted Illegally the Change of the Church Government and all after falling into the hands of Cromwell and his Army the King destroyed the Parliament pulled down and other unthought of Changes which we saw Discord and War grew odious to the Nation And we longed to be reconciled to those that we had differed from especially in matters of Religion Among others more considerable I attempted in Worcestershire a Reconciliation with them I tryed first with my Neighbours The Gentry that I spake with of the Royal Party professed willingness and that they desired but the Security of the Essentials of Episcopacy Dr. Good and Dr. Warmstrie with others of them Subscribed their approbation to our Agreement When I tryed with others distant Bishop Vsher easily consented Bishop Brownrig on somewhat harder terms but such as would have healed us Dr. Hammond on harder yet but yet such as we could have born save that he left all to the uncertain determination of a Convocation Put shortly Dr. Warmstrie withdrew his Consent and as the reason of it sent me a Writing against our Agreement saying It was a confederacy with Schism and labouring to prove that they were no Ministers or Churches which had not Episcopal Ordination and much more to that effect I wrote a full answer to it which satisfied all that I shewed it to but did not publish it The writing answered was Dr. Peter Guning's now Bishop of Eli. Presently I found this opinion That they were no true Ministers or Churches that had not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesane Ordination from the Apostles but that they were true Ministers and Churches that had Roman Ordination became the stop to our desired Agreement and I saw that it proclaimed an utter renunciation of the Reformed Churches which have no such Succession and yet a Coalition with the Roman Clergy though the Bishops of Rome have had the most notorious intercisions And having read Grotius his Discussio Apologetici Rivetiani in which he more plainly pleads for Canonical Popery than he had done in his Votum or Consultatio c. I thought I was bound in Conscience to give notice to the Royalists of the Grotian Party and Design and after printed a small Collection out of Grotius his own words These Dr. Pierce wrote against and others were offended at But in the Second Part of my Key for Catholicks I shewed the utter impossibility of this Conceit of Sovereign Government by General Councils § XVIII When God was pleased by the restoration of the King to raise Mens hopes of Protestant Agreement I need not repeat what was done towards it among many worthier Persons by my Self the Earl of Manchester and the Earl of Orery first making from us the motion to His Majesty who readily consented and granted us the healing Terms exprest in His gracious Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs 1661 for which the London Ministers subscribed a Thanksgiving and the House of Commons gave him their Publick Thanks as making for the Publick Concord But when the King under the Broad Seal granted a Commission to many on both Sides to treat and agree of
Master of a Colledge in Cambridge whom I take for his Mouth being himself present hath published what he would have the World to believe of our Discourse in a Book against me for Universal Jurisdiction And therefore he hath put some necessity on me to publish the Truth which I am confident will not be to the Readers loss of time who will peruse it When I had sent him my Book of Concord he sent me Dr. Saywell's first by Dr. Crowther of which I wrote to him my sence On this he desired me to come speak with him which having done three several days I thought it meet at Night to Recollect our Discourse and send him the Sum of all in Letters that neither he might forget it or any Man misrepresent it These four Letters I have therefore here annexed and with them an answer to Dr. Saywell's Reasons for a Forreign Jurisdiction XXIV I am so far from charging the Church of England with the guilt of this Doctrine or Design that I prove that the Church of England is utterly against it But then by that Church I do not mean any Men that can get heighth and confidence enough to call themselves the Church of England but those that adhere to the Articles of Religion the Doctrine Worship and Government by Law Established XXV And I am so far from uncharitable Censures of the Men whom I thus confute that I profess that I believe Mr. Thorndike Bishop Guning Mr. Dodwell c. to be Men that do what they do in an Erroneous Zeal for Unity and Government and are Men of great Labour Learning and Temperance and Religious in their way And I have the same Charity and Honour for many French Papists yea for such Papal Flatterers as Baronius who joyned with Philip Nerius in his first Oratorian Exercises and Conventicles Yea I cannot think that they that burn and torment Men for Religion could live in quietness if they did not confidently think that it is an acceptable Service to God And I fear not still to profess that were it in my power I would have no hurt done to any Papist which is not necessary to our own defence But I must say that I much more honour such as Gerson Ferus Espencaeus Monlucius Erasmus Vives Cassander Hospitalius Thuanus c. who among Papists drew nearer the Reformers than such among us as having better Company and Helps draw fromward them and nearer to the Deformers XVI And as to you Reverend Brethren Conformists who are true to the True Church of England I humbly crave of you but three things I. That you will by hard study and Ministerial diligence and holiness of life keep up to your power the common Interest of Christianity of Faith and serious Piety and Charity II. That you will heartily promote the Concord of all godly Protestants and therein follow such measures as Christ himself hath given us and as you would have others use towards you III. That you will openly and faithfully disown the dangerous Errour of Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty and bringing the King and Church and Kingdom under any Forreign Jurisdiction Monarchical Aristocratical or Mixt and never stigmatize the Church of England and your sacred Order with the odious brand of Persidiousness after so many Imposed and Received Subscriptions Professions and Oaths against all Endeavours to alter the Government of Church or State XVII And as to the Nations fears of future Popish Soveraignty for my part I meddle no further than 1. To do the work of my own Office and Day 2. And to pray hard for the Nations Preservation 3. And to trust God and hope that he will perfect his wonders in such a deliverance as shall confirm our belief of his special care and providence for his Church But I must tell you that such Reasons as Bishop Gunings Chaplains should not be thought strong enough to make you so secure as to abate the fervour of your prayers His words are these more congruous far to him than to you and me page 282 283. The only means that is left to preserve our Nation from destruction and to secure us from the danger of Popery is to suppress all Conventicles c. Being by this method provided against having our People seduced by the Papists which as yet they are in great danger of the next thing is to consider how to prevent violence that those be not murdered and undone that cannot be perswaded to submit Now to secure this His Majestes gracious promises to conform any Bills that were thought necessary to preserve the Established Religion that did not intrench on the Succession of the Crown do make the way very easie if our People were united among themselves and in the Religion of the Church of England For matters may be so ordered that all Officers Ecclesiastical Civil and Military and all that are employed in Power and Authority of any kind be persons both of known Loyalty to the Crown and yet faithful Sons of the Church and firm to the Established Religion And the Laws that they act by may be so explained in favour of those that Conform to the Publick Worship and the discouragement of all Dissenters that we must reasonably be secure from any violence that the Papists can offer to force our submission For when All our Bishops and Clergy are under strict Obligations and Oaths and the People are guided by them and all Officers Civil and Military are firm to the same Interest and under severe penalties if they act any thing to the contrary Then what probable danger can there be of any violence or disturbance to force us out of our Religion when all things are thus secured and the Power of External Execution is generally in the hands of men of our own Perswasion Nay moreover the Prince himself will by his Coronation Oath be obliged to maintain the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom so Established I am not of a Calling fit to debate the Reasons of these Reverend Fathers some will read them with a Plaudite some with a Ridete some with a Cavete and I with an Orate And he that will abate the fervour of his prayers by such securing words is one whose Prayers England is not much beholden to The words with all their designs are edifying as Diagnostick and Prognostick I only say Seeing we receive a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 29. March 28. 1682. Chap. I. The Protestant Church of England is against all Humane Vniversal Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical and so against all Forreign Church Jurisdiction I Prove this I. From the Oath of Supremacy which saith thus I do utterly testifie and declare in my Conscience That the King's Highness is the only Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countreys as well in all
Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal And that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have ANY JURISDICTION Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forreign Jurisdiction Priviledges Preheminence and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Successors or united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Here all the Kingdom swears That none have or ought to have any Jurisdiction here who is Forreign Yet some Papists have been encouraged to take this Oath by this Evasion Obj. No Jurisdiction is here disclaimed of Forreigners but what belongs to the King But Spiritual Jurisdiction called the Power of the Keys belongs not to the King Ergo. Ans. For securing the King's Jurisdiction All Forreign Jurisdiction is renounced signifying that there is no such thing as a Jurisdiction over this Realm but the King 's and his Officers The Power of the Keys or Spiritual Power is not properly a Jurisdiction as that word includeth Legislation but only a Preaching of Christ's Laws and administring his Sacraments and judging of mens capacity for Communion according to those Laws of Christ And this under the Coercive Government of the King Much like that of a Tutor in a Colledge or a Physician in his Hospital What can be more expresly said than this here that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate have or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm Is that of Pope or Councils neither Ecclesiastical nor Spiritual Is not the word Prelate purposely put in to exclude that Power hence which Prelates claim Though the King claim not the Power of the Keys he knew that by the claim of that Power the Pope and Councils of Forreigners had been the disturbers of his Government And therefore all theirs here is excluded as a necessary means to secure his own 1. Popes and Councils have claimed a Legislative Power over us and all the Church But the Laws of this Land know no such but in Christ over all and in King and Parliament under him over this Land And therefore the Oath excludeth the Power claimed by Popes and Councils 2. As to Judicial Power these Forreigners claim a Power of Judging who in England shall be taken for a true Bishop and Minister who shall have Tythes Church-Lands and Temples whether the Kings Lords and all Subjects shall be judged capable of Church-Communion or be Excommunicate And our Laws declaring that all this Forreign Claim is Usurpation fully proveth that it was the sense of the Oath to exclude them They claim also a Power of Judging who shall pass here for Orthodox and who for Hereticks And in their Laws the consequence is who shall be burned for a Heretick or be exterminated or after Excommunication deposed from their Dominions and their Subjects absolved from their Allegiance But certainly the Oath excludeth them from all this The most of the Papists claim no Power directly due to their Pope but that which they call Ecclesiastical or Spiritual the rest is but by consequence and in ordine ad Spiritualia But if this be not excluded in the Oath then they intended not to exclude the Papacy And then what was the Oath made for or what sense hath it or what use And who can believe this If the meaning of the Oath be not to exclude the Pope's Ecclesiastical Power then they that take it may yet hold that the Pope is Head of all the Churches on Earth and hath the Authority to call and dissolve and approve or reprobate General Councils and may Ordain Bishops for England and his Ordinations and his Missionaries be here received and Appeals made to him and Obedience sworn to him his Excommunications Indulgences imposed Penances Silencings Absolutions Prohibitions here received All which our Statutes Articles Canons c. shew notoriously to be false It is evident therefore that this Oath renounceth all Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction II. The second proof is from many Acts of Parliament Those which prohibit all that receive Orders beyond Sea from the Pope or any Papists to come into England on pain of death Those that forbid the Doctrine Worship and Discipline both of Popes and Councils The words of 25 H. 8. c. 21. are these Whereas this Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but the King hath been and is free from Subjection to any man's Laws but only such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the wealth thereof or to such other as the People of this Realm have taken at their free liberty by their own consent to be used among them and have bound themselves by long use and custom to the observance of the same not to the observance of the Laws of any Forreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the accustomed and antient Laws of this Realm originally Established as Laws of the same by the said sufferance consent and custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural equity and good reason c. that they may abrogate them c. Moreover the Laws of England determine that no Canons are here obligatory or are Laws unless made such by King and Parliament And if it be true which Heylin and some others say that the Pope's Canon-Laws are all here in force still except those that are contrary to some Laws of the Realm that is but as the Roman Civil Law is in force not as a Law of the Pope or old Romans but as made Laws to us by King and Parliament The Roman Senate and Emperor give us the Matter of the Civil Law and the Pope and Councils of the Canon-Law but the Soveraign Power here giveth them the Form of a Law as the King coineth Forreign Silver III. The Articles of Religion prove the same 1. The twenty first Article saith General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not governed by the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometime have erred even in things pertaining to God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the Holy Scriptures Here note 1. That General Councils so called in the Empire had no power to meet much less to Rule without the Commandment of Princes And so those called by the Emperor had no power over the Subjects of other Princes 2. And true Universal Councils will never be Lawfully called till either all the Earth have One Humane Monarch or all the Heathen Infidel Mahometan Papist Heretical and Protestant Princes agree to call them For one hath not Power over the Dominions of all the rest And so the Aristocratical Party put the
whole Church under an impossible and non-existent unifying and governing Power 3. That which may be proved a Duty out of God's Word was such before any Pope or Council made Laws for it So that if their Commands herein are any more than declarative and subservient to God's Laws as the Crying of a Proclamation or as a Justices Warrant God hath forestalled them by his Laws and theirs come too late And if all the Power that Councils or Bishops have as to Legislation be to make Laws unnecessary to Salvation it were to be wished they had never made those that are hinderances to Salvation and set the Churches together by the Ears and have divided them these 1200 Years and more Surely our English Canons 5 6 7 8 which Excommunicate so many faithful Christians do much hinder Salvation if they be not necessary to it But it 's apparent that they take their Laws to be necessary to Salvation 1. Who say All are Schismaticks that obey them not and that such Schismaticks are Mortal Sinners in a state of Damnation They that make their Canonical Obedience necessary to avoid Schism and that necessary to Salvation make the said Canonical Obedience necessary to Salvation But c. 2. And one would think that they that torment and burn Men and silence Ministers for not obeying their Canons made them necessary to Salvation The 34th Article saith That every Particular or National Church hath Authority to Ordain Change or Abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained only by Man's Authority so that all things be done to edifying And if so they that may abolish the Rites ordained by General Councils or Popes are not their Subjects nor is this Power of making and abolishing Rites reserved to them nor can they deprive any National or Particular Church of this their own Power The 36th Article saith That The Book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops Bishops and Ordaining of Priests c. doth Contain all things necessary thereto But nothing in that Book doth make it necessary that English Bishops or Priests receive their Power or Office from any Foreigners Pope Council or Bishops which yet must be necessary if they be their Subjects The 37th Article saith That Though the Queen hath not the Power of administring the Word and Sacraments yet she is not nor ought not to be subject to any foreign Jurisdiction And that the Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England And if so then he hath no Patriarchal Jurisdiction here nor have foreign Councils any IV. King Edw. 6. Injunctions say That No manner of Obedience or Subjection is due to the Bishop of Rome within this Realm Therefore not as to a Patriarch President or Principium Vnitatis V. Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions say No manner of Obedience or Subjection is due to any such foreign Power And Admonit No other foreign Power shall or ought to have any Authority over them VI. The Reformatio Legum Ecclesiast c. 9 10 11.14 15. are full proof There the Reformers professing reverence to the 4 first General Councils as holding sound Doctrine add Quibus tamen non aliter fidem nostram obligandam esse censemus nisi quateâ—us ex S. Scripturis confirmari possint Nam concilia nonnulla interdum errasse contraria inter se desinivisse partim in actionibus juris partim etiam in fide manifestum est Itaque legantur Concilia quidem cum honore Christiana reverentia sed interim ad Scripturarum piam certam rectamque regulam examinentur C. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta ut tamen ex eorum Sententia de Sacris Literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Doctrinae Christianae regulae esse judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum honoris sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit Et de Haeres c. 1. Illorum intolerabilis est error qui totius Christiani orbis universam Ecclesiam solius Episcopi Romani principatu contineri volunt Nos enim eam quae cerni potest Ecclesiam sic definimus ut omnium coetus sit fidelium hominum in quo S. Scriptura sincerè docetur Sacramenta saltem his eorum partibus quae necessaria sunt juxta Christi praescriptum administrnetur Et de Judic Cont. Haeres c. 1. Appellatio reo conceditur ab Episcopo ad Archiepiscopum ab Archiepiscopo aâ— Regiam personam but no further Vid. de Eccles. c. 10. de Episc. Potestate Et pag. 190. Rex tam in Archiepiscopos Episcopos Clericos alias Ministros quà m in Laicos intra sua regna dominia plenissimam jurisdictionem tam civilem quà m Ecclesiasticam habet exercere potest Cum omnis Jurisdictio tum Ecclesiastica tum secularis ab eo tanquam ex uno eodem fonte derivantur Et de Appell c. 11. There 's no Appeal to any above or beyond the King judging by a Provinâ—ial Council or Select Bishops Though the King died before these were made Laws they tell us the Church of England's since VII To save transcribing I desire the Reader â—o peruse that notable Letter of King Henry the â—th to the Archbishop of York It is the first in the second Part of the Caballa of Letters well worth the reading to our purpose VIII The Liturgy for Nov. 1. called the Pope Antichrist And the Homilies to the same since And the Convocation in Ireland Art 8. 1615. So doth the Parliament of England in the Act â—or the Subsidy 3 Jacobi of the Clergy And â—ure they that took him for Antichrist thought 〈◊〉 not that as Pope or Patriarch he had any ruling â—ower here IX The Apology of the Church of England â—n Jewel's Works ordered to be kept in all the â—arish Churches saith Pag. 708. Of a truth even those greatest Councils and where most Assemblies of People ever were whereof these Men use to make such exceeding reckoning compare them with all the Churches which throughout the World acknowledge and profess the Name of Christ and what else I pray you can they seem to be but certain Private Councils of Bishops and Provincial Synods For admit peradventure Italy France Spain England Germany Denmark Scotland met together If there want Asia Greece Armenia Persia Media Mesopotamia Egypt Ethiopia India Mauritania in all which Places there be both many Christians and many Bishops how can any Man being in his right Mind think such a Council to be a General Council Pag. 629. It 's proved that Councils have been so factious and tyrannical that good Men have justly refused to come at them Pag. 593. But the Gospel hath been carried on without and against Councils and Councils been against the Truth And Jewel Pag. 486.
the King to be a Heretick But Protestants deny that any Council hath a Judicial Power so to judge him though all Men have a Discerning Power to judge with whom they should hold Communion But if our Defenders of a Forreign Power say true then the Universal Judge Pope or Prelates may Judge and Excommunicate Kings who they think deserve it And if so not only Justice but Humanity requireth that such Kings be first heard speak for themselves and answer their Accusers Face to Face And this can seldom be well done by proxy as the Prelates will not Excommunicate the Proxies or Advocates only And must all Emperors and Kings travel no Man knows whither or how far to answer every such accusation and that at the Bar of a Priest that 's Subject to another Prince perhaps his Enemy And if it be at an Universal Council the King of England may be Summoned to America or Constantinople at nearest if they must be indifferently called together XVIII The Church of England is not for Popery but against it But the Doctrine of an Universal Church Soveraign under Christ is Popery by the Confession of Protestants and Papists I. Protestants ordinarily rank the Papists into these sorts differing from each other 1. Those that place the Universal Supream Power in the Pope alone which are most of the Italians that dwell near him 2. Those that place it in a Pope and General Council agreeing which are the greatest number 3. Those that place it in a General Council as above the Pope especially if they disagree 4. Those that place it in the Universal Church real or diffusive See Dr. Challoner in his Crede Ecclesiam Catholicam describing these four sorts of Papists II. And the Papists themselves number all the same differences as you may see in Bellarmine at large Of the first Opinion is Valentia in Thom. To. 3. Disp. 1. p. 7. § 45. and divers others both Jesuits Friars and Seculars And Albert. Pighius hath written an unanswerable Book against the Supremacy of Councils But Bellarmine himself saith of this way Vsque ad hanc diem quaestio superest etiam inter Catholicos Lib. 2. de Concil c. 13. And they that have different Soveraigns have different Churches Of the second Opinion are the greatest number of their Doctors Of the third Opinion for a Councils Supremacy above and against the Pope in case of disagreement were the Councils of Constance and Basil And saith Bellarmine Joh. Gerson Petr. de Alliaco Card. Cameracensis Jacobus Almanius Card. Nicol Cusanus Card. Florentinus Panormitanus Toslatus Abulensis and multitudes more with Oviedo Okam c. and the Parisians and French Church And the Pope and Jesuits will not say that all these are Protestants or none of the Roman Church And the Church of England never took them for any other than Papists XIX The small Book called Deus Rex which is approved by the Church of England may give the Reader satisfaction herein XX. The common strain of the most approved Doctors of the Church in their Licensed Books against the Papists disclaimeth all Forreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Prelates 1. Bishop Jewel I before cited 2. Bishop Bilson is too large to be recited Of Christian Subj p. 229. To Councils saith he such as the Church of Christ was wont by the help of her Religious Princes to call we owe Communion and brotherly Concord so long as they make no breach in Faith and Christian Charity Subjection and Servitude we owe them none See more p. 270 271 272 273 c. of the Errours and Contradictions of General Councils and how the major Vote obligeth us not to follow them And pag. 233. The Title and Authority of A. Bishops and Patriarchs was not ordained by the Commandment of Christ or his Apostles but the Bishops long after when the Church began to be troubled with Dissentions were contented to link themselves together in every Province to suffer one to assemble the rest Pag. 261. The Bishops speaking the Word of God Princes as well as others must yield Obedience But if Bishops pass their Commission and speak beside the Word of God what they list both Prince and People may despise them 3. Dr. Fulke on Eph. 1. § 5. sheweth that the Church hath no Head but Christ and no man can be so much as a Ministerial Head 4. Dr. Reynolds against Hart proveth that none but Christ can be the Head of Government any more than the Head of Influence 5. Dr. Whitaker against Stapleton de sacra Script pag. 128. He sheweth his Ignorance as worthy to sit among the Catechumens that instead of Believing that there is a Catholick Church puts believing what the Catholick saith and believeth sic tu ut novam tuam fidem defendas nâ—vos articulos condis etiam non haeresis sed perfidiae Magisteres I believe that there is a holy Catholick Church but that I must believe all that it believeth and teacheth I believe not Augustine appealed from the Nicene Council to the Scripture We receive not the Baptism of Infants from the Authority of the Church but from the Scripture And pag. 103. he sheweth that Councils have erred and corrected one another and are more uncertain than the Scripture And pag. 50. The Peace of the Church is better secured by referring all to the Scripture than to the Church Pag. 501. The Catholick Church in the Creed is invisible and known only by Faith 6. See Bishop Hall's No Peace with Rome and his Letter to Laud. It is tedious to cite all in Willet Slater Prideaux Abbot Marton Crakenthorp Challoner White and the rest to this purpose It is most notorious that the Church of England was against all Forreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Prelates as over this Land To cite a multitude of such Testimonies would but needlesly swell the Book and weary the Reader Chap. II. The whole Kingdom and Church is sworn against all Forreign Jurisdiction and all alteration of Government in Church and State And ought not to be stigmatized with PERJURY § 1. THat the whole Church and Kingdom is under such Oaths is visible I. The Oath of Supremacy before cited against All Forreign Jurisdiction is put upon all the Land II. The Oath called Et caetera 1640. is against Change of Government and was taken by many III. The Act of Uniformity obligeth the whole Ministry to subscribe against all endeavours to alter the Government IV. The Oxford Act of Confinement sweareth all Nonconformists and more never to endeavour any Alteration of Government in Church or State V. The Vestry Act sweareth all the Parish Vestries to the same VI. The Corporation Act sweareth all the Cities and Corporations of England to the same that is All in Power and Trust as to Government VII The Militia Act sweareth all the Souldiers of the Land to the same So that it is undeniable that all the Kingdom is sworn never to endeavour any Alteration of Government in Church or
lawful parts Chap. III. What Endeavours have been used by the more Moderate Papists to bring England under a Foreign Jurisdiction in King James's time § 1. I Will not meddle now with their violent Attempts abroad and at home nor so much as name them Commonly Known It is not my design to speak or act offensively but defensively Their ways of Wit and Deceit have been many and among others pretended Motions for a Coalition hath not been the least And their injurious Pretences that our Rulers have been inclined to them as knowing how much that may do with the ignorant sequacious Multitude § 2. I. In Queen Elizabeths days they much perswaded her that to go as far from the Church of Rome as the Anti-Papists desired would cross her Interest and make the reduction of the Kingdom impossible who were all Papists but as it were the other day II. In King James's time they would fain have conquered him by the fear of Murder when he heard of the Murder of two King 's of France H. 3. and H. 4. that had greater defensive Powers than he And the Powder Plot was yet more frightful And continued threatnings more And he shewed his peaceable Disposition in promoting the Spanish and French Matches for his Son and especially if it be true that Rushworth â—nd other Historians say that He and his Son â—nd his Council took their Oaths for a Toleration â—n the words recorded by them § 3. And to make People believe that he was â—t the heart a Papist the Bishop of Ambrun boasteth of his success in a Conference with him published in French in Mr. D'ageant printed at Grenoble 1668. where in Pag. 173 174 175 176 177 178. he tells this Story It 's like the Archbishop told it to ingratiate himself with Cardinal Richlieu to whom he sent it and would not scruple aggravation Afterwards there was a good understanding between the two Crowns The King of England at the request of the K of France did often remit the ordinary severities used against the Catholicks in England He was even well-pleased with the Proposals that were secretly made to him by the King of France in order to the reducing of him into the bosom of the Church Insomuch that after several Conferences held for that Effect by the consent of his Majesty without communicating any thing of that matter to his Council for fear that the business being known should have been obstructed The Archbishop of Ambrun passed into England as if it had been without Design in the Habit and under the Name of a Counsellor of the Parliament of Grenoble whose curiosity had incited him to see England He had no sooner Landed at Dover but the Duke of Buckingham came to meet him and having saluted him thus whispered in his Ear Sir who call your self a Counsellor of Grenoble but are the Archbishop of Ambrun you are welcom into these Kingdoms You need not change your Name nor your Quality for here you shall receive nothing but Honour and especially from the King my Master who hath a most high Esteem of you Indeed the King of England used him most Kindly and granted him many Favours on behalf of the Catholicks and even permitted him in the French Embassador's Lodgings where was a great Assembly to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to the Catholicks the Doors being open There were near Eighteen thousand Persons who received that Sacrament and yet no man said any thing to them as they went in at the Gate nor no where else Although there were many of the English always standing in the Street beholding the Ceremony During his abode he had many Conferences with that King who having come to agreement in all the controverted Points he wrote a long Letter to the Pope by a Catholick Gentleman his Subject whom he sent secretly of purpose by which Letter he acknowledged him to be the Vicar General of Jesus Christ on Earth the Universal Father of Christians and the Head of all the Catholicks assuring him that after he had made sufficient provision with respect to the things agreed on he would openâ—â— declare himself In the mean time he proâ—â—â—ed him not to suffer any more to make search in his Kingdom for the Priests which were sent over by his Holiness and the most Christian King provided they were no Jesuites whom he said he could not trust for many Reasons chiefly because he counted them to have been the Authors of the Powder Plot by which they had designed to have blown him up in his Parliament In his Letter among other things he intreated the Pope to grant that the Church Lands which had become part of the Patrimony of the principal Houses in England might not be taken from them that on the contrary they might be permitted to possess them because if it should be otherwise there might arise trouble on that account He said also that nothing hindred him from declaring himself presently but that he desired to bring the King of Denmark his Brother-in-Law with him whom he had in order to that end but under another pretence prayed to come over into England where he hoped to Convert him with himself That in so doing he should secure the Peace of his Kingdoms which otherwise he could hardly keep in Peace and that they two joyned in the same Design would draw with them almost all the North. The Duke of Buckingham and the Gentleman whom he sent to Rome were the only Persons of his Subjects to whom he had made known this design But the Death of King James which put a stop to this Negotiation put a stop to the Effect of it which was a matter of great Grief to his Holiness and the King of France Thus far Deageant At the End of his Book is a Narrative of the Archbishop of Ambrun of his Voyage into England written to Cardinal Richlieu In which he speaks much to the like purpose as done 1624. adding That the King told him with great freedom the affection he had for the Catholick Faith and was so particular as not to omit any thing insomuch that he told me that from his Childhood his Masters perceiving his inclinations thereto he had run great hazards of being assassinated The rest is That the King resolved to settle Liberty of Conscience by calling an Assembly of Trusty English and Foreign Divines at Dover or Boloigne I have recited this to shew that as they are not wanting in Art and Industry so they abuse the Name of Princes to promote their Cause Who can tell but much of this is Lies And if King James to prevent Butchery gave them a few fair words it 's like they added more of their own And if he used the Papists kindly as being against Cruelty they were the more unexcusable that would have destroyed him and could not be kept in Peace § 4. Yet do the Papists make people beyond Sea believe that they live here under constant Martyrdom Sure if
