phantastick Persons who have been great pretenders to demonstration but always succeslesse and for the most part ridiculous They are so conceitedly curious about the premisses that commonly they quite mistake their conclusion Causes encombred with Circumstances and those left to the election of free agents are not very capable of demonstration The Case in difference between us is this as it is stated by me Whether the Church of England have withdrawn themselves from Obedience to the Vicar of Christ and seperated from the Communion of the Catholick Church And upon those Termes it is undertaken by him in the words immediatly following And that this Crime is justly charged upon his Church not onely with Colour but with undeniable Evidence of fact will appeare by the position of the Case and the nature of his exceptions We have the State of the Controversy agreed upon between us Now let us see how he goeth about to prove his intention What Church soever did upon probable reasons without any neeessary or convincing grounds break the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in the Gospell and agreed upon by all true churches is guilty of Schisme But the Church of England in Henry the eightâ—s dayes did upon probable reasons without any necessary or convincing grounds break the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in the Gospell and agreed upon by all true churches therefore the church of England is guilty of Schisme I doe readily assent to his Major proposition and am ready to grant him more if he had pleased to insert it That that Church is Schismaticall which doth breake the Bonds of Unity ordained by Christ in his Gospell whatsoever their reasons be whether convincing or probable and whosoever doe either consent to them or dissent from them But I deny his Minor which he endeavoureth to prove thus Whatsoever Church did renounce or reject these two following Rules or Principles first that The doctrines which had been inherited from their Forefathers as the Legacyes of Christ and his Apostles were solely to be acknowledged for Obligatory and nothing in them to be changed Secondly that Christ had made St. Peter first or chief or Prince of his Apostles who was to be the first mover under him in the Church after his departure out of this World and to whom all others in difficulties concerning Matters belonging to Universall faith or Government should have recoâ—rse and that the Bishops of Rome as Successors from St. Peter inherited from him this privilege in respect of the Successors of the rest of the Apostles That Church did breake the Bonds of Vnity ordained by Christ in his Gospell and agreed upon between the Church of England and the Church of Rome and the rest of her communion But the Church of England did all this in Henry the eyghts dayes that very yeare where in this unhappy Separation began upon meerly probable no convincing grounds Therefore c. To his former Proposition I made this exception That he would obtrude upon us she Church of Rome and its dependents for the Catholick Church Uppon this he flyeth out as it is his Custome into an invective discourse telling me I looke a squint at his position of the case He will not find it so in the conclusion And that I strive Hocus-pocus like to divert my Spectators eyes With a great deale more of such like froath where in there is not a syllable to the purpose except this that he did not mention the word Catholick in that place The greater was his fault It is a foule Solecisme in Logick not to conclude contradictorily I did mention the Catholick Church in the State of the Question Whether the church of England had separated it self from the communion of the Catholick Church And he had undertaken in the words immediatly following to charge that very Schisme upon us with undeniable Evidence And in his very first Essay shuffles out the Catholick Church and in the place thereof thrusts in the Church of Rome with all the rest of her communion He might have known that wee doe not looke upon the Church of Rome with all the rest of her Communion as the Catholick Church Nor as above a fifth part of the present Catholick Church And that wee doe not ascribe any such in fallibility in necessary truths to the Roman Church with all her dependants as wee doe to the true Catholick Church Nor esteem it alwayes Schismaticall to seperate from the modern Roman Church Namely in those points wherein shee had first seperated both from the primitive Roman Church and from the present Catholick Church But wee confesse it to be alwayes Schismaticall to seperate from the Communion of the Catholick Church united Thus much he ought to take notice of and when he hath oecasion hereafter to write upon this Subject not to take it for granted as they use to doe that the Catholick Church and the Roman Church are convertible Termes or tell us a Tale of a Tub what their Tenet is that these Churches which continue in Communnion with the Roman are the onely true Churches We regard not their Schismaticall and uncharitable Tenets now no more then we regarded the same tenets of the donatists of old They must produce better authority then their Owne and more substantiall proofes then he hath any in his Budget to make us believe that the Roman Church is the Catholick Church It is charity to acknowledge it to be a Catholick church inclusively but the greatest uncharitablenesse in the world to make it the Catholick church exclusively that is to seperate from Christ and from hope of Salvation as much as in them lieth all Christians who are not of their own communion Howsoever it is well that they who used to vaunt that the Enemy trembled at the name of the Catholick church are now come about themselves to make the Catholick Church to be an appendix to the Roman Take notice Reader that this is the first time that Mr. Serjeant turns his back to the question but it will not be the last My next taâ—ke is to examine his two Rules or Bonds of Unity And first concerning his Rule of faith I doe not onely approve it but thanck him for it and when I have a purpose to confute the 12 new Articles of Pius the fourth I will not desire a better medium then it And I doe Cordially subscribe to his Censure that the Transgressors there of are indeed those who are truly guilty of that horrid Schisme which is now in the Christian world To his second Rule or principle for Government that Christ made Sâ— Peter First or Chiefe or Prince of his Apostles who was to be the first mover under him in the church after he departed out of this world to whom all others should have recourse in greater Difficulties If he had not been a meer Novice and altogether ignoranâ— of the Tenets of our English Church he might have known that wee have no controversy
SCHISME GARDED and beaten back upon the right owners Shewing that our great controversy about Papall power is not a quaestion of faith but of interest and profit not with the Church of Rome but with the Court of Rome wherein the true Controversy doth consist who were the first innovators when and where these Papall innovations first began in England with the opposition that was made against them By JOHN BRAMHALL D. D. Bishop of Derry Act. 25. 10. I stand at Caesars judgmēt seate where I ought to be judged Psalm 19. 2. Dies diei eructat verbum nox nocti indicat scientiam GRAVENHAGH Imprinted by JOHN RAMZEY Anno M.DC.LVIII To the CHRISTIAN READERS especially the Roman-Catholicks of England CHristian Reader the great Bustling in the Controversy concerning Papall power or the discipline of the Church hath been either about the true sense of some Texts of holy Scripture As thou art Peter and upon this rocke will I build my Church and to thee will I give the Keies of the Kingdome of heaven and feed my sheepe Or about some privileges conferred upon the Roman See by the Canons of the Fathers and the Edicts of Emperours but praetended by the Roman Court and the mainteiners thereof to be held by divine right I ēdevour in this Treatise to disabuse thee and to shew that this challenge of divine right is but a Blind or Diversion to withhold thee from finding out the true State of the Quaestion So the Hare makes her doubles and her iumpes before she come to her Forme to hinder Tracers from finding her out I demonstrate to thee that the true controversy is not concerning St. Peter we have no formed difference about St Peter nor about any point of faith but of interest and profit nor with the Church of Rome but with the Court of Rome and wherein it doth consist namely in these quaestions VVho shall conferre English Bishoprickes who shall convocate English Synods who shall receive tenths and first fruites and Oathes of Allegiance and Fidelity VVhether the Pope can make binding Lawes in England without the consent of the King and Kingdome or dispense with English Lawes at his owne pleasure or call English Subjects to Rome without the Princes leave or set up Legantine Courtes in England against their wills And this I shew not out of the opinions of Particular Authors but out of the publick Lawes of the Kingdome I prove moreover out of our fundamentall Lawes and the writings of our best Historiographers that all these branches of Papall power were abuses and innovations and usurpations first attempted to be introduced into England above eleven hundred yeares after Christ with the names of the Innovators and the praecise time when each innovation began and the opposition that was made against it by our Kings by our Bishops by our Peeres by our Parliaments with the groanes of the Kingdome under these Papall innovations and extortions Likewise in point of doctrine thou hast been instructed that the Catholick faith doth comprehend all those points which are controverted betvveene us and the Church of Rome vvithout the expresse beliefe vvhereof no Christian can be saved vvhereas in truth all these are but opinions yet some more dangerous then others If none of them had ever bene started in the vvorld there is sufficient to salvation for points to be believed in the Apostles Creed Into this Apostolicall faith professed in the Creed and explicated by the foure first Generall Councells and onely into this faith vve have all been baptised Farre be it from us to imagine that the Catholick Church hath evermore baptised and doth still baptise but into one half of the Christian faith In summe doest thou desire to live in the Communion of the true Catholick Church So do I. But as I dare not change the cognisance of my Christianity that is my Creed nor enlarge the Christian faith I meane the essentialls of it beyond those bounds vvhich the Apostles have set So I dare not to serve the interest of the Roman Court limit the Catholick Church vvhich Christ hath purchased vvith his blood to a fourth or a fifth part of the Christian vvorld Thou art for tradition So am I. But my tradition is not the tradition of one particular Church contradicted by the tradition of another Church but the universall and perpetuall tradition of the Christian vvorld united Such a tradition is a full proofe vvhich is received semper ubique ab omnibus alvvaies every vvhere and by all Christians Neither do I looke upon the oppositiō of an handfull of Heretickes they are no more being compared to the innumerable multitudes of Christians in one or two ages as inconsistent vvith universality any more then the highest mountains are inconsistent vvith the roundnesse of the earth Thou desirest to beare the same respect to the Church of Rome that thy Ancestours did So do I. But for that fullness of power yea coactive power in the exteriour Court over the subjects of other Princes and