here is no promise to subject himself to a Foreign Jurisdiction but to endeavour Peace and Concord which may better be by drawing the Papists to us than by coming to them The truest Adversaries to Popery are the greatest Lovers of true Concord and Peace § 4. All the lenity that was shewed them after here and the agency of Panzani Con. c. I pass by lest my recital be misunderstood The Reader may see enough if not too much in Rushworth and in Prin's Introduction c. I only add that this King who was so Zealous for Concord and that overcame so many Temptations to Popery distant and in his Bosom and was so firm as not to fear to grant them the audience promised yet was so much against all cruelty to them that he suffered very much for his Lenity and Clemency to them both from themselves and from the Protestants But the most odious injury that ever they did him was by pretending his Commission for that most inhumane War and Massacre in Ireland when in time of peace they suddenly Murdered two hundred thousand and told Men that they had the Kings Commission to rise as for him that was wronged by his Parliament the very fame of this horrid Murder and the words of the many Fugitives that escaped in Beggery into England assisted by the Charity of the Dutchess of Ormond and others and the English Papists going in to the King was the main cause that filled the Parliaments Armies I well remember it cast people into such a fear that England should be used like Ireland that all over the Countreys the people oft sate up and durst not go to Bed for fear lest the Papists should rise and Murder them And this is all that the Papists have yet got by their Bloody Cruelty to necessitate people in fear to take them for their Mortal Foes Bishop Morley saith in his Letter to the Dutchess of York p. 6 7. That by raising and spreading malicious and scandalous reports against the King that he was a Papist and intended to bring in Popery on that account only they raised many thousands against him without whose assistance they could never have overpowered him and oppressed him as they did And the success they had thereby against the Father encouraged them to make use of the same Engine against his Son by giving it out that the King by living so long abroad in Popish Countreys was so corrupted in his Religion that if he were suffered to return he would bring in Popery along with him So that with this groundless fear I found many considerable and very much interested Persons possest when I was sent into England about two Months before the Kings return most of which time I spent in undeceiving all I met with especially the Heads and Leaders of the Presbyterian and Independant Parties who seemed to be most afraid of such a Change by assuring them that those misreports they had heard of the King and his Brothers were nothing else but the malicious Inventions of those that were in fact or consent the Murderers of his Father For to my certain knowledge said I who was almost always an Eye-witness of their actions the King and both his Brothers c. And he was confident that this was the case of the Dutchess of York and that the Papists falsly gave it out that she was theirs to draw people to them And what then could have been more injurious to King Charles the First than this boast and report of the Irish Murderers By which they would make him to have so dreadfully begun for the rebellion was Octob. 23. 1641. and Edge-hill Fight the same day 1642. And hereby they have given the Scots occasion to publish to posterity these Scandalous words in their Books against the Cromwellians called Truth its Manifest printed 1645. pag. 17 19. The King seeing he was stopped by the Scots first in their own Countrey next in England to carry on his great design takes the Irish Papishs by the hand rather than be alway disappointed and they willingly undertake to levy Arms for his Service that is for the Romish Cause the Kings design being subservient to the Roman Cause though he abused thinks otherwise and believes that Rome serveth to his purpose But to begin the work they must make sure of all the Protestants if they cannot otherwise by Murdering and Massacring them p. 19. The next recourse was to the Irish Papists his good Friends to whom from Scotland a Commission is dispatched under the Great Seal which Seal was at that instant time in the Kings own Custody of that Kingdom to hasten according to former agreement the raising of the Irish in Arms who no sooner receive this new Order but they break out c. And I am not willing to believe this A report so dishonourable to the King his Life his Arms his Death and to all that fought for him that the Fifth Commandment forbids us to believe it though the Scots should say They saw the Sealed Commissions Yea though I had seen them my self seeing it is possible for the Irish to Counterfeit the Scots Broad Seal But by this it appeareth what wrong the King had by the Irish boasting of his Commission and the Papists pretending to more countenance than he gave them § 4. And as the said R. Bishop of Winchester was confident they slandered the Dutchess of York in her Life so he conjectureth that the Jesuit Maimbrough hath done since her death and that some of them devised the Confession which he printeth as hers which he professeth to be false as to the accusation of himself The words of Maimbrough translated are these A Declaration of the Dutchess of York translated out of Maimbourg's Histoire du Calvinisme A Person Educated in the Church of England and as much instructed in her Doctrine according to the Opinion of the most able Divines of her Party as her Condition and Capacity could admit ought to expect to be the Object of publick censure when she quits her Religion to imbrace that of the Church of Rome And as I freely confess that I have been one of her greatest Enemies if not in effect at least in will I have thought it reasonable that for the satisfaction of my Friends I should declare the Motives and Reasons of my Conversion and of the so suddain and unexpected change of my Religion yet without engaging my self in the Questions and Objections which might be made on this Occasion I Protest in the presence of Almighty God that since my return into England no Person whatsoever hath directly or indirectly perswaded me to imbrace the Catholick Religion It is a favour which I owe to the alone Mercy of God I dare not even think that the Prayers which I have made him every day since my return from France and Flanders to beg of him to discover to me the Truth have obtained for me It is very true that having seen the
Fervour and the Devotion of the Catholicks of those Countries and feeling that I had none of it or very little I have never ceased since that time to ask of God the Grace that if I were not of the true Religion I might be so before I died Nevertheless I had not the least doubt but that the Belief of the Church of England was the true and I never had any scruple or trouble of Conscience on this Occasion until November last that I began to read Dr. Heylin's History of the Reformation which is much esteemed and whereof the reading in the Opinion of all the able Men of the Kingdom is sufficient to free the Conscience from all Scruples and Doubts which might arise about Religion But for my part far from finding in that History what was said of it I found to the contrary that by reading of it it only made me see the most horrible Sacriledges that were ever heard spoken of and that it was not sufficient to satisfie an indifferent understanding nor to perswade it that we had the least foundation or appearance of reason for changing the ancient Face of the Church and renouncing the Catholick Religion I noted in that History first that Henry the Eighth quitted not the Communion of the Church of Rome nor opposed the Authority of the Pope but because he would not let him put away the Queen his Wife to Marry another 2. That King Edward the Sixth being yet a Child his Uncle who governed him abusing the Royal Authority which he had in his hand enriched himself by appropriating to himself and his Family the Lands and Goods of the Church 3. That Queen Elizabeth not being the lawful Heir of the Crown could not keep the unjust Possession which she had taken but by renouncing the true Church because the Purity and Rectitude of her Doctrine was not consistent with the Usurpation of the Kingdom of Great Britain I could not conceive much less believe that the holy Spirit which governs the true Church should be the Author of the Three Points that I now noted which have been the only Foundation of the Subversion of the ancient Religion to favour the Licentiousness of Henry the Eighth the Usurpation of Queen Elizabeth and the Ambition mixed with the extream Avarice of the Uncle of Edward the Sixth Neither could I understand how the Bishops who boast that they had no other design â—n separating themselves from the Communion of the Church of Rome but to endeavour the re-establishing of the Doctrine Discipline of the Primitive Church have not thought of this pretended Reformation but while Henry the Eighth attempted a Separation from the Roman Church that he might satisfie his guilty Pleasures All these Reflections having busied my Mind after the reading of that History I endeavoured to â—nstruct my self in the Points controverted between â—s and the Catholicks I examined them the most â—xactly that I could by the Scripture it self and though I thought not my self sufficient for underâ—tanding it well I found nevertheless some things which appeared to me so clear so easie to be unâ—erstood that I have a thousand times wondred that I have been so long without reflecting on them I was particularly and strongly convinced of the â—eal Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar of the Infallibility of the Church Confession and Prayer for the Dead I was willing to confer of these Matters by way of Discourse with the two most able Bishops that we â—ave in England and both confessed to me ingenuously that there are many things in the Church of Rome which it was to be wished that the Church of England had still observed as Confession which it could not be denied but that God had commanded it and Prayer for the Dead which is one of the most authentick and ancient Practices of the Christian Religion But as to themselves they made use thereof in private without making publick profession thereof As I pressed one of these Bishops upon the other Points of Controversie and principally on the real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar he answered me freely That were he a Catholick he would not change Religion but that having been educated in a Church in which he believed there was all that was necessary to Salvation and there having received his Baptism he thought he could not quit it without great Scandal All this Discourse served but to increase the ardent desire which I had to become a Catholick and I felt inward pains and horrible disquiets after the Conversation I had with these two Bishops Nevertheless that I might not precipitate in an Affair of this Importance and where my Salvation was concerned I endeavoured to satisfie my self entirely I prayed God with all my heart to calm my troubled Mind by making me to know the Truth the search of which had caused my trouble Being in this Condition I went at Christmas to the Kings Chapel to receive the Sacrament which put my Soul into new troubles which continued till I discovered my state of Mind to a Catholick who to procure me the repose and tranquillity which I wished caused a good Priest to come to me and he was the first Ecclesiastick with whom I conferred of my inward condition and the affairs of my Soul The more I spoke with him the more I found my self inwardly perswaded and strengthened by the Grace of the Holy Spirit to change Religion As I could not doubt of the truth of the words of Jesus Christ which assures us that the Holy Sacrament contains his Flesh and his Blood I could not easily believe that he who is truth it self had permitted that the Communion under one kind had been introduced into his Church in which and with which he hath promised to dwell to the end of the World if it sufficeth not for the Salvation of them who communicate under one kind only To conclude I am not able to enter into Dispute with any on these great Truths and though I were I would not engage my self further than in a Discourse of a few words and without contesting to express simply the Motives and Reasons of my Conversion I call God to witness who knows the secret of Mens hearts that I had never thought of changing Religion if I had believed I might obtain Salvation by continuing in the state I was by my Birth and Education and I think it is not necessary that I here declare that it was not Interest nor prospect of Honors or of any fading and perishable Profits which have perswaded me thereunto seeing that on the contrary by changing Religion I exposed my self to the hazard of losing both my Friends and my Credit and freely to confess the truth I considered and examined often whether it was not more expedient for me to keep my Friends my Rank and my Credit in the Court by continuing in the Exercise of the Religion of the Church of England
than quit all these things in a view and hope of the good things of the life to come but thorough the Mercy of God which inlâ—ghtens those that seek it I felt no pain or difficulty in making the choice I have I shall only say that all my fear hath been lest the poor Catholicks of this Countrey should suffer much on the occasion of my Conversion and that God should nor give me the Grace to suffee patiently with them the Disgraces and Afflictions of this Life to merit the Eternal At St. James the 8 th of August 1670. Postscript BUt since the first writing of this the Publick Matter of Fact hath taught the World how little Cause those that he calleth the Heads of the Presbyterians and Independants or any others had to believe Bishop Morley's confident Testimony of one or other Or honest Mr. Gache's Letter to me or the rest of the French Letters published with it by Lauderdale I cannot forget Dr. Morley's words to my self in Jan. 1659. before King Charles II. came in that most on this side the Alpes would joyn with the Church of England were it not for the blocks that Calvin had laid in the way And this he knew by his converse with them But this Coalition was not to be our becoming Papists quoad nomen but France forsooth if not Flanders too would turn Protestants as they have done I knew not when I writ this Book 1. Of King James's Paper published as found in King Charles the Second's Pocket and the Testimonies that he died a Papist nor what was witnessed of his Engagement for them 2. I knew not of what King James the Second would after be and do 3. I knew not of Archbishop Bramhall's Letter Printed by Dr. Parre in Archbishop Vsher's Life confidently assuring Archbishop Vsher that on his certain Information the Papists in 1647. got into Cromwell's Army and confederated with the Papists at Oxford in the King's Army to have the King put to Death And whether they sent beyond Sea for Approbation and obtained it Chap. V. The foreign Leaders of the English Conciliaters who are for introducing a foreign Jurisdiction § 1. THe horrid Confusions in the Roman Church by two and three Popes at once some Kingdoms cleaving to one and some to another constrained the Emperor and divers Princes to call a Council called General for remedy The Popes being by this Council condemned and deposed it could not be expected that they should approve them and consent so that the Council was necessitated though cross to late Custom to declare their Power to be above the Popes so far as to judge and depose him if he deserve it This way went the Councils of Pisa Constance and Basil. But the Pope's Upholders still stuck to him and said Parliaments may as well depose Kings The Body cannot cut off the Head And Eugenius 4th though condemned by the Council and deposed as a Heretick Simonist Blasphemer c. kept Possession and their Church succeedeth him to this day § 2. This opinion for the Church Diffusive represented in a Council being above the Pope was kept alive in Bohemia France and other Countries and in Luther's time did much further his Reformation by encouraging Princes and People to disobey the Pope And Luther at the first seemed to go but little further But afterward quite cast off the Pope and denied all his Claim of universal or foreign Jurisdiction § 3. Some that joyned with Luther in reforming many Abuses thought that the whole World or Church must have one Humane Head or Governor in Religion and that we must not separate from subjection to the Pope but only keep him to govern by Church Canons and not Arbitrarily as being singulis major but universis minor And so the Controversie came to be the same as between Monarchs that will be above Law and those that are limited by the Laws The Italians and some others are for the first but the French and some others are only for his limited Power Of these in Luther's time were Erasmus Julius Pflug Sidonius Agricola the Authors of the Interim and Wicelius Cassander Haffmeister and after Fr. Baldwin and divers others And in France some excellent Lawyers yet more moderate as the Chancellor Mich. Hospitalius Thuâ—nus and a great Party with them § 4. Joh. Gerson Chancellor and a Member of the Council of Constance before these was so moderate though he was for burning Hus and Jerome of Prague that in the great Point of the sufficiency of God's own Laws he condemneth even most of these Moderators I will insert his words in Sermone in die Circumcisionis Domini habito Trasconae coram Papae in the Pope's own hearing Schismatis praesentis sedationem invenire non sufficient leges humanae jam conditae nisi superior Lex Divina vivae architectonica consulatur Quod fortè non satis actum est usque in praesens Obliget quod ait Dominus in Isaia Timuerunt me mandato hominum doctrinis ideo ecce ego addam ut admirationem faciam populo huic miraculo grandi stupendo Peribit enim sapientia à sapientibus ejus intellectus prudentium ejus abscondetur Ex quo loco sumpsit Jesus illud improperium contra Pharisaeos quod irritum faciebant mandatum Dei propter suas traditiones Audirent utinam ista auribus suis hi qui legem Evangelicam legem Divinam cum professoribus suis deserentes humanis traditionibus incumbant toti adeo ut ad superiorem legem illam oculos attollere vel non valeant ex ruditate vel nolint ex iniquitate vel negligant ex inerti segnitie cum tamen rebus leges humanae non sufficiunt prout in schismate praesente compertum videtur ad Legis divinae radicem interpretationem Consultatio referatur secundum eam conscientia formetur necesse est Quid autem mali quid periculi quid Confusionis attulerit contemptus sacrae Scripturae utique SVFFICIENTIS PRO REGIMINE ecclesiae Alioquin Christus fuisset Legislator imperfectus Interrogetur experientia consideretur clerus cui desponsari debuerat Sapientia quae de sursum est purifica pudica an ipse fornicatus est cum adultera illa meretricula sapientia terrena animali diabolica Status insuper ecclesiae nonne factus est totus brutalis monstrosus ubi coelum deorsum hoc est id quod spirituale est terra sursum spiritus serviens caro dominans Principale accessorium accessorium principale usque ad hoc ut quidam delirare non dubitent quod per inventiones humanas etiam melius quà m per legem divinam Evangelicam regeretur Quasi minus sit anima quà m Corpus spiritualis quà m carnalis fructus Haec assertio per meam fidem blasphema est nedum falsa Evangelica quippe doctrina per suos professores dilatavit Ecclesiam usque in Coelum quam filii Agur exquirentes
Rule delivered by himself and by the Council of Trent c. P. 239. The Augustane Confession commodiously explained hath scarce any thing which may not be reconciled with those Opinions which are received with the Catholicks by Authority of Antiquity and of Synods as may be known out of Cassander and Hoffmeister And there are among the Jesuits also that think not otherwise P. 71. The Churches that join with Rome have not only the Scriptures but the Opinions explained in the Councils and the Popes decree against Pelagius c. They have also received the egregious Constitutions of Councils and Fathers in which there is abundantly enough for the Correction of Vices But all use them not as they ought And this is it that all the Lovers of Piety and Peace would have corrected as Borromaeus did Page 18. Speaking of false Doctrine These are the things which thanks be to God the Catholicks do not thus believe though many that call themselves Catholicks so live as if they did believe them But Protestants so live by force of their Opinions and Catholicks by the decay of Discipline Page 95. What was long ago the judgment of the Church of Rome the Mistress of others we may best know by the Epistles of the Roman Bishops to the Africans and French to which Grotius will subscribe with a willing mind Page 7. They accuse the Bull of Pius Quintus that it hath Articles besides those of the Creed but the Synod of Dort hath more But these in the Bull are New as Dr. Rivet will have it But very many Learned Men think otherwise that they are not new if they be rightly understood and that this appeareth by the places both of Holy Scripture and of such as have ever been of great Authority in the Church which are cited in the Margin of the Canons of Trent Page 35. And this is it which the Synod of Trent saith That in that Sacrament Jesus Christ true God and truely Man is really and substantially contained under the form of those sensible things Yet not according to the Natural manner of existing but Sacramentally and by that way of existing which though we cannot express in words yet may we by Cogitation illustrated by Faith be certain that to God it is possible The Councils expressions are that There is made a change of the whole substance of the Bread into the Body and of the whole substance of Wine into the Blood Which Conversion the Catholick calleth Transubstantiation Page 79. When the Synod of Trent saith That the Sacrament is to be adored with Divine Worship it intends no more but that the Son of God himself is to be adored Page 14. Grotius distinguisheth between the Opinions of School men which oblige no Man for saith Melchior Canus our Church alloweth us great liberty and therefore could give no just cause of departing as the Protestants did and between those things that are defined by Councils Even by that of Trent The Acts of which if any Man read with a mind propense to peace he will find that they may be explained fitly and agreeably to the places of Holy Scripture and of the ancient Doctors that are put in the Margin And if besides this by the care of Bishops and Kings those things be taken away which contradict that holy Doctrine and were brought in by evil Manners and not by Authority of Councils or old Tradition then Grotius and many more with him will have that with which they may be content Val. pro pace That which he blameth is 1. The School-mens liberty of disputing and Opinions not agreeable to Councils 2. And the Pride Covetousness and ill Lives of the Prelates and others which all sober Jesuits and Papists blame Page 16. That the labours of Grotius for the peace of the Church were not displeasing to many equal Men many know at Paris and many in all France many in Poland and Germany and not a few in England that are placid and Lovers of peace For as for the now-raging Brownists and others like them with whom Dr. Rivet better agreeth than with the Bishops of England who can desire to please them that is not touched with their Venom And whereas you may find Grotius and his Adherents yet disclaiming Popery and saying They are no Papists he tells you his meaning Ib. p. 15. In that Epistle Grotius by Papists meant those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of the Pope for Honour and Lucres sake as is usual By this description I suppose that many Popes even of late were no Papists such as condemned the Acts and Persons of their Predecessors and such as censured Liberius and Honorius nor Adrian the sixth that saith a Pope may be a Heretick nor Baronius Binnius Genebrard that exclaim against many of them Nor Bellarmine nor Queen Mary nor More or Fisher nor Bonner nor Gardiner nor any that ever I met with But others more moderately call only those Papists that are for the Popes Power above Councils And so the French are none nor the Councils of Constance and Basil were none Grotius addeth p. 45. that By Papists he doth not mean them that saving the Rights of Kings and Bishops do give to the Pope or Bishop of Rome that Primacy which ancient Customs and Canons and the Edicts of ancient Emperors and Kings assign them which Primacy is not so much the Bishops as the Roman Churches preferred before all other by common consent So Liberius the Bishop being so lapsed that he was dead to the Church the Church of Rome retained its right and defended the Cause of the Universal Church Ans. If it be a Primacy of Name and Honour only without any Governing Power it 's nothing to our case But seeing it 's a Governing Primacy that he means 1. It 's against the right of Kings and Kingdoms that Foreigners claim Jurisdiction over them 2. Emperors never gave Popes or Councils power over other Princes Dominions nor could give any such 3. Nor did ancient Councils nor could do Who gave it them And who knows to what Councils he will limit this power Councils these thousand years have been for much of Popery 4. If Common Consent give this power it binds not the Dissenters The Judgment of others concerning Grotius 1. Vincentius wrote a Book called Grotius Papizans 2. Claud. Saravius an Eminent Parliament-man in Paris in his Epistles p. 52 53. ad Gron. saith Heri invisi Legatum De ejus libro libello postremis interrogatus respondet plane Mileterio consona Romanam fidem esse veram sinceram solosque clericorum mores degeneres schismati dedisse locum Adferebatque plura in hanc sententiam Quid dicam Merito quod falso olim Paulo Festus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Sed haec tibi soli Infensissimus est Riveto Est sanè in praecipiti in quo diu stare non licet Deploro veris lacrymis tantam jacturam Deumque ex
animo supplex veneror ut illi spiritum suum mentemque meliorem det And in another Epistle to Salmasius p. 196. he saith being ask'd his Judgment of his last Books Tantum abest ut omnia probem ut vix aliquid in co reperiocui sine conditione calculum apponam meum Verissimè dixit ille qui dixit Grotium papizare Vix tamen in isto scripto aliquid legi quod mirarer quodve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 occurreret Nunquid enim omnes istiusmodi authoris lucubrationes erga Papistarum errores perpetuam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 erga Jesuitas amorem erga nos plusquam vatinianum odium produnt clamant In voto quod ejus nomen praeferebat an veritus est haec 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profiteri And how far he was familiar with Grotius he â—ells us p. 248. Ad Vincent Fabrit Cum eo nempe Communicaveram vel solebam mea fere omnia c. And what Salmasius thought of him these words of Saravius ad Salmas intimate Ex quo à vera orbita in religionis negotio deflexit captasti occasionem toto biennio antequam sato fungeretur eum illudendi certe irritandi I have formerly said that worthy Mr. Ereskin yet living since dead told me that Petavius told him that Grotius was resolved to have declared himself for the Church of Rome and joyned with them if he had returned safe from the Journey he died in Henr. Valesius in his Funeral Oration on Petavius saith p. 684. Batesâ—i Collect. Quid non praestitit ut clarissimum Virum Hugonem Grotium ad Catholicaâ— Communionem adduceret Erat ille quidem minimè à nobis alienus poene noster quippe qui doctrinan Tridentim Concilii in omnibus sese amplecti palam profiteretur Id unum supererat ut Ecclesiae Sacrariâ—m ingressus Communionem nostram Sociaretur Quod ille nescio quas ob causas dum ad Catholicae fidei umtatem plurimos secum sperat adducere Consultò differebat But I make no other mens but his own words the Index of his Faith Chap. VII Of the several sorts of Conciliators or Peace-makers about our Controversies with the Papists § 1. IF any shall think that I who have spent so much time and labour for the Churches peace am now against it or would raise dishonourable suspicions on any just endeavours to that end they will utterly mistake me There are divers sorts of Endeavours for peace with the Papists by real Protestants § 2. I. The old Conformists that prevailed against the Dissenters in Queen Elizabeth's days were for going no further from the Papists than they needs must lest they gave them occasion of accusation II. Since then many Men have taken notice that many of our Doctrinal Controversies consist more in ambiguous words and misunderstanding of each other than most on either side imagine And they have endeavoured the lessening of such Controversies by better Explications and stating of the Case In this kind Spalatensis and Bishop W. Forbes have done very Learnedly but in some things yielded a great deal too far Camero Amiraldus Capellus Testardus the Theses Salmurienses and Sedâ—nenses have done much But no Man so much as Lude Le Blank in his Theses which he sent me his desire here to publish To these I adjoin my self as among many other Writings in my Catholick Theology and Methodus Theologiae I have openly and largely shewed the World And no Censures have deterred me from this honest and necessary way of pacification III. But there are others that would on pretence of Peace take in many of their Errors in Doctrine Government and Worship But yet are for no Foreign Jurisdiction IV. But those that I now write against go further and some under the Name of a Prince Patriarch and the Principium Vnitatis Catholicae would come under the Pope some by pretence of the power of General Councils or an Universal Colledge of all Bishops and some by these and Patriarchs conjunct would bring us under a Foreign Jurisdiction and contrive an Union on some French terms And would to this end let in abundance of corruptions in Discipline and Worship on pretence of Obedience to the Canons of Councils Yea some condemn those as Schismaticks yea as in a state of Damnation who are not in these matters of their mind It is these that I am against § 3. While I oppose these I still own my foresaid reconciling Books and no reproach of those that run into a contrary extream shall ever drive me from the true terms of Peace nor to desire any cruelty against them or any of their Sufferings but what necessary defence of Soul and Body require And though my Exposition of the Revelation have offended many upon far closer study of it since I am not less but more perswaded that Pagan Rome was Babylon and that John Fox Martyrol Vol. I. p. III. who took his Oath of a Divine Revelation to him which brought him to take the Pagan Empire for the Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns and to expound the Times and Thousand years accordingly is much to be regarded But if I be uncertain of such points I will rather suspend my Judgment than in uncertainty venture on any thing that is against Christian Love and Peace I hold Communion with the Romans in Christianity though not in Popery I take all true Christians among them for Part of the Catholick Church of Christ though I take their pretended Catholick Church as Headed by the Pope for no Church of Christ at all nor as Headed by any Usurping Humane Head whatsoever Chap. VIII The Doctrine of Archbishop Bromhall in defence of Grotius in his Book called His Vindication of himself and the Episcopal Clergy from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery as managed by Mr. Baxter in his Treatise of the Grotian Religion I fiercely Prefaced by a Dignitary of the Church Parker § 1. I mean to give you his own words and pass by his mistakes against my self Only saying That it was not fairly done to affirm that I numbered him with the Papists or those that designed to bring in Popery when I had no such words yea and praising him excepted him from that number only dissenting from his too near approach But whether he except himself his words will best shew § 2. Page 20 21. he saith I will endeavour to give some light what was the Religion of Grotius He was in affection a Friend and in desire a true Son of the Church of England And on his Death bed recomended that Church as it was Legally Established to his Wife and such other of his Family as were then about him obliging them by his Authority to adhere firmly to it so far as they had opportunity Page 81. I know no Member of the Greek Church that give them the Popes either more or less than I do Page 82. To wave their last four hundred years
determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary Causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their old Patriarchal Power and Dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both Name and Thing Page 84. In the first place if the Bishop of Rome were reduced from his Universality of Sovereign Jurisdiction Jure Divino to his Principium Vnitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sence of the Councils of Constance and Basil and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we 2. If the Creed or necessary Points of Faith were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Councils according to the Decree of the third General Council admitting no additional Articles but only necessary Explications and those to be made by the Authority of a General Council or one so General as can be Convocated And lastly Supposing that some things from whence offence hath been either given or taken I say in case these three things were accorded whether Christians might not live in an Holy Communion and come in the same publick Worship of God free from all Schismatical Separation of themselves one from another c. We have no Controversie with the Church of Rome about a Primacy of Order but a Supremacy of Power I shall declare my sence in four Conclusions 1. That St. Peter had a fixed Chair at Antioch and after at Rome is a truth which no Man who giveth any credit to the Ancient Fathers and Councils can either deny or well doubt of 2. That St. Peter had a Primacy of Order among the Apostles is the unanimous voice c. 3. Some Fathers and School-men who were no Sworn Vassals to the Roman Bishops affirm that this Primacy of Order is affixed to the Chair of St. Peters Successors for ever c. Page 107. They who made the Bishop of Rome a Patriarch were the Primitive Fathers not excluding the Apostles and Christian Emperors and Oecumenical Councils What Laws they made in this case we are bound to obey for Conscience sake till they be repealed lawfully by virtue of the Law of Christ. Page 104. To my Objection that all Protestants must then pass for Schismaticks that take not the Pope for Principium Vnitatis and Patriarch c. he answereth still weaker and weaker Must a Man quit his just right because some dislike it Their dislike is scandal taken but the quitting of that which is right for their satisfaction should be the scandal given Whether is the worse 1. How are they forced to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks If they be forced any way it is by their own wilful Humours or erroneous Conscience Others force them not 2. I would have him consider which is worse and the more dangerous condition for Christians to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks or to fall into Schism it self Whosoever shall oppose the just Power of a Lawful Patriarch lawfully proceeding is a material Schismatick Reader I forbear confuting these things by the way being now but on the Historical relation of their Judgments You see how great necessity to avoid Schism they place in our subjection to a Forreign Jurisdiction The Confutation you shall have of all together Chap. IX The Judgment of Archbishop Laud as delivered by Dr. Heylin and by himself § 1. IN the Life of Archbishop Laud Pag. 414 415 416 412. Touching the Design of working a Reconciliation betwixt us and Rome I find it charged on him by another Writer Fuller Ch. Hist. lib. 11. p. 217. who holds it as unlawful to be undertaken as it was impossible to be effected Answ. If it be a Crime it 's Novum Crimen of a New stamp never coined before As to the Impossibility many Men of Eminence for Parts and Piety have thought otherwise Spalatensis and Sancta Clara are named as Reconcilers And if without prejudice to the Truth the Controversies might have been composed it is most probable that other Protestant Churches would have sued by their Agents to be included in the Peace If not the Church of England had lost nothing by it as being hated by the Calvinists and not loved by the Lutherans Admitting then that such a Reconciliation was endeavoured betwixt the Agents of both Churches Let us next see what our great Statesmen have discoursed upon that particular on what terms the Agreement was to have been made and how far they proceeded in it And first the Book entituled The Pope's Nuntio affirmed to have been written by the Venetian Embassador at his being in England doth discourse thus As to a Reconciliation saith he between the Churches of England and Rome there were made some general Propositions and Overtures by the Archbishop's Agents they assuring that his Grace was very much disposed thereto and that if it was not accomplished in his Life-time it would prove a work of more difficulty after his Death that in very truth for the last three Years the Archbishop had introduced some Innovations approaching nearer the Rites and Forms of Rome That the Bishop of Chichester a great Confident of his Grace the Lord Treasurer and Eight other Bishops of his Grace's Party did most passionately desire a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome That they did day by day recede from their ancient Tenets to accommodate with the Church of Rome That therefore the Pope on his part ought to make some Steps to meet them and the Court of Rome remit something of its rigour in Doctrine or otherwise no accord would be The Composition on both Sides in so good a forwardness before Pauzani left the Kingdom that the Archbishop and the Bishop of Chichester had often said that there were but two sorts of People like to hinder the Reconciliation the Puritans among the Protestants and the Jesuits among the Catholicks Let us see the Judgment and Relation of another Author in a Gloss or Comment on the former entituled The English Pope Printed at London the same Year 1643. And he will tell us that after Con had undertook the managing of Affairs the Matter began to grow towards some Agreement The King required saith he such a Dispensation from the Pope as his Catholick Subjects might resort to the Protestant Church and take the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity and that the Pope's Jurisdiction should be declared to be but of Human Right And so far had the Pope consented that whatsoever did concern the King should have been really performed so far as other Catholick Princes do usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be Independent both from King and Pope There was no fear of breach on the Pope's part So that upon the Point the Pope was to content himself with us in England with a Priority instead of a Superiority over other Bishops and with a Primacy instead of a