against their vvills devised by the Courte of Rome not by the Church of Rome it is that pernicious source from vvhence all these usurpations did spring Our Ancestours from time to time made Lavves against it and our reformation in pointe of discipline being rightly understood vvas but a pursueing of their steppes The true controuersy is vvhether the Bishop of Rome ought by divine right to have the externall Regiment of the English Church and coactive jurisdiction in English Courtes over English Subjects against the vvill of the King and the Lavves of the Kingdome SCHISME GARDED and beaten back upon the right owners Or A cleare and CIVIL ANSWER to the railing accusation of S. W. in his late Booke called SCHISME DISPAT'CHED Whatsoever S. W. alias Mr. Serjeant doth intimate to the contrary for he dare not cough out it is a most undeniable truth that no particular Church no not the Church of Rome it self is exempted from a possibility of falling into errours in faith When these errours are in Essentials of faith which are necessary to salvation necessitate medii they destroy the being of that Church which is guilty of them But if these errours be in inferiour points such as are neither absolutely necessary to Salvation to be known nor to be believed before they be known such an Erroneous Church erring without obstinacy and holding the truth implicitly in praeparatione animi may and doth still continue a true member of the Catholick Church and other coordinate Churches may and ought to maintein Communion with it not withstanding that they dissent in opinion But if one Church before a lawfull determination shall obtrude her own Errours or Opinions upon all other Churches as a necessary condition of her communion or after Determination shall obtrude doubtful opinions whether they be Erroneous or not as necessary Articles of Christian faith and so not onely explain but likewise enlarge the Ancient Creeds she becommeth Schismaticall As on the
otherside that Church which shall not oâ—twardly acquiesce after a legall Determination and cease to disturb Christian Vnity though her Iudgement may be sound yet her Practise is Schismaticall This is the very case betwixt the Churches of Rome and England Shee obtrudeth Doubtfull Opinions as Necessary Articles of faith and her own Errours as necessary conditions of Communion Which Mr. Serjeant everywhere misseth and misteth with his Praevarications I cannot more fitly resemble his Discourse then to a Winter Torrent Which aboundeth with Water when there is no need of it but in Summer when it Should be useful it is dried up So he is full of proofes which he miscalleth Demonstrations where there is no controversy between us and where the water sticks in deed he is as mute as a fish He taketh great paines te prove that the Catholick Church is infallible in such things as are necessary to Salvation Whom doth he strike He beateth but the aire Wee say the same But wee deny that his Church of Rome is this Catholick Church and that the Differences between us are in such things as are necessary to Salvation Here where he should Demonstrate if he could he favours him self He proveth that it is unreasonable to deny that or doubt of it which is received by the universall Tradition of the whole Christian World What is he seeking Surely he doth not seek the Question here in Earnest but as he who sought for an Hare under the Leads because he must seek her as well where she was not as where she was We confesse that writing addeth no new Authority to Tradition Divine Writings and Divine Tradition Apostolicall Writings and Apostolical traditions if they be both alike certain have the same authority And what greater certainty can be imagined then the Vniversall Attestation of the Catholick Symbolicall Church of Christ. But the right Controversy lyeth on the other hand Wee deny that the Tradition whereupon they ground their Opinions wherein wee and They dissent is universall either in regard of time or place He endeavoureth with Tooth and Nayle to establish the Roman Papacy Iure divino but for the extent of Papall power he leaveth it free to Princes commonwealths Churches Universities and particular Doctors to Dispute it and bound it and to be Judges of their own Privileges Yet the maine controversy I might say the onely necessary controversy between them and us is about the extent of Papall power as shall be seen in due place If the Pope would content himself with his exordium Vnitatis which was all that his primitive praedecessors had and is as much as a great part of his own Sons will allow him at this day wee are not so hard hearted and uncharitable for such an innocent Title or Office to disturb the peace of the Church Nor doe envy him such a preheminence among Patriarchs as S. Pieter had by the confession of his own party amoÌ„g the Apostles But this will not be accepted either he will have all or none patronages tenths first fruits investitures appeales legantine courts and in one word an absolute Soveraignty or nothing It is nothing unlesse he may bind all other Bishops to maintein his usurped Roialtâ—es under the pretensed name of Regalia Sancti Petri by an Oath contradictory to our old Oath of allegiance althoâ—gh all these encroachmeÌ„ts are directly destructive to the ancient lawes and liberties both of the British and English Churches So we have onely cast of his boundlesse TiraÌ„ny It is he and his Court who have deserted and disclaymed his own just regulated authority as appeareth by the right stating of the question But M. Serjeant lapwing like makes the most pewing and crying when he is furthest from his nest What he is I neither know nor much regard I conclude he is but a young divine because he himself stileth his Treatise the Prentisage of his Endeavours in controversy Pag 2. And is it not a great boldnesse for a single apprentice if he doe not shoot other mens bolts after he hath bestowed a little Rhetoricall Varnish upon them to take up the Bucklers against two old Doctors at once and with so much youthfull presumption of victory that his Titles sound nothing but disarming and dispatching and knocking down as if Caesars Motto I came I see I overcame were his Birthright He that is such a conquerour in his apprentisage what victoryes may not he promise himself wheÌ„ he is grown to be an experienced Master in his profession But let him take heed that his over daring doe not bring him in the conclusion to catch a Tartar that is in plaine English to lose himself The cause which he oppugneth is built upoÌ„ a rock though the wind bluster aÌ„d the waues beat yet it cannot fall I heare moreover by those who seem to know him that he was sometimes a Novice of our English Church who deserted his Mother before he knew her If it be so to doe he oweth a double account for Schism and one which he wil not claw of so easily And if no man had informed me I should have suspected so much of my self Wee find Strangers civill and courteons to us every where in our Exile except they be set on by some of our own but sundry of those who have run over from us proved violent and bitter Adversaries without any provocation as Mr. Serjeant for example I cannot include all in the same Guilt Whether it proceed from the Consciousnesse of their owne guilt in deserting us at this time especially or the Contentment to gaine Companions or fellow Proselites or they find it necessary to procure themselves to be trusted or it be injoyned to them by their Superiours as a Pollicy to make the Breach irreparable Or what else is the true reason I doe not determine But this wee all know that Fowlers doe not use to pursue those Birds with Clamour whith they have a desire to catch His manner of writing is petulant railing and full of Praevarication as if he had the gift to turn al he touched into Absurdities Calumnâ—es and Contradictions Sometimes in a good mode he acknowledgeth my poore labours to be a pattern of wit and industry and that there is much commendable in them At other times in his passion he maketh them to be absurd non sensicall ridiculous and every where contradictory to them selves and mee to be Worse then a Madman or born foole Good words If better were within better would come out Sometime he confesseth mee to be candid and downright and to speake plaine at other times he accuseth me for a falsifier and a Cheater without ingenuity A signe that he uttereth whatsoever commeth upon his tongues end without regard to truth or falshood If he can blow both hot and cold with the same Breath there is no great regard to be had of him The Spartans brought their Children to love Sobriety by shewing them the detestable Enormityes which their Servants committed being Drunken
with Sâ— Peter nor with any other about the privileges of St. Peter Let him be First Chiefe or Prince of the Apostels in that sense wherein the Ancient Fathers stiled him so Let him be the First Ministeriall Mover And why should not the Church have recourse to a prime Apostle or Apostolicall Church in doubtfull cases The learned Bishop of Winchester of whom it is no shame for him to learn might have taught him thus much not onely in his own name but in the name of the King and Church of England Neither is it questioned among us whether St. Peter had a Primacy but what that Primacy was And whether it were such an one as the Pope doth now Challenge to him self and you challenge to the pope But the King doâ—h not deny Peter to have been the prime and prince of the Apostles I wonder how it commeth to passe that he who commonly runneth over in his expressions should now on a suddain become so dry upon this Subject If this be all be needed not to have forsaken the Communion of the Church of England for any great Devotion that he beareth to St. peter more then wee But yet wee dare not rob the rest of the Apostles to cloath St. Peter Wee say clearly with St. Cyprian Hoc erant utique caeteri Apostoli quod fuit petrus pari consortio praediti honoris Poâ—estatis sed exordium ab Vnitate proficisciâ—ur Primatus Petro daâ—ur ut una christi Ecclesia una caâ—hedr a monstretur The rest of the Apostles were even the same thing that Peter was endowed with an equall Fellowship both of honour and power but the beginning commeth from Vnity the primacy is given to Peter to signify one church and one chaire It is wel known that St. Cyprian made all the Bisshop ricks in the World to be but one masse Episcopatus unus est Episcoporum multorum concordi numerositate diffusus whereof every Bishop had an entire part cujus a singulis in solidum pars tenetur All that he attributeth to St. Peter is this beginning of Vnity this primacy of Order this preheminence to be the Chief of Bishops To be Bishop of the principall Church from whence Sacerdot all Vnity did spring Yet I esteem St. Ciprian as fauorable an Expositor to the See of Rome as any they wil find out of their own Chaire that was no more interessed in that See This primacy neither the Ancients nor wee doe deny to St. Peter of Order of Place of preheminence if this first Movership would serve his turn this controversy were at an end for our parts But this Primacy is over leane The Court of Rome have no Gusto to it They thirst after a visible Monarchy upon earth an absolute Ecclesiasticall Soveraignty A power to make Canons to abolish Canons to dispense with Canons to impose pensions to dispose dignities to decide Controversies by a single Authority This was that which made the breach not the innocent Primacy of St. Peter as I shall demonstrate by evident proofes as cleare as the noone day light Observe Reader that Mr. Serjeant is making another Vagare our of the lists to