Supremacy in these parts of Christendom which I conceive no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him It was also condescended to in the Name of the Pope that Marriage might be permitted to Priests that the Communion might be administred sub utraque specie and the Liturgy be officiated in the English Tongue And though the Author adds not long after that it was to be suspected that so far as the inferior Clergy and the People were concerned the after-performance was to be left to the Pope's discretion yet this was but his own suspicion without any ground at all And to obtain a Reconciliation on these Advantages the Archbishop had all the reason in the world to do as he did in ordering the Lord's Table to be set where the Altar stood and making the accustomed reverence in all approaches towards it and accesses to it and in beautifying and adorning Churches and celebrating Divine Service with all due Solemnities in taking Care that all offensive and exasperating Passages should be expunged out of all such Books as were brought to the Press and for reducing the extravagancy of some Opinions to an evener temper His Majesty had the like reason also for tolerating lawful Recreations on the Sundays and Holidays the rigorous restraint whereof had made some Papists think those most especially of the vulgar sort whom it most concerned that all honest Pastimes were incompatible with our Religion And if he approved auricular Confession and shewed himself willing to introduce it into the use of the Church as both our Authors say he did it is no more than what the Liturgy commends to the care of the Penitent though we find not the word Auricular in it and what the Canons have provided for in the point of security for such as shall be willing to Confess themselves But whereas we are told by one of our Authors that the King should say he would use force to make it be received were it not for fear of Sedition among the People yet it is but in one of our Authors neither who hath no other Author for it but a nameless Doctor And in the way to so happy an Agreement though they all stand accused for it by The English Pope p. 15 Sparrow may be excused for Pleading for Auricular Confession and Watts for Pennance Heylin for Adoration towards the Altar and Mountague for such a qualified Praying to Saints as his Book maintaineth against the Papists If you would know how far they had proceeded towards this happy Reconciliation the Pope's Nuntio will assure us thus That the Universities Bishops and Divines of this Realm did daily embrace Catholick Opinions though they professed not so much with Pen or Mouth for fear of the Puritans For example they held that the Church of Rome is a true Church that the Pope is Superior to all Bishops that to him it pertaineth to call General Councils that it 's lawful to Pray for the Souls of the Departed that Altars ought to be erected of Stone In sum that they believed all that is taught by the Church but not by the Court of Rome Another of their Authors tells us that those among us of greatest Worth Learning and Authority began to love Temper and Moderation that their Doctrines began to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the visible Church of Christ As for example The Pope not Antichrist Prayers for the Dead Limbus Patrum Pictures that the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture About Free Will Predestination Universal Grace that all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works inherent Justice that Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledge the authority of Traditions Commandments possible to be kept that in Exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers And that the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars are used willingly in their Talk and Writings In which Compliances so far forth as they speak the truth for in some Points through Ignorance of the one and Malice of the other they are much mistaken there is scarce any thing which may not well consist with the established though for a time discontinued Doctrine of the Church of England the Articles whereof as the same Jesuit hath observed seem patient or ambitious rather of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick And such a sence is put upon them by him that calls himself Franciscus à Sancta Clara as before was said And if upon such Compliances as those before on the part of the English the Conditions offered by the Pope might have been Confirmed who seeth not that the greatest benefit of the Reconciliation must have redounded to this Church to the King and People His Majesty's Security provided for by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance so far as it concerned his Temporal Power The Bishops of England to be Independent on the Pope of Rome The Clergy to be permitted the use of Marriage the People to receive the Communion in both Kinds and all Divine Offices officiated in the English Tongue no Innovation made in Doctrine but only in qualifying some Expressions and discharging some Outlandish Glosses that were put upon them And seeing this what Man could be so void of Charity so uncompassionate of the Miseries and Distractions of Christendom as not to wish from the very bottom of his Soul that the Reconciliation had proceeded on so good terms as not to magnifie the Men to succeeding Ages who were the Instrument Authors of so great a Blesâ—ing So far Dr. Heylin who was the Archbishop's Intimate and Agent Archbishop Laud's own words as laid down in his Book defended by Dr. Stillingfleet § 1. The Archbishop disclaimeth the Divine Institution and the Infallibility of General Councils But he thinks we must allow them external Obedience and that honour and priviledge which all other GREAT COURTS have that there be a Declaration of the invalidity of their Decrees as well as of the LAWS of other Courts before private Men can take Liberty to refuse Obedience Part. 3. c. 2. And page 540. It doth not follow because the Church may erre that therefore she may not govern For the Church hath not only a Pastoral Power to Teach and Direct but a Praetorian Power to controul and censure too where Errors and Crimes are against fundamental Points or of great Consequence Thus the Archbishop It is the Universal Church and Councils that he speaks of But 1. There is no such thing on Earth as he calls the Church that is One Universal Aristocracy that hath Power of Governing all the Christian World in one Council or otherwise as one Supream 2. General Councils of divers Kingdoms o're all the World are no more a Court than the Assembly at Nimeguen was 3. No Obedience is due to them but only consent for Concord so far as their Canons tend to true Concord
and that by virtue of Christ's Law for Peace and Concord Obedience hath no formal Object but Authoritatem Imperantis But Assemblies for Concord have no Imperium 4. No Clergyman as such hath any but Pastoral and Teaching Power and as a Tutor to order his own School The Power of the Keys is no other 5. Mens holding and renouncing of Communion with other Persons or Churches may be without Governing Power I am not Governor of all that I hold or renounce Communion with No Bishops have power Judicially to determine of Individuals who shall have Communion with every Parish Church on Earth If they have they must hear them all speak for themselves before they judge them in or out They are not Governors of foreign Kings and Kingdoms though in their Government of their particular Churches they must all agree to observe one Rule that is Christ's Laws 6. There never was an Universal Council of all the Churches but only of one Empire a part of that nor ever will be till the Church be so destroyed as to be brought into a narrow space which God forbid As to Dr. Stillingfleet's Defence of all this I take him not to approve of all that he blameth not And if he did I believe on second thoughts he will more retract this than he did his Irenicon Chap. X. Dr. Peter Heylin's own Judgment § 1. BEcause we come newly from repeating Dr. Heylin's words of Archbishop Laud though they fully shew his own Judgment I will â—â—ere annex some more 1. There is a Book written by a Papist called Historical Collections of the Reformation gathered most out of Dr. Heylin's own words and some â—ut of others describing the Reformers and Reformation so odiously as greatly serveth the Priests to turn Protestants to their Church And â—s the Jesuit Maymbourgh maketh Dr. Heylin's Writings to have Converted the late Dutchess of York it 's like it was this Collection out of him 2. In his Book on the Creed speaking of the Catholick Church he saith Pag. 407. Such is the Ambition of the Pope of Rome that unless he may be taken for the Catholick Church he passeth not for being reckoned a Church at all And yet this is of the two the Lovelier Error Better the Church be all Head than no Head at all And such a Church that is all Body and no Head at all have some of our Reformers modelled in their late Platforms Answ. Is Christ no Head at all Or is any other Person or Court capable of Governing all Christians on Earth All Protestants hold that the whole Church hath no Head but Christ. Pag. 408. Speaking still of the Catholick Church he saith The Government of the Church not being Monarchical as our Masters of the Church of Rome would have it nor Democratical as the Fathers of the Presbytery and Brethren of the Independency have given it out both in their Practice and their Platform it must be Aristocratical Answ. This is a gross Slander of the Presbyterians and Independents Did ever the Presbyterians or Independents say that All Christians on Earth must Govern the whole Church in one Meeting or by Delegates where be the Laws that any of them pretend all Christians made Or the Judgments they past on any Persons after exploration The Presbyterians are for an Aristocratical Government of National Churches and some few Independents are for popular Government in single Congregations but no further 2. Is the Church now Governed by One Aristocracy that is per Optimates that are One Persona Politica by Vote ruling all the Christian World Where is their Meeting What be their Laws Whom do they so try and judge An Universal Governing Aristocracy is more impossible and irrational than an Universal Monarchy Civil or Ecclesiastical Every Bishop and Presbytery Governing his own Church and these keeping Concord by just Correspondency is no liker an Universal Aristocracy than an Assembly of Princes for Concordant Government of their Dominions or than all the Mayors and Justices ruling their several Corporations and Provinces make the Government of England Aristocratical Pag. 409. Saith he Every Bishop where-ever he be fixt and resident hath like St. Paul an universal Care over all the Churches which since they could not exercise by personal Conferences they did it in the Primitive times before they had the benefit of General Councils by Letters Messengers and Agents for the Communicating of their Counsel and imparting their Advice one to another as the emergent Occasions of the Church did require the same These Letters they called Literas formatas Communicatorias Answ. Thus Bishop Gunning and others But 1. St. Paul's Apostolick Power enabled him to do the Work of an Apostle which is to plant Churches in as much of the World as they could and deliver them Christ's Doctrine and Laws infallibly as receiving them by sight and hearing or miraculous revelation And this Power each Apostle could exercise singly and not only by Voting as part of a College the Spirit of Christ teaching them all the same Doctrine But Bishops have no such Office or Power 2. There are several ways of expressing a Care of all the Churches Every Christian must do it by private Endeavours Every Official Preacher by Preaching where he is called Every Pastor by guiding his Flock in Concord with all true Christians in the things which Christ hath made necessary to their Concord And if Archbishops have right to a larger Province they must do it in their proper Province per partes not as one Aristocracy 3. It is granted that as all Christians and Bishops must have a Love to all the Churches and a Care to do them good in their several Places so Concord in things necessary is a great means of that good and the ancient Pastors endeavoured it by Messages Letters and Synods and so must we But what Universal Laws were made by Literae formatae What formal Judgments were past by them Where did the Writers meet first to hear the Accused and examine Witnesses Or must all believe the report of every single Pastor And was it all the Bishops on Earth or a major part that wrote these Legislative and Judicial Letters What strange things can some Men gather from meer Communion and Concord Bishops had then a Necessity of getting the common consent of as many of their Order as they could to make their Government of force to the People that were all Volunteers and not constrained by any Magistrate And it 's useful still to the same end 4. And we grant them that every Bishop and Presbyter that giveth counsel to other Churches doth not do it as a meer private Man but as a Bishop that is One that by Office is authorized to give such Pastoral advice to such as he is called to give it to But not as one that hath the charge of Governing other Mens Flocks or is a Member of an Aristocratical Supream Senate Parliament Court or Voting States Suppose each Hospital
have its allowed Physitian who in doubtful Cases consulteth with many others Their counsel is the counsel of Physitians that is of Men licensed for that Work and Care But it proveth them not to have any proper Governing Power over his Hospital or Patients 5. If every Bishop be a Governor not only in but of the whole World or Church it is either Singly or Collectively as part of a Governing Company If singly it 's a monstrous Body that hath so many thousand Universal Heads If collectively then no one is a Supream Governor but a part of that Body which is such And no one on Earth can act as such a part of One Aristocracy without presence with the rest hearing what they say and what Actors and Witnesses say and gathering Votes Pag. 411. He confesseth out of Socrates about the Emperors Power in Church Matters that from the time in which Emperors received the Faith Ecclesiae negotia ex eorum nutu pendere vis◠sunt Socr. l. 5. Proem And if so why is Mr. Morice angry with me for saying That Bishops used in Councils much to follow the Emperors minds 2. And then it will be but an odd Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraign Power over all the World which dependeth on the consent of so many Princes Protestants Papists Mahometans Heathens Jacobites Nestorians c. as a General Council must be called by or depend on And it will be an endless Controversie what Princes have or have not a Power to consent or dissent that their Subjects shall go to such Councils But also Consultation is not Government Chap. XI The Judgment of Mr. Herbert Thorndike a late Eminent Divine of the Church of England § 1. MR. Thorndike hath written so much on this Subject that I need no more than refer the Reader to his Books for the discovery of his mind The sum of his late Writings these thirty years past is to call us all into one visible Catholick Church which is unified by one Humane Government of all out of which nothing will excuse us from Schism or make our failing tolerable His arguments for an Universal Aristocracy answered by Dr. Izaak Barrow in the end of his Treatise of Supremacy I will not here recite because they are there so fully and learnedly confuted § 2. In his Just Weights and Measures he tells us that the Church of Rome being a true Church Reformation lyeth in Restoration and not in Separation Page 5. he saith Who will take upon him to shew us that the Worship of the Host in the Papists is Idolatry Page 6 7. They that separate from the Church of Rome as Idolaters are thereby Schismaticks before God For in plain terms we make our selves Schismaticks by grounding our Reformation on this pretence Should this Church declare that the Change which we call Reformation is grounded on this supposition I must then acknowledge that we are Schismaticks Ch. 2. Is to disprove them that make the Pope Antichrist and Papists Idolaters and shew that the supposition of one Catholick Visible Church is the ground of all Communion and supposed to Reformation And Ch. 3. Nothing to be changed but on that Ground of such Visible Unity Ch. 5. If our Lord trust his Disciples and their Successors with the Rule of his Church he trusteth them also to make Laws for the Ruling of it These Laws are as Visible as the Laws of any Kingdom or Common-wealth that is or ever was are Visible I maintain the Popes Canon Law and the same is to be said of the Canon Law by which the Patriarch of Constantinople now Governs the Eastern Church to be derived from those Rules whereby the Disciples of our Lord and their Successors governed the Primitive Church in Unity The power of Giving Laws to the Church the power of Dispensing the Exchequer which God hath provided for the Church are in the Governors of the Church and the power of admitting into and excluding out It 's a Visible Society founded by God under the Name of the Catholick Church on the command of holding Communion with it Page 41. The Church in the form which I state it is a standing Synod able by the consent of the Chief Churches containing the consent of their resorts to conclude the whole Page 48. The Church of Rome hath and ought to have when it shall please to hear reason a Regular pre-eminence over the rest of Christendom in these Western parts And he that is able to judge and willing to consider shall find that Pre eminence the Only Reasonable means to preserve so great a Body in Unity And therefore I am not my self tyed to justifie Henry the Eighth in disclaiming all such pre-eminence Page 48. That the difference may be visible between the Infinite and the Regular Power of the Pope Page 91. The perpetual Rule of the Church makes them Hereticks to the Church that Communicate with Hereticks and Schismaticks that Communicate with Schismaticks Page 94. The Flesh and Blood of Christ by Incarnation the Elements by Consecration being united to the Spirit that is the Godhead of Christ become both One Sacramentally by being both One with the Spirit or Godhead to the conveying of Gods Spirit to a Christian. Page 125. The worshipping the Host in the Papacy is not Idolatry Page 132. He saith that the Oath of Supremacy is but to exclude the Popes Temporal power But because the words seem to exclude the power of General Councils of which the Pope is and ought to be the chief Member of necessity the Law gives great offence And that offence is the sin of the Kingdom and calls for Gods Vengeance on it which though all are involved in the account in the other World will lye on them which may change it and will not Page 134. But the authority of those Divines of this Church who have declared the sence of the Oath of Supremacy with publick allowance are now alledged by the Papists themselves to infer that the matter of it is lawful as excluding only the Popes Civil Power Page 141. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ and by consequence his Spirit Hypostatically united to the same to inable us to perform Page 149. The Church of Rome cannot be charged with Idolatry The Pope cannot be Antichrist Ch. 22. The Reformation pretended is abominable and Apostasie and the usual Preaching a hinderance to Salvation and new Homilies to be formed to restrain Preaching Page 146. I confess I can hope for no good end of any dispute without supposing the sence of the Articles of One Catholick Church which hath carried us through this discourse for the Principle on which all matter in debate is to be tryed P. 214. And oft he professeth that Presbyters not ordained by Bishops baptize and give the Eucharist void of the Effect of a Sacrament and only by Sacriledge speaketh against killing and and banishing But this will require the like Moderation to be extended to the
a Vice-God or his Deputy to Rule all the World For sure he never dreamed that all Kings and States on Earth would meet or voluntarily agree to chuse one Universal King over them I met newly with an extraordinary Wit who saith that after the Conflagration in the Millennium of the New Heaven and Earth Christ or his Vice-Roy will triumphantly Rule c. But 1. I never read before of a Vice-Roy after the Conflagration which he saith will first consume Antichrist 2. I know not how much of the New World he assigns to this Vice-Roy's Government for if Gog and Magog after cover the Earth and the New Generation be numerous which he thinks the Earth will bring forth like lower Animals it may be the New Jerusalem may be so small that one Vice-Roy may Rule it 3. But sure that holy Generation will make Government and Obedience far easier things than now they are Chap. XIV Dr. Saywell's Arguments for a Foreign Jurisdiction considered § 1. THis Dr. who I may well suppose speaketh his Lord and Masters sence is so open as to let us know 1. That it is the Popes Power above General Councilâ— which they call Popery 2. And that they join with the conciliar Party in point of Church Government and so take not them for Papists who hold not that Soveraignty of the Pope but only his Primacy 3. That it is but the Jesuited Party of the Church of Rome which they renounce 4. That they also renounce all Nonconforming Protestants as a Jesuited Party So that he would tempt us to believe what some affirm that their design hath long been to subdue the Jesuits and Reformed Churches or rather destroy these and to strike up a Union with the French and maintain that they are no Papists as to Government But though the Power of old Protestants in England were never so much subdued to them methinks the Jesuits Interest in France should resist them unless the Jesuits themselves be as some vainly think faln out with the Pope and then it will be the Jesuited Party which these Men will own § 2. But to his Arguments Page 342. Mr. B. saith I have earnestly desired and searched to know tâ—e proof of such a Legislative Vniversal Power and I cannot find it But if Mr. B. would seriously consider these Texts he might find that obedience is due to the Church Mat. 18. If he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen Man and a Publican Now as one private Man may neâ—lect to hear the Episcopal Church to which he belongs so the Episcopal Provincial and National Church may also prove Heretical and neglect to hear the Catholick Church but the Vniversal Church can never faâ—l for the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it And if more Persons or particular Churches give offence by Heresie Schism c. the Church Vniversal or the rest of the Bishops may reprove them for it and then there is no reason why one Man should be censured and many go frâ—e and consequently our Saviour hath established the Authority of his Church over all Christians as well particular Churches as private Men. Ans. 1. Let us try this Argument by the like God hath commanded obedience to Kings and said He that will not hear the King and Judge shall be put to death But Kings and their Kingdoms may be Criminal And if private men must obey Authority or be put to death so must Kings and Kingdoms Why should they escape Therefore all Kings and Kingdoms must obey One Universal Humane King or Kingdom under Christ. Do you think this is true No There is no such Universal Humane Empire Monarchical or Aristocratical No Mortal Men are capable of it any more than of Ruling the World in the Moon or the Fish in the Sea but of a part only So there is no such Universal Church Power but particular there is As to your reason I answer God is the Universal King and he only is the punisher of all Soveraign Powers whether Monarchs Aristocracies or Mixt. which I have ever asserted though the Lying Spirit hath feigned the contrary God hath several ways to Rule and Judge them here and his final Judgment is at hand And the case is like with National Churches save that their own Princes may punish offending Clergy-men 2. One Person or Nation may renounce Communion with another as Heretical without any Ruling Power over them And the other may do the same by them deserving it Am I a Governor or Legislator over every one that I may refuse to eat or pray with as a Brother 3. That there is no Humane Universal Church which hath power to Govern a National Church as the Bishops may their Flocks is proved 1. They cannot have the Authority who have not so much as a Natural Capacity But none have a Natural Capacity to Govern all the Christian World Ergo none have such Authority 2. They have not the Authority who have not the Obligation to use it in such Government For an Office containeth Authority and Obligation But none are obliged to Govern all the Christian World Ergo c. For the Minor 1. None are obliged to Impossibilities But c. 2. None are obliged without some obliging Law But there is no Law obliging any to Govern all the Christian World Ergo. 3. If they are obliged they are condemned if they do it not But none do Rule all the Christian World He confesseth none have done it since the sixth General Council that is these thousand years and more by one And doth he not Damn the Bishops of all the World then for neglecting their great Duty a thousand years together If he say that Others made Canons enough before I answer 1. If they have had no such work to do these thousand years then there was no Office or Obligation or Power to do it 2. It was then only those that made the Laws that had that Soveraignty The Dead are no Rulers and so the Church hath had no Soveraign since 2. If he say They since Ruled by the old Laws I answer 1. That was not by Legislation but Execution 2. They never Ruled the Universal Church as one Soveraign Power by the old Laws but only per partes in their several Provinces as Justices and Mayors Rule the Kingdom without Soveraignty Arg. 3 That which never was claimed till the Papal Usurpation was not instituted by God But a Soveraign Government of the Univeâ—sal Church on Earth was never claimed till the Papal Usurpation Ergo. That Councils were only General as to one Empire and called only in one Empire and pretended to Govern that Empire and not all the World I have fully proved against Johnson Arg. 4. Those that must Rule all the Christian World must teach them For the Pastoral Government is by the Word But no one Person or Aristocracy are the Teachers of all the World Who have pretended to it but the Papacy Arg.
true as it is not which you say How shall all Christians know it to be true When such as I with all our searching cannot know it yea are past doubt that it is false It 's like you 'll say It is our obstinacy And so all shall be Schismaticks and condemned with you whom you are pleased to call obstinate for escaping that Ignorance which would better serve your Ends. § 7. Dr. S. But Mr. B. objecteth That the Nestorians Jacobites Abassines c. renounce some of the six Councils yes three of the six They had a personal Veneration for the Persons of Nestorius and Dioscorus and did believe them when they said that the Councils were mistaken in Matter of Fact and Condemned them for Opinions which they did not own and thereupon did reject those Councils But they did not then nor do not at this day reject the Catholick Faith and the Rules of Christian Unity which are contained in the six General Councils So that in effect they own them For the principal thing required is to profess the true Faith and hold the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness which those Churches do in that they own the Nicene and C. P. Councils and deny not the Doctrine of the other four Answ. Do you think that none of your Readers will see how much you here overthrow or give up your Cause 1. If holding the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness will serve while they renounce the Councils as erroneous and tyrannical and holding the same Faith and Doctrine will serve what have you been Pleading for we are for all this as well as you 2. And if the Council may erre in Matter of Fact which may be known by common sence and reason how much more may they erre in matter of right and supernatural Revelation as the Articles of the Church of England say they have done 3. You confess here that Men may reject three or four of your six Councils and yet be no Schismaticks but hold Faith Unity and Peace And are the other two more necessary than all the rest You say They hold the two first Answ. They hold not the Infallibility of Councils nor that they may not be rejected when they erre nor that we may not be discerning Judges when they erre For all this is renounced in their renouncing all save two or three 4. You say They reject not the Rules of Christian Vnity Answ. Therefore they judged not the Decrees of Councils to be that necessary Rule Else the Decrees of those renounced by them would be as necessary as the rest 5. It 's apparent by this that they held the same with those Councils not because of the Authority of those Councils but on other Grounds For it is not possible that they who renounced the Councils should believe the Christian Faith on their Authority They believed it as a Divine Revelation fide Divina and so do we 6. And dare you say that a Man that believeth the same things because they are revealed by God in his Word shall be damned unless he believe them fide humana because a General Council decreed them 7. Did your other Councils add any Decrees to the first If not what need of believing any thing as theirs If yea then receiving the Decrees of the two first is not a receiving the Decrees of the later 8. And on whose Authority did Christians believe the first 300 years before there was any General Council § 8. Dr. S. P. 346. Obj. Did the Catholick Church die or cease after the sixth General Council Answ. The Essence of the Catholick Church doth not consist in the being of a Council Their meeting is but an external means for better declaring the Catholick Faith and holding mutual Correspondence between the several Churches Ans. 1. Still you are constrained to destroy your own Cause You confess then that Councils are no constitutive Governing part of the Church as a Governed Society And if so it hath some other Humane constitutive Regent part or none If none we are so far agreed This is it that we contend for If any other you must come to your Lords College of the diffused Pastors who never made Law never heard a Cause or judged out of Council to this day nor possibly can do 2. What is this that you call an external means of Correspondence Is it a necessary Supream Legislative and Judicial Power or not If it be it must be a constitutive Essential part of the Church as Political For every Politick Society is informed by such And you argued before that Nations must be under such as well as Dioceses under Diocesans If not habetur quaesitum 3. And because your former words assert an Vniversal Soveraignty I wonder how any of common reason can think this necessary to the whole Christian World during the few Years that those two or six first Councils sate and never before nor after Are dead Men our Governors VVill a Power of Governing never exercised serve for a Thousand Years last and 300 before and not for the other 300 Or hath the Church had one Form of Government for 200 or 300 Years and another for all the other 1300 And when you tell us that Kingdoms must be judged as well as single Persons did those first Councils judge all the sinning Kingdoms since If you own no Councils since the first Six all Kingdoms that have sinned these 1000 Years had no such Judges And what Councils or other Church Power save the Popes judged the many Southern and Eastern Countries that revolted Or the Western Nations in their various Changes and Crimes Must we have such an Uuniversal Judge now who never judged any these 1000 Years 4. Your Lord saith at last that they are Mutable Laws which Councils make If so why must we needs obey the six Councils that were 1000 Years ago under another Prince May not 1000 Years time and another King's Government make a Change in the Matter and Reason of the Law If you say it stands till another General Council change it I answer 1. VVhat Council abrogated the 20th Nicene Canon against Kneeling on the Lord's Day in adoration and many such other 2. Then if ever there was a General Council it's Decrees are immutable and so you contradict your selves For it 's certain there never will be a General Council to abrogate what is done till all the VVorld be under one Christian Monarch 5. The Laws of England bind us not now as the Laws of the Kings and Parliaments that are dead that is not by Virtue of their Authority though made by them But as the Laws of the present Legislative Powers who own them and rule by them and can abrogate them when they will And when the Canon-makers are dead 1000 Years ago where now is the Ruling Power whose Laws those are There is no General Council to own them nor ever will be A thousand Years sure
not too distant may for mutual help and Concord meet in Councils And none should needlesly break their just Agreements because of the general Command of Concord But 1. They hold that these Councils be no representers of all the Christian World 2. Nor have any Universal Jurisdiction 3. Nor any true Governing Power at all over the absent or dissenters but an Agreeing Power 4. And if they pretend any such Power they turn Usurpers 5. And if on pretence of Concord they make Snares or Decree things that are against the Churches Edification Peace or Order or against the Word of God none are bound to stand to such Agreements These being the Judgment of Protestants what do these Men but abuse their words of Reverence to Councils and Submission to their Contracts as if they were for their Universal Soveraign Jurisdiction § 13. And next he saith Whereas Mr. B. doth usher in his Discourse with an intimation that this was only a Doctrine of the Gallican Church he cannot but know that this was the sence of the Church of England in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign Answ. 1. I honour the Gallican Papists above the Italian but I am satisfied that both do erre 2. There is a double untruth in Matter of Fact in your words 1. That I cannot but know that which I cannot know or believe 2. That yours was the sence of the Church of England which I have disproved But what is your proof D. S. For the 20th Article saith The Church hath Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith and the next Article doth suppose this Authority in General Councils Answ. The Church of England supposeth that Kingdoms should be Christian and the Magistrates and Pastors Power so twisted as that their Conjunction may best make Religion national as it was with the Jews But it never owned a foreign Jurisdiction or the Governing Power of the Subjects of one Kingdom over the Princes and People of another It followeth not that because the Church in England may Decree some Rites here that therefore foreign Churches may command us to use their Rites Our own Church Teachers no doubt have Authority in Controversies of Faith that is to teach us what is the truth and to keep Peace among Disputers but not to bind us to believe any thing against God's Word and therefore not meerly because it 's their Decree Therefore the Article cautelously calls the Church only a Witness and Keeper of holy Writ which we deny not And that besides Scripture they ought not to enforce any thing to be believed for Necessity to Salvation But you would have us believe the Soveraign Universal Jurisdiction of Councils yea and the lawfulness of all your Oaths and Impositions as necessary to escape damning Schism and is not that as necessary to Salvation 2. And one would think there needed no more than the next Articles to confute you which you cite as for you They knew that there had been Imperial General Councils which being gathered and authorized by the Emperors had the same Power in the Empire that National Councils have with us or in other Nations But there 's not a syllable of any Jurisdiction that they have out of the Empire Yea contrary it 's said 1. That they may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And therefore cannot Govern them without their Will nor have any Conciliar Power being no Council And one King cannot command the Subjects of another Indeed if Princes will make themselves Subjects to a Council or Pope who can hinder them 2. They are here declared to be Men not all governed by the Spirit and Word of God and such as may erre and have erred in things pertaining to God Therefore their meer Contracts and Advice are no further to be obeyed than they are governed by the Spirit and Word of God which we are discerning Judges of And it is concluded that things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture So that even their Expositions of the Articles of Faith which you make their chief Work hath no further Authority than it 's declared to be taken out of the Scripture it self nor yet their decision of the sence of controverted Texts And such proof must be received from a single Man § 14. Such another proof he fetcheth from the Statute 1 Eliz. c. 1. Forbidding to judge any thing Heresie but what hath been so judged by Authority of Canonical Scripture or the first four General Councils or any of them or any other General Councils Answ. As if forbidding private Heretication were the same with the Universal Soveraignty of Councils we are of the same Religion with all true Christians in the World and we are for as much Concord with all as we can attain But is Concord and Subjection all one or Contract and Government § 15. The like Inference he raiseth from a Canon 1571. forbidding any new Doctrine not agreeable to the Scripture and such as the Ancient Fathers and Bishops thence gathered Answ. And what 's this to an Universal Church Soveraignty § 16. The Church of England's Sence is better expounded Reform Leg. Eccles. c. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta Ut tamen ex eorum sententia de sacris literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Christianae doctrinae Regulae esse Judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes Lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit § 17. D. S. P. 358. Mr. B. saith The doubt is whom you will take for good Christians into your Communion But this can be no doubt when I except only the Jesuited part of the Roman and other Churches Answ. So you take in the Church of Rome which you cannot do without taking in the pretended Soveraignty Essential to it Was not that Church Papal before there were any Jesuites But hold Dr. It 's France that you are first Uniting with and they say that the Jesuites are there the Predominant part And are you against them there § 18. P. 360. He takes it ill that I suppose him to separate from the Church of England I have fully given him here my proof The Church of England took not it self for a part of an Universal humane Political Church But his Church doth and is thereby of another Political Species as a City differeth from a Kingdom I will not tire the Reader with following him any further Vain Contenders necessitate us to be over tedious § 19. I am loth here to answer the rest of his Book against our Nonconformity 1. Because I would not follow them that