seeke for his Adversary where he is sure not to find him here after if he have a mind to employ his pen upon this subject and not to barke at the Moonshine in the water let him endeavour to demonstrate these foure things which wee deny indeed First that each Apostle had not the same power over the Christian world by virtue of Christ Commission As my Father senâ— mee so send I you which St. Peter had Secondly that St. Peter ever excercised a single Iurisdiction over the persons of the rest of the Apostles more then they over him besides and over and above his Primacy of Order or beginning of Vnity Thirdly that St. Peter a lone had his Commission granted to him by Christ as to an Ordinary Pastour to him and his Successors And all the rest of the Apostles had their CoÌ„missions onely as Delegates for term of life This new hatched Distinction being the foundation of the present Papacy I would be glad to see one good author for it who writ within a thoâ—sand yeares after Christ. Lastly that the Soveraignty of Ecclesiasticall power and Iurisdiction rested in St. Peter alone and was exercised by him alone and not by the Apostolicall College During the hystory of the Acts of the Apostles Now let us proceed from St. Peter to the Pope which is the second part of his rule of Government And that the Bishops of Rome as Successors of St. Peter inherited from him this Privilige in respect of the Successors of the rest of the Apostles And actually exercised this power in all the Countreyes which kept Communion with the Church of Rome what Privilege To be the first Bishop the Chiefe Bishop the principall Bishop the first mover in the Church just as S. Peter was among the Apostles we have heard of no other Privilege as yet If a man would be pleased ou of meer pitty to his starving cause to suppose thus much what good would it doe him Doth he think that the pope or the court of Rome would ever accept of such a Papacy as this or thanke him for his double diligence He must either be meanly versed in the Primitive Fathers or give little credit to them who will deny the Pope to succced St Peter in the Roman Bishoprick or will envy him the Dignity of a Patriarck with in his just Bounds But the Breach between Rome and England was not about any Episcopall Metropolitical or Patriarchall rightes A Patriarch hath more power in his proper Bishoprick then in his province and more in his province then in the rest of his Patriarchate But papall power is much greater then any Bishop did ever challenge in his own Diocesse In my answer to his Assumtion I shal shew sufficiently who they were that Brake this Bond of Vnion and are the undoubted Authors of Schisme But before I come to that I would know of him how the Pope did inherit all those Privileges which he claimeth from S. Peter or how he holds them by Christs own ordination in holy Scripture First all the Eastern Churches doe affirm Confidently that the most of these Privileges were the Legacyes of the Church representative not Christ or St. Peter And it seemeth to be very true by that of the Councell of Sardica Si vobis placet Sancti Petri memoriam honoremus If all these Priuileges were the popes inheritance it was not wel done of old Osius to put it upon a Si placet content or not content and to assigne no better a reason then the memory of a Predecessour It semeth likewise to be true by the Councel of Chalcedon which attributeth the primacy of the Bishop of Rome to the Decrees of the Fathers and the dignity of that imperiall City And when the popes
affirm That neither the King of England nor the Church of England neither Convocation nor Parliament did breake his two Necessary Bonds of Christian Vnity or either of them or any part of either of them But that the Very Breakers and Violaters of these Rules were the Pope and Court of Rome They did breake his Rule of Faith by adding new points to the Necessary Doctrin of saving Truth which were not the Legaceyes of Christ and his Apostles nor delivered unto us by Universall and perpetuall Tradition The Pope and Court of Rome did breake his second Rule of Vnity in Discipline by obtruding their excessive and intolerable usurpations vpon the Christian world and particularly upon the Church of England as necessary Conditions of their Communion It appeareth plainly by comparing that which hath been said with his positioÌ„ of the case that after all his Bragges of undeniable evidence and unquestionable certeinty he hath quite missed the question We joine with him in his rule of Faith Wee oppose not St. Peters Primacy of Order and he him self dare not say that St. Peter had a larger or more extended power then the rest of his Fellow Apostles And though wee cannot force our understandings to assent that after the death of S. Peter Linus or Cletus or Clemens or Anacleâ—us were Superiours to S. Iohn and had actuall Iurisdiction over him who had as large a commission immediatly from Christ as S. Peter himselfe and larger then any succeeding Romane Bishop ever had Yet to shew him how little wee are concerned in it and for his clearer conviction wee are willing to suppose that they were his Superiours and give him leave to make all the advantage of his second Rule which he can in this cause And here if I regarded not the satisfaction of my self and the Reader more then his opposition I might withdraw my hand from the Table But I am so great a Friend of Ingenuity that I will for once discharge his Office and shew the World demonstratively and distinctly what Branches of Papall power were cast out of England by Henry the eighth upon which consideration the weight of the whole Controversy doth lye For it is agreed between us that if it appeare by rigorous Evidence that all those Branches of Papall power which were renounced and cast out of England by Henry the eight were grosse Vsurpattons then his renouncing was no eriminall Breach but a lawfull self enfranchisement And by undeniable consequence the Guilt of â—chism resteth upon them who made the Vsurpations that is the Pope and Court of Rome I adde further upon the equity of my second Ground that although Henry the eight had cast out something more then be ought yet if wee hold not out more then wee ought and be ready to admitt all which ought to be admitted by us then we are innocent and free from the Guilt of Schism and it resteth soly upon them who either will have more then their due or nothing Wheresoever the fault is there the Guilt of Schisme is If the fault be single the Guilt is single if the fault be mutuall the Guilt is mutuall And for rigorous Evidence There cannot possibly be any Evidence more demonstrative what Papall power was cast out of England then the very Acts of Parliaments themselves by which it was cast out Let us view them all The first Act made in the Reign of Henry the eight which hath any referente to Rome is the Act for holding Plurality of Benefices against the lawes of the land by dispensation from the Court of Rome making licenses for non Residence from the Court of Rome to be voide and the party who procureth such Licenses for Pluralityes or Non-residence to forfeyt twenty pounds and to lose the profits of that Benefice which he holdeth by such dispensation It were a pretty thing indeed if the Church and Kingdome should make necessary lawes and the Pope might give them liberty to break them at his pleasure The second Act is that No person shall be cited out of tâ—e diocesse where he dwelleth except in certain cases Which though it may seem to reflect upon the Court of Rome yet I do not find that it is concerned in it but the Arches Audience and other Archiepiscopall Courts within the Realm The third Act is meerly declarative of the law of the land as well the Common lawes as the Statute lawes and grounded wholy upon them as by the View of the Statute it self doth appeare So it casteth out no forraine power but what the lawes had cast out before The summe of it is this That all Causes Matrimoniall Testamentary or about Tithes c. shall be heard and finally judged in England by the proper Iudges Ecclesiasticall and Civill respectively and not elswhere notwithstanding any forrein Inhibitions Appeales Sentences citations suppensions or Excommunications And that if any English Subject procure a Processe Inhibition Appeale c. From or to the Court of Rome or execute them to the hinderance of any processe here he shall incurre the Penalties ordained by the Statute of provision or premunire made in the sixteenth yeare of King Richard the second against such as make provision to the See of Rome This law was eâ—larged afterwards to all causes of Ecclesiasticall cognisance and all appeales to Rome forbidden The fourth Act is an Act for punishing of Heresy Wherein there are three clauses that concern the Bishop of Rome The First is this And that there be many Heresies and paines and punishments for Heresies Declared and ordained in and by the Canonicall Sanctions and by the Lawes and Ordinations made by the Popes or Bishops of Rome and by their Authorities for holding doing preaching of things contrary to the said Canonicall Sanctions Lawes and Ordinances which be but humane being meer repugnant and contrarious to the royall Prerogative Regall Iurisdiction Lawes Statutes and Ordinances of this Realm The second Clause is that No License be obtained of the Bishop of Rome to Preach in any part of this Realm or to doe any thing contrary to the Lawes and Statutes of this Realm or the Kings Prerogative Royall The third Clause followeth That the Decrees of the Bishops of Rome not confirmed by Holy Scriptures were never commonly attested to be any Law of God or man within this Realme And that it should not be deemed Heresy to speak or doe contrary to the pretended power or Authority of the Bishop of Rome made or given by Humane Lawes and not by Scriptures nor to speake or Act contrary to the Lawes of the Bishop of Rome being contrary to the Lawes of this Realm The Fifth Act is an Act concerning the Submission of the Clergy to the Kings Majesty The scope of it is this that the Clergy shall not assemble in Convocation nor make or proniulge any new Canons without the Kings License Hitherto there is nothing new in point of Law Then that the King should have
for free Elections but shortly after there was nothing to be heard of but Provisions and such Simoniacall Arts. It is as easy to shape a Coat for the Moone which alteretb every day as to fit one constant Tradition to all these diversified Practises Thirdly he supposeth that all Parenâ—s have Iudgement to understand aright what they see and to penetrate into the secret Caballs and Practises of their times And Ingenuity void of self Interest to relate it rightly to their posterity But herein also he will fall much short of his aime Most Parents know what is acted publickly but they know little what is done in their retiring Roome They know who is their Bishop But who invested him what Oathes he hath made they are to seeke Most Parents see a Bishop fit in his Consistory But by what authority he sits whether meerly by the power of the Keys or partly by Concession of the Soveraign Prince they know nothing What doe thy understand of any distinction between Iurisdiction Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall and Politicall What Legends of Fopperies have been broughâ— into the Church by this Orall Tradition and the Credulity of Parents And if all Parents had Iudgement to understand these things Yet who shall secure us that they are void of Self interest The Philosopher found that all the people forsooke him so soone as the market Bell began to ring Lastly he supposeth one constant succession of Truth upon this Tenour or Method throughout many Ages Why doe wee heare words when we see deeds We see them change dayly if they had not changed we had had no need to leave their CoÌ„pany I have shewed him wheÌ„ and where and by whom all these changes wherein they and wee differ concerning discipline did come into the Church of EnglaÌ„d at least all those which made the Breach between us Immediate Orall Tradition without any further Corroboration is but a â—oy Perpetuall and Vniversall Tradition is an undeniable Evidence or so Vniversall for time and place That the Opposers have been censured in a manner Vniversally for Hereticks or Heterodox In a chaine if one linke be loose or have a notorious Crack or Flaw there is little trust to be reposed in it Then what Credit is to be given to the pretended Chaine of Tradition where the eleven first Linkes are altogether divided from the rest and fastened to the hand of the Soveraign Prince beyond the Popes reach The four next Linkes are full of Cracks and Flawes the Pope pulling at the one end and the Prince holding at the other The last Linke of all in England is put again into the hand of the Prince Where so many Centuries are wanting he is like but to maintain a poor TraditioÌ„ All this while I speake onely of the externall Regiment of the Church But it is a wonder to me why he of all others should so much magnify this MediuÌ„ of Immediate TraditioÌ„ as an inâ—allible Rule For if I be not misinformed by some FrieÌ„ds his Fathers chalked out another way to him by their Examples and Instructions to hold himself in the Communion of the Church of England But let that passe as not much materiall If he reduce his Argument into any Form he will quickly find that it halteth on both sides Whatsoever we received by immediate Tradition from our Fathers as the Legacy of Christ is infallibly true But we received those points of discipline wherein we differ by immediate Tradition from our Fathers as the Legacies of Christ. I deny both his Propositions my reasons he will find formerly at large I charged him for making two distinct Rules of Vnity whereas one would have served his Turne that he might have more opportunity to shuffle the later Vsurpations of the Popes into the ancient discipline of the Church For this I am lashed as a man that cannot or will not write common sense with a deale of such poore stuffe not worth repeating Cannot a man abandon his Religion unlesse he abandon his Civility also He might remember that I had the honour to be a Doctor in the Vniversity I think assoone as he was a Schooleboy in the Country The first part of my Charge is confessed by him self that his first Principle doth also include the truth of the second If his second Principle be comprehended in the first then it is no new distinct Principle but either an inference or a Tautologie But let him carve and mince his Principles into shreds if he please rather then I will draw the Saw of Contention about the dream of a Shadow To the second part of my Charge he answereth that Neither I nor any man else can instance of any Vsurpation which did ever come in either in Secular or Ecclesiasticall Government pretending that Tenour or could come in so long as men adhered to that Method Doth not he pretend to that Tenour Or indeed taketh it for granted and would make us believe they doe adhere to that Method If they doe not his demonstration doth not weigh a Graine Yet I have shewed him heaps of usurpatioÌ„s more perhaps theÌ„ he is desirous to see Some men have made the Pope infallible in point of faith formerly but he is the first that ever made him uncapable of usurping and I thinke will be the last if he can perswade us with reason to be thus mad he deserveth to have his head stroked Go Go Mr. Serjeant Learn better there are more wayes of erring in point of Tradition either reall or supposed then the Conspiracy of a World of Fathers to tell a World of Children this Lye that ten yeares agoe they practised that which all the World besides knoweth they did not practise Of all men Juglers pretend most to perspicuous Evidence I was contented to admit both his Rules in Generall to try what use he could make of them against us but whether I use sharpnesse or blandishments he is still waspish See Reader the right Protestant Method which is to bring the Controversy from a Determinate State to Indetermination and Confusion I feare he will rather dislike my being too distinct and particular I have shewed him expresly what Branches of Papall power we have altogether rejected and what we are not unwilling to acknowledge for peace sake if that would content him which is more then he hath done hitherto as much as he will doe and I feare more then he dare doe They are not free from their Jealousies and Dissensions at home among them selves Hitherto he hath not adventured to let us know into what Church he himself resolveth his Faith whether the Virtuall Church that is the Pope or the Representative Church that is a Generall Councell or the essentiall Church that is the whole multitude of Believers whose Approbation is their reception And in this very PaÌ„ragraph he hath one passage that pointeth at the last opinion making the consent of Catholick Fathers immediatly attesting that they received this Doctrin from
Iudge them by their profession and leave their Consciences to God Thirdly I pleaded that although those who cast the Popes pretended Soveraignty out of England had been Schismaticks as they were not yet we cannot be charged with Schisme so long as we seek carefully after truth and are ready implicity in the preparation of our minds to embrace it whensoever we find it Because he shall not Prevaricate with us I will reduce my Argument into Syllogisticall Forme Whosoever invented not their false Opinions themselves but learned them from their erring Parents are not to be reputed Hereticks much lesse Schismaticks if they defend theÌ„ not with pertinacious animosity but inquire carefully after the truth and be ready to embrace it and correct their errours when they find them But if we had any false opinions we invented them not our selves but learned them from our erring Parents Therefore we are not to be reputed Hereticks much lesse Schismaticks if we defend not our Opinions with pertinacious Animosity but inquire carefully after the truth and be ready to embrace it and Correct our Errours when we find theÌ„ The Major is St. Austins to a word and is yielded by Mr. SerjeaÌ„t to be true The Minor is evident to all the world and caÌ„not be denied Therefore the conclusioÌ„ is firme I doe not urge this as though I had the least suspition in the world that our Ancestours did erre but to shew that although they had erred yet we are not to be reputed Hereticks or Schismaticks whilest we doe our endeavours to find the truth and embrace it implicitly in the preparation of our minds Neither do I urge this to convince others who do not know our hearts and perhaps will not believe us when we tell them that we hold the truth implicity but for the satisfaction of our own Consciences We know whether we hold Opinions pertinaciously or not and whether we desire and endeavour to find out the truth or not and whether we are willing to embrace the truth whensoever God shal reveale it or not None know it but God and ourselves Mr. Serjeant cannot know it And therefore as his answer is improper and conâ—rary to the Rules of Logick to deny the Conclusion or Condition contained in the Conclusion So it is vain and presumptuous to Iudge of another mans Conscience which is known onely to God and himself I cited S. Austin to prove the Proposition which he yieldeth not the Assumtion which is too evident in it self to be denied much lesse to be a witnesse of our hearts which it was impossible for S. Austin to know Iudge Reader what Ardelioes and busy bodyes these are censuring and damning all Protestants to the Pit of Hell as Hereticks and Schismaticks and yet when they are pressed home are forced to confesse that if they doe endeavour to find out the truth which all good Christians doe then they are neither Hereticks nor Schismaticks This may be a great Comfort and Satisfaction to all Consciencious Protestants who are dayly molested by these men and terrified with such Bugbeares as these But Mr. Serjeant hath devised a new Method to discover the hearts of Protestants by the Testimony of their eyes and the undeniable Veredict of their Reason onely by viewing my Answer to his first Section Risum tenealis amici To draw the Saw of Contention to and fro about Henry the eighth Warham Heath Tonstall Gardiner Bonner c whether they were Protestants or Papists is impertinent and frivolous Impertinent let them call them Protestants or Papists or neither or both it it all one to my Argument that it is a violent Presumption of their guilt and our Innocence that all their great Schollars who preached for them and writ for them and acted for them and suffered for them in all other differences should desert them in this And frivolous to contend about the word when we agree upon the thing The thing is without all Controversy or Dispute they held with the Protestants in the Article of the Supremacy and with the Papist in all other Articles what soever Now whether their Denomination shall be from the greater part as it is in all other cases mixe one drop of milk with twenty or fourty of water and we call it water not milke or from the Lesser part as Mr. Serjeant would have it I commit to the Readers Iudgement and desire him to determin it himself whatsoever way he determins it his Iudgement will be lesse Prejudiciall then to be molested with such wranglers Protestants may persecute Protestants but not as Protestants and Papists may persecute Papists as the Iansenists persecute the Iesuits but not as Papists even Ishmaels mocks are termed persecutions but they seldome make such bloudy lawes against those whom they acknowledge to be of their own Communions as the law of the six Articles was or persecute them with fire and faggot as Bonner did He urgeth that between every Species of Colour which we have names for there are hundreds of middle degrees for which we have no names Well argued against himself Wit whither wilt thou Then why doth he call them Protestants and give them a name There are indeed between every Species of Colours man middle degrees which have no distinâ— names but therefore we give theÌ„ the name of those Colours which they come neareâ— to either with a distinction if the diffeâ—rence be easily expressed as grassegreenâ— seagreen willowgreen c. or withouâ— any distinctioÌ„ the white of an Egge is not so white as snow yet both white If he would pursue his own instance this Controversy were ended He prateth of the subordinate Sects of Protestants and how changeable they are every day He loveth to have a Vagare out of his lists It is his Spirituall Mother the Church of England that gave him his Christian being which he hath undertaken to Combate let him adorn that Sparta as he is able and if he did it with more Modesty he were lesse to be blamed then he is If she had been but his old Friend yet Friendship ought to be unstitched by degrees not torn asunder suddainly But to cast durt in the Face of his own Mother is a shrewd sign of an ill nature As the Foole said to a Favorite If I fall I can rise againe but if thou fall thou wilst never rise againe so if we change there is no great danger in it because we keep our selves firmly to our old Essentialls that is the Apostles Creed but their Change is dangerous who change their Creed and presume to adde new Essentials to the old He beareth such a perfect hatred against Reformation because it is destructive to his Foundation of immediate Tradition that he maketh No Papist and a Reformer to be the Character of a Protestant Popes and Cardinalls Emperours and Kingdomes Churches and Councells have all acknowledged both the Lawfulnesse and necessity of Reformation What doth he thinke of the Councell of Trent or hath