decoy and divert Men from the state of our chief Controversie to hide their Design 2. Because it seemeth to me to be of no use He that will not read impartially what we say as well as they will never be cured of his Errours by any thing that we can write And he that will impartially read but my first Plea for Peace Apology and Treatise of Episcopacy and take this Book to be a Satisfactory answer shall never be troubled by my Replyes no more than the distracted § 20. This much I shall presume to say lest he expect some account of his Success upon my self I. That when he tells the Reader at last of my Concessions as if I scarce differed from them save by not giving over Preaching when forbidden they do but shew how charitable and humble they are in their Domination who yet can hardly suffer such Men alive out of Jail much less to preach who come so near them II. That when he tells us that the Presbyterian Cause is given up and yet their Party make the name of Presbyterian odious to them but not to us the Engine of their reproachful malice this seemeth not to me to come from the Spirit of Christ. III. That when this whole Book pretendeth to confute us and scarce once that I find in all the Book truely stateth the case of our difference but still silenceth or falsly representeth the points which we judge sin yea heinous sin such a Deceiving Volume seemeth not to me to beseem a Bishop or his Amanuensis or Chaplain IV. That when he tells us what pitiful proof he hath for the justification of their Silencing and Ruining ways and yet how extream confident he is it maketh me wish Christians to pray yet harder that Christ would save his Church from such Bishops I will now stay but to instance in that which they say the Bishop hath some peculiarity in viz. Our Assent to the Rubrick about the Salvation of dying Baptized Infants Reader I have reason to believe that it is the Bishop as well as Dr. Saywell that speaketh to me And 1. He dealeth more ingenuously than they that on pretence of Assenting to the use say that we are not to Assent to the Truth of this as a Doctrine of Religion He professeth the contrary and that Assent to this is required as well as to the Catechism 2. He seeketh not their Evasion that make not the phrase Vniversal but Indefinite For he knew 1. That in re necessaria which he takes this to be an Indefinite is equal to an Universal And 2. That a quatenus ad omne valet consequentia And the assertion is of Infants quâ Baptized 3. It is a certainty mentioned by Tautology that must be by every Minister professed It is certain by the Word of God that they are undoubtedly saved Here we ask them two things or three 1. VVhether none should be a Minister of Christ who cannot truely profess this undoubted Certainty 2. VVhether almost all the Learned Writers and Ministers of the Reformed Churches should be Silenced that hold the contrary 3. But specially what be the words of God here meant which express this undoubted certainty They confess that God saith Deut. 12.32 Thou shalt not add thereto nor take ought there-from and concludeth the Bible with If any Man add to these things God shall add to him the Plagues that are written in this Book We tell them we dare not venture on such a dreadful Curse This cannot be one of their things indifferent Therefore before we profess our Assent that this is undoubtedly certain by the Word of God they will shew us so much compassion as to tell us where to find that Word of God And after all our intreaty even my own to the Bishop he giveth us by his Chaplain but this one Text of Scripture Gal. 3.27 As many of you as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ. Reader is here one word of the certain undoubted Salvation of dying baptized Infants without exception 1. Here is no mention of baptizing Infants and it 's usual with this sort of Men to say That we cannot prove Infant Baptism by Scripture but only by Tradition or the authority of the Church 2. This Text most certainly speaketh of the Adult And will not these Drs. believe St. Peter himself who told Simon when he was Baptized Thou hast no part nor lot in this matter For thy heart is not right in the sight of God Thou art yet in the gall of bitterness and bond of iniquity If they say that Simon had been saved if he had died as soon as he was Baptized and that he fell to that false Heart and gall of bitterness after who will take such Drs words in despight of the evident truth His Friend Grotius more modestly expoundeth Gal. 3.27 Sicut à baptismo vesies sumuntur ita vos Promisistis vos induturos Christum id est victuros secundum Christi regulam Do these Men believe that all Infidels and Hypocrites shall be saved if they die as soon as they are Baptized Or do they think that none such may be and are Baptized The very words before the Text are Ye are all the Children of God by Faith in Christ Jesus And Christ saith He that believeth and is Baptized shall be saved and he that believeth not shall be damned And yet they bring us no Text for their new Article of Faith but one which will as much prove the Salvation of all dying baptized Hypocrites and Vnbelievers as of all dying Infants As if none came in without the Wedding Garment or such were in a state of Life I must profess that I cannot see should I subscribe this how I could escape the guilt of Heresie being liable to the foresaid Curse and Plagues of adding to the Word of God by saying that Gods Word speaketh this certain and undoubted Salvation of dying Baptized Infants as such without Exception Yet if we would all conform to all their Oaths Covenants and Impositions besides we must all be cast out and forbid to preach the Gospel if we durst not Assent to this one Article Such is the mercy of these Men And all is justified as for sound Doctrine which we are ignorant of and these Masters are the Judges whom we must believe Yet note that though when he got the Church of England to pass this Article he put not in the least Exception and the Canon forbids the refusing Baptism to any Child that is offered to it yet now he limits it to all Children seriously offered by any that have power to educate them in that profession And as it is not the Parent that must be the Promiser nor is suffered to be so much as one of the Godfathers or Sureties for his Child so by this little limitation what a dreadful brand of perfidious Covenanting with God doth he six on our common English Baptism For sure it is not the confident talk
have no right to Salvation presently on their Baptism then it is not lawful to say that the contrary is undoubtedly certain by the Word of God But I confess Mr. D's Proposition is false as I have formerly proved to him And perhaps necessity will force himself to deny it as to Baptism though it overthrow his assertion about Ordination Specially if he be for Laymen and Womens Baptizing as the Papists are in case of danger But the Name of the Church will warrant such Lords to prove all such Declarations Subscriptions Oaths not only sinless but necessary to Order Peace Obedience Ministry and I think to Salvation For they make Schism Damning and such Obedience necessary to escape Schism But he hath one cleanly shift Though the Corporation Declaration be that there is no Obligation from the Covenant on me or any other person and a Man think that some are obliged by it against Schism Popery and Prophaneness and to repent of Sin He saith no Man is forced to take these Declarations Vestry Oaths c. For he may chuse and none constraineth him to be in Corporation trust or a Vestry-man and so a Minister so the Act was to appropriate this sweet Morsel of so Swearing declaring c. to themselves And to themselves let it be appropriated for me And yet when all the Corporations Vestries and Ministry are constituted as they are this is the necessary Unity But Obedience to the Church solveth all I once askt a Convocation man what were the Words of God by which this Article was proved and past in the Convocation and he could not name me any Text that perswaded the Convocation to pass it but told me Dr. P. Guning urged it so hard that they yielded to him without much contradiction I was not willing to believe that the Church of England would pass an Article of Faith against their Judgments to avoid striving with one man when in imposing it they must strive against and silence thousands and condemn most of the Reformed Churches but rather that really they contradicted him not because they thought as he And yet I was loth to think them so uncharitable as to put all Ministers to declare such a thing to be in the Word of God and never tell them where to find it Between both what to think I know not But if really Dr. G. was the Church the reverence of his Name Church shall never make me add to the Word of God or corrupt his Ordinance nor subscribe to his Book or to a Foreign Jurisdiction if he Father it on the Church The main strength of all his condemnations of us and justifications of himself is that They are the Church and our lawful Rulers and we must obey and be Sworn never to endeavour any alteration of Church Government not excepting Church depopulation by large Dioceses nor the use of the Keys by Lay Chancellors And if you ask for the proof of all this and that they are not Vsurpers nor Church-destroyers nor Subverters of Episcopacy it self nor grand Schismaticks you must be content with 1. Ipse dixit and 2. Episcopacy is ancient 3. And the people have neither an Electing or necessary Consenting Vote and yet when not only Mr. Clerkson and I but also Dr. Burnet have fully proved that for twelve hundred or thirteen hundred years the peoples Consent was requisite these great dependents on Antiquity and the Church can wash all off with a torrent of words If the Letters in the Caballa and other History be credible how great a hand had G. Duke of Buckingham in making the Church of England in his days Read but what Heylin saith of Bishop Laud's preferment and the Letters of some Bishops to Buckingham in the Caballa and judge what made the Church of England How basely do they sneak and beg of him for Preferment◠e. g. Theophilus Bishop of Landaffe is a most miserable Man if his Grace help him not to a better Bishoprick Mountagues place at Norwich was of little worth since Henry the Eighth stole the Sheep and scarce for God's sake gave the trotters as he saith in his Letter to Laud. And this was the way So the Church of England is Jure Divino made by the Civil Powers But yet a few words can prove just as he proveth all the rest that the Dean and Chapiter chuse the Bishops and not the King As Heathens made Images of the Gods and thought the Gods did actuate them so men make the Images of Bishops and Councils and some Spirits actuate them whatever they be whether those Noble Lords Knights and Gentlemen that at their death lamented that they lived Atheists and Infidels repented that as Patrons they chose Parish Church men I know not But while these Drs know that many Great Councils have decreed the nullity of those Bishops that got in by Secular help and favour and Damned the Seekers and Accepters of it and yet would perswade the Church that all Gods Word is insufficient for Universal Laws without the addition of Soveraign Councils I will regard them as they deserve and not as they expect Why answer they not my late Book of English Nonconformity The True Sum. Popery is I. The turning a National Univerglity or Catholicism of Councils Church Power into a Terrestrial Universality II. Turning Confederacy and Communion into Political Regency III. Deponing Kings and States from their Sacred office of Supream Government and sole forcible Government of the Church or Persons and things Ecclesiastical the Clergy having only the Power of the Keys Word and Sacraments to work on Conscience without corporal face Chap. XV. The first Letter to Bishop Peter Guning upon his sending me Dr. Saywell's Book My Lord I Thankfully received from you by Dr. Crowther Dr. Saywell's Book and a motion for Conference with him which I yet more thankfully accept I read over the Book presently and think it meet to give you this account of the Success I. 1. I perceive that it doth not concern me nor many if any that I converse with For it is Presbyterians Separatists Quakers and Fanaticks that he accuseth and I am conversant with few such 2. And yet the strein of his Book is such as will make Readers undoubtedly think that by Presbyterians and Nonconformists or Conventiclers he meaneth the same Persons and speaketh of the common Case of the present ejected silenced Ministers Of whom I must again and again say 1. That I have had opportunity by Acquaintance and Report of knowing a great part of the silenced Ministers of England and I know but of few of them that are Presbyterians and Judge most of them to be Episcopal Lawyers and Gentlemen indeed incline to place all the Government in the King and Magistrates 2. That in 1661. when we were Commissioned to endeavour Concord with you not only those named in the Commission but all the Ministers of London were invited by Mr. Calamy and Dr. Reinolds and Mr. 〈◊〉 and Dr. Wallis
must believe e. g. In Abassia Egypt Syria c. they will be bound to believe one thing and at Constantinople another c. Those called now Nestorians are by Travellers said to own none of that Heresie but to Condemn the Council of Chalcedon and Eph. 1. for wronging Nestorius as Innocent did them that condemned Chrysostome Those called Jacobites and Eutychians are said to have no more of the Heresie but to condemn the said Chalcedon Council for wronging Dioscorus and to own the second Ephesine Council some will be bound to be for Images in Churches and some against them some for Constantinople and some for Rome's Supremacy and all in their Countries to be Papists for their Pastors tell them that the Catholick Church is on their side yea in the same Country as in England some must be for Arminianism as it is called and some against it some for the imputation of Christ's righteousness and some against it some for free Prayer in the Pulpit and some against it c. For on both sides their differing Pastors plead the Authority of the Church Few Christians can thus agree in any thing but Christ's plain Laws which I shewed are the terms of Concord If we must appeal from particular Pastors to whom is it If to Councils to whom must we appeal from disagreeing Councils If to the whole Church on Earth how shall we hear from them and know their mind I never saw nor knew any Man that saw any literas formatas subscribed by all Bishops scattered through the Earth 5. You that are Zealous against Popery I presume would not have me be a Papist But I cannot avoid it if I receive your Doctrine that there is a Church-Power in a Council or College of Pastors to Govern the Universal Church and that none are in the Church nor have the Spirit that obey not this Universal Church of Pastors and that to obey them is the only means or terms of Concord For 1. I then yield them the fundamental difference That there is one Universal summa Potestas or Visible Head Collective under Christ. 2. And if so I cannot deny it to be the Pope as the Principium Vnitatis and the Chief Executor of the Laws and the first Bishop in Councils For Councils are rare and the Church is a Church when there are no Councils And the Pope is a known Person and Rome a known Place and accessible and no other pretendeth to this Power that I know of And the Executive Power must be Constant And any other Supream accessible College is unknown to me and all that I can speak with and I can no more obey them than a College of Angels unknown to me If the Church have a visible Vicarious Supream the Pope is likest to be he as to the constant Executive Power and the President of Councils I suppose you take the Councils of Constance and Basil and the French for Papists though they set a Council above the Pope 6. The World hath no Universal Civil Government under God neither a Monarch nor a College or Council of Kings All the World is Governed by Men per partes in their several Dominions as all England is under the King by all the Mayors Bailiffs and Justices But there is no Council of Justices that are One Vniversal Governour Collective Nor is the Dyet of Princes or any Council of Kings one Supream Government of the Earth A Logical universality there is as all Rulers considered notionally rule all the World by Parts but no Political Head or Universal Governour over the whole whom all the Parts must obey I. If now I am in the right and you mistaken then you wrongfully deny the Spirit Church-Membership and consequently Salvation as well as Concord to all Protestants that ever I knew or read who deny a visible Universal Church Head Personal or Collective And I think to most in the World And what Schism that is I need not say II. If I am in the wrong I am no Christian nor Church Member nor can be saved For you say This Body so governed only hath the Spirit And I cannot help it not knowing possibly how to know 1. Who this College is 2. What Councils 3. Or which be the Laws which I must obey 4. Nor with what degree of Obedience 5. Nor that they have such Power How great need have I then earnestly to beg your speedy help for my Information Which will oblige Your Servant Ri. Baxter Decemb. 27. 1679. Chap. XVII The Third Letter to Bishop Guning To the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Ely My Lord THough in Conference I told you the Sense which I had of your words yet judging it my duty to think of them over and over again I also judge it my duty in Writing to leave with you the sum of such a Judgment as I am able to pass on them on my best Consideration leaving it now to your self whether you will by word or writing return any further Answer my hopes of Satisfaction thereby being very low The sum of your Speech which I am concerned in is as followeth I. That certainly a Supream Vicarious Governing Power there is in the Bishops by Christ's Institution 1. Because it is Prophesied Isai. 60.12 That the Nation and Kingdom that will not serve the Church shall perish And the word Church is never put for Christ. 2. And the Apostles only were admitted by Christ to his last Supper and so the Power of Administring that Sacrament till Christ come is given only to them and such as they shall give that Power to 3. And it was not Paul and Barnabas that had the infallible judgment of that Case decided Act. 15. but the College of the Apostles II. That this Supream Vicarious Governing Power over the whole Church on Earth is 1. In all the Christian Bishops of the World 2. And the Major part goeth for the whole 3. And General Councils are their Representatives and so have this Power 4. And that to such Councils it is enough that all be called though all be not there 5. And it is their reception by the Church Vniversal which must prove their Vniversal Power and the Obligation of their Laws 6. And though the Vniversality of Bishops be not always in such a Council they have always that Power which in Councils is to be used as the Judges out of Term time 7. And that if I or any will publish a Heresie we shall know where that Church is by their Censure 8. But as Promulgation is necessary to the Obligation of Laws so many that never can or do hear of the foresaid Vniversal Church-Governing Power or what their Laws are or what is the sence of them may be saved without them by the reading of the Word as many that have not the Scriptures may be saved without them And this you say answers three parts of my last Papers 9 Of these General Councils it is only six that you own as such
except two Churches for the second Age and more no Bishops distinct from Archbishops but Parochial and I described them at large 2. But though Cyprian and the Carthage Council said Nemo nostrum se dicit Episcopum Episcoporum yet I deny not such as may be called Archbishops Would you but restore Parish Churches or at least make true Discipline a practicable thing I should never quarrel against your Government 3. I still tell you that I am for Councils and that as large when requisite as they can well be made And Pastors there agreeing oblige us to obey their true Authority far before a single Pastor's For it is Authoritas Doctoris and it is Discipuli Obedientia that is due And a Teacher's Authority is founded in his Credibility and that on his Skill Oportet discentem credere And a thousand Historians Philosophers Physitians agreeing oblige me to greater belief than a single one And a Dissenters singularity obligeth me to suspition and suspension of my belief Besides that God bindeth us to do his work in as much Love and Concord as we can And the Canons or Agreements of Councils when Just do determine the Matter of that Concord 4. But that which I still repeat to you is that I deny the being of any such Church as you tell me I must necessarily obey That is one Ruling Ministerial College of Pastors over the whole Christian World I remember no Protestants that own such a thing but you and some such of late Mr. Thorndike and Mr. Dodwell do imply it but they speak not fully out What an unedifying way of Discourse is it for you so Copiously to call out for our Obedience when we only desire you to prove that there is any such Governing College to obey I deny the subject of your Question and you largely prove the Predicate If you would spend many hours to tell me I must obey Gabriel the Angel as the Ruler of this Kingdom I only beg of you to prove that he is such a Ruler and then to tell me how I shall know his Mind will your Exhortation to Obedience profit me VI. Your Copious instances of difficult Texts of Scripture that need a sure Exposition are no Proof to me that Ergo There is a College of all the Bishops on Earth that must be the Expositor I told you the Eunuch Act. 8. was not so resolved of the sence of Isai. 53. It was not the Ancient way A single Teacher may resolve a Doubter by Expository Evidence An agreeing Provincial or National Council may do more without knowing the Mind of all the World And many Texts will be difficult when all the World have done their best VII But you urge that no Scripture is of private Interpretation A. 1. All is not Private Interpretation which is made by Persons Pastors or Councils which are not a College authorized to Rule all the Christian World or Church If it be 1. I confess I never received one Article of my Faith or Exposition of one Text of Scripture aright For I never believed one of them upon the Authoritative-Ruling-Judicial-Vniversal Power of all Bishops on Earth as an authorized College 2. And I know not one Man living then that expoundeth not Scripture by Private Interpretation 3. And I know not that any one these Fifteen hundred Years have not done the same 2. And it is certain that there is no Commentary on the Scripture yet written by the Universal College of Bishops And it 's harder to deliver it down by Memory than by Writing Therefore all Scripture is in this sence of Private Interpretation yea such Councils as are called General have expounded little more than the Articles of the Creed with sad dissention as to their Votes But I confidently think that you follow a wrong Exposition of the Text and that it speaketh not of an Efficient Interpretation but an Objective a Passive and not an Active Q. d. you must not interpret Scripture Prophecies narrowly and privately as if they spake but of such or such a private Person that was but a present typical object of them For holy Men spake as moved by the Spirit which looked farther and meant Christ to come e. g. you know how many Prophecies are meant of David and Solomon proximately and of Christ ultimately And you know what Grotius thinks of the proximate sence of A Virgin shall bring forth a Son And of Isa. 53 c. which yet ultimately by the Holy Ghost is meant of Christ and whether the Prophet himself knew it always many doubt Josias or Jeremy may be meant as types and yet Christ Principal as typified when David saith My God why hast thou forsaken me They pierced my hands and my feet They divided my garments among them and cast lots for my vesture c. and so many Texts cited by St. Matthew these are to have no Private Interpretation as of the private Persons only the first Objects for the Holy Ghost intended them to be Prophecies of Christs when you bring me any Literae formatae from all the Bishops on Earth for another sence the reverence of their Concord will do much to make me forsake this Just so the Papists and too many others distort that 1 Tim. 3.15 which I wonder that I heard not from you when the Text plainly calleth the Church The House of the living God and telleth Timothy how to behave himself in it as a Pillar and Basis of the Truth it is but putting The Pillar for a Pillar and then saying that it is not the title of Timothy but of the Church and so it becometh useful to some mens Opinions Therefore still that which I am more confirmed in by your failing to prove your Affirmative is That there never was instituted and never was existent and is not now existent in the World any one Ecclesiastical Ruling Persona Collectiva Civilis or Governour authorized by Christ to Rule under him all the Christian World that is all the Church by Legislation and Judgment or either of them and to Constitute the Vniversal Church visible as one by relation to that One Governour Especially that all the Bishops on Earth Governing per literas formatas never were nor are such a Power nor yet as Congregate in an Universal Council If such a College of all Bishops on Earth ruling all the Christians on Earth by Consent be the Church which you mean that all must obey that will have Concord I say There is no such Church on Earth nor ever will be before the Day of Judgment After all this sure you cannot mistake the Question 1. It is only of an Ecclesiastical Power by the Word and Keys 2. It is not whether all Bishops ruling by Parts in their several Provinces and keeping Concord in convenient Meetings or Councils may be said to Govern all the Church as all the Magistrates in England Govern all England in Subordination to the King But it is of One Persona Ecclesiastica
Sects were at first Members of these Episcopal Churches and received both their Baptism in them and all the Orders they received There was then no other Communion that could give this Authority Our Adversaries will not deny but that their Orders were received by them were actually received by their Forefathers in the Episcopal Communion They have actually received no more Power from God than they have received from their Ordainers For their Ordainers are they and they alone who have represented Gods Person in dealing with them 2. They have actually received from their Superiors nothing but what their Superiors did actually intend to give them One would think this should be very clear To the Objection that They ought to have given more Power he answers That only proveth that we have no more if they wronged us Where now is all the Reformers Power Did the Pope or his Bishops intend them any against himself IV. But yet he perceived that some might say Particular Ordainers might have singular Intentions And I cannot tell him that as Richardus Armachanus and abundance more thought Bishops and Presbyters to be ejusdem Ordinis so did Jacobus Armachanus of late and Bishop Downame and many other Bishops and declared that Presbyters had Power of Ordination but for Order sake it should not be without the Bishop save in cases of necessity To this he saith That the Ordainers must be presumed to do according to the common sense of the Church and Canons But what if they declare the contrary As Bishop Edw. Reinolds openly declared that he Ordained Presbyters into the same Order with Bishops who were but the prime Presbyters and that he was of Dr. Stillingfleet's Judgment that no Form of Government was Jure Divino necessario Saith he Pag. 487. The Law is alway charitable to presume that every Man intends as becomes him to intend Very good But it 's prudent to presume his actual Intention not from what others do think will become him no nor from what will really become him in the Judgment of God Therefore they must not judge of the Intention of the Bishop by the real Will of God Supposing us to be Proud of the Suffrages of the Schoolmen pag. 492.493 He suspecteth It was rather Picque than Conscience that brought them to it Alas Were not the Schoolmen Prelatical enough Many of them were Bishops and one was a Pope at least And the Council at Basil that allowed Presbyters deciding Votes and St. Jerome and the Reformers all fall under his Censure for the like viz. That Necessity put them on it as a Shift or else the Pope by the Vote of Bishops would have carried it and he justifieth not the Necessities choice but concludeth Pag. 496 497. If it be suspicious whether the Men who then followed these Principles did embrace them out of a sincere sense of their Truth then they cannot be presumed to have been Principles of Conscience Which if they were not this is sufficient to shew that they are not fit Measures of the Power that was actually given by the Bishops of that Age. I confess I had thought that the Papist Bishops Intention had not been the Measure of the Power of Bishops or Presbyters And that Mr. Dodwell had not been so much against the Council of Basil as unjust Conspirators by ill means to overtop the Pope He saith truly Pag. 505. Most certainly they who were of this Opinion the Papists could not intend to follow the Doctrine of the Wicklefists and Waldenses who had been lately censured for maintaining the Equality of Bishops and Presbyters No nor the Doctrine of Luther Cranmer or such as the Church of England hath held V. Yet being forced to confute himself he saith p. 52. It is sufficient for my purpose that Ecclesiastical â—ower be no otherwise from God than that is of every Supreme Civil Mugistrate It is not usual for Kings to be invested in their Offices by other Kings but by their Subjects Yet when they are invested that doth not in the least prejudice the Absoluteness of their Monarchy where the fundamental Constitutions of the respective places allow to them And hath not God's fundamental Law as much Power much less doth it give any Power over them to the persons by whom they are invested If the Power of Episcopacy be Divine and all that men can do in the case be only to determine the Person not to confine his Power c. what kept the man from seeing how great a part of his Book he here confuteth Doth he not confess now that God's Law may give the Power which men may not alter but only determine of the Person to receive it In the case of the Presbyters Office he will have it otherwise because the Bishops are forsooth not only the Investers but the Donors who give just what they please and he proveth it fully by saying it confidently and copiously Because God giveth it not immediately Yes he immediately by his Spirit in the Apostles instituted the species though he do not immediately chuse the Receiver But who giveth the Bishops their Power The Council is above them Do they give them their Power Who giveth them theirs And who giveth the Pope his Power If his may be given by Divine Charter without a Humane Donor but a meer Invester why may not a Presbyters VI. But it is the Vicedeity that is his great foundation Pag. 543. saith he Nor is there any reason for them to oppose God and the Church as they do on this and other occasions If the Churches Authority be received from God then what is done by Her is to be presumed to come from him the same way as what is done by any man's Proxy is presumed to be his own act And as what is done by an Inferior Magistrate by virtue of his Office is presumed to come from the Supreme This is in Answer to an Objection That the Powers united by God are inseparable by any Humane Authority But the Power of Ordination is by God united to the other Rights of Scripture Presbyters c. He answers If our Adversaries mean that those Presbyters who had both those Powers united in them by God could not be deprived of the one without the other nor of any by any Humane Authority this if it should prove true is a case wherein our present Ordinations are not concerned which were not received in those times wherein our Adversaries pretend to prove that these two Powers were inseparably united They may be separated de facto tho' they who separate them be to blame for so doing If they were then united by God because they were united by the men who represented God why are they not disunited by God now when men alike impowered by him have disunited them Why should they not oblige God in one case as well as the other Readers you see here the Core of the Churches disease and chief of our
New Discoverer Append. P. 206 207 208 where he is for one Government of the whole Church Not in specie only for so we are as well as he each Governing per partes in his own Province as Kings in their several Kingdoms but numerically by one Aristocracy the Pope being Principium Vnitatis And Aristocracy is a Government formed and unified in unâ Personâ Politicâ consisting ex pluribus Personis naturalibus Else it would not make one Soveraignty nor one Political Church or Society Therefore his saying P. 206. that the Pope's Primacy as Universal and his Western Patriarchate is no Monarchy but exactly reconcileable with an Aristocratick Government of the Church reconcileth not me at all to his Model who am past doubt that 1. One Aristocratical College is far more uncapable of Universal Government of the Christian World than a Pope If inter impossibilia daretur Magis Minus 2. And that a College of the Subjects of Foreign Kings e. g. France Spain Portugal Armenians Abassines Turks Moscovites c. are unfitter for Foreign Jurisdiction and particularly to Govern Britain than a Pope is The Confutation of Dr. Pierce is sufficiently done before and after I now only recite his Opinion And am sorry that he is sure that Dr. Hammond was of the same Religion with Grotius and for such a Jurisdiction But if any be for the French Church form of Government call them Papists or Protestants as they shall themselves desire It is the Thing and not the Name that I oppose The French know by feeling what that is God grant we feel it not Chap. XXI That this New sort of Prelatists who were for a Coalition with the French or Roman Church have been the great Agents of all the Dividing Silencing Persecuting Laws which have brought and kept us these Twenty seven Years in our dangerous lacerated State § 1. THat the Church of England before the days of Buckingham and Laud were quite of another Mind I have before fully proved And no reasonable Man can doubt of it who hath read the Apology of the Church of England and Jewel's Defence of it and the Writings of Whitaker Fulk Humphrey Field Willet Airy Bernard Crakenthorpe Sutliffe G. Abbot Rob. Abbot I. Reignolds Morton Vsher Downame John White Birkbeck Cook Perkins Bilson Andrews Hall Davenant and many such Bishops Dignitaries and other Conformists besides Cranmer Ridley Latimer Hooker Farrar Bradford Philpot and the rest of the Martyrs Besides the Nonconformists § 2. And that the true Church of England even in Laud's time and since have never consented to this Coalition is evident 1. In that Heylin confesseth that Laud prevailed but with four or five more Bishops to be so much as Arminians viz. Neale Howson Corbet Buckeridge and Mountague And he that readeth Buckeridge his Book for Kings and Mountague's Works will think that even they were against this Coalition 2. And he confesseth that Laud durst not put his Cause to a Convocation because so small a Number there were for him 3. And to this day the Church or Parliament have not revoked the Homilies Articles Liturgy Apology or any of the Writings of the Bishops and Doctors aforesaid who have written against Popery 4. And excellent Writings have all along to this day been Published by the Church Doctors against all such Confederacies with Papists such as Dr. Stillingfleet who though to please his Superiors he defended Laud yet defended not all that he said or did Dr. More Dr. Tillotson Dr. Tennison Bishop Th. Barlow Mr. Wake yea even Henry Fowlis and many more But above all Dr. Isaac Barrow of the Supremacy unanswerably though S. Parker had Confidence enough to pretend a Confutation § 3. The Endeavours for a Coalition that were publickly attempted in Scotland Ireland and England by Laud and his Agents have been so voluminously written of Accused and Condemned in Parliaments and his own Death and the long Wars and all the Fractures that have followed were so much of the Consequents that to say more of this is Vain Dr. Pet. Heylin's Life of Laud doth acknowledge and justifie all And Prin's History of Laud's Tryal largely openeth it § 4. When the Parliaments and Scots Opposition and the ensuing Civil War had broken this Design and the Bloody Massacre in Ireland had rendred Popery more odious and dreadful than all Arguments could do before our War here the Parliament that had before the War begun to Purge the Church Ministry of Drunkards Scandalous and ignorant incompetent Men proceeded too far on Civil Accounts and ejected some for adhering to the King and being against them in the War though some of us disswaded them from all such severity Cromwell first rebelled against the Parliament and usurped the Government and shortly died and his distracted incoherent Army striving against the Democratical Relicts of the Parliament dissolved their usurped Government which Dissolution brought in King Charles II. by Monk and the Presbyterians as the Dissolution of the Parliament had brought in Cromwell And with the King return many of the ejected exasperated Clergy full of the Desires of Revenge and of preventing all Danger to their Dignities and Promotions for the time to come But at first they were diffident of their present Strength and thought they must execute their Revenge and Mutation by degrees The Lords Knights and Gentlemen that had suffered for Fighting against the Parliament for the King Published many Protestations to draw in the Presbyterians to restore the King that they would be for Love and Concord and seek no revenge Dr. Morley was sent before the King to Cajole the Ministers to believe that the King was a Protestant and inclined to Moderation And thereupon a moderate Party of Episcopal Men met with some called Presbyterians and declared their desires of Concord on sober terms viz. Dr. Bernard Dr. Gulston Dr. Allen and others such But Dr. Morley used them to his Ends and shifted off all discovery of his Designs still quieting them by general pretences of Moderation and Treaties He had the Chief Power over Chancellor Hyde who ruled the Land And Sheldon was next him and Hinchman the third But under them truckled many of the same Mind The King published a Declaration of Liberty for tender Consciences at Breda expounded since by 27 Years barbarous Persecution laying all on the Protestant Prelatists that would not make a Law for it I was past doubt in 1660. that the King was as he Died or had engaged himself to promote it here first by giving them Liberty of their Religion and afterwards the Power of the Land in Magistracy Militia and the Church Knowing Men said that Morley Sheldon Guning and the other Chief Agitators knew this and thought they had no other way to oblige him to keep up the English Prelacy but to engage that they would be firmer to his Absolute Power and sole Legislation and for Passive Obedience and for the Extirpation of Puritans and Parliament Power than the Jesuites
fully proved to them that it signified no Councils above the Imperial or National But distinguished those that were Universal in that one Empire from the Provincial 2. The Reformed Church of England taketh the Parish Communicants to be true Churches and the Pastors to have as much of the Oversight as is necessary to the Constitution of a true Political Church Though their Canons sinfully fetter them in the Exercise But the Foreigners hold the Diocesses to be the least or lowest Churches and the Parishes to be no true Churches for want of Bishops in them but only Parts of a Church that hath a Bishop over them all 3. The Old Church of England owned the Foreign Protestant Churches as true Churches and their Ministers as true Pastors and own Communion with them But the Innovators say that they have no true Bishops because they have not Diocesans and are no true Pastors if they have not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesane Ordination from the Apostles whereas for some Hundred Years after the Apostles there was no such Bishops known in the World as were not either Congregational Parochial Bishops or Apostolick Overseers of such and no Diocesans over many Hundred or Score Parish Churches that had no Bishops under them § 12. When you consider what Power the New Foreigners had at Court and with the Parliament that made the Act of Uniformity and required Re-ordination and that made all the other persecuting Acts and with the Justices that executed them And when we see how they promoted the Roman Interest and when we see how potently and obstinately they frustrated all attempts of the Protestant Union here and read how they reviled the old Reforming Bishops from Parker to Abbots and the Parliaments as going too far from Rome And when we consider that we have not one Bishop but who was chosen by K. Charles II. and K. James and what Men they may be supposed to choose we Contradict not these Men when they call themselves the Church of England But when we consider that the old Homilies Apology Articles Liturgy Canons c. were never yet repealed and that they are all Sworn to Endeavour no Alteration of Government of Church or State we have cause to think that the old Party have more right to be called The Church the altering Endeavours having not changed its Essentials By this much the Reader may Expound whom I speak of in my Treatise of Episcopacy § 13. The Church is nothing but the Men that constitute the Church If 1. It be denominated by their Numbers no man can tell which Party hath the greater Number till they are further put upon the tryal 2. If they are denominated by Laws the better part are rather to be called the Church because the Old Laws against Popery are not yet Repealed Though yet some late Laws are to the Old as poyson to a living Man So if they be Denominated by Power the Innovators have been the Church at least these 31 Years For that Party Ruled and had the Countenance of the Kings who chose them And indeed in the Days of the differing Emperors Constantine Constantinus Valens Theodosius Arcadius Marcian Leo Zeno and the rest that usually went for the Church or Orthodox party which the Emperor owned The uppermost will have the Name § 14. Though the French and English aforesaid designed a Coalition the long possession of their different ways unavoidably hindered them from an immediate Union But they were forced to approach by leisurely Degrees England would not suddenly turn the Liturgy to a Mass-Book nor France suddenly turn the Mass-Book Corrected into French But what fair Approaches were made and what further intended Grotius his Counsel Magnified by both Churches and the present practices of the French declare The Council of Grotius was to bring down the Pope to Moderation that he might Rule but by the Canons and not be above Councils nor deprive Kings nor Bishops of their Rights and that the Lives of the Clergy be Reformed and School Niceties left indifferent and the Lutheranes as Reconcileable Courted to a Concord and the unreconcileable Calvinists brought down by force But the Lutheranes are not so Reconcileable as they imagined Princes that are once free are loth to become Subjects to a Foreign Priesthood § 15. And how much the French meant to bring down the Pope their late Transactions shew a little but their Doctrines much more Mr. Jurieu himself in his Posteral Letters Engl. p. 216.217 thus Describeth them 1. That the Church of Rome is no more than a Particular Church as other Churches are 2. That St. Peter had nothing but a Primacy of Order and Presidence above the Apostles 3. That St. Peter could give to his Successor over other Bishops no more but that Primacy which he had over the Apostles 4. That the Bishop of Rome Originally and by Divine Right had no Power over the Universal Church 5. That he did not receive Appeals in the first Age of the Church 6. That he had no Right to Assemble General Councils 7. That he could take Cognizance of the Affairs of no other Provinces but his own no not by Appeals 8. That he had no Right to take Knowledge of Matters of Faith to make Decisions therein which should oblige the whole Church 9. That before the Council of Nice and after he had no inspection over other Churches but those which were in the Neighbourhood of Rome 10. That he could not Excommunicate other Bishops otherwise than the other Bishops could Excommunicate him 11. That a Man might separate himself from the Bishop of Rome without being a Schismatick and out of the Church 12. That the Pope had no Right over other Bishops 13. That the Council of Sardica is the Fountain of that Right of receiving Appeals which the Pope claimeth 14. That the Rights which the Pope hath at this Day excepting his Primacy are by Human Laws and because he hath assumed them to himself and because they have bin conceded to him 15. To which they add he is not Infallible nor Superior to Councils nor Master to the Temporalities of Kings This is the French Religion and who would think that this is Popery No wonder if the Pope be more hearty for other Friends than for France § 15. Lay all this together and it 's Notorious that though Whetgift and some other Calvinists were too much guilty of the Persecutions to keep up the Dominion and Preferments which they were jealous of yet it was the French Reconcilers that have set and to this Day kept on foot our present increased Divisions and Dangers Since Le Strange new-named them the old Church Protestants are called Trimmers and are Men that love not Division or Persecution and would fain see a Coalition of Protestants though they have not zeal enough save too few to put it on openly lest they provoke the opposites But the Laudians called Tories are still as much against the Removal of the Dividing
Persecuting Snares and against the Coalition of English Protestants on any possible healing Terms as ever and as fiercely seek the Continuance of our Slavery and Silence Chap. XXII How they have been stopt and in â—hat Danger we are yet of those that are for a Forreign Jurisdiction § 1. THe continual Endeavours of Parliaments to Suppress all the Relicts and Advantages of Popery in Queen Elizabeths and King James Days long kept this Papal inclination from appearing And when Laud raised it up and King James and Buckingham Countenanced it to promote first the Spanish and after the French Marriage the Articles of Liberty for Popery Consented to by King James and after Ratified by King Charles greatly Distasted the Nobility and Gentry and the People much more so that the Kings and Parliaments were never after easy to each other till King Charles II. got a Parliament fitted to his turn § 2. The new raised Impositions of King Charles I. and Laud first Exasperated the old conformable Clergy by â—uspending and vexing them for not reading the Book for Sports on the Lords Days and for Preaching twice a Day and by Altars and Bowing and other Innovations And the Severities against Burton Prin and Bastwick made a murmuring noise And the driving many hundred Families of Godly Men out of the Land much more And the newly Altered and Imposed Liturgy Exasperated the Scots who were Encouraged by the English Discontents Yet all this had done the less had not the same Church-Innovaters been against Parliaments and kept them out because Parliaments were against them And had they not Preached for and promoted the Kings power to Raise Taxes without a Parliament But this leavened the Nation with an Averseness to the Frenchified Reconcilers And the Scots knowing all this began Resistance which proceeded to a Mutual diffidence of King and People which brought forth after a Civil-War § 3. While the King and Parliament were Labouring under the Mortal Disease of mutual distrust the Irish by an Insurrection Murdered most Barbarously two hundred thousand Protestants just the day Twelmonth before Edghil Fight Dublin escaped And this Horrid Cruelty hastened the War in England and made Popery more odious than ever it was before and rendered the French Conciliators more distasted § 4. The Conciliators having the chief Ecclesiastical Power under King Charles I. and having too much Modelled the Churches and Universities to their Minds the Parliament began a Reformation before the War and carryed it on after and cast out many Hundred for Insufficiency through gross ignorance and for Drunkenness and Vicious Lives And some for being against the Parliament and prospering till Cromwell cast them out and Cromwell going much further against Prelatical Tyranny and an ignorant Vicious Ministry than they thirteen or fourteen or fifteen years time not only stopt the French design of Coalition but also wore out the chief designers and promoters of it To which the Death of Laud with all the Accusations against him struck deep of which see Prins Introductions and his Canterburies Tryal And many old Conformists which was all the Westminster Assembly of Divines saving eight were the Men that chose rather to put down the English Prelacy than to run the hazard of the change of Civil Government and Introduction of Popery So that both Popery and the favorers of it seemed quite cast out in England But Cromwell and his Armies Usurpation and Treasons so Exasperated the two Kingdoms both Episcopal and Presbyterians that after his Death his Army having cast themselves and the Land into Confusion they brought in King Charles II. who by his Declaration from Breda and his Treaty in 61 with the Nonconformists and his Declaration 1662. called Bristols and by his Treaty with us by the Lord Keeper Bridgman and by his Declaration for Toleration still laboured so Strenuously to give Popery a Toleration that discerning Men were satisfied that he was then of the Religion that he dyed in if he had any or at least had engaged himself to introduce it To which ends 1. The dividing of the Protestants 2. The Ejecting Silencing Ruining Imprisoning or Banishing those of them that were most unreconcileable to Popery 3. The keeping such out by new Impositions of Oaths Subscriptions Professions and Practices were found to be the fittest means 4. To which was added the Exasperating the long Parliament of Men before Exasperated against them 5. And the Declaring and Swearing the People against the Lawfulness of any Military Defence of Parliament or Kingdom against any Commissioned by the King 6. And to bring all those that scrupled such Oaths under the odious Name of Nonconforming Rebels Though they were all against Defensive War by any private Men or Faction or for any Cause less than the saving of the Kingdom from apparent Ruine Subversion or Alienation 7. To which was added the taking away of all Legislative Power from Parliaments and appropriating it only to the King the strenuous Endeavour of Bishop Morley's last Book against me and of many others 8. Which were all thought an unresistible force while the King of whatever Religion had the choice of all the Bishops Deans and Dignitaries and consequently of that called The Church of England 9. And also the choice of Judges and the making of Lords 10. And the changing of Corporation Charters § 5. To these uses that we may not accuse the Innocent it was comparatively but a few men that were the visible prime Instruments besides the non-appearing Jesuits or other Papists That is Chancellor Hide Dr. Sheldon Dr. Morley Dr. Guning whom not only Dr. Hinchman Dr. Cousins Dr. Lany Dr. Sterne and several others followed ex animo but also most of the worldly sequacious part of the Clergy and Laity for Interest and Preferment sake when they saw that the Interest of Sheldon and Morley with the Chancellor was a great and necessary means of obtaining their desires § 6. But the bringing us to French Popery by the Grotian way proved so slow by many stops that it hath by God's Mercy been hitherto much frustrate and prevented For the King must not make professed Papists to be Bishops Deans and Convocation Men lest the notoriety of the Design should raise unconquerable Offence and Opposition The Name of Popery was to be renounced even by those that were for a Foreign Jurisdiction And a Government like that of the French Church must be said to be no Popery but only that which made the Pope Arbitrary or Supereminent above Councils And the very retaining of the Name of Popery in their Renunciation spoil'd their Game And specially being necessitated to avoid Suspicion to make divers firm Protestants Bishops Deans and Judges Yet the slow way of K. Ch. II. was like to have been the surest could their Patience have held out § 7. But God used K. James II. as the great Instrument of frustrating all the Plot till now by his and his Instigaters Impatience of this delay and confidence
of a more speedy way of Success So that he resolved to put it to a speedy upshot and would have all or none which brought the Changes which we have since seen § 8. But is the Church of England yet delivered from all the Inclination to a Foreign Jurisdiction and the French Government The Oath of Supremacy made it seem hard to perjure the whole Land that had renounced all foreign Jurisdiction But many devised an Expository Evasion that only a Civil Jurisdiction was meant though the Ecclesiastick also was named Should there be but a new attempt by such as the former Rulers probably made is it not like that Men of the French or Grotian Principles will promote it yea and be glad of French assistance I doubt they that would Perjure the Kingdom by a foreign Jurisdiction will debate this odd Question Qu. Whether all that Profess or Swear that it is Vnlawful on any Pretence whatever to resist the King or any Commissioned by him in the Execution of that Commission may resist a French Army if they Invade the Land by K. J 's Commission Or will they turn Nonconformists Chap. XXIII Postscript to the Reverend Dr. Beveridge SIR § 1. THough you were Bishop Guning's Witness with Dr. Saywell his Chaplain when he conferred with me I was not willing to believe that you were of his mind for a Foreign Jurisdiction either Aristocratical or Democratical or Monarchical but to my grief am now convinced of it by your published Convocation Sermon Having too copiously here and elsewhere confuted it specially in my two Books against William Johnson alias Terret the Papist I shall go on the supposition that you will there take notice of it Especially of these two Reasons against it 1. That the Kingdom and Church is sworn against it 2. That a pretended Universal Humane Soveraignty or Legislative and Judicial Power over the whole Church on Earth is the Grand Usurpation of Christs Prerogative which no Mortal Men are capable of And if this be not Popery there is no such thing as Popery And if the Pope be justly called Antichrist or at least a Trayterous Usurper against the Right of Christ and Kings it is by this And if such a Power be really given to any the Pope cannot be excluded at least from the Universal Primacy § 2. I doubt not but the Love of Unity and the sense of the woful case of the Church by Sects and sad Dissentions engaged Bishop Guning and you in the Opinions you took up And no doubt but the Consciencious part of the Learned and Religious Papists are fixed by the same Motives in their way I may say fixed and very confident or else they durst not carry it on as they have done in France and all other Popish Countreys And I can say that I have not fixed on the denial of a Humane Universal Jurisdiction without thinking seriously Forty years of what I could find said for it as well as against it nor out of an inclination to any contrary extreme Could I have found but any Humane capacity in One or Many for such a Soveraignty Legislative and Judicial and but a possibility of such a thing and any probability that it was of Christs Institution the Love of Unity and Hatred of Unruliness and Divisions and their Effects had long ago made me a hot defender of it But the contrary Truth had contrary Effects § 3. That you may not think that I differ from you more than I do I here premise I. That I doubt not but that the Universal Church visible is One Body or Society of professed Christians As the Universal Church as Regenerate and Spiritual is One Body of sincere Christians II. That the Unity and Concord of it as Professors and as sincere must be maintained to the utmost of our power by all due lawful means III. That a wise Correspondency between all those Churches which by nearness are capable of Acquaintance and Communication is a due means to preserve their Love and Concord IV. That seasonable and duly chosen Synods of many conjunct that live within the reach of such Acquaintance and Communication may in case of true need be a fit means of such Concord V. That where such Synods cannot be had with due equality Letters and Messengers from the several Nations or Provinces or Churches may be used to that end VI. That the General Law of Christ commanding Love Concord and Edification maketh it a sin for any to affect causless singularity and to chuse any way which tendeth to Division And that where there is an Equality and no Regent power yet just Contracts for Concord ought to be observed VII That if in National Churches that is Christian Kingdoms or Commonwealths the Soveraign Power give one Seat or Bishop a Primacy or peculiar Priviledge in the Circa Sacra the Circumstantials of Sacred Offices which are within the Magistrates Power it ought to be obeyed VIII If I had lived in the Christian Empire when it sometime gave the Bishop of Rome and sometime the Bishop of Constantinople this preheminence of degree and the other Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch and Jerusalem their several Priviledges and Powers not contrary to the Word of God I would have obeyed that which the Emperor by his Law preferred IX The Roman Empire was so great a part of the known Civilized World and so Potent that I quarrel not with the Titles of Orbis Romanus and Ecclesia Vniversalis given to that Dominion and Church which was meerly National or Imperial so be it we understand the true meaning X. Had the Empire continued one Polity and had made the Bishop of Rome the Primate as to his Seat in Councils and the said Bishop had been a capable Person and had not Challenged the Government or Primacy in order of Regiment over the whole Christian World but in the Empire only as the Archbishop of Canterbury doth in England I would have been none of his opposers All this I grant you § 4. But premising for the Explication of Terms that we take the words Regiment Laws Authority c. in the proper political sense and not equivocally for meer advice or consent I add as followeth 1. That as the Universal Church on Earth hath but one Soveraign Jesus Christ so it is one Body Politick in relation to no one Vnifying Head but Christ and hath no one Substitute Vicarious Christ or Substitute Soveraign Government Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical or Mixt. II. The Soveraignty of one Christian King Emperor or Senate in Aristocracy over an United or Confederate Christian Clergy and Laity as Subjects each keeping to their own Place and Work is the Unifying Headship of a National Church which is nothing but such a Christian Kingdom or Republick And that Christ hath owned such National Church Power and hath instituted and owned no Power of Humane Government over it on Earth And therefore as pretending to Universal Jurisdiction is Treason against Christ so the claim
this Land 6. It is contrary to the subscribed 39 Articles that tell us of the Errors and Fallibility of Councils 7. It is contrary to the Canons especially those of 1640. that determined Kingly Power to be of God's Institution 8. It is contrary to all the Writers and Fighters that were against Parliaments resisting the King Michael Hudson hath most strongly wrote against it Dr. Hammond against John Goodwin hath proved that the People have neither ruling Authority to Vse nor to Give How far then were Bishop Morley and such others from your Mind who write that the Parliament themselves have no Essential part in Legislation but only to prepare Matter which the King only maketh to be a Law All the Clergy have subscribed to the King 's unresistible Power and a Law made to that purpose by the Parliament that setled your Conformity and Church 9. Do you take the Major part of your Congregation to be your Governours Or the Major part of the Diocess to Rule the Diocesane Or are these no Societies 10. Is it not contrary to the Oath of Canonical Obedience 11. Are our Universities of this Mind when Oxford burnt my Political Aphorisms and Dr. Whitbye's Book and Mr. I. Humfrey's as derogating from the Regal Power when yet I abhord such a derogation as your Majority of the Society 12. In a word it is destructive of all Government For the truth is that Democracy in a large Kingdom is an Impossibility The People cannot all meet to try who hath the Major Vote They can but choose their Governours though called Representatives And that is an Aristocracy For to choose Governours is not to Govern Even Rome was not a true Democracy For the People had but a Negative part in Legislation S. P. Q. R. conjunct having the Supremacy And what were the People of one City to the whole Empire which was the Politick Body But how shall we know who constitute this Voting Society which you call the Church I know that the Papists appropriate that title to the Clergy But when it cometh to Practice in Councils or out how small a part have any but the Bishops Our Canons condemn those who deny the Convocation to be the Representative Church Who are the real Church which they represent Do they represent the Laity Or are they none of the Church How can they represent those that never choose them Patrons choose the Incumbents and the People choose neither Bishops Deans Arch-deacons or Proctors Is it the King and Parliament that they represent I confess the King that chooseth Bishops may most plausibly be pretended to be represented by them But are they indeed his Rulers and Lawgivers and he their Subject Was Moses so to Aaron or Solomon to Abiathar The King chooseth Justices and Constables mediately but not to be his Governours but his Ministers Or is the King and Parliament no Part of the Church of England Say so then that we may understand you But if indeed you confess the Laity 〈◊〉 be of this Voting Church whose Major part by Nature Reason and the Consent of all the World must Govern us I beseech you help us at last after all our lost importunity to know which of the Laity it is Is it all that are in the Parishes I doubt then that the Atheists Papists Sadduces Deists Hobbists Ignorant Irreligious Debauchees and Lads will be our Rulers Is it only Communicants Then the Parish Priest of one place will have a Church of one sort and another of another sort And how knoweth he in great Parishes who are his Communicants when he knoweth not who or what they are or whence they come nor whether ever they came before The Law is the likest test which obligeth all to Communicate that will have a License to sell Ale or Wine or that will not lie in Jail a place that few Love and many would avoid at so cheap a rate as eating a bit of Bread and drinking a little Wine And shall the Majority of these be Rulers of Kings Bishops and Pastors But what if you mean but the Major Vote of Bishops which it seems our Lower House of Convocation mean not Verily Sir you must not too sharply blame the King of England Sweden Denmark c. if they be loth to be Subjects in so great a Matter as their Religion to the Clergy of Italy France Spain Poland Germany Moscovy Constantinople and Asia Africa c. while we know what Power their own Princes have over them And do not we know that there is no one common Language which they can use to understand one another as a College Even of our great Learned Schoolmen few understood Greek And few of the Greeks understand Latin or true Greek either And few Abassines Armenians Syrians Moscovites c. understand either If Christ hath been so defective a Legislator as to leave us to a necessity of Universal Humane Legislation O let us not have them made by such Babel Builders Let us have those that can meet together in less than an Age whether their Princes will or no and can learn in an Age to speak to one another Or if you first prove that Mortal Men are capable of such an Universal Government try it first on Kings and settle one King or Senate of Kings to Rule all the World by Legislation and Judgment For verily more of Sword-Government may be done per alios than of Priestly Government else you may appoint Presbyters to Ordain and Lay-men to celebrate the Sacraments And if we must have a Vice-Christ let him be a Monarch that we may know where to find him and not a Chimera called a Collective Person or College of Bishops Or at least if it must be Patriarchs let us know who shall make them and where they are and what we shall now do when of five so called Four are called Schismaticks and are under the Turk Christ hath instituted National Church Politie Prove more if you can VI. And I should rejoyce if you could prove what you affirm that the Major part of the Church even in Rites and Discipline is guided by the Spirit of God 1. It was not so in necessary Doctrine in the Arians reign 2. If it be so at this day England is Schismatical 3. If it be not always so in General Councils as the Articles of our Church say how much less in the diffusive Body of People or Clergy 4. It is not so in any one Kingdom or National Church yet known in the World no not the World And what is the whole but the Parts Conjunct Dr. Dillingham in a late Book against Popery concludeth that there was never yet any Kingdom known where the tenth part were truly Godly And I think you take the Church of England to be the best in the World And how many Thousands would rejoyce if you could prove that the Major part even of their Teachers were guided by the Spirit of God And is it better with
the Papists or Greeks or Moscovites that cannot Preach at all O how happy a Church do you Dream of VII And it is yet more incredible that this popular Majority should be so right in such small Matters as Rites and Ceremonies and Discipline as that their Practice should be a Law to all the rest of the Christian World And that the Unity or Concord of the Universal Church must be built on such Sand as cannot so much as be gathered into one Heap And all must be Schismaticks and so far separate from the Church that obey them not I remember when Dr. Hammond proceeded Dr. I heard Dr. Prideaux in the Chair argue against the Churches Infallibility that John and Thomas and so every Individual was fallible Ergo a company of fallibles were not infallible Especially in such Matters as a Ceremony Those that Paul wrote to Rom. 14. 15. were not taken for infallible or Legislators by him VIII And you no where prove that Paul meaneth by the Churches have no such Customs that none in the World had any other nor must have any other but only that what Garb and Habit the Custom of all those Countries had placed Decency in the general Rule of Decency would oblige all to in the solemn Assemblies as it obligeth us to be uncovered You must needs know that by your Exposition and Inference you Condemn your own Church that hath the contrary Custom Especially your noble Patrons that wear Periwigs IX And how impossible a work do you set us all as a Law to know what these Ceremonies are without which we separate as Schismaticks 1. Must all good Christians be so great Historians as to know what Ceremonies have been used in all Ages by the Major part 2. Must they be so Skill'd in Cosmography as to know what Countries make the Major part 3. Must they have so good intelligence of former Affairs as to know who have now the greater Vote in Councils and out of them 4. But you say It must be of such Rites as ab omnibus ubique semper have been used we like Vincentius Liri's rule well as to things necessary that may aliunde be so proved But how shall any man know that ab omnibus ubique without more Knowledge of the World than Drake or Candish had or any Traveller Except Negatively that we must not affect causeless Singularity from the most of the Godly as far as we can know them And how shall we understand the semper Must it respect all time to come Then none can know his Duty till the End of the World If it be only as to time past then how knew they that lived in the first Age how long their Customs would continue And then all the after Changes which were many were Schismatical X. Do you not too hardly censure the Church of England as Schismatical You know Epiphanius hath a peculiar Treatise to tell us what then were the Customs and Ceremonies of the Universal Church And how many of these are forsaken by us yea and by almost all the Churches Do you now clothe the Baptized anew in White Do you dip them over head in Water Do you anoint them as they did and cross them with the Ointment Do you give them to taste Milk and Honey Do you exorcise them Do your Bishops only make that Chrysme Do all here and in other Churches worship only versus Orientem Do you all forbear and forbid Adoration Kneeling on any Lord's Day or any Week Day between Easter and Whitsunday What! when you cast out of the Church those that will not Kneel at the Sacrament You know that the Council of Nice and that at Trull and the Fathers commonly make this a Rite of the Universal Church And Dr. Heylin saith that Rome it self kept it for a Thousand Years and it was never reversed by any other General Council Do you keep the Memorial of Martyrs at their Graves as then they did Do you use their Bones and relicts as they did Twenty more you may see in Epiphanius and others O condemn not the Church of England as separated from the Universal Church And our Reformers too XI What a case would you bring this Church and Kingdom to by your Law of the Custom of the Major part Must we have all the Opinions Rites or Ceremonies which the Greeks Moscovites Armenians and Papists have many Hundred Years in their Ignorance and Superstition agreed in as to the Major part Must we be able to confute their pretensions of Antiquity and Custom as to all these He that readeth the Description of their Customs methinks should be loth that we should be such XII And your Doctrine of Traditions as certainly received from the Apostles when the Majority use them is so much against the Church of England's Judgment and so copiously confuted by the whole stream of Protestant Bishops and Drs. and foreign Divines that I will not stay now to repeat that work were all the Traditions forementioned since laid by received from the Apostles About Genuflexions Milk and Honey Chrysme the white Garment You instance in Synods meeting and making Laws To meet for worship or necessary consultation and Concord is no unwritten ceremonial Tradition but the obeying of Christ's written Law which requireth such mutual help and that we do all to Edification Concord and Peace But Communion of many Nations is one thing and a Government over all is another thing It was the Emperor's Commission and Power that made Canons to be Laws And do you not here write against the King's Commission by which you sit which declareth from that Act of H. 8. that your Canons are no Laws till King and Parliament make them so Ask the Lawyers Were not the Canons of 1640. cast out even by your own long Parliament XIII But the worst is that while you set us a new Universal Church Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty you deny the sufficiency of Scripture if not the Soveraignty of Christ himself while you feign unwritten Universal Laws as part of Christ's Law a supplement to the Scripture give Christ's Prerogative to a Usurping Soveraignty utterly uncapable of that Office Scripture we know where to find but where to find your Universal Additional Laws and your Church Senate or College they must know more than I that know But so much is written against the Papists as aforesaid for Scripture sufficiency that I refer you thither and to the Articles Homilies and Ordination Books which this Church subscribeth to Alas Sir is not the whole Bible big enough to make us a Religion XIV As to your definition of the Church P. 12. It is tolerable if you make no Head but Christ and set up no Vicarious Head Monarchical or Aristocratical and instead of Provincial parts put National and Congregational or confess that you describe but the Imperial-National Church which was made up of Roman Provinces And gratifie not the Fanaticks by making the Holy Ghost
to be the authoriser of the Majority for Government For they will think that they have more of the Holy Ghost than you and therefore must Govern you I would all Rulers had the Holy Ghost but it 's somewhat else that must give them Authority XV. Your instance of the Easter Controversie is against you The difference undecided for 300 Years and Apostolical Tradition urged on both sides tells us that it was no Apostolick Law And Socrates and Sozomen tell us that in that and many such like things 〈◊〉 Churches had freely differed in Peace 〈◊〉 you seem to intimate contrary to them and to Irenâ—â—us that the Asians were Schismaticks till they Conformed And why name you Asia alone Were our Brittish Churches and the Scottish no Churches Or do you also Condemn them as Schismaticks for about 300 Years after the Nicene Council What could the Papists say more against them XVI How impossible a thing do you make Church Union to be while the Essentials or great Integrals of Religion are made insufficient to it and so many Ceremonies and Church Laws are feigned necessary which no man ever comes to the true knowledge of that he hath the right ones and all XVII If the Patriarchs must be the Soveraign College I beseech you give us some proof in a Case so weighty 1. How many there must be 2. Where seated 3. Who must choose and make them 4. And quo jure 5. And whether we have now such a College or is there no Church XVIII What Place will you give the Pope in the College I suppose with your Brethren you will call him 1. Principium Vnitatis But that 's a Name of Comparative Order what is his work as such a Principium How is he the Principium if he have no more Power than the rest Must not he call the Councils Though our Articles say General Councils may not be gathered without the Will of Princes Shall he not choose the Place and Time Tell us then who shall Must he not be President Must he not be Patriarch of the West And so Govern England as our Patriarch and Principium unitatis Vniversalis also XIX I pray tell us whether the French be Papists And how their Church-Government as Described from themselves by Mr. Jurieu differeth from that which you are for Tell me not of their Mass and other Corruptions It is Government that is the Form of Popery And they will abate you many other things And must we be Frenchified If the French restore those that we called Papists will disowning the Name and calling them the Church of England chosen by Papist Princes make us sound and safe And when we find Arch-Bishop Laud Arch-Bishop Bromhall Bishop Guning Bishop Sparrow Dr. Saywell Dr. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Bishop S. Parker and many more were for a Foreign Jurisdiction can we think if the French bring in the late Governours that such Churchmen would not embrace the French Church Government and call it the Church of England when since Lauds days they have endeavoured a Coalition If they be Defeated we may thank King James who could not bear delays and would have all or none when Grotius way would have been a surer Game XX. You tell us of Penalties made by Church Laws Deposing Ministers and Anathematizing the Laity But while the Clergy hath no power of the Sword who will feel such Penalties When Rome Excommunicates the Greeks the Greeks will Excommunicate them again What Penalty is it to Protestants to be Excommunicated by the Pope or his Council How commonly did they that were for and against the Chalcedon Council Excommunicate each other And those that were for and against Images And for Photius and for Ignatius Cheat not Magistrates to be your Lictors and Cursing will go round as Scolding at Billingsgate Who is hurt by a causeless curse but the Curser I confess that Dr. Saywell sayeth well If single persons must be punished shall not Nations also Yes But by whom By God the Universal King and not by an Universal Human Soveraign whether a King or Pope or a Senate of Foreign Subjects XXI We are promised by a trifling Pamphleteer that some of you are answering Mr. Clerksons two Books about the Primitive Episcopacy and Liturgies I pray you procure them also to answer my Treatise of Episcopacy and my English Non-conformity and not with the Impudent Railing Lyars to say it is answered already while we can hear of no such thing And see that they prove that all these things following are Traditions of the Vniversal Church received from the Apostles and used ab omnibus ubique semper 1. That most particular Churches for two Hundred or three Hundred years and so down consisted of many Congregations that had no personal presential Communion 2. That Churches infimi ordinis were Diocesan having many Hundred or Score Parishes under them 3. That these Diocesans undertook the sole Pastoral Care of all these Parishes as to Confirmation Censure Absolution and the rest 4. That all these Parishes were no true Churches as having no Bishops but the Diocesans and were but Chappels or parts of a Church 5. That the Incumbents were no true Pastors or Bishops but one Bishops Curates And that there were not then besides Diocesan Arch-Bishops in each single Church Episcopi Gregis and Episcopi praesides 6. That Bishops Names were used by Lay-men that had the Decretive Power of Excommunication and Absolution 7. That such Secular Judicatories far from the Parishes rather than the particular Pastors Tryed and Judged the unknown people 8. That Parish Ministers Swear Obedience to the Diocesans and they to Metropolitans 9. That all People that would have Licenses to keep Ale-houses or Taverns or that would not lye in Jail were Commanded to receive the Sacrament as a Sealed Pardon of their Sins 10. That from the beginning all Churches were forced to use the same form of Liturgy and not every Church or Bishop to choose as he saw Cause 11. That Kings chose Bishops and Deans without the Consent of the Clergy and People 12. That all Ministers were to be Ejected and forbidden to Preach the Gospel that durst not Subscribe that there is nothing contrary to Gods Word in such as our three imposed Books 13. That all Lords Magistrates Priests and People that affirm the contrary be ipso facto Excommunicate 14. That Lay-Patrons that are but Rich enough to buy an Advowson how Vicious soever did choose all the Incumbent Ministers to whom the People must commit the Ministerial Care of their Souls 15. That they that dare not trust such Pastors as are chosen by Kings though Papists and such Patrons and dare not Conform to every imposition like ours must live like Atheists in forbearance of all publick Worship and Church Communion 16. That all may Swear that an Oath or Vow of Lawful and Necessary things bindeth not our selves or any others if it be but unlawfully imposed and taken and had any unlawful part