or humane Law and refuse to contend with us when we prove them to be Vsurpations to what end doth he interest himself and break other mens heads with the clattering noise of his Sabots SECT X. An Answer to their Objections THeir first Objection was that we had seperated ourselves from the Communion of the Catholick Church I answered that we hold Communion with thrice so many Catholick Christians as they doe that is the Eastern Southern and Northern Christians besides Protestants He interpreteth these Christians with whom we hold Communion to be numâ—erlesse Multitudes of Manichees Gâ—osticks Carpocratians Arrians Nestorians Eutichians c. Adding that he protesteth most faithfully he doth not think that I have any solid reason to refuse Communion to the worst of them Reader learn how to value his faithfull Protestations hereafter I shew that we all detest those damned Heresies and complaine of his Partiality and want of Ingenuity to abuse the Reader with such lying suggestions which he himself knoweth to be most false and challenge him to shew that any of us are guilty of any of these Heresies now see what he produceth to free himself from such an horrid Calumny First he saith that the Bishops taxe is evidently this to shew some solid reasons why he admits some of these and rejects others This is not the purging of his old Calumny but the twisting of a new Calumny to it Labhominate and Anathematise them all and he will have a reasoÌ„ of me why I admit some of them and reject others Well done brave disputant Secondly he urgeth Suppose he could not charge the Church of England or any of these otâ—er Churches with any of these Heresies are there no other Hereâ—sies in the world but thesâ— old ones Or is it impossible that a new Heresy should arise There are other Heresies in the world and it is possible that a new Heresy my arise but what doth that concern the Church of England unlesse he thinke that there is no Heresy in the world nor is possible to be but the Church of England must be guilty if it Worser and Worser He proceedeth that he accused not the Church of England or the Bishop for holding those materiall points but that having no determinate certein Rule of Faith they had no grounds to reject any from their Communion who hold some common points of Christianity with them It is well habemus câ—nfiâ—entem reum Mr. Serjeant retracts his Charge The Church of England and the Bishop are once declared innocent of those old Heresies which he made a Muster of to no purpose To let him see that I say nothing new and how he thrasheth his own Friends blind fold Peter Lombard Thomas a Iesu Cardinall Tolet and many others do make the Question about the procession of the Holy Ghost to be Verball onely without Reality and that the Grecian expressions of Spiritus Filii The Spirit of the Sonne and per Filium by the Sonne doe signify as much as our Filioque and from the Son And of the Nestorians Onuphrius giveth this Iudgement These Nestorians doe seem to me to have reteined the name of Nestorius the Heretick rather then his errours for I find nothing in them that savoureth of that Sect. And for the supposed Eutychians Thomas a Iesu giveth us ample Testimony That the suspicion did grow upon a double mistake They were suspected of Eutychianisme because they reteined not the Councell of Chalcedon and they received not the Councell of Chalcedon because they suspected it of Nestorianisme but yet they accurse Eutyches for an Heretick and so did the Councell of Chalcedon Anathematise Nestorius The same is asserted by Brerewood out of the Confessions of the Iacobites Nestorians Armenians Cophites and Abyssines To his Objection I answer First that though we had no such certein Rule of Faith yet it was not presently necessary that we must tumble headlong into such abhominable errours as many of these Hereticks held which the Discreeter Heathen did detest Secondly we have a certain Rule of Faith the Apostles Creed dilated in the Scriptures or the Scriptures contracted into the Apostles Creed and for that ugly Fardle of Heresies which he mentioneth we can shew that they are all diametrally opposite to the Apostles Creed as it is explained in the foure first Generall Councells Reader have a care to presere Epicteâ—us his Iewell Remember to distrust such faithfull or rather feigned Protestations He argueth All those Hereticks had the Same Rule or Grounds of their Faith that Protestants have namely the Holy Scripture therefore they are all of the Protestant Communion In good time All those Hereticks had the same Rule or grounds of their Faith that Roman Catholicks have namely the Holy Scriptures therefore they are of the Roman Catholick Communion If he except that the bare Letter of the Scriptures is not the Ground or Rule of Faith to Roman Catholicks but the Scripture interpreted according to the Analogy of Faith and Tradition of the Church the Church of England saith the very same for it self So if this be the source of all errour to abandon the Tradition of the Church we are far enough from the source of all errour This is the onely difference in this particular betweene me and Mr. Serjeant what he attributeth to the Tradition of immediate Forefathers I ascribe to the perpetuall and Vniversall Tradition of the Catholick Church Who would believe that this man himself had deserted the Tradition of his Immediate Forefathers That which he addeth the Traditioâ— of Immediate Forefathers is the onely Ground of Faiths certainty and the Denying of it more Pestilentiall then the Denying of the Godhead of Christ or the asserting the worst of those errours which any of those old Hereticks held as there are two Gods a Good God and an Evill God is most false and Dangerous to tumble into a certain Crime for feare of an uncertein What he addeth concerning Sects new sprung up in England and Luther and Carolostadius concerneth not us nor the present Controversy I said that some few Eastern Christians were called Nestorians and some others by reasoÌ„ of some unusuall expressioÌ„s suspected of Eâ—tichianisme but most wrongfully and in our Name and in the name of all those Churches which hold Communion with us I accursed all the Errours of those Hereticks Notwithstanding all this he saith that nothing is more right then to call them so that what I say here is contrary to the publick and best intelligence we have from those remote Countries that I have a mind to cling in very Brotherly aud very lovingly with the Nestorians aud Eutychians though I say I will not that I stroake those errours which I accurse with a gentle hand stiling them but unusuall expressions First for so much as concerneth my self I have renounced those errours I have accursed them if yet he will not crâ—dit me there is nothing left for me to doe but to appeale to God
the searcher of all hearts that what I say is true and his accusations are groundlesse Calumnies But as to the merit of the cause he addeth that these unusuall expressions were onely these that Christ had two distinct persons and no distinct natures Thus he saith but what Authours what Authority doth he produce that any of these Churches are guilty of any such expressions None at all because for all his good intelligence he hath none to produce nor ever will be able to produce any and so his good intelligence must end in smoke and stinke as his most faithfull protestation did before I will conclude this point to his shame with the Doctrin of the English Church Art 2. That the two Natures Divine and Humane are perfectly and inseperably conjoined in the Vnity of the person of Christ. Doth this agree with his counterfeit expressions Christ hath two distinct persons no distnct natures When I used this expression the best is we are either wheat or chaffe of the Lords Floore but their tongues must not winnow us these words the best is had no such immediate Relation unto the words immediatly following we are either wheat or Chaffe but to the last words their tongues must not winnow us making this the complete sense we are either wheat or chaffe but the best is whether we be wheat or chaffe their tongues must not winnow us What poore boyish pickquering is this In my Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedon occasionally I shewed the Agreement of the Greek Churches with the Church of England in the greatest Questions agitated between us and the Church of Rome out of Cyrill late Patriarch of Constantinople which he taketh no notice of but in requitall urgeth a passage out of Mr. Rosse in his booke called a View of all Religions It is an unequall match between Mr. Rosse a private Stranger and the Patriarch of Constantinople in a cause concerning his own Church I meddle not with Mr. Rosse but leave him to abound in his own sense I know not whether he be truly cited or not but with Mr. Serjeant I shall be bold to tell him that if he speaketh seriously and bona fide he is mistaken wholy Neither doe the Greekes place much of their Devotion in the worship of the Virgin Mary and painted Images Heare Cyrill the Patriarch we give leave to him that will to have the Images of Christ and of the Saints but we disallow the Adoration and worship of them as prohibited by the Holy Ghost in Holy Scripture And another They give great honour to the Virgin Mary the Mother of Christ but they neither adore her nor implore her aide And for the Intercession prayers help and Merits of the Saints taking the word Merit in the sense of the Primitive Church that is not for Desert but for Acquisition I know no Difference about them among those men who understand themselves but onely about the last words which they invocate in their Temples rather then Churches A Comprecation both the GreciaÌ„s and we do allow an ultimate invocatioÌ„ both the Grecians and we detest so do the Church of Rome in their Doctrine but they vary from it in their practise It followeth They place IustificatioÌ„ not in Faith but in workes Most Falsly Heare Hieremy the Patriarch We must doe good workes but not confide in them And Cyrill his Successour VVe believe that man is justified by Faith not VVorkes Before we can determine for whom those Eastern Southern and Northern Christians are in the Question concerning the Sacrifice of the Masse it is necessary to know what the right state of this Controversy is I have challenged them to goe one step further into it then I do and they dare not or rather they cannot without Blasphemy The next instance concerning Purgatory is so grosse and notorions a mistake that it were a great shame to confute it They believe that the soules of the Dead are bettered by the prayers of the living Which way are they bettered That the soules of damned are released or eased thereby the Modern Greeks deny and so do we That there are any soules in Purgatory to be helped they deny and so do we That they may be helped to the Consummation of their Blessednesse and to a speedier Vnion with their Bodies by the resurrection thereof they do not deny no more do we We pray dayly Thy Kingdome come and Come Lord Iesus come quickly and that we with this our Brother and all other departed in the Faith may have our perfect Consummation and blesse both in body and Soule They hate Ecclesiasticall Tiranny and lying supposititious Traditions