of the Matter 17. That the Church ever held it unlawful for a whole Kingdom to defend it self against a Prince that would deliver up half the Government to a Foreiner and force them to a Religion which requireth them to be Damned or to Dye When the Clergy and Church at Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome c. did so oft by force and Blood resist even Christian Emperors such as Theodosius II. Zeno Anastasius and many others 18. That all the Churches held it lawful to Swear and Covenant never to endeavour any Amendment or Alteration of any such as the forementioned Church Government If all these things be contrary to the constant judgment or practice of the Church Quaere whether Dr. Beveridge and his Approvers pronounce not the Church of England Schismatical as so far separated from the Church Universal But again I conclude O! What must the Christian World suffer even by Learned and I hope pious Doctors I. Because they will not distinguish National or Imperial Vniversality of Church and Councils from those of the whole World II. Nor Communion from Regiment nor Contracts from Laws nor a Regent Excommunication from a Renunciation of Communion by Equals III. Nor Divine Obligations to Concord and human demands of obeying Usurpers or the hurtful Agreements of an injurious Majority of equal Votes IV. And by their Deposing Christian Kings and Magistrates from their Sacred Power over Bishops in Church-Government and for Mens Souls as if they were made only for the base things of the World and Flesh and Priests only were trusted with Religion and Souls And Kings were not Heads of National Churches V. And their shameless calling them Adversaries to Episcopacy that would have one Hundred Bishops for one and are for the old three sorts Episcopi Gregis Episcopi praesides and Arch-Bishops and calling those the Episcopal part that put down all the Bishops in a Diocess save one As for your self I profess to be so far from Censuring any thing of you save these Mistakes that as I have long so I do still Love and Honour you as a Man fearing God and of a good and blameless Conversation as far as ever I Credibly heard And I thought the like of Bishop Guning though as it is with many Religious Papists his Opinions more prevailed against his Charity for that Mischievous hurtfulness in which he served the Subtilty of Sheldon and the fierceness of Morley and the Designs of Papal Courtiers But I hear that your Piety and Charity prevaileth against the evil tendency of your mistaken Doctrine Though Mr. Thorndike threaten England unless they Reform the Oath of Supremacy I confess I wish it restored and am Displeased with those Scots that have causelesly quarrelled with it and so helpt to open a Door to a Foreign Jurisdiction which the Kingdom is Sworn against Since the writing of all beforegoing I first read your two great Volumes of Canons and your Answer to Dallaeus In the Prolegomena of the first to my Grief I find you more express for an Universal Legislative Power and Foreign Jurisdiction than in your Sermon And yet not at all telling us where to have access to this Universal Soveraignty for Judicature out of the times of General Councils nor how to know but by believing your bare word what Councils are our Universal obliging Laws when you confess the vast difference of the Eastern and Western numbers nor how to know what our Religion is while we know not what be our Laws Nor how to know whether the Church be extinct when it hath no human Head by the Cessation of such Councils nor who must call them nor whence nor what is their Constitutive Matter only you say they must be called out of all the Christian World But need not all be there And will a Call make a General Council if the Men come not And can they come from all the Dominions of the Abassines Armenians Turks Persians Muscovites c. And who hath right to call them hath the Pope Or our Emperors or Kings what power hath he over all other Princes Subjects You confess they were called out of the Imperial Provinces And how few if any other Names are Subscribed But I am sorry that you still so contrary to all Evidence take National or Imperial Universality for Terrestrial Universality of Church and Councils I beseech you if we must be Papists let us be of the more reasonable sort that know where to find a Papal Monarch or Vice-Christ and not sent to seek a Church-Parliament Universal or Universal Aristocratical College that is no where extant in the World nor can be especially now the five Patriarchs are what and where they are How much more Rational to be Governed by the Pope as Patriarch of the West only till we can find out the Aristocratical Head But since the Empire was turned into many Kingdoms who can prove that those many must have all one Human Head But I am yet more sorry that you joyn with Hildebrand in making Princes to be but for the Body and Civil Peace and Bishops and Priests to be the Church and for the Soul Which God willing as I have oft done I shall fullier Confute in a Treatise for true National Churches proving that Christ hath made no Higher Visible Humane Church Power or Form And that Christian Kings are as Sacred Persons and Ministers of Christ as Bishops and Superior Heads of National Churches though the Power of the Keys belong only to the Clergy And that a true National Church is but a Christian Kingdom as such the King being the Head and Confederate Pastors and Churches the Subject Body The Second Part. The Stating of the Controversie and full Confutation of the Pretences for a Foreign Jurisdiction The CONTENTS CHap. I. The clear stating of the Controversie and Confutation of the Pretenders In 60 Propositions proving it a perjurious alteration of Government c. Ch. II. Why Parliaments and the Church of England before Bishop Laud were so much against such a Coalition with the Papal Church Ch. III. The said Coalition is not the way to Catholick Union Ch. IV. The Deceits that are pleaded for an Universal Humane Soveraignty Ch. V. A Foreign Jurisdiction by College or Counsels unmaskt Ch. VI. The Grand Consequential Case Whether it be lawful for Presbyters to Swear or Profess Obedience to those Bishops who profess Subjection to a Foreign Jurisdiction or for the people to own them Ch. VII Of the second part of the design to bring the Papists to our Churches as in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's days Ch. VIII Why it will not serve for a Coalition for the Papists to abate their last 400 years corruptions as Archbishop Bromhall maintaineth Ch. IX Whether the instance of the Apostles Church Government prove an Universal Soveraignty in man Ch. X. Many Questions about Councils to be resolved before we can take them for an Universal Aristocracy Ch. XI A Breviate of both the Aristocratical
and Monarchical Popery Ch. XII A humble Expostulation to the Zealous Antipapists Conformists and Nonconformists whether they have been innocent as to promoting Popery Ch. XIII VVhat is the Duty of all other Christians towards the Papists in order to the discharge of the Fundamental Duties of Love Concord and Peace and the promoting the common Interest of Christianity VVritten to keep Protestants from sinful Extreams and while we cannot come so near them as Cassander Erasmus Grotius and those that are for a Foreign Jurisdiction we may keep and use a Christian Zeal for the better way of Concord of Christs prescribing avoiding all injury to Papists and all others NB. To prevent misunderstanding Citations note That both some Episcopal Drs and some Presbyterians say That the Government of the Church is Aristocratical meaning only 1. Per partes as England is Governed by Justices and 2. Meeting in such Councils as they can for Concord But not as the summa potestas of the Universal Church which is una persona politica in pluribus naturalibus unifying the Body and so Ruling it They speak not properly in the Language of Politicks Chap. I. The true State and just Resolutions of the Controversies about a Foreign Jurisdiction in Sixty Evident or Proved Propositions § 1. HOW great advantage Satan maketh of the deceivableness of ignorant men and of the deceitfulness of the Crafty and of the aptitude of ambiguous or false or artificially-contrived Names and Words to deceive the sad Experience of the deceived World and corrupted and divided Churches openly declare and yet alas how few observe it and escape the snare § 2. If all Men were judicious and stablished Christians when serious Faith and Godliness is made a scorn by the false names of Hereticks Schismaticks Puritans Fanaticks Sectaries or any sensless jears it would no more turn them from the holy performance of their Baptismal Vow and Obedience to Christ than the raving of a Drunkard or a Bedlam or the crying of a Child But ignorant unresolved Persons that never yet know what the bearing of the Cross was nor have learned self-denial are stopt in their convictions good purposes and hopeful dispositions when they hear serious Piety made a common scorn and that by those that were themselves Baptized and profess Christianity Some of them think sure all this reproach is not laid on them for nothing and others that think it but the stinking breath of ulcerated malignant minds yet cannot bear it but draw back and shrink Therefore Christ pronounceth a dreadful Sentence against those that offend that is by such stumbling-blocks turn back and discourage even the least of these childish beginners It were better for that man that a Milstone were hanged about his Neck and he were cast into the Sea § 3. But no scandal or snare is so dangerous as those which are made by Rulers or Great Men or by Pastors and Teachers on the pretences of Religion and Divine Authority abusing the holy Name of Christ. § 4. And the same Artifice that Satan useth against Godliness in general he useth against particular Truths Duties and Persons And one of the most dangerous that I now perceive the Protestant Religion assaulted with is putting the Name of Nonconformists and Puritans and Schismaticks on Protestants as Protestants and the Name of Catholick the Church the Church of England the Clergy yea of the Reformed Church and of Protestants on the Papal Roman Sect. The Church of England King Parliament Archbishops Bishops and the rest were sixty years ago and less against that as Popery which now is obtruded on us as the sense of the Church of England against Popery Such Wonders can bare Names do with the ignorant And they go on without any great resistance § 5. Whereas there are great differences among the Papists about the degree of the personal Power of the Pope the Cheat is this To confine the Name of Papists to the one party and to own the Opinions of the other Party and to call them Presbyterians or Nonconformists that are against both and will be no Papists 1. The Italians are for the Popes Sole Supremacy and Councils being but his Counsellors 2. The French Lawyers are for the Councils Supremacy above the Pope as to Legislation and Judgment when they sit 3. The middle greater part are for the Supremacy in Pope and Council agreeing and the Popes Executive power in the intervals not absolute but according to the Church Laws or Canons But all for a visible Universal Supremacy and for the Papal Presidency in General Councils and his prime Patriarchship in the West If in England some be for the Kings Sole Legislative Power and Absoluteness and Parliaments being but his Counsellors and others for the Conjunction of King and Parliament in Legislation and the limiting of the Kings Executive Power by the Laws doth it follow that only the first sort are the Kings Subjects The Controversie is the same Yet the same men that are for Absolute Civil Monarchy take on them to be for Ecclesiastical Aristocracy § 6. Men love not to be tired with tedious Volumes nor can I find time to write more such therefore I shall here lay down what the Reader must necessarily know in some Theses or Aphorisms with so short but sound a proof as is necessary to capable willing Readers instead of puting them into distinct Chapters with numerous proofs to urge the unwilling I. The World is the Kingdom of God who is Eminently the King and all Reasonable Creatures his Subjects under Moral Government as all natural Agents are under Natural Potential Government No man will deny this but the Atheist whom I leave to be disputed with by Sun and Moon and Stars Heaven and Earth and common Reason II. God only is the Unifying as well as Specifying Governor of this Universal Kingdom and tho' all men be of one Nature Species Mould Interest c. yet it is only by their Relation to one God that they are one Kingdom III. God hath made no Universal Supreme Monarch or Aristocracy under him in the World But only appointed to each Soveraign his particular Province or Republick For 1. No Man or Senate is naturally capable of it They do not so much as know the Terra incognita nor can send to the Antipodes and all the Earth as Regiment requireth He would be thought as mad that should attempt it as he that claimed a Kingdom in the Moon 2. No Man or Senate had ever yet the madness to claim it IV. He that should Claim an Universal Supremacy must thereby make all Kings and States and all the World to be his Subjects V. He that doth so proclaimeth himself to be publicus hostis the publick Enemy of all Kings and States while he will make them his Subjects against their wills And therefore all Kings and States are allowed to resist and use him as their common Enemy VI. The whole World is now the rightful Dominion of
Christ our Redeemer For this end he both died rose and revived that he might be the Lord of the dead and of the living Rom. 14.9 10. All power is given him in Heaven and Earth Mat. 28.19 All things are delivered to him of the Father and given into his hands John 13.3 and 17.2 He is made Head over all things to the Church Eph. 1.23 The Father judgeth no man but hath committed all judgment to the Son John 5.22 VII Princes are therefore now the Ministers of Christ by Duty and are bound to study his Interest and Laws and to obey him VIII Subjects by Obligation are not always Subjects by Consent nor Subjects by Professed Consent always Subjects by Heart-Consent IX All the World is the Kingdom as of God the Creator so of Christ the Redeemer as to Obligation And the Wicked as Rebels X. All the truely Baptized are thereby made the Kingdom of Christ the Redeemer by Profest Consent And this is the Church visible XI All the true Believers and Sanctified are the Kingdom of Christ by Heart-Consent and these are the Church Regenerate and Mystical XII Therefore the Kingdom of Christ is larger than the Church of Christ And the Church is an Elect peculiar people Visible as to Means and Mystical as to Salvation Even as the Israelites had the Covenant of peculiarity while the Law of Grace in the first Edition made to Adam and Noah was still in force to all the World And Abraham thought that even Sodom had had Fifty Righteous Persons in it XIII The Church of Christ is an Eminent Politick Society of which Christ is the Specifying and Vnifying Head and all Christians are Members All the Baptized Visible Members and all the sincere consenters mystical Members XIV Christ is the Maker of his own Body Church or Kingdom He made himself the Head He made the specifying Institution or Law the Terms of Union and Communion He giveth Men the Grace by which they Believe Repent Consent and are made Members If Christ made not his own Church as to the Formal Head the Species the Unifying Terms and Graces it would be as a Wooden Leg to a living Body a Human Creature imposed on him Savouring of the Errours and Naughtiness of those that made it and Mutable at their Mutable Wills Every active Form makes it's own material Domicilium Who is he or who are they that had power to make Christ a Body or Church in specie before he made it himself Christs Body is not made by Man If it were who were they Were they his Body or Church first themselves or not If yea who made them such and who them and who them in infinitum If not how came Infidels and the Members of the Devil to have power to make a Body or Church for Christ XV. Christ hath de specie Instituted who shall be Members of this Church And by his Laws Terms and Description taught us certainly to know the Members as Visible Else we could never know whom to take for Christians nor whom to love as such Nor to whom to give the Seals of his Grace and Communion with his Members XVI Baptism is the Symbol or Badge of Christians and Baptizing is our Christening and whoever believeth and is Baptized shall be Saved Therefore till they Revolt all truly Baptized persons are Visible Christians and make up the Visible Church Which is the Society of all Christians Headed by their Soveraign Christ. XVII All Christians entered in Infancy are not capable of the Duty Blessings and Communion of the Adult Adult Members and Communion must be distinguished from Infant XVIII Therefore all that will have Adult Communion though they must not be Baptized again must as fully own their Baptismal Covenant Devoting themselves by their own Vnderstanding Consent and Vow to God the Father Son and Holy Ghost Renouncing the World the Flesh and the Devil as if they were now to be Baptized The neglect of this or turning it into a dead image and Ceremony by dead Images of Bishops on pretence of Confirmation confoundeth the Church and would make it a dead Image and really but the World XIX The Universal Church of Christ in his days on Earth was but an Embrio and his few Apostles and Disciples who were suited in number to the Jewish Nation where their Ministry was to begin were but like the Organical parts of the Body the Heart Head Eyes Liver c. when Nature hath first made them that by them it may make the rest But when Christ was Risen and the Holy Ghost sent down in Eminency and the Gentiles called and the Church began to be Catholick this Kingdom of the Holy Ghost is that which is called specially the Kingdom of God and Heaven which the Gospel then proclaimed and John Baptist told Men was at hand XX. The Church of Christ on Earth is partly Visible and partly Invisible and yet but one Church As Man is visible as to his Body and invisible as to his Soul and yet but one Man It is visible 1. In that the Subjects persons are Visible 2. Their profession is Visible 3. Christ was Visible on Earth 4. He is Visible now in his Court of Heaven 5. He will in visible Glory come and Judge them 6. They shall see his Glory for ever 7. His Laws are Visible 8. His Officers are Visible 9. Many of his Judgments and Executions are Visible here 10. The rest shall be so quickly and for ever His Church is Invisible 1. In that Christ as God was never seen 2. His Soul never seen 3. His Office as to Truth Right and Authority Invisible and to be believed 4. The Souls of the Subjects Invisible 5. Their Sincerity Invisible 6. And Christ now not seen on Earth 7. Nor Heaven and Hell seen where is his great Execution and Retribution XXI Christ only is the Specifying and Unifying Form of the Church as United to the Matter And all Christians Pastors and People are but the Matter They have a sort of Unity in themselves They are of one Human kind of one Interest of one Profession and Faith and Love if sincere and joyn in one sort of Worship and Acts of Obedience to Christ But they are One Christian Church or Body of Christ only by their Vnion with Christ and Relation to him their Head and Center As the Kingdom of England hath one sort of Men in our Land of one Language c. But only their Relation to one King makes them one Kingdom XXII The Church or Body of Christ when fully made hath dissimilar parts some are Noble Organical parts first made to be instruments in making and preserving all the rest and the Church cannot be a Formed Church without them some are such Integrals as the Church may live without but not be Whole without Even as Aristotle defineth the Soul to be Entelechia or the Entitative Act and Form of a Physical organized Body capable of being Animated by it And as in
And yet he may own most or all other Pastors of the Catholick Church as such He that thinks the Subscriptions Forms or Ceremonies of the Greek Roman or English Church unlawful doth not therefore think Christianity or Catholick Communion unlawful XXXVIII All Christians are not bound to be fixed Members of particular Churches subordinate to National but those that can enjoy it ought The Negative I have so fully proved against Dr. Stillingfleet that for Dr. Sherlock to go on to harp on the same string and give no answer to it doth but tell us with what Men we have to do I will not repeat the Proofs I gave that some Ambassadors some Merchants some wandering Beggars or Tradesmen some Travellers and some where no Churches yet are gathered some Soldiers and some in times of Confusion are not obliged to be fixed Members of any particular Church but only to be Christians in Communion with the Church Catholick and to hold transient Communion with the Churches where they come He that yet will deny this words will not make him see it XXXIX Many of these Churches in one Kingdom have so great advantage by the Unity of Soveraignty civil Interest and Laws to be strengthening helpers to one another that they should accordingly associate and live in as much concord as their various conditions Auditors and Imperfections will allow And accordingly as Neighbours owe some more Charity to each other than to Strangers so Christians under the same Prince united by Civil Government Laws and Interest should be so far from persecuting and destroying each other for that which in various Kingdoms is allowable in Religion that they should exercise more love compassion and forbearance of one another XL. Christian Princes are true Parts of the Kingdom of Christ and eminent Integral Parts of the Universal Church as well as Pastors And are bound by Christ to do their best to make all their Kingdoms the Kingdoms of Christ that is to bring all their Subjects to consent to be Christians and to live in concordant Obedience to the Laws of Christ. And so all Nations should be discipled as far as they can procure it And such National Churches that is Christian Kingdoms we must all desire XLI Supreme Christian Princes or States are authorized and obliged to drive on by just means all Pastors and People to the Duties of their several Places and correct them for their Crimes XLII Christian Princes and States being Members of the Universal Church are bound to contribute their best endeavours to its welfare And therefore so far to Unite and Agree as is necessary to their mutual strengthening for the Universal good XLIII Therefore so far as Civil Councils or Dyets of many Princes or their Delegates or Ambassadors are necessary to this Concord for the common good they are bound by God to keep such And where Meetings cannot be kept to use all meet correspondency by Ambassadors and Letters for the same End So that this is no duty proper to Bishops but common to Christian Princes And if their sinful omission make it strange it is nevertheless their duty as God will make them know XLIV Thy Synods of Pastors duly ordered are of great use for their mutual advice strength and concord in order to the universal good So far are we from being against them that we think the right use of them of great importance That they may keep a right understanding of the Faith which they agree in and bear down Heresies the better by their joynt opposition and may keep up Christian Love and work out the disaffections which strangers and the calumnies of backbiters are apt to breed And even in Integrals and meet Accidents may do as much in Concord as they can XLV The Obligation which lieth on Particular Pastors to observe the Agreements of such Synods is from the general command of Love and Concord and the means thereto And he that stands not to such Agreements as make for the Strength and Concord of the Churches violateth this Common Law But such Agreements of Synods as make not for this common end but are against it no man is obliged to observe For it is no means that is not for the End but against it Therefore every Canon which enjoyneth sin or is not to the Churches good but hurt must not be kept XLVI It is not true that the Diocesan is by Office the Representer of the whole Church in Synods and Presbyters have no place or decisive Votes Protestants have at large confuted this in their Confutations of Popery and so have many French Papists and some others The Convocation in England hath a lower House of Presbyters Else in Abassia one Bishop were instead of all the Clergy of the Empire And two or three were a National Synod in a Nation that hath no more Diocesses They can shew no Commission for such a Representative Power therefore they have none such XLVII Much less have five Patriarchs and a few Metropolitans or such near them as they will call Authority to pass for the Representatives of all the Christian World and to constitute a General Council XLVIII No Pastors or Churches can give power to any to represent them absolutely but only limitedly to lawful things for common good And to oblige them no further or longer to stand to what they do than the common good requireth it What a man may not do himself he may not authorize another to do for him And no man may himself oppose Truth or Duty or cross the common good or assert any falshood or consent to any sin And that which accidentally maketh for the common good in one Age or Countrey may be against it in the next And then we are obliged against it whatever our Delegates Ancestors or selves did for it before XLIX There was never in the World a General Council of all the Bishops on Earth nor of the Representatives of all the Churches Even the six or eight or more old Councils now most honoured were General but as to One Empire yea far from that and not as to all the Christian World This I have fully proved in my second Book against Johnson 1. From the Subscriptions to the said Councils 2. From the Authority of the Emperors that called them 3. From the rest of the History and Acts 4. And from the Testimony of the Historians of those Times Yet A. Bishop Bromhall with the Papist Priest Johnson maintaineth the contrary pag. 110. saying This Exception was made in the dark c. and saith it abounds with Errours and that the Abuna of Ethiopia submitteth to the Patriarch of Alexandria and they all acknowledge the Pope the first Patriarch c. Ans. 1. If such a cant as this go with any man for a satisfactory answer to the full proof aforesaid which I have given and my Confutation of ten times more of Johnsons I have done with that man Ans. 2. Our Question is Whether any or all the
unlimited Monarch we will speak according to common use and let them speak as their Interest dictates to them but remember that the Controversie is but about the Name and not the Thing We take the French Church for Papists If they will call them Protestants they are free But if we are agreed what a Pope is the case is plain as followeth I. Mr. Dodwell their most Learned defender if number of words or greatest self-conceit be the chief strength tells you that if the Council be not lawfully called it obligeth you rather to bring them to Punishment as a Rout or Rebels than to obey them And that none but the President hath Power to call them And remember yet that this good Man is no Papist And indeed who else but the Pope should call Universal Councils The King in Scotland may call a Scotch General Assembly and in England a Convocation and Parliaâ—ent And 1. The Emperor of Rome or Constantinople might call such Councils in the Empire as were then called General and did so But who now shall call one out of France Spain Portugal Italy Germany Britain Denmark Sweden Poland Moscovie the Turkish Empire Armenia Georgia Mengrelia Tartary Abassia Mexico Peru China c. We are awake and therefore cannot Dream of Princes doing it by Agreement We are yet out of Bedlam and cannot conclude that all the Bishops in the World will come together by common consent or as the Atomists say the World was made by a fortuitous concourse of Atomes 2. How shall lawful Councils be known from unlawful if none have Authority to call approve and difference them If only ex factis by their good or bad Deeds half the World will Judge as they have done and do one Council to be spurious which another obeyeth 3. What order shall be kept among them if none have Authority to appoint the Place the Time to Preside and Moderate and to dissolve them and who pretends to this but the Pope 4. When Councils Contradict Condemn and Curse each other who shall tell us which of them to receive believe and obey II. And if we must have a visible Supreme Power we must have one that successively existeth that the Church be not dissolved And none pretendeth to this but the Pope III. And if all National Patriarchal Churches be but Parts of a visible Catholick Church with a Humane Supremacy then there must be some Power still existent to give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power Mr. Dodwell saith it overthrows all Government to appeal to Scripture as a Charter or Law of Christ None hath more than the Giver intended him None can give that which he hath not to give The Inferior hath not Power to give to the Superior Who then but a Pope can give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power If for want of Authoritative Collation of Power all the Presbyterian Ordinations Sacraments and Covenant-hopes of Salvation are Nullities and Sins against the Holy Ghost as Mr. Dodwell and his Tribe say what better are all the Bishops and Archbishops for want of a Superior conferring Power which none pretendeth to but the Pope IV. And who else shall judge Patriarchs Metropolitans and National Churches when they prove Hereticks or Schismaticks Their Heresie and Schism is far more heinous and dangerous than single Persons or Congregations And Councils are not extant And we cannot send all over the Earth to gather Bishops Votes against them unheard It must be a Pope or no body on Earth that must by Governing Authority Judge them V. And who else shall be the stated Judge of new started Controversies You say such there must be shall they be undecided till the World have a true general Council VI. And who shall an injured Person appeal to from a Tyrannical Metropolitan or National Church but to the Pope Many more clear Necessities there will be of a Pope on their Principles I blamed the Author of the Divine Hierarchy for naming such without an Antidote lest it should make men Papists But I understand he is a worthy Protestant But verily there is no avoiding a Pope by any that assert an Vniversal humane Church Supremacy VII And indeed I must not suppose them so immodest as to deny it For it is but the Pope's Absolute Power above the Councils and their Laws and not Simple Popery or the Pope's limited Power that they deny 1. They confess that they hold Rome for the Mistriss Church as Grotius calls it 2. And that the Pope is Patriarch of the West and the prime Patriarch 3. And that he is Principium Vnitatis to all the Church on Earth And if so they are out of the Church which is One that deny this 4. That he is authorized to call General Councils 5. And to be their President 6. And to be the chief Governor when there are no General Councils and that is indeed always 7. And that they are all Schismaticks that do not thus far submit to him And how much more Mr. Dodwell giveth the President I have shewed you in his own words VIII As Mr. Thorndike threateneth England with God's Judgments if they do not amend the Oath of Supremacy by making it acceptable to the Papists that renounce not a foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction so others labour to prove that the meaning of it is only to renounce the Pope's Jurisdiction here in Temporals which belongs to the King and not a Papal and Foreign Jurisdiction properly Ecclesiastical by the Keys As you may see partly in Mr. Hutchinson's alias Berry's Book who on that Supposition took the Oath as many do and publickly profest himself of the Church of England IX In the Description of the Reconciliation with the Pope endeavoured by Archbishop Laud in Heylin's History of his Life Pag. 414 415 c. All that the Pope was to abate was 1. That the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity may be taken I told you in what sense 2. And that the Pope's Jurisdiction here but no where else be declared to be of Humane Right that is say ours by the Fathers in General Councils not without the Apostles by whose Church-Laws we are all bound 3. That all should be really performed to the King so far as other Catholick Princes usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be independent both from King and Pope but not from subjection to either This saith he no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him 4. Marriage permitted to Priests 5. The Communion in both kinds 6. The Liturgy in English I ask any sober man now Qu. 1. Whether the Pope did himself think that by this bargain he ceased to be Pope and all Papists to be Papists 2. Whether if the King had been thus far equalled with other Catholick Princes the Pope would not have supposed him and his Bishops and Church to be of the same Roman Catholick Church as they 3. Whether in all this here be any
renunciation of the Popes Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in England but only of the Divine Right of it 4. Whether here be any renunciation of his claimed Universal Jurisdiction over all the Church on Earth 5. Whether such an Universal Church Monarch by Humane Right with some and Divine with others be consistent with the Protestant Doctrine and that of the Former Church of England 6. Whether such a Bargain be the way to save us from Popery 7. What to call or think of those Archbishops Bishops and Drs that are for such a Bargain and for Silencing two Thousand such Ministers as were Silenced and Ruining those that forsake them not and yet cry down Popery and accuse those whom they Silence and Ruine as befriending it Readers Did you think till Experience told you that England had had such Clergy men And do you not yet understand them LVIII The whole Christian World or all the Earth is less capable of one Ecclesiastical Monarch or Supreme Aristocracy than of one Civil Monarch This is easily proved to any that will understand what Church Government is 1. Church Government consisteth in judging of the state of Mens Souls whether they are capable of Baptism and the Communion of Saints and the Remission of Sin and whether their Professions be so sound in matter and understood by them and their practices such as shew them capable or not And an outward matter of fact with its circumstances which Magistrates judge is far easier judged of than all this in the understanding will and practice 2. It is about matters of supernatural Revelation and heavenly Mystery which is not so easily known as Natural and Civil things 3. It is a work of personal ability and perforformance like a School-masters or Physicions and can less be done by delegation 4. There is no rule or warrant in Scripture for such delegation which Magistrates may use Nor for Church-Rulers making new sorts of Officers under them to do their Journey-work which Princes may undoubtedly make 5. All that are under such a Supreme must have far greater sufficiency for their Ecclesiastical work than every Civil or Military Officer needs for his as the different works require 6 Such an Universal Monarch or Senate would be supposed still in being and so the Mundane Empire not dissolved which here cannot be supposed 7. Such a Monarch or Senate would be in some known place of the World where men might hear of them and find them But it 's not so here specially as to the Soveraign College of Bishops or Council 8. Such a Monarch or Civil Senate would be supposed to be Lords of all the World and therefore to have Wealth enough to pay Shipping Travelling Messengers Officers and discharge all Publick Expences But so hath not the Imaginary College or Council no nor the Pope and Conclave 9. Such a Monarch or Senate commanding all the World would not have most of the Kingdoms of the Earth the Enemies of them and hinderers of their work whereas the Bishops have not the leave of one Prince of many to assemble and govern 10. Such a Monarch or Senate would have no Superior on earth but God to forbid and hinder them Whereas our imaginary diffused College and Council are themselves the Subjects of abundance of Princes Orthodox Heterodox Infidels Heathens who are their Commanders and may hinder them So that our Universalists plead that on necessity to the Concord and Being of Christ's Church all the Christian World must be under the Supreme Government of thousands of the Subjects of various Princes most of them Enemies When all Church-History and Experience have told the World how much Princes can do on their subject Clergy LIX To make the Church of England a subject ☞ part of the Church Universal as Governed by a Foreign Supreme Power Pope Council or College is to make it totâ specie quite another thing from what the Protestant Church of England and the other Protestant Churches are Proved where the Supreme Government is altered or divers the Species of the Society is altered or divers No man that knows what Government is will deny this But here the Supreme Government would be altered or divers For the Protestant Churches own no Supreme Universal Governour but Christ. And that the Church of England owneth no such I will prove anon 2. A Kingdom and a part of a Kingdom a compleat Political Body and the meer Part of such a Body as a Corporation are not of the same Species But the Protestant Church of England is a compleat Society in it self and the Church of England as a meer part of a greater Society is not so As Christ's Kingdom and the Kings differ so we maintain that the Kingdom of England as such and as a meer part of Christ's Kingdom are of different Species And it would be so as to a Humane Universal Kingdom were there any such 3. A Kingdom or Church under no Laws but Gods and their own are not of the same Species with a Kingdom or Church under Foreign Laws above their own And so it 's here supposed 4. A Kingdom and Church whose Justices Judges Captains and all Officers receive their Power and Commission from a Foreign Soveraign Power is specifically divers from that which doth not And so it is here 5. A Kingdom and Church which may be punished by a Supreme Foreign Power and must be judged by them is not of the same Species with that which may not But c. 6. A Kingdom and Church whose Subjects may appeal from their own King or Church-Governours to a Foreign Power are not of the same Species with that which may not But the two Churches in question so differ Therefore they are not of the same Species And therefore Mr. Thorndike and such truly acknowledge this as their foundation that without owning One Vniversal Governing Church there is no Union nor true Consistence in the particulars The Consequence is evident That the Church which according to Dr. Heylin A. Bishop Laud would have had and which A. Bishop Bromhall and his Defender Dr. Parker and Grotius and his Defender Dr. Pierce and Bishop Guning and his Chaplain Dr. Saywell and Mr. Thorndike Mr. Dodwell Bishop Sparrow and all of that mind are for is not the Protestant Church of England nor at all a true Protestant Church But as far as I can understand their words it is the same Visible Church-Form and Government which the Councils of Constance and Basil were for and which the Papists French Church is for unless there be any worse in the French Church-form than yet I know of LX. We are further from denying or violating the Churches Unity than they are that feign an Universal Humane Soveraignty Nor doth our opposition to Popery exclude our resolution as much as in us lieth to live peaceably with Papists and with all men I. We hold as aforesaid that all Christians are united in One God one Christ the Soveraign one Body of Christ one
Faith one Baptismal-Covenant with Christ one Spirit one Hope of Grace and Glory and must keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace And that all Subjects must obey their Rulers and Pastors in all lawful things belonging to their Office to command and teach And that as Particular Churches must be held for the Personal Communion of Saints so all these Churches must by Messengers Letters and Synods hold such correspondency as the common good of the Universal Church and their own strength and edification by the means of mutual COVNSEL and CONCORD do require II. Accordingly we make not Regent Senates or Courts of such Councils to make Laws for the Christian World But they are like the Assemblies of pious Christian Princes who study the Peace of the whole Christian World Princes are bound so to do as well as Pastors That they do not proveth not that they ought not Their Kingdoms are but parts of the Kingdom of Christ. If they should hold an Assembly in Europe for the suppressing of such a Heresie as threatneth the whole or such a Tyrant as the Pope or such an Enemy as the Turk it were well done and had the same reasons and power as a Council of Bishops Bishops may not undertake Jurisdiction in other mens Bishopricks nor Kings in other mens Kingdoms Bishops are bound to prefer the universal good and so are Kings III. And therefore the measure of such Communion by Consultation by Messengers Letters or Councils is 1. The publick good 2. And the capacity of the Communicants We have Communion with all Christians in Abassia Armenia and all the Earth in Faith Hope Love and all the Essentials of Christianity But if John or Joan here commit Adultery and be excommunicated as impenitent we are not bound to send Messengers to the Antipodes or all the World to tell them of it no nor if a Bishop or his Chaplain turn Heretick Nor are they bound to send hither to enquire or examine it And if the Excommunicate come to Armenia and desire Communion they are justifiable for receiving him and being ignorant of our Excommunication But Neighbour Christians and Churches live so near that they are capable of converse And therefore Synods and Communicatory Letters are there of great use And so far as an Excommunicate man is like to intrude into the Communion of other Churches it is meet that his Excommunication be published and that other Churches receive him not without just satisfaction And so Councils are useful as far as propinquity maketh men capable of visible Communion Especially to Pastors and Churches in one Kingdom where the Unity of the Civil Government giveth them more capacity and necessity of such Correspondency than with Foreigners And therefore the Councils in the same Roman Empire had great reason for their Decrees to avoid those Excommunicate by each other And yet many Councils even under the Papacy decreed that he that is unjustly Excommunicate by one Bishop may be received by another But that supposeth his tryal and proof of the Injury Therefore we come not so near the Universal Soveraignty of Councils as Dr. Stillingfleet in the Defence of A. Bishop Laud tells us Laud whom he defended doth Who will have the old Councils confessed truly General notwithstanding the absence of the Extra-Imperial Bishops 2. And will have such Councils to have been received the Four first by all the Christian World when it 's known how many rejected that at Chalcedon 3. And will have such Councils to be externally obeyed by patient submission when they notoriously err by all Christians till another Council as General and Free reverse their Decrees 4. And will have them have such Obedience as all other Courts For meer Councils of Bishops of several Kingdoms are no Courts and have no proper Jurisdiction Chap. II. Why Parliaments and Archbishop Abbot and the Church of England Antecedent to A. Bishop Laud were against the Design of Coalition with Rome § 1. IT was not because they were Enemies to Christian Concord or did not desire it on lawful possible terms with Papists and all others Nor was it because they were maliciously bent to be cruel to the Papists by denying them the common Love which is due to Mankind or any Benefits or Peace which was consistent with the Nations Peace and Safety But it was on such Reasons as these following § 2. I. They took the design to be a real restoring of Popery under the Name of Reconciliation and Peace And they had an excuseable Opinion that if Popery were set up it was not laying by the Name and calling it Reformation or the Church of England that would deliver us from the Sin or Suffering They were not of the new Opinion that none are Papists but those that would have the Pope Absolute above General Councils and Govern Arbitrarily against the Canons They took the foundation of Popery to be the Heresie that the whole Church on Earth must have one Soveraign or Supream Government with Universal Legislative and Judicial and Executive Power under Christ in which it must be Vnited or made One Church This they took to be Antichristian the intolerable Treasonable Usurpation of an Impossible thing tending to the Confusion of Mankind But whether this Traiterous Soveraignty should be Monarchical or Aristocratical in Pope or Councils feigned to be General or in both Conjunct and when Conjunct whether the Pope should be above the Council or the Council above the Pope or each have a Negative Voice or he have but the Calling and Presiding Power They took these to be but several sorts of Popery or differences among the Papists themselves And they took it for a ridiculous absurdity that a Council of men dead an Hundred or a Thousand Years ago and that only of men of one Empire called by their own Prince should be taken for the Vnifying Constitutive Soveraign Power of the Universal Church which now existeth and that the Body can live many Hundred Years after the Head is dead and yet be a Church of the same Species And for them that say the Bishops of all the Earth have a Jus Conveniendi and are a Virtual Council It is but to say could they prove it that they are a Virtual Head and not an Actual and so that we have no Actual Universal Church but a Virtual And as for the new Dream that they are Actually the Supreme Unifying Power and Actually Govern the whole Christian World per literas format as it 's a sad case with Christians when such deliration needs a confutation and sadder if such a Land or Clergy as ours must remedilesly Perish by believing or following such a Dream Shall all the Bishops of Asia Africa Europe and America out of the Dominions of the Turks Persians Tartarians Indians Papists Protestants Abassines c. meet in despite of their involuntary forbidding Princes How and by whose Call and where and when in how long time and who shall bear their
Charges from next to the Antipodes or from Abassia Mexico c. Must they be old Men fit for Council or Boys fit for Travel when the age of a Man will scarce serve for their coming together their business and their return and execution And what 's all this to do Is it to make new Universal Laws Hath not Christ in Nature and Scripture given us enow for the Practice of Christianity without all this ado of Congregating Bishops for Legislation all over the World Oh that these Law-makers would keep Christ's Laws And if it be for mutable Circumstances is not every Church or Countrey sufficient for such variable Determinations Must men come from the Antipodes Ethiopia or Turky to tell me here what Cloaths I must wear or what place or time I shall Preach in or what Tune to Sing in c. But if they must not meet what Messengers must be sent to them all over the World to gather their Votes How shall we be sure that they truly state all the Cases to them And that they truly bring us back their Judgments And that those Judgments were truly past without hearing what could be said against them And is every single Bishop infallible or the Majority only and how shall it be known what the Majority said And whither shall all their collected Votes be carried and to whom Is it to every Christian or to every Bishop And how many Ages will this require And if it be not for Legislation but Judgment if the Question be whether A. B. be a Heretick or C. D. be a Fornicator c. who shall bear the Messengers Charges that must go through the World to all the Bishops to decide it And shall the Cause be tryed without witnesses or hearing the defence of the accused And must the accused and witnesses go through all the World Reader is it not a shame to confute such Dreams Had not I tryed in with the Leading Men I should have taken him for a Slanderer that had said that any English Dr. and Bishop should maintain that the Collegium Pastorum through the World is that summa Potestas under Christ which hath the Chief Government of the Vniversal Church in Vnity per literas formatas and that our Concord lyeth only in obeying this Power and it's Schism not to unite in such Obedience § 3. II. Moreover the former Church of England and Parliaments thought that the Oath of Supremacy which excluded a Foreign Jurisdiction did mean as well the Foreign Jurisdiction of the Pope as President of a Council and that Council with him and of the Pope as Patriarch and Principium Vnitatis and of the Bishops of Italy Spain France Poland Mexico Turky c. as of a Pope above Councils And they were not willing again to Subject the King and Kingdom to Foreign Priests nor to be cheated into Slavery by the bare Name of the Catholick Church and the Ecclesiastical Government § 4. III. And they indeed took the Pope to be the Antichrist specially for his Usurping an Universal Kingdom or Governing Power proper to Christ And therefore were angry with Archbishop Laud and his Chaplains for leaving out all such words from the Liturgy to avoid the Pope's displeasure of which Dr. Heylin ubi sup giveth you an account See but Bishop Downame's large Latine Book to prove the Pope Antichrist who yet hath written the strongliest for Diocesan Bishops of any man in my Judgment that ever I read § 5. IV. And they thought that the Doctrinal differences were very many and very great and in divers Points I believe they thought them greater than they are see the huge Catalogue gathered by Bishop Downame in the End of the foresaid Book Morton White Whitaker Abbot Field Sutliffe Chaloner Bernard Crakenthorpe and abundance more chief Drs. of the old Church of England have opened them at large But how small the new Drs. made them to be Dr. Heylin fully tells you And Archbishop Bromhall saith ubi sup p. 72 73. when all these empty Names and Titles of Controversies are wiped out of the Roll the true Controversies between us may be quickly Mustered c. See the rest § 6. V. But none doubted but the Differences about Worship were unreconcileable till one Party much changed their Forms of Worship Their great Mass of superstitious Inventions if not Idolatry as the Church of England thought and Dr. Stillingfleet even of late hath charged on them Protestants could never be reconciled to But of A Bishop Laud's reconciling attempts in Worship See Heylin Vbi supra in his Life And Archbishop Bromhall saith P. 141. Speaking against Chillingworth's true way of Concord That Form which the Protestants would allow the Romanists cry out on as defective in Necessary Duties and particularly wanting five of their Sacraments Nay certainly to call the whole frame of the Liturgy into Dispute offers too large a Field for Contention and is nothing so likely a way for Peace as either for us to accept of their Form abating some such Parts of it as are Confessed to have been added since the Primitive times and are acknowledged not to be simply necessary but such as charitable Christians ought to give up and Sacrifice to an Vniversal Peace and would do it readily enough if it were not for mutual Animosities of both Parties and particular Interests of some Persons § 7. VI. And they thought it as unlawful to obey the Pope as Patriarch of the West or as President with his Council if he imposed on us the Mass or the Worship of Angels Dead Men or Images or any new Sacraments or unlawful things as if he did it as above General Councils § 8. VII And they made no doubt but if the Pope and his Foreign Councils and all his attendant Trumpery were once received as Principium Vnitatis Vniversalis and the President of Councils he would soon come in in the same Capacity that other Popish Countries do receive him § 9. VIII For they knew that it is that same Man that is more absolute in Popish Kingdoms who would submit to some restraint in this And that by Possession Agents and that foreign help he would easilier reduce this to the Case of others than the Case of any others to this § 10. IX They had not lost the Remembrance of the Spanish Invasion the Gunpowder Plot and the many Treasons of late by such committed and it made them fear both the Power and the Company of such a sort of men § 11. X. They remembred the heavy Taxes Oppressions and the Rebellions and Wars that had been in the times of Popery in England And they had felt the ease and sweetness of Deliverance and were loth to return to that Captivity again 12 XI They had not forgotten Queen Maries Days Fox's Book of Martyrs was in the hands of many Nor had they forgot the French Massacre or the greater Murders formerly committed by Wolves in Sheep-skins who were known by
their bloody Fangs and Jaws § 13. XII They saw that the same Clergymen who were for this Union with Rome were the chief Defenders of the King 's absolute Power of raising Money without Parliaments as the known History of Abbot's Dejection and Laud's Sibthorp's and Mainwaring's Cases shew And this made them the lother to draw nearer Popery § 14. XIII They found the Power of the Clergy in the High Commission and their Courts and Councils so uneasie to them that they greatly feared so great an increase of it as the Coalition with Rome would cause § 15. XIV They found that the Papists and reconciling Prelates were the greatest Enemies to them whom they accounted the most Godly serious Christians Ministers and Lay-men not only Nonconformists but such as they devised to call conformable Puritans And they were not for Uniting their strength against serious practical Piety § 16. XV. They found that the prophane Drunkards and ignorant Rabble greatly rejoyced in the Bishops prosecuting such Puritans And were loth to see them much more so animated by the Coalition with Rome § 17. XVI They found so great a number of the Clergy that were for the Coalition and Enemies to the Puritans to gape so greedily after Preferment and live such indifferent lives and Preach so unprofitably and do so little to cure the ignorance of the People as made them fear much worse if we came nearer the Roman Clergy who are so much for blind obedience and cherishing ignorance that they may Rule § 18. XVII They did not perceive that the Case of any Popish Country Italy Spain Portugal Austria Bavaria Poland no nor France was so much better than ours as might tempt us to be liker to them than we are Yea that the best of them both in Civil and Religious Respects are so much worse as may well deter us from such desires § 19. XVIII And it 's not to be doubted but they made some Conscience of their Obligations to the King and were loth he should be tempted to give away half the Government of his Kingdom yea of himself to Foreigners under the Name of Ecclesiastical Government by such Courts as theirs § 20. XIX And no doubt they remembred what Doctrine against Kings and States are subject to the Church and Pope their Councils and Drs. do assert and what they have done to their disturbance and destruction And therefore were loth to give any more strength and advantage to men of such Principles and Pretensions If the Pope will give a Protestant King fair quarter and promise him freedom from his Tyranny while the same man according to his Canons layeth claim to more and exerciseth Tyranny in other Lands he may soon break his Promise here § 21. XX. And no doubt but they saw how loth other Princes and States were to return nearer Rome that had once escaped and to subject themselves to such a Usurper And they thought it unwise and unsafe for England to stand alone in a singular odd condition neither Papists nor such Reformers as any of the rest and so to be strengthened by a Concord and hearty Friendship with neither § 22. XXI And it is not to be doubted but the Lords and Gentlemen of England were unwilling to give up all their Abby Lands as long as they thought a sufficient Ministry competently provided for And unwilling to take the Pope or Clergies promises for security for the continuance of their Possessions yea and to save them from being burnt as Hereticks § 23. XXII And no doubt but common reason told them how great a part of England not the unwisest nor the worst would refuse consent to the Coalition with Rome and the nearer approaches when imposed and therefore what a doleful encrease it would make of our Divisions If we are so sadly divided already by a few Oaths and Promises and New Covenants and Formalities and Church Judicatures how many hundred thousand more would dissent if all were imposed which the new Church-men judge necessary to the Union with Rome § 24. And these would unavoidably draw on a grievous Persecution For when all this stir loss cost and hazard had been made to bring on such a general Concord Dissenters would not have been endured by the Clergy when yet they would be multiplied § 25. And how much such a Division and Persecution would weaken the Kingdom they that did not believe Christ that a Kingdom divided against it self cannot stand might easily know by reason and the Worlds experience § 26. On such accounts as these the two sorts of Episcopal Conformists differed and the old Tribe called then the Church of England resisted the endeavours made by Bishop Laud and such as A. Bishop Bromhall and the rest that were for a Coalition with Rome Till the latter got into the chiefest Chairs and then they called their side The Church And thus Church and Church here began our strife And the difference twisted with the Civil differences between King and Parliament widened and utterly exasperated by War the A. Bishop of Canterbury beheaded and the A. Bishop of York being in Arms for the Parliament each Party claimeth the name of the Church of England And the Party that is uppermost doth it with advantage while sober men know that denominating à Formâ as existent in Materiâ capaci seu dispositâ the Church of England is nothing but a Protestant Soveraign and a Protestant Kingdom of Subjects guided by Protestant Ministers of the Word Sacraments and Keys So that in the Reign of King James and of any Papist King there was and can be no Protestant Kingdom or National Church deficiente formâ denominante in the Judgment of those Royalists that think Parliaments have no part in the Legislation and Soveraignty And according to them that think otherwise it is but a National Church secundum quid in respect to the Power of Parliaments and Laws But Particular Churches Parochial and Confederate and Diocesan may yet continue their Constitutive causes continuing But not an informed National Church Chap. III. They are deceived who are for the foresaid Papal or Council-Jurisdiction as if it were the way of Vnity or Catholicism § 1. I Doubt not but the desireableness of Universal Concord is it which draweth many honest well-meaning men into the esteem of the Papal or Conciliar-Jurisdiction All things have a tendency to Aggregation or Unity as Perfection and nothing more than Christian Love This held such good men of old as Bernard Gerson c. from favouring the Reformers thinking that the Papacy was necessary to Unity This kept such as Erasmus and Cassander from forsaking them And this turned Wicelius Grotius and others to them And no doubt but this inclineth many in England to the French kind of Church-Government and to approve and follow Grotius But they quite cross their own desires § 2. Catholicism or Vniversal Concord consisteth in that which all the Christian Church is constituted by and in which
our Concord it comes all to one in point of Obligation Ans. 1. If it come all to one in the effect why do you contend for so much more in the Cause 2. God bindeth Princes and States as much to Concord and yet their voluntary Treaties and Dyets and a Supreme Government over them do not come all to one 3. God doth not bind all Churches or Christians to agree in more than he himself hath commanded them And therefore hath given power to none on Earth to determine what more all shall agree in 4. The Greater the Councils are caeteris paribus the more all Protestants reverence them because they signifie the Concord of many But 1. We know that there are none of them Universal as to the World nor ever are like to be 2. We know that the Greater part are usually the worst and that at this day the far greater number of Christians on Earth Papists Greeks Armenians Nestorians Jacobites c. are lamentably degenerate ignorant and corrupt 3. And we know that as God hath not made the greater number the Governors of the lesser so neither doth he bind or allow the less to consent to them to their hurt 4. And when Councils for meer Agreement will degenerate and Usurp a Regiment over Dissenters they change their Species and bind us not to obey them but oppose them as Usurpers XI The last deceit that I shall here name is Their pretence of the mischief of letting Sinful or Heretical Kingdoms go unpunished when singular Persons must not escape Therefore there must be a Supreme Power on Earth to correct or punish National Churches or Kingdoms You may find the Argument in Dr. Sawell Bishop Guning's Chaplain and Master of a College in Cambridge and many others This is so plain dealing that one would think all Kings and Kingdoms should easily understand it But I answer it 1. Why will this pretended necessity of correcting Kings and Kingdoms infer One Universal Church Soveraign any more than one King or Senate over all the Earth Perhaps you 'le say The Church is one but Kingdoms are many I answer The whole World on Earth is One Kingdom of God but particular Churches are many 2. Kings and whole Kingdoms shall be punished as well as singular Persons But only by God the Universal King or by permitted Enemies but not by any Humane Superior Governors Kings are under the Laws of God and they shall be judged by those Laws If you lived in the due expectation of Death and Judgment you would not think them insignificant words that the Just Universal Judge is as at the Door who only can Judge Kings 3. The Ministers of Christ who know them and live under them have sufficient Authority to admonish Kings and Kingdoms and exercise Pastoral Care of their Souls by Preaching and Applying the Word of God as their own Physicians are fittest to take care of their Health without sending to Rome or over all the Earth for a Council of Physicians What work these Universal Rulers have made by Excommunicating Kings and Interdicting Kingdoms History acquainteth us It hath not been such as should make any Man long for an Universal Church Governour of Kings and Kingdoms 4. Those Foreigners that think Kings and Kingdoms Heretical and prove it may renounce Communion with them without pretending to be their Governors I have thought meet here briefly to repeat our Controversie with the Reasons and Deceits of the Usurpers our own Judgment is for true Catholicism even one Catholick Head Jesus Christ one Catholick Church having no other Head or Soveraign One Spirit One Faith One Baptism One Hope of Glory and One God and Father of all And that all Christians should live in Love to others as themselves and in their several Churches under the just conduct of their several Pastors keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Eph. 4.3 That they should all know those that labour among them and are over them in the Lord and highly esteem them in love for their work sake and be at peace among themselves 1 Thes. 5.12 13. That the Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost And he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men who judge as God would have them judge Rom. 14.17 But if God be forsaking the West as far as he hath done the East and dementation prognosticate perdition the Kingdom above shall never be forsaken And we look for a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness And seeing all these things shall be dissolved what manner of Persons ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness looking for and hasting to the Coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3.11 12. Chap. V. What a Foreign Jurisdiction by Councils or the College of Bishops is the Mask being taken off MEthinks Princes and States and Churches should not be cheated into a state of Subjection without ever considering or examining what it is And methinks no honest Bishops should be unwilling that it be truely understood I. Consider what an Universal Legislative Power includeth It plainly implyeth the insufficiency of Gods Words and Laws to those Ends for which this power is pretended Whereas this is the very point of the Protestant Cause as differenced from Popery that God being the only Ruler of the whole World none else can make Laws for the whole but only such By Laws for their particular Provinces as Corporations do under the King for undetermined Circumstances in which Kingdoms and Churches may freely differ II. By this the Peace of the Christian World will be laid on these variable Circumstances As if all the World were bound to wear such Garments as France or England wear c. III. By this the Legislative Power of every Kingdom is taken away in all matters of Religion which are our greatest things For it is the summa potestas only that hath the Legislative Power At least no Inferior hath any but from and under the Supreme nor may contradict them VVhereas even the Decrees of our National Clergy are no Laws with us till the King shall make them Laws IV. By this no Man can tell what degree of Power these Foreigners will assume As the Popes Ecclesiastical Power is now extended to Testaments Matrimony Adulteries Church Lands c. Among Christians to whom all things are sanctified they may challenge almost all And when it becomes a Controversie who shall judge Certainly the Supreme Power is the Supreme Judge of their own Rights V. I think it will oblige Kings Lords and all when Summoned to Travel out of their own Kingdoms as Malefactors to answer what accusations are brought against them For certainly a Supreme Judicature must have its Forum where men must be heard before they are Judged and where all that are Summoned must answer Or else Kings and Kingdoms must become poor Subjects to any
of Bishops in France depose the best of Kings Ludov. Pius XV. Another Council at Aquisgrane deposeth Lotharius XVI Theodora's Council at Constantinople is again for Images XVII They so far deceived Kings that Carolus Calvas in a Council at Tullum saith That no man may depose him without the hearing and judgment of the Bishops who are called the Throne of God by whom God decreeth Judgment and to whom he subjecteth himself XVIII An. 868. In a Council at Rome under Hadrian 2d to detect the Thieves in Monasteries they are to be made receive Christ's Body and Blood XIX An. 869. The Constantinople Council called by the Papists the 4th and the 8th General one C. 3. Curseth those that think Images are not to be Worshipped with the same honour as the Gospel as teaching by colours what the Scripture doth by words saying They shall not see Christ's face at his second coming that adore not his Image Yet C. 8. They depose Bishops that made men Swear to be true to them And so our Bishops must be deposed for the Oath of Obedience to them XX. The C. 11. is that All Bishops bearing on Earth the Person and Form of the Celestial Hierarchy shall with all Veneration be worshipped by all Princes and Subjects And shall not go far from Church to meet any Commanders or Nobles Nor shall light from their Horses like Supplicants or Abjects that feared them nor fall down and Petition them Else the Bishop shall be separated a Year from the Sacrament and the Princes Dukes or Captains two Years Is this like the Law of Christ Are all Princes under it XXI C. 12. Princes as Prophane may not be Spectators of that which Holy Persons do and therefore Councils are held without them Who would think that our Bishops or Priests could subscribe to these and to the 39 Articles and the Oath of Supremacy also XXII Can. 14. saith That a Lay-man shall have no Power to Dispute by any reason of Ecclesiastical Sanctions For though a Lay-man excel in the praise of Piety and Wisdom yet he is a Lay-man and a Sheep and not a Pastor But a Bishop though it be Manifest that he is destitute of ALL VIRTUE OF RELIGION yet he is a Pastor as long as he exerciseth the office of a Bishop and the Sheep must not resist the Shepherd Princes and Parliaments must note this XXIII An. 876. A Concilium Titin. maketh Charles Emperor against Ludovicus the Popes expresly claiming the Power of electing approving and making Emperours as his right And Stephen 5 alias 6. with Bishops and Lords depose the Emperour Carolus Crassus after as too dull And the Pope telleth the Emperour Basil that the Sacerdotal Dignity is not subject to Kings and that Kings are authorized to meddle only with worldly Matters and Popes and Priests with Spiritual Therefore their Place is more excellent than Emperours as Heaven is above Earth And the Disciple is not above his Lord. XXIV An. 888. A Council at Mentz saith That a King ruling impiously and unjustly is a Tyrant and not a King XXV Ibid. Whereas Clergymen were accused for getting their own Sisters with Child it was decreed that no Presbyter accuse a Bishop nor any Deacon a Presbyter And that no Prelate be Condemned but under Seventy two Witnesses and that the chief Prelate be Judged of no Man And a Cardinal Presbyter under Forty two Witnesses and a Cardinal Deacon under Twenty six and Sub-deacons Acoluthes Exorcists Readers Door-keepers not under Seven Witnesses and all these without Infamy having Wives and Children O secure Wickedness XXVI Ibid. The Punishment of one Murdering even a Priest is To forbear Flesh and Wine and not to be carried in a Coach and not to come to Church in Five years nor to the Sacrament in Twelve XXVII An. 895. In Concil Tribur If the Bishop command the people to meet in one place and the Magistrate in another they must obey the Bishop and not the Magistrate He and all his Company shall obey the Bishop C. 10. No Bishop shall be deposed but by Twelve Bishops nor no Presbyter but by Six Bishops XXVIII An. 912. A Council at Confluence decree that none Marry within the Seventh degree XXIX An. 1049. Leo 9th and his Council of Bishops sit at Rhemes though the King forbad them But they decree that no man be promoted to Church Government without the election of the Clerks and the People XXX An. 1050. Two Councils condemn Berengarius and Jo. Scotus's Doctrine of the Sacrament As others after did at Rome and forced him to recant and profess Transubstantiation in sense XXXI The Pope and Bishops An. 1055. Interdict the whole Kingdom of Castile unless King Ferdinand submit to the Emperour Henry where they require him The choice of Popes by Cardinals introduced No man is to hear Mass of a Priest that he knoweth to have a Concubine a Wife Pope Alexander declareth King Harold a Usurper and set up William the Conquerour as in Right He brings in the Payment of Peter Pence to the Pope XXXII Greg. 7. Claimeth Presentations and Investitures Excommunicateth and deposeth the Emperour in a Roman Council and Excommunicateth all Bishops that were for him Absolveth his Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Saying It is meet that he be deprived of Dignity who endeavoureth to diminish the Majesty of the Church Commandeth that no King dare to resist his Legates Calls the King of France a ravening Wolf Declares in Council their Power to put down Kings Challengeth Spain as St. Peter's Patrimony Threatens the ruine of the Prince of Calaris if he make not his Bishops shave their Beards Challengeth Peter Pence of France I would transcribe out of Binnius the Pope's 27 Dictates or Determinations containing all the Papal Usurpations or most but that it is tedious and you may there see them or in my Summary of the Bishops Councils pag. 356 translated XXXIII An. 1074. In a Council at Rome Priests are not only forbidden Marriage but commanded to put away their Wives XXXIV An. 1078. A Roman Council pronounceth all Ordinations null not made by the common Consent of Clergy and People And must we agree to nullifie almost all the Church of England XXXV An. 1079. A Council forced Berengarius to Recant And An. 1080. another Excommunicateth and deposeth the Emperour XXXVI An. 1085. A Council at Quintilenburg maketh the Emperour's Claim of Investitures and not obeying the Pope to be Heresie and calls it by the Name of the Henrician Heresie that is Loyalty or not being against Kings at the Pope's Command And this Heresie is after oft Condemned XXXVII Victor's Council An. 1087. declareth that Simoniacks are Hereticks and Infidels and all Lay Patrons are Simoniacks with them that claim Presentations and Investitures and not to be communicated with and that it 's better communicate with God only in secret than with such XXXVIII An. 1090. A Council at Melâ—ia decree that no Lay-man hath Right or Authority over a