so do we but if they be for the Authority of the Church and for genuine Apostolicall Traditions Gods blessing on their hearts so are we Lastly the Grecians know no feast of Corpus Christi nor carry the Sacrament up and down nor elevate it to be adored They adore Christ in the use of the Sacrament so do we They do not adore the Sacrament no more do we Yet from hence he inferreth that there is not a point of Faith wherein they dissent from the Church of Rome except that one of the Popes Supremacy It is well they will acknowledge that Yet the Grecians agree with us and differ from them in his two Rules or Bonds of Vnity In the Rule of discipline the Grecians and we have the same Government of Bishops under Patriarchs and Primates Secondly in the Rule of Faith the Grecians and we have both the same Canonicall bookes of Scripture both reject their Apocryphall Additions from the Genuine Canon They and we have both the same Apostolicall Creed both reject the new Additions of Pius the fourth In summe they and wee doe both deny their Transubstantiation their Purgatory their Iustification by workes in sensu forensi their doctrine of Merits and Supererogation their Septenary number of the Sacraments their Image worship their Pardons their private Masses their half-half-Communion And to be briefe the Grecians doe renounce and reject all those Branches of Papall power which we have cast out of the Church of England As the Popes Soveraignty over the Catholick Church by divine Right as Nilus saith It is intollerable that the Roman Bishop will not be subject to the Canons of the Fathers since he had his Dignity from the Fathers Secondly his Legislative power as Peter Stewart Vice-chanceller of Ingolstad witnesseth that the Grecians object it as an errour to the Latines that they make the Popes Commandements to be their Canons and Lawes Thirdly his Iudiciary power equalling the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Patriarch of Rome or rather preferring him Lastly his dispensative power accusing his Pardons and Dispensations as things that open a gaâ—e to all Kind of Villany I am glad that Nilus is in his good grace to be stiled by him one of the gravest Bishops and Authors of that party for one moderate expression wherein he saith no more then we say
so the onely View of Mr. Serjeants railing writings are a sufficient Antidote to a staied man against such extreme scurrility And I wonder that the Church of Rome which is so provident that none of her Sons in their writings swerve from their rule of faith should permit them so Licentionsly to transgresse the rule of good manners and whilest they seem to propugn true Piety to abandon all Civility as if Zeale and Humanity were in consistent When Michaell the Arch-angell disputed with the Devill about the body of Moses he durst not bring a railing Accusation against him Whether doth this man think him self to have more Privilege then an Archangell or us to be worse then Devills When the Holy Ghost fell upon the Apostles it was indeed in fiery Tongues to expresse Devotion but likewise in cloven tongues to expresse Discretion St. Paul would have the Servant of the Lord to be gentle to all men in meeknesse instructing those that oppose them selves if God peradventure will give them repentance to the acknowledging of the truth This is the right way to gaine soules The mild Beames of the Sun wrought more effectually upon the Travailer then the blustering Blasts of the Northwind Generosus est animus hominis The mind of man is Generous and is more easily led then drawn The Lord was not in the loud wind nor in the Earthquake nor in the Fire but in a still voice Such a one Maister Serjeants is not If he had objected but two or three Absurdityes or contradictions it had been able to have troubled a man because there might have been some Verisimilitude in it but when he Metamorphoseth my whole Discourse into absurdityes and Contradictions that they lye as thick as Samsons Enemyes heaps upon heaps with the Iawbone of an Asse it sheweth plainly that they are but made Dragons without any reality in them Like that strange Monster which a cunning Cheat promised to shew his credulous Spectators An Horse whose head stood in the place of his Taile And when all came to all he him self had tyed the Horse to the manger the wrong way There needs no Application So an expert Puppet-player can at his pleasure make the little Actors chide and fight one with another and knock their own heads against the Posts by secret Motions which he him self lendeth them So the Picture of a glorified Saint by changing of the prospect may be turned into a poore Lazar. He professeth that he hath the gift of unpraejudiced sincerity if he could be credited upon his bare word but Remember to Distrust was Epictetus his Iewell No man proclaimeth in the Streets that he hath rotten Wares to sell and Iuglers when they are about to play their tricks use to strip up their sleeves in assurance of faire dealing What pledge he hath given us in this Treatise of such Candor and unprejudiced sincerity wee may observe by the sequele In summe Reader he complaineth much of Wording yet he himself hath nothing but words He calleth earnestly for rigid Demonstrations but produceth none And if the nature of the subject would beare one he knowes a way how to turn it into a Contradiction He hateth Contradictions with all his heart Mistake him not it is in another not in him self It were to be wished that he knew a little better what Contradictions are least innocent propositions go to wrack in his fury under the Notion of Contradictions As poore old women doe for witches in some part of the world He is a great Friend to Christian Peace and a mighty Desirer of Vnity if wee may trust his word If he be indeed it wil be the better for him one Day but who would have thought it that scratching and biting among reasonable men were a ready way to Vnity I doubt it is but such an Vnity as Rabshakeh desired between Senacherib and Hezekiah a slavish Vnity I proposed but three Expedients in the Conclusion of my Vindication of the Church of England to obtein a wished peace in Christen dome such as themselves cannot deny to be lawfull and all moderate men will judge necessary to be done To reduce the present Papacy to the Primitive forme The Essentialls of faith to the Primitive Creed And Publick and private devotions to the Primitive Leiturgies But this peaceable man is so far from listening to them that he doth not vouchsafe to take notice of them But in answer wisheth us To receive the roote of Christianity that is Practicall Infallibility in the Church he meaneth the Church of Rome which being denyed there is no religion left in the world His stile is too-sharp his Iudgement over partiall his Experience too small his sentences and censures over rash and ' rigorous his Advises too Magisteriall to be a fit instrument of procuring peace But let us listen to those truths which he proposeth whether they be as he avoucheth with more Confidence then discretion as evident in themselves as that two and three make five If he can make this good his worke is done but if there be no such thing as thou wilt find learn that all is not gold that glisters And let him take heed that ' his new light be not an ignis fatuus which maketh Precipices seem plaine wayes to wandrimg misâ—ed persons A SVRREIOINDER or Defence of the Bishop of Derrys Reply to the Appendix of Mr. William Serjeant The First part of his Rejoinder is a Corollary drawn from his former Principles brought against Doctor Hammond That little remaines to be replyed to mee in substantiall points Since neither can I deny there is now a breach made between us Nor doe I pretend demonstrative and rigorous evidence that the Popes Authority was an Vsurpation Nor lastly doe I pretend that probable reasons are a sufficient ground to renounce an Authority so strongly supported by long possession and Vniversall Delivery of immediate Forefathers as come from Christ or that it was prudence to hazard a Schisme upon the uncertain Lottery of a Probability These grounds are supposed by him to be demonstrated against Doctor Hammond and are barely repeated here to try if he can kill two Birds with one Bolt made of a Burre But I refuse the Province at present as a needlesse and a thanklesse Office N'eedlesse in respect of his learned Adversary who will shew him sufficiently the weaknesse of his pretended Demonstration And thanklesse in respect of him self who had taxed mee in this Rejoinder of busying my self to answer an objection that was not addressed to me Yet least Mr. Serjeant should feign that I seeke Subterfuges I wil briefly and clearly declare my Sense of his grounds as they are here proposed that he may fight no more with his own shadow as it is his common use in hope I may recover his good opinion of my Candour and ingenuity And if it please him he may borrow Diogenes his Candle and Lanthorn at noon Day to search for contradictions First that
thing which offereth it self to our Consideration is his Minor Proposition Whether the church of England did breake these Bonds of Vnity c But I hold it more Methodicall to examine first the Proofes of his Major That these were the right Bonds of Vnity and so dispatch that part out of my hands All which was agreed upon unanimouslly between the Church of Rome and its dependents and the Church of England and delivred from hand to hand in them all by the Orall and immediate Tradition of a World of Fathers to a world of Children successively as a rule of Faith or Difcipline received from Christ and his Apostles which so vast a Multitude of Eye witnesses did see visibly practised from Age to Age is undoubtedly true and such a rule is infallible and impossibe to be Crooked But these two Rules are such Rules And so he concludeth that they are incapable of Vsurpations and as easy to teach faith as Children learn their A B C. I have given his Argument as much force and edge as I could possibly but all this Wind shakes no Corn. His other two Rules were not so much to be blamed as this Rule of Rules Orall and immediate Tradition Of such Orall and immediate Tradition it was that our Saviour told the Sribes and Pharisees That they made the Commandements of God of none effect by their Tradition And St. Peter told the dispersed Iewes that they were redeemed by the blood of Christ from their vain Conversation received by Tradition from their Fathers These were such Traditions as The Iewes pretended they had receiued from Moses and the Prophets as the Romanists pretend now to have received their Traditions from Christ and his Apostles Otherwise wee doe not onely admit Orall Traditions in generall as an excellent Introduction to the Doctrin of saving truth and a singular help to expound the holy Scriptures but also particular unwritten Traditions derived from the Apostles and delivered unto us by the manifest Testimony of the Primitive Church being agreeable to the holy Scriptures The Apostles did speak by inspiration as well as write and their Tradition whether by word or writing indifferently was the word of God into which faith was resolved The Traditions of the Catholick Church of this present or another age have this Privilege to be free from all Errours that are absolutely Destructive to Salvation but this they have not from the nature of Tradition which is subject to Errour to Corruption to Change to Contradiction Mobilitate viget viresque acquirit eundo but from the speciall Providence and protection of Christ who hath promised to be with his Church untill the end of the World In summe I deny both his Propositions First his