Clergy-man or may invest any XXXIX An. 1094. A Council at Constance decree against Married Priests XL. An. 1095. A Council at Clermont command that no Bishop or Priest make any Promise of Allegiance to a King or any Lay-man And that every Lay-labourer abate or pay the Tenth of his Wages to the Clergy XLI About 1100. a Council decreed that all Bishops of the Henrician Heresie for Loyalty be deposed and if dead dig'd up and burnt XLII An. 1108. A Council at Benevent decree that if any take a Benefice from a Lay-man's Presentation the Giver and Taker shall be Excommunicate XLIII An. 1180. A General Council as they call it at Laterane under Alexander the 3d called the Eleventh General Council condemning those whom they call Catharoi Puritans absolve Inferiours from all Duty and Fidelity to them and promise Indulgence to those that fight against them XLIV An. 1215. was the great Fourth Laterane General Council under Pope Innocent 3d. which obligeth Princes to exterminate all that are against Transubstantiation c. and else deposeth excommunicateth and damneth them Thus you see what must be the Protestant Religion when our present Church of England is United with the Roman Obj. Some of these were but Provincial Councils Ans. And are you not in England for obeying Provincial Councils I 'le then omit transcribing Spelman's Chap. IX Whether the Instance of the Apostles Church Government prove an Vniversal Soveraignty in the Bishops further considered § 1. THE pretence of all the Bishops in the World to the Government of all the Church on Earth as one Aristocratical Senate College or Court is so monstrous a fiction that were it not for that shadow of an Argument which they fetch from the instance of the Apostles and their pretended Succession I should think it would expose the pretenders to be taken for distracted men And therefore whether this instance will prove them in their wits let us further try § 2. The Apostles Commission is contained in Matth. 28.18 19 20. All power is given to me in Heaven and in Earth Go ye therefore and teach all Nations baptizing them in the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost Teaching them to observe all things whatsoever I have commanded you and loe I am with you alwaies even unto the end of the World Here 1. Christ's proper Universal Power is both the cause of their Commission and the matter which they must Preach 2. Their appointed work is 1. To make Nations Christ's Disciples 1. By Teaching 2. By Baptizing them 2. To Teach them when they are Disciples That which they must teach them when they are Disciples is To observe all Christ's Commands These Laws or Commands are but what Christ himself commanded these Disciples To the performance of this Commission he promised them to give them the Holy Spirit to bring all things to their remembrance and to lead them into all Truth and to be with them even to the end The Spirit thus eminently given for this special work was Christ's promised Substitute or as Tertullian calls him his Vacarius and Agent so that what the Spirit so commanded Christ commanded Christ's Commission to them contained much proper to themselves viz. By this extraordinary help of the Spirit to Remember what Christ had commanded them and what they had seen him do and to deliver it with special Power and seal it with special Gifts and Miracles and to Record it Sufficiently and Infallibly as his History Doctrine and Law for the use of the whole World unto the end And so he was with them to the end of their Age and is with their recorded Word to the end of the World And his Commission contained much common to others that is To Preach the same Christ and gather Disciples and Baptize them and to teach the Disciples all those Commands which Christ had delivered to his Apostles by his Mouth or Spirit And with these also in this Work Christ will be to the end of the World § 3. Here we must first consider what was the Apostles Power and Work 2. And then whether all Bishops have the same 3. And what the extent of their Work was when they are sent to all Nations or all the World § 4. 1. It is plain that All Power is not theirs but Christs They are but his Ministers 2. They are not Authorized to be Legislators themselves so as to make any Universal Law as their own But only to be Teachers of the Laws of Christ even such only as they received from him Accordingly they never made any Universal Law as their own But only told the World what Christ Commanded by his Word and Spirit 3. They were not made an Aristocratical College to do this by the authority of a Major Vote For as the same Spirit of Truth was given to every one of them singly so singly they were herein as Infallible as altogether 4. Accordingly they Preached abroad the World the same Gospel by the same Infallible Spirit Paul did not so much as speak or consult with any Apostles before he Preached as receiving his Gospel not from Man but from God Gal. 1. and 2. 5. The Universal Laws Promulgate by them are the matter of the several Books of the New Testament And there is not one of all these written in the Name of the College or Senate of the Apostles but every one of them by that single person whose name they bear or imply If Christs Law had been to have been made or delivered by the authority of a College as such some one of the Gospels or Epistles would have been so written 6. Yet while they abode together at Jerusalem no doubt they lived in Concord and held the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and believed and spake the same things And so they did when they were dispersed abroad the World And no doubt but their consent was more useful to convince others that they spake Truth than themselves who otherwise knew it 7. In cases not revealed by the Spirit they had the same use for consulting and reasoning the case and learning of others as all other men In this case reasoning was to help them to know But in case of Inspiration Reasoning did but express and exercise their Knowledg 8. As that Act. 15. was no more a General Council than the other Sacred Converse of the Apostles till they dispersed themselves so in their determination they lay it upon the Holy Ghost And Paul and Barnabas had before by the same Spirit accordingly determined But because they were not of the men that had received their knowledge from Christs own works and mouth in converse with him on Earth no wonder if the Jewish Christians desired fuller satisfaction § 5. II. From hence it is apparent 1. That ordinary Pastors or Bishops who have not the same Commission nor the same Inspiration or promise of it nor the same gift of Tongues and Miracles to
for such when divers Churches and Countries may have divers such Accidentals and the same Churches may change them as they see cause Q. 80. If it be not Legislation but Judicature that we must have an Universal Judge or Power for what are the Cases that they must Judge Sure it is not whether John or Thomas shall be judged capable of Baptism or of the Lord's Supper or whether he be an Adulterer a Drunkard and impenitent therein and so to be Excommunicate Must all the World come before all the World Shall Millions of Sinners be unjudged till all the Bishops of the World Judge them If it be Persons accused of Heresie Schism or any Sin that must be judged must they not be heard and their witness heard before they can be judged justly But if they Judge not of Persons but of Doctrines whether they be Heresie or not this will make no Alteration or Reformation till it be judged what persons are guilty of such Errors or Heresies And if particular Pastors on the place must judge all such persons is not the Scripture the Rule of Faith a sufficient Rule to judge of Heresie by Q. 81. If it be whole Churches that are to be judged will not a brotherly power of disowning their Communion serve without a Governing Power Had every one a Governing Power to whom the Apostles commanded with such not to eat nor bid them good speed May not Princes renounce Communion with Neighbour Princes and Nations without being their Governour Q. 82. In conclusion doth it not remain that this pretended Universal Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical is the device of the Prince of Pride a Treasonable Usurpation over all Princes disobedience to Christ Luke 22. and Antichristian Usurpation of his Prerogative and a base Captivating of the Souls and Reason of Mankind to a pretended Power which common sense reason and experience fully proveth to be a natural impossibility or that which in practice no Mortal Man or College is capable of Chap. XI A Breviate of the Papists Faith and Church Doctrine both the Monarchical and Aristocratical sort § 1. WE must believe that Christ hath a Church before we believe that he is Christ the Redeemer § 2. VVe must believe that this Church is Infallible or our Governour before we can believe that Jesus is Christ and our Governour § 3. We must believe that Christ Promised Infallibility or Governing Authority to this Church before we can believe that he is Christ. § 4. We must believe that this Promise is true and shall be fulfilled before we believe the Gospel Promise of Pardon and Salvation that is before we are Christians or believe the Scripture § 5. We must believe that the Pope is Christ's Vicegerent or Vicar General or General Councils at least before we can believe that Christ is Christ. § 6. We must believe that the Words of the Apostles were Intelligible else why did they speak but their Writings are not till a General Council make them so by an Exposition § 7. We must believe that it is intelligible which be true Bishops and Councils and what is the meaning of their Voluminous Decrees but it is not intelligible what is the sense of the Scripture till Councils tell us § 8. We must believe that God is the great Deceiver of the World by sense and things sensible e. g. by sense which takes Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine § 9. We must believe that all men are Hereticks who deny not their senses and all that believe sense even of all the sound men in the World shall be Damned That is All that believe God speaking by things sensible § 10. We must believe that God who is the great Deceiver of the World even to and by the senses yet hath given a Spirit of Infallibility to those Popes and Prelates in Council who live in worldliness and wickedness § 11. We must believe that an unlearned Pope and Prelates who never understood the Original Tongue but are ignorant men are by Miracle in Council inspired with the gift of right expounding the Scriptures which they never studied or understood before § 12. We must believe that every Priest how ignorant or wicked soever doth by pronouncing the bare words of Consecration work many Miracles turning Bread into no Bread Wine into no Wine making quantity and other Accidents to exist without Substance c. And that he can work such Miracles every hour of the day and if he can but get into a Bakers Shop or Vintners Celler to say Mass may in malice undo the poor men when he will by turning all their Bread and Wine into none § 13. We must believe that the Roman Empire was all the Christian VVorld or that a Council General as to that Empire was General as to all the VVorld And that the Roman Emperor or the Pope called the Bishops of all the VVorld together And that the humane Primate of one Empire was Governour of all the VVorld § 14. VVe must believe that now that Empire is dissolved the Laws then made bind all the Princes and Churches on Earth viz. that a defunct power still ruleth even those that never owed them obedience § 15. VVe must believe that we in England are rightfully under a Foreign Church Jurisdiction contrary to the Oath of Supremacy § 16. VVe must believe that all Temporal Lords must be sworn to extirpate all Protestants and to perform it if able on pain of Excommunication Deposition and Damnation And that if they do not the Pope may execute this penalty of Excommunicating and Deposing them and giving their Dominion to others and may Absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 1 2 3. § 17. VVe must Swear never to expound the Scripture but according to the Concordant sense of the Ancient Fathers who never expounded much at all much less ever agreed in any Exposition of them all § 18. VVe must believe that God hath given the Church that is the Pope and Councils a Power to Expound hard Scriptures and to end Controversies and that this is a great Blessing to us VVhen yet neither Pope nor Councils will give us a Commentary on the Bible or exposition of hard Texts nor will determine most of the Controversies that now trouble us § 19. VVe must believe that the Governing part of the Church is to be obeyed and Gods VVord received but by their Proposal when yet it is not known who is the Governing part Pope or Council nor which Councils be true and which but false Conventions nor can they assure us how we may ever come to know it § 20. VVe must believe those Councils to be true and credible which contradict and condemn each other and that both are in the right § 21. VVe must believe both that all Gods VVord in the Sacred Scripture is true and that Councils and Popes say Truth when they contradict it § 22. VVe must believe
part of it and the Parliament another part 3. And one whose Laws are for Popery or his power above Laws used by Commission and one who ruleth by Protestant Laws And so 1. A Kingdom under a total Popish Soveraignty ruling by Popish Laws or Mandates above Law is no Political Protestant National Church tho all the Clergy were Protestants The form that denominateth is Papal And yet it is not a Papal Church or Kingdom Because the matter is essential and its disposition without which non recipitur forma It is a Christian Church neither Protestant save equivocally nor Papist but mixt But if Bishop Morley and those Conformists that give the total Legislation and Soveraignty to the King alone be not in the right nor they that make it traiterous to suppose that the Kings Authority speaking by Law may be set against his Personal Will Word and Commission then the Parliament and Laws remaining Protestant the Kingdom and Church may ye be so called though not in the fullest sence Foâ— then the Laws being the Kings publick voice aâ—d the effect of a Power above his own alone 〈◊〉 them tho' he be a Papist he Ruleth as a Protesâ—ant But it is otherwise if his Commissions e. â— to the French or Irish to Invade the Land be â—bove Law and may not be resisted on any pretence whatsoever So great a stress lieth on this poiâ—t of Conformity § 14. But I will leave another case to the consideration of others â—f Metropolitans or Primates if Diocesans or Convocations be the summa Potestas Ecclesiastica and a Church be truly Societas Politica or governed Qu. Then what Religion was the Diocesan Church of Gloucester while Godfrey Goodman was Bishop Or the Diocesan Churches of Eli of Norwich of Oxford c. while Dr. Guning Dr. Sparrow Dr. Parker c. were Bishops Or the Church of England and Ireland while Dr. Laud Dr. Neale were here the Metropolitans and Dr. Bromhall Primate of Ireland § 15. As to the Learned Dr. now Bishop Stillingfleet that maketh the Church of England to have no visible Informing Constitutive Head or Soveraign but to be Governed by meer Consent of men Agreeing in a Convocation representing the whole body I am sorry I have said heretofore so much against it as if the Consent of all Writers of Politicks regardable had not been answer enough who agree that all Politick bodies are essentiated by the Pars Imperans or summa Potestas and the Pars subdita as the Materia disposita And I so much honour the National Church of England as that I shall not yet grant till it is further deformed That It is no Political Body but a meer Confederating Community likâ— a Confederacy of Kingdoms But if ever it come to that you may say that when the same Land hath many sorts of Confederate Clergies it hath as many Churches and which is the best I think is not known in France or Spain or Italy or here by the Major Vote nor hath Nature put a Ruling Authority in Major Votes of Lay or Clergy as born with them before Contract give it them by Political Constitution All 's well in Heaven The Lord fit us for it March 30. 1691. Since the writing of all this I have read Bishop Stillingfleet's excellent Charge to his Clergy which would give me hope not only of the continuance of the Protestant Reformation here but also of such a further Reformation as may procure our Concord or at last move the Law-makers so far to amend the Act of Uniformity as may procure it were it not that the deluge of the wickedness in City and Countrey and the paucity of Men qualified for his described Work and the Power and Number of the Enemies of it maketh me fear that it will die as unpracticable singularity But I humbly recommend to the Clergy the regard especially of these passages in it I. Pag. 12. Those that have the smallest Cures are called PASTORS and Linwood notes that Parochialis Sacerdoâ— dicitur Pastor and that not only by way of Allusion but in respect to the Cure of Souls but we need not go so far back What are they admitted to Is it not ad Curam Animarum Ask Dr. Fuller Dean of Lincoln then Whether it be Ministerial Truth to publish that Parochus was never called Pastor till the deliraâ—ion of this and the former Age. II. Pag. 25. I hope thâ—y are now convinced that the Persecution wâ—ich they complained lately so much of was carried on by other Men and for other designâ— than they would then seem to believe I am glad that you are convinced of it You are mistaken in us we believed it ever since 1660. But we know that it was Sheldon Morley Guning Hinchman Sparrow and many more such that were the great Agents of it in Court Convocation and Parliament I thank you for disowning it III. I rejoice to find it proved Pag. 37. that The Bishop is judge of the fitness of any Clerk presented to a Benefice which as it puts us in some faint hopes for the future so for the time past it tells the Bishops whose the guilt is of the Institution of all the uncapable Clergy IV. Pag. 40. He proveth that Visitations should be Parochial V. He comfortably purposeth to reduce Confirmation to its true use And tells Ministers their Duty of Certifying the Receivers fitness VI. In a word I intreat the Reader to compare this Charge with the Visitation Articles of Bishop Wren Pierce and such others and the Charge against them in Parliament and observe the difference and be thankful for so much April 3. 1691. FINIS (a) So they are even of that one Body of which Christ is Head (b) They are united in all the 7 terms of Unity required Eph. 4.4 5 6. They desire not to be of any Universal Body but Christs no more than under one Monarch of the World (c) Nor in Kingdoms neither under one Man or Senate But they have a better Union (a) They that Record his death say that he died in Rostok in his too hasty passage from Sweden towards is Wife then absent Quistorpius Pastor of Rostok being with him Yet this Bishop knew Grotius Who saith true I know not (b) How much that is see in their Patriarch Jeremias and in the Council at Florence (c) The very worst of Popery was brought in by Hildebrand long before four hundred years last And he that can receive all that their Councils brought in till 1256. need not stick at any of the rest save Transubstantiation We cannot obey the Pope as Patriarch and Universal Primate though he would quit the last four hundred years additions Nor think this a quitting Popery (d) Did the third tye us to the fourth (e) That was well put in But by whom Convocated (f) Over Councils (g) Did Christ make the Subjects of the Roman Emperors perpetual Law-makers to other Princes and all the World Or to that Empire when it 's
dissolved (h) And Men taught to be Perjured by taking in Foreign Ecclesiastical Power (i) And yet Obey his Councils Canons (k) Christ hath given us a sufficient Law for the Government of the Church else saith Gerson he were not a perfect Lawgiver Must we be beholden to the Pope for leaving us a little of that which Christ gave us Who gave him Power to take any of it from us Would our Conciliators have magnified the Men that for the Peace of England would have agreed with Cromwell to allow the King the Isle of Wight or Wâ—les Or to have made a Law that every Highway Robber shall reâ—urn â—ne half to the Owner And with what Conscience could the Subjects of Christ have obeyed all the rest of the Usurpers sinful Canons (a) Confusion 1. The form denominateth The Church of Rome which we separate from is a pretended Soveraignty over all Christians This is no true Church of Christ. 2. But we separate not from them in point of Christianity But 1. From their Usurpation 2. And other Sins (b) And having before made the Church of England Schismaticks he makes all Schismaticks that Communicate with it (c) Here is 1. An Universal Legislative Power over all the Church on Earth 2. This Power is in Councils of which the Pope is the chief Member and the only reasonable means of the Union of so great a Body is his Regular Power as distinct from Infinite Power 3. All the Canons Rites and Customs are these Laws of the Church 4. All Kings and Kingdoms are bound to obey them 5. No man must question whether these Laws or Customs or any of them are contrary to God's Law 6. The men that must have this Absolute Power over all the Kings and Kingdoms on Earth that will be Christian are themselves the Subjects of the Turks the Moore the Emperor of Abassia the Persian the Emperor of Indastan called the Mogal the Kings of Poland Hungary Spain France England Denmark Sweden the Emperor of Germany and abundance more when it 's known that few Bishops are chosen in any of these Countreys Mahometans or Papists but such as the Princes like and that they dare not go against their wills in any great matter 7. Their minds are known already and consequently what they would do in Councils if all these Princes would agree to call an Universal Council The Major Vote if it were called in Mesopotamia or that way would be such as Rome calleth Hereticks If called in Greece it would be Greeks If in Italy or Germany or France they would be Papists no where Protestants Few would travel above a thousand miles to the Council 8. Tho' one would think that this platform of Governing the whole Earth could be believed by no man in his wits yet you see Learned men are so far deceived And it is by judging of the World by the Old Roman Empire There indeed Councils were Nationally General They were Courts They had Legislative Power and Pretorian Command None might appeal from them for Relief in Foro Humano Emperors gave them this Power It was but rational over their own Subjects What Power had they over others The Convocation in England or the General Assembly in Scotland may be made and called a Court by the King But France or Spain were never Governed by them nor took them to be over them unquestionable Legislators Yea I believe King and Parliament at home are not so subject to their Laws (d) And are not these unmerciful men that will let men take up with a damning Baptism and will not rebaptize them that they may have a saving Baptism which yet they hold necessary to Salvation They fear Anabaptism it seems more than mens Damnation (e) The true Church that is an Usurped Power of Universal Legislation is here made by him and Mr. Dodwell as necessary to Salvation as Christ and more than the holy Scriptures But what will now become of all the Papists that by dispensation come in to Protestant Churches They also are all damned as Schismaticks for communicating with them unless he forgot to except them that the Pope dispenseth with (f) How much wiser are these men than Christ and St. Paul who made it the duty of all that were baptized Christians to live as one Body of Christ in Love Him that is weak in the faith receive but not to doubtful disputations Rom. 14.1 The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men (g) This yet is some mercy to us But is it as your grant 1. How will this stand with all that you have written for the continued Universal Legislative Church Did it cease at Charles the Great 's time and yet are all damned that are not subject to it 2. How shall we be sure that the Canons bind us till Adrian's time and not since 3. But Sir we take him for a Papist that is for all the Canons and Customs till Charles the Great And there are many things before that which we cannot Conform to without renouncing the Laws and sufficient Government of Christ which we cannot do upon such pitiful reasonings as yours (a) The standing Power of the Head or Soveraign and that of Official Ministers much differ (b) All necessary power since Christ by his Apostles published his Universal Laws is but that all Ministers in their several Churches guide the Flocks by these Laws of Christ and teach them the people and determine of incidental Circumstances pro loco tempore and not to make new Universal Laws (c) Christ expresly limiteth the Apostles to teach the Churches what he had commanded them and promiseth to give them the Spirit to bring all to their remembrance and lead them to all Truth (d) When the King sendâ— out Judges and Justices he doth not make them Kings or Legislators The Apostles had the Spirit for promulgating and recording Christs Laws Others have it only to preserve and teach them and rule by them and not to make more such as if they were insufficient and Christian Religion were still to be changed by new additions and were half Divine and half Humane Gods Word and the Bishops in medley (e) The three first Ages had no General Councils The three next had National or Imperial General Councils The thousand years last past which you include in All Ages had such Councils and practices as prove not her right Else why do not you now practise accordingly Bishop Guning owneth but six General Councils which were all but in three Ages And others but four and none that I know of but eight who do not openly profess Popery Hath Christ given any new commands since those which he sent the Apostles to deliver Have you any more of his commands to give us than the Apostles delivered in their times If you may make new ones you have more than
into Laws and make that seem needful to Unity which is against it and hurtful to the Churches no Christians should encourage their Usurpation by Obedience it being contrary to Christs general Laws 14. Whatever maketh true Christians maketh Men Members of Christ and his Church And only the Essentials of Christians go to make true Christians and the Integrals to make compleat Christians 15. The Canons of Bishops are not Essential to Christianity nor the understanding the many Controversies about Diocesans Patriarchs Councils Ordinations Successions nor to know which is the true Bishop 16. Baptism is our Christening and he that is truely Baptized is a Christian and a Member of Christ and hath the pardon of Sin and right to Heaven before he be a Member of a particular Church or Pastor as the Eunuch Acts 8. and many converted without Bishops As the Indians by Edesius and Frumentius and the Iberians by a Maid c. 17. Whosoever truely repenteth and believeth and loveth God as God and is of a Heavenly Mind and Life is pardoned before God before Baptism and Baptism doth but Invest him in it and make him a Christian more fully by Covenant and before the Church and the want of it without contempt will not keep him from Salvation 18. No one shall be saved by being joyned to a right Bishop or receiving the Eucharist who hath not true Repentance Faith Love and the Spirit of Holiness No Sacrament saveth the unqualified 19. Thousands live in ignorance and wickedness in Atheism Sadduceism Carnality Adultery Drunkenness c. that conform to Bishops and receive the Eucharist And to tell such they are in a state of Salvation is opposition to Christ and Damnable deceit of Souls 20. The Levites and Inferior Priests received not their Office from the High-priest but by Gods Law had it by Inheritance to which God chose the Tribe of Levi Nor had the High Priests power to add to or alter the Laws and Office of the Inferior Priests or their own 21. Nor was there a necessity of an uninterrupted regular Succession much was of man's making Christ owned them that were in possession though Usurpers not of Aarons Line but such as bought the place of the Romans 22. Seeing the High Priest was a Type of Christ and the Scripture saith so much of the change of the Law and Priesthood and Christ hath made sufficient Laws for Church Offices it is presumption to Judaize and pretend to any other imitation of the High Priests than Christ hath ordained 23. No one of the Apostles was an High Priest over the rest but had equal Apostolical Power 24. Christ rebuked them for seeking who should be greatest and expresly forbad that which they sought 25. Every Pastor or Church-Presbyter hath an Office subordinate to the Teaching Priestly and Ruling Office of Christ. 26. Every ones Pastoral Office is instituted and described by Christ by his Spirit in the Apostles and this specification is Divine which none may alter nor make any other such 27. Therefore as Papists confess of the Pope all that men have to do is not to be makers or donors of the Office but to determine of the persons that shall receive it from Christ's donative Instrument his Law and ministerially to invest them as men Christen Marry Crown Kings c. 28. No Minister or Priest representeth Christ simpliciter but secundum quid as Embassadors or Justices do the King 29. Christ's Laws are above mans and no man's to be obeyed against them To obey man against God is Idolatry 30. The Priests or Bishops are under Christ's Laws as well as others and by them all their true Power is given and limited And therefore if they go against Christ's Laws they represent him not therein nor are to be obeyed as usurping an unjust Power 31. Therefore every Christian hath a Judgment of discerning whether Bishops Laws agree with Christ's and must be governed as reasonable creatures and not as Infants Idiots or Brutes 32. They that deny this and require absolute obedience in all things set man above God and make it the duty of Subjects to be Atheists Infidels Idolaters Mahometans Murderers Adulterers Hereticks where Kings or Popes or Prelates will command it 33. Multitudes of Church-Canons have been contrary to Christ's Laws as I have with grief proved in my History of Councils 34. Bishops that deposed Emperors and Kings were not to be obeyed therein 35. Almost all the Christian World since the use of General Councils are disagreed who are the true Bishops one Party setting up one whom others reject and condemn so that if it were necessary to Salvation to know who is the true Bishop of the several Churches few Christians could be saved 36. Many Canons nullifie the Office and Power of these Bishops who come in by the Magistrate without the choice or consent of the Clergy and People And I think Mr. Dodwell professeth Communion with few but such and so is by Canons condemned 37. There is no Law of Christ or unchangeable Law of man for appropriating a certain space of ground to one Bishops Jurisdiction Grotius and Dr. Hammond thought that at first most great Cities had two Bishops and Churches one of Jews and one of Gentiles And the Apostles never so appropriated any places to themselves but oft divers in one City were their Teachers 38. Occupation of a space of ground for Priestly Power is no just Title and may be altered And if it were the Primitive Occupation was contrary to Mr. Dodwells Model 39. If each City was to have a Bishop each of our Corporations should have one being all Cities in that antient sense 40. It is not necessary to all to be of any fixed particular Church as I have proved elsewhere of Travellers some Embassadors Merchants Vagrants c. while they are of the Universal Church and own Christ and obey his Law 41. The Electors do more to the making of Bishops than the Ordainers Oft-times Bishops have ordained contrary Competitors some one and some another and are oft forc't to ordain whom Princes and Patrons chuse 42. Cyprian and his Carthage Council prove in the Case of Martial and Basilides that it is the Peoples Duty to forsake those Bishops who are not qualified according to Christ's Law though Canonically ordained and approved And Martin separated from such and Gildas saith he is not eximius Christianus that owned the Brittish Bishops 43. Christ hath left sufficient Directions for the continuation or restoration of the Priestly Office without Canonical successive Ordination uninterrupted As well as God hath done for Kings 44. Seeing Mr. D. saith A Presumptive title may serve he thereby confesseth that it is not real Canonical Succession but the Opinion of it that he makes necessary 45. The Question is Who must be the Presenters When they so greatly differ Grotius presumed that the Chief Minister of a City or a Church was really a Bishop though not so called 46. The Reformed can
prove a more probable Succession than the Roman whose frequent interruptions hath been oft proved 47. If we must imitate the Jewish High Priesthood not every City must have one but every Nation and so England hath none or else all the World 48. Judea being a small Country all the People at their great Anniversaries might go up to Jerusalem which in great Kingdoms and Empires is impossible 49. It is false that we are united to Christ only by the Sacrifice of the Eucharist Baptism which is no Sacrifice first uniteth us to him publickly as Faith and the Spirit do before secretly 50. It is a frivolous thing of Mr. D. to write a Book for one chief Altar and Bishop when the Question is of what Church that one must be I have proved that Ignatius appropriated them to Churches no bigger than our Parishes and Mr. Clerkson hath proved more and the Man confuteth none of this proof 51. Seeing he disowneth one Universal High Priest and would have one in every City or Nation at most who knoweth not that the City Bishops of the World are now and have been 1200 Years in so great dissention disowning each others Communion that it 's hard to know Catholicism by his way of Communion 52. And who shall Govern these several Bishops if each one be a Supreme Have they not as much need of Government as Presbyters 53. The Eucharist is no otherwise a Sacrifice than as it is an instituted Symbolical Commemoration of Christ's Sacrifice 54. The validity of the Sacrament depends not on the uninterrupted Succession of the Priest nor his Subjection to the Bishop 55. There are many Cases in which it is a Duty to be ordained and officiate without the Bishops consent As in all the Popish Countries where they will admit none without consent to Sin 56. To make Bishops and all their Curates the absolute disposers of Heaven and Hell is to set up the highest Papal Tyranny over Kings and Kingdoms by vile Presumption 57. His words that the People can better judge of their visible Union with the High Priest and Christ than of any invisible one is a pernicious intimation that this visible Church Union will save them that have not the invisible Grace of sound Faith Repentance and the Spirit of Love and Holiness I intended to have proceeded to a distinct Answer to Mr. Dodwell's whole Book because I take him to be the most injurious and gross Adversary to the true Unity of the Church on pretence of Pleading for Unity of any that calls himself a Protestant and find him not only extreamly self-conceited loquacious and magisterial in a lowly Garb but grosly unsincere intimating his denial of that in Print which he often owned to me in Private Conference viz. for the Nullity of the Protestant Churches that have not his false Character for the verity of the French Church and for the uninterrupted Succession of the Papal Seat when I undertook to prove it he told me It was not for the interest of Christianity to say so And yet it is for the interest of Christianity for him to Unchurch more Churches I think than the Papists ordinarily do But when I had gone thus far I was stopt by the Persecutions of his Church-Rulers and then by Sickness and after by near two Years Imprisonment for my Paraphrase on the New Testament by a Judicature as admirably agreeing to his Principles as if he had been his Disciple Chancellor Jeffreys lately Dead and such others Therefore not to tire the Reader with more words to so wordy a Man I again and again though I suppose in vain provoke him and his dividing Brethren to answer my Treatise of Episcopacy my first Plea for Peace my Sacrilegious desertion of the Ministry rebuked my Apology for the Nonconformists Preaching my English Nonconformity and Mr. David Clerkson's Posthumous Book for the Primitive Episcopacy against his Fiction of the present Diocesane Episcopacy as having no Bishops under them But fraudulent Disputers will dissemble and silently pass by that which they cannot answer But will that be Peace to Conscience in the End Having said as much as I think needful to satisfie intelligent impartial Readers against his Schismatical Writings in my Book of Church-Concord and here before I take my self discharged from any Obligation further to detect or confute his Fallacies The rather because he can say and unsay as he finds his Interest lead him And his Leviathan Church Vicegod which he feigns to be God's Proxy to us from whom there is no appeal to Scripture or to God will to Men that believe in Christ I think by his own Description appear as frightful as Hob's his Leviathan Some of this I wrote long after the most of the Book Chap. XX. Dr. Thomas Pierce now Dean of Salisbury's Judgment and Dr. Hamonds § 1. I Think Dean Pierce is the only Man surviving who was Commissioned by King Ch. 2. to Treat with us for Concord as being of the Bishops part in 1661 And who hath lived to see by near 30 years Experience whether his Zeal against the terms of Concord which we as humble Supplicants offered hath done more Good and prevented more Evil than a Concord on those offered terms would have done What it hath done on him I know not but with others Experience hath had as little Success as Reason and Petitioning had § 2. He hath written against me more Book 's than one which no Man hath excelled in insulting and in command of words His work is to prove Grotius to have been no Papist Few Men living think highlier of Grotius than I as to what he wrote before his change Especially his Book De Satisfactione Christi and that De Imperio Sum. Pot. de Jure Belli and his Annot. on the Evangelists Valesius and Petavius took him to be of their Religion and Church as did Vincentius and Saravius But 1. It is not the Name Papist that I regard but the Thing 2. Therefore the doubt between Dr. Pierce and me is What is Popery He thinks that it is not a proof that he is a Papist to be for an Universal Church Jurisdiction the Church of Rome being taken for the Mistris of all Churches and the Pope as Primate and Patriarch of the West governing according to the Canons of Councils and not Arbitrarily And taking the Articles of Pope Pius his Creed and Oath added at Trent which contain the Body of that which Protestants call Popery to be such as may be Sworn and bear a fair sense Though Dr. P. himself cannot subscribe them This with all the rest cited by me out of Grotius he taketh to be no proof of a Papist Let him call it how he please The French Church Government or the Protestant or the Catholick it is the Thing a Foreign Jurisdiction and specially an Universal that I deny § 3. And this he himself owneth for the proof of which I refer the Reader to his Books particularly his