Major Immediate Tradition from Parents to Children is not a certain and infallible Rule of Truth and Faith Traditions are often doubtfull doe often change with the times and sometimes contradict one another As we see in the Different Traditions of the Eastern and Western Churches about the observation of Easter And the Councells of Nice and Frankford about Images c. Neither points of Faith nor Papall rights are so visible as he imagineth Credulity and Ignorance and Prejudice and Passion and Interest doe all act their parts Upon his Grounds there can be no Ecclesiasticall Usurpations yet Experience teacheth us that there have been such Vsurpations in all Ages If he had reason to renounce the immediate Tradition of his Father and Grandfather and great Grandfather Then others may have the like and better reasons Let him believe the Suns dancing upon Easter morn and the Swanssinging and the Pellicans digging of her Breast with her Bill and all the Storyes of King Arthur and Robin Hood for it may be he hath received all these from his Elders by immediate Tradition He him self Confesseth that the possession of goverument must be such a possession as may be presumable to haue come from Christ not of such an one as every one knowes when it began P. 49. To what purpose is it to pretend tradition for all those branches of Papall power which are in controversy betweene them and us seeing all of them had their first originall eleven hundred yeares after Christ Secondly this is not all he ascribeth moreover too much to the immediate Tradition of the present Church but much more then too much to the immediate Tradition of his elders to make it absolutely infallible cui non potest subesse falsum and to resolve Faith into it The last resolution of Faith must be into that which is formally the word of God The voice of the present Church may be materially the word of God in regard of the matter and thing testified but it cannot be formally the word of God in respect of the Witnesses and manner of testifying But immediate Tradition is often a Seminary of Errours Thirdly he makes the Orall and immediate Tradition of Fathers to their Childâ—ren to be a more ready and safe Rule of Faith then the holy Scriptures which are the Canon of Faith and so ready that it is as easy as for Boyes to learn their A B C. aud so safe that it is impossible to be made crooked Lastly he Confoundeth the Tradition of the Roman Church with the Tradition of the Catholick Church yet the one is but particular the other Universall Tradition Saint Augustine setteth us downe a certeine rule how to know a true genuine Apostolicall tradition Quod univers a tenet Ecclesia nec Conciliis institutum sed semper Retentum est nonnifi authoriate Apostolica traditum verissiÌ„ me creditur Whatfoever the whole Church doth hold which was not instituted by councells but allwayes received is most rightly beleeued to have bene delivered by Apostolicall authority These three markes conjoinctly do most firmly prove an Apostolicall Tradition I do not denie but that there have bene Apostolicall Traditions which have wanted some of these Markes but they were neither necessary to salvation nor can be proved at this day after sixteene hundred yeares to have bene Apostolicall Traditions Whatsoever wanteth either universality or perpetuiâ—y is not absolutely uecessary Neither can the reception of one Apostolicall Church proue a tradition to be Apostolicall if other Apostolicall Churches do reject it and contradict it To conclude we give all due respect to Tradition but not so much to Orall Tradition as to Written Tradition as beingmore certain lesse subject to mistakes and more easily freed from mistakes Liter a scriptamanet A serious person if he be but to deliver a long message of importance from one to another will be carefull either to receive it in writing or put it in writing Nor so much to particular immediate Tradition as we do to Vniversall and perpetuall tradition He overshooteth himself beyond all aime in affirming of immediate and Particular Tradition that where it hath place it is impossible for usurpations or abuses to enter or find admittance He might as
well tell us that it is impossible to make a crooked line with a leaden Rule Particular Tradition is flexible and is often bended according to the interests and inclinations of particular ages and places and persons He saith that there can be no encroachments so as men adhere to this method that is immediate Tradition He telleth us that they did adhere to this Method and that there was such immediate Tradition and yet we have seen and felt that encroachments and vsurpations and abuses did not onely creep into the Church but like a Violent Torrent did beare down all opposition before them I produce but two Witnesses but they are beyond exception The one is Pope Adrian the sixth in his Instructions to his Nuncio Franciscus Cheregatus when he sent him to the German Princes at the diet of Nuremberg Wee know that in the holy See for some yeares past many things have been to be abhominated Abuses in Spirituall things Excesses in Mandates and all things changed perversly Neither is it to be marveiled at if sicknesse descend from the head to the members from the Chiefest Bishops to other inferiour Prelates c. And againe Wherein for so much as concerneth us you shall promise that wee will doe our uttermost endeavour that in the first place this Court from whence peradventure this evill hath proceeded may be reformed that as the Corruption flowed from thence to all inferiours so likewise the health and reformation of all may proceed from thence Pope Adrian Confesseth abominable abuses and excesses and perverse mutations and corruptions and yet Mr. Serjeant would make us believe that where this Method of Orall and immediate Tradition is used there can be no changes Either this Method was not used or this Method is not a sufficient preservative against innovations both wayes his demonstration falleth to the ground My other Witnesse is the Councell of nine cheife Cardinalls who upon their Oaths delivered up as their veredict a bundle of abuses grievons abuses abuses not to be tolerated they are their own words ye a Monsters to Paul the third in the yeare 1538 beseeching him that these spots might be taken away which if they were admitted in any Kingdome or Republick would streight bring it to ruine Never any man did make encroachments and innovatious to be impossible before this man His assumtion is as false as his major proposition But these two Rules whereof this is one part that the Bishops of Rome as Successors of S. Peter did inherit from him this privilege to be the first or Chiefe or Princes of Bishops c. Were agreed upon unanimously between the church of Rome and its dependents and the church of England and delivered from hand to hand in them all by the Orall and immediate Tradition of a World of Fathers to a World of children successively as a Rule of discipline received from Christ and his Apostles c. If all this were true it concerneth us nothing we may perhaps differ from them in judgmeÌ„t but have no formed quarrell with them about this that I know of We are willing to submit not onely to the Ordinances of Christ bâ—t to the just ordinances of man and to yeeld for the common Peace and Tranquility of Christendome rather more then is due then lesse But otherwise how was that unanimously agreed upon between the Churches of Rome and England and so delivered by Fathers to Children as a thing accorded whereof the Church of Rome is no better accorded within it self unto this day I mean concerning the divine right of the Bishop of Rome to all the privileges of St. Peter when the Popes greatest Champions maintein it so coldly as a thing that is not improbable that peradventure may be peradventure may not be as grounded upon a fact of St. Peter that is as much as to say not upon the Mandate of Christ And though wee should be so kind-hearted as to suppose that there is some part of Papall power in the abstract not in the concrete which is of Christs own institution Namely The beginning of Vnity that is a power to Convocate the Church and to preside in the Church and to pronounce the sentence of the Church so far and no further then power purely spirituall doth extend although there be no speciall mandate of Christ to that purpose for one to be the successour of S. Peter or any prime or chiefe of all other Bishops yet in the Iudgement even of the greatest opposers of Ecclesiasticall Hierarchy it is the dictate of nature that one should preside over the rest Ex dei ordinatione perpetua necesse fuit est erit ut in Presbyterio quispiam loco dignitate primus actioni gubernandae praesit Yet what is this to that great Bulke of Ecclesiasticall Authority which hath been conferred upon that See by the decrees of oecumenicall councells and by the Civill Sanctions of Christian Emperours which being Humane Institutions may be changed by Humane Authority Can one scruple of divine right convert a whole masse of Humane right into divine Wee see Papall power is not equall or alike in all places but is extended or contracted variously according to the different Privileges and liberties of severall Churches and kingdomes We see at this day the Pope hath very little to doe in Sicily as I have shewed in my Vindication of the Church of England by reason that one of his Predecessors long since hath alienated in a manner the whole Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction to the Soveraign Prince of the Country and to his Heirs Wee may call it by deputation or delegation but this is plain it is to him and his Heâ—res for ever This is certain divine right cannot be extended or contracted There is no Privilege or prescription against divine right That which belongeth to one person by divine right cannot be alienated to another person by humane right for then Humane right should be stronger then divine right In summe although there be some colour or pretext of divine right for a beginning of Vnity wheresoever the Catholick Church should fix it yet it appeareth evidently by the Vniversall practice of the Christian world in all ages that there is no Colour nor so much as a shadow of divine right for all the other Branches of papall power and those vast Privileges of the Roman Court. In the Councell of Constance they damned most of the Articles of Iohn Wickliffe down right without hesitation but when they came to the one and fortieth Article It is not necessary to Salvation to believe that the Roman Church is supreme among other Churches they paused and used some reservation It is an errour if by the Roman Church he understood the Vniversall Chureh or a Generall Councell or for as much as he should deny the primacy of the Pope above other particular Churches Their judgement is clear enough they yeilded to the Pope primatum not suprematum A primacy of
Order not a supremacy of power They made him a beginning of Vnity to all particular Churches Yet subjected him to the Vniversall Church They looked upon him as Highest Bishop and Successour of St. Peter but they believed that a Generall Councell had power to shake his Candlestick and remove it if they found it expedient for the good of Christendome If he come so far short of divine right in his faire pretensions by what right will he seek to justify all his foule Vsurpations and enchroachments which have no decree of any Oecumenicall councell to warrant them no Imperiall Institntion to authorise them which have no foundation but the Popes own decretalls But â— reserve a full account of this for the next part of my Answer Onely Reader be pleased to take notice that it behooved Mr. Serjeant to have proved his Traditions clearly and distinctly as to those parts of Papall power which are controverted between us in earnest with the Vniversality of it and the perpetuity of it This he neither doth nor attempteth to doe nor in deed is he or any other able to doe but meerly presumeth it and slubbereth over the mater in deceitfull Generalls Sect. I. Cap. III. Wee are come now to the last part of his demonstration which was the Minor or Assumtion of his former Syllogisme That the Church of England in Henry the eighths dayes did breake these Rules of Vnity upon probable reasons not convincing grounds Which being the main question he should have fortifyed with proofes but he according to his Custome thinkes to carry it with confidence and clamours Does not all the World grant and hold that King Henry denyed the Popes Supremacy Does not all the World see that the pretended Church of England stands now otherwise in Order to the Church of Rome then it did in Henry the sevenths dayes c. Was Papall power cast out before was it not in actuall force till and at that time Wee beg nothing gratis but begin our Processe upon Truth acknowledged by the whole World What Papall power king Henry did cast out and what Papall power we hold out I shall demonstrate to the World not confusedly but distinctly by such proofes as are not to be gainsaid for matter of fact But before I gird my self to the worke it will not be amisse for the freeing of the Cause from future Cumber about them to give Satisfaction to his two Circumstances that wee did it onely upon probable reasons And in the dayes of king Henry the eighth For the first he keepeth a great stirre and bustling every where about our probable reasons and tbe nature of our Exceptions And he would make his reader believe that I have omitted this part of his wordâ— Guâ—lefully All which discourse is superfluous and impertinent For if he could make good his Conclusion that wee have cast out that which Christ himself did ordein in holy Scripture no reasons nor exceptions can be sufficient or so demonstrative and convincing as to justify a wilfull violation of Christs own ordination Every Plant saith our Saviour which my heavenly father hath not planted shall be rooâ—ed up But if this be Christs own Plant which he himself hath planted to goe about to root it up were plainly to fight against God We renounce all reasons and all exceptions against Christs own ordination His very intimation that wee might doe what we did upon demonstrative reasons is an implicit Confession that it was not against Christs own ordination There was no need why I should meddle wich mine own exceptions here That was his office in the position of the Case That case is meanly and partially stated which is stated but on one side he ought to have included my Exceptions in his case Besides I was sure to meet wich my exceptions in every Section and therefore reserved them for their proper-places as being loath to offend the Reader wich twice sodden Coleworts But let him not feare that I will relinquish my Exceptions I shall maintain them to be demonstrative of the Popes Vsurpations in England and leave them freely to try it out with his Demonstrations The second Circumstance is concerning the time when the breach is supposed to have been made In the dayes of Henry the eighth And it is thus far true that then the breach was declared and the War proclaimed to all the World but this breach was making long before Henry the eighth was born form the dayes of Pope Hildebrand for about four hundred yeares There was no open hostility indeed between the Court of Rome and the Church and Kingdome of England but they were still upon their Gards and still seeking to gaine ground one upon another as appeareth by the decrees and Lawes and Machinations of those times A breach in a strong Tower is long making before the Walls tumble visibly down A Scathfire is long kindling before it breake out in an universall flame A Cronicall disease is long gathering and forming before the certain Symptoms there of doe appeare We use to say the second blow makes the fray but the first blow makes the Battery and the guilt All that time that they were forcing their grosse usurpations upon us the Breach was making I have done wich his two Circumstances The Substance of his Assumtion remaineth But before I grapple with him about that give me leave to lay down four grounds or Considerations so indifferent that no rationall man can deny them The first is that every one who is involved materially in a Schism is not a formall Schismatick no more then â—hee that marrieth after long expectation believing and having reason to believe that her former Husband was dead is a formall Adultresse or then he who is drawn to give divine Worship to a creature by some misapprehension yet addressing his devotions to the true God is a formall Idolater A man may be Baptisatus voto as S. Ambrose said baptised in his desire and God Almighty doth accept it why may he not as wel Communicate in his desire and be accepted with God likewise If S. Austin say true of Heresy that He who did not run into his Errour out of his own overweening presumption nor defends it pertinaciâ—asly but received it from his seduced parents and is carefull to search out the truth and ready to be corrected if he find it out he is not to be reputed among Hereticks It is much more true of Schism that he who is involved in Schism through the errour of his Parents or Predecessors who seeketh carefully for the Truth and is prepared in his mind to embrace it whensoever he finds it he is not to be reputed a Schismatick This very Bond of Vnity and preparation of his mind to peace is an implicit â—enunciation and abjuration of his Schism before God This is as comfortable a ground for ignorant Roman Catholicks as for any persons that I know Who are hurried hoodwinked in to
power to name and constitute two and thirty Commissioners sixteen of the Clergy and other sixteen of the Peers and Parliament to view the Ecclesiasticall Lawes of the Kingdome and declare which were fit to be retained and which were to be abrogated The same Law is confirmed and enlarged The Sixth Law restreineth the payment of Tenths and First Fruits to the Bishop of Rome And prescribeth how Arch-bishops Bishops c. are to be elected and consecrated within the Realm without payment of any thing to Rome for Bulls and Pals c. The seventh law is an Act of Eâ—oneration of the Kings subjects from exactions and impositions heretofore paid to the See of Rome for Pensions Peterpence Licenses Dispensations Confirmations faculties c. and for having licenses and dispensations within the Realm without further suing for the same As being Vsurpations coâ—trary to the law of the land The eighth Act is Concerning the Kings Highnesse to be supreme Head of the Church of England that is Politicall head and to have Authority to redresse all Errours Heresies and Abuses in the same That is to say with externall Coactive Iurisdiction Wee never gave our Kings the power of the Keys or any part of either the Key of Order or the Key of Iurisdiction purely Spirituall but onely that Coactive power in the externall Regiment of the Church which their Predecessors had alwayes enjoyed The Ninth Act is for the annexing Tenths and first fruits to the Crown for the better supportation of the Burthens of the Commouwealth The tenth Act is au Act extinguâ—shing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome or extirpating it out of this Realm That is Not the Bishop of Romes Primacy of Order Not his beginning of Vnity Not that respect which is dne to him as Bishop of an Apostolicall See If he have not these it is his own fault This is not our quarrell It is so far from it that wee do not envy him any just legacies of Christian Emperours or Generall Councells But that which our Ancestors did extinguish and endeavour to extirpate out of England was the Popes externall Coactive power over the Kings Subjects in foro contentioso as wee shall see by and by when we come to state the quarrell rightly between us After this Act there followed au eleventh Act made for corroborating of this last Act to exclude the usurped power and Iurisdiction of the Bishops of Rome And both these Acts are backed with new Oaths as those times were fruitfull of Oaths such as they were The last Act of any moment was an Act of Ratification of the Kings Majestjes Style of Supreme head of the Church of England making it treason to attempt to deprive the King of it But as well the eighth Act which gave the King that title of the Head of the Church as this twelfth Act which makes it treason to attempt to deprive the King of it are both repealed and never were restored So are likewise the tenth Act of extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome and the eleventh act made for corroboration of that Act with both their Oaths included in them All that hath been added since of moment which concerneth the Bishop of Rome is one Act Restoring to the Crown the ancient Iurisdiction over the State Ecclesiasticall and Spirituall and abolishing all forrain power repugnant to the same Here is no power created in the Crown but onely an ancient Iurisdiction restored Here is no forrein power abolished but onely that which is repugnant to the ancient Lawes of England and to the Prerogative Royall In a word here is no power ascribed to our Kings but meerly Politicall aud Coactive to see that all their Subjects doe their Dutyes in their severall places Coactive power is one of the Keys of the Kingdome of this world it is none of the Keys of the Kingdome of Heaven This might have been expressed in Words lessé subject to exception But the case is clear The Grand Act xxv Hen. 8. cap. 12 The Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth The Articles of our Chutch Art 37. doe all proclaime that this power is merely Politicall Christ gave St. Peter a Commission to preach to baptise to bind and loose in the Court of Conscience but where did he give him a Commission to give Licenses to grant Facultyes to make Lawes to dispense with lawes to receive appeales to impose Tenths and First fruits in other mens Kingdomes whether the right owner will or no Who gave him power to take other mens Subjects against their Wills to be his Officers and Apparitors That is more power then Christ himself did challenge here upon Earth And now Reader take a Stand and looke about thee See among all these Branches of Papall power which were cast out of England if thou caust find either of St. Peters Keys or his Primacy of Order or his Beginning of Vnity or anything which is purely Spirituall that hath no further influence then merely the Court of Conscience No but on the other side behold a pack of the grossest Usurpations that ever were hatched and all so late that is was above a thousand years after the death of S. Peter be fore any of his pretended Privileges did see the sun in England observe them one by one The first is a power to dispense with English Subjects for holding Plurality of Benifices contrary to the Lawes of England And for non Residents contrary to the Statutes of the Realm It had been much to have made Merchandise of his own Decrees but to Dispense with the Lawes of the Land Non auderet haec facere Viduae mulieri He durst not doe so much to a poore widow woman as he did to the Church and Kingdome of England to dispense with their Lawes at his pleasure It is but vain for the Flower of our Kingdome to assemble aud consult about healthfull Lawes if a Forrainer have power to dispense with the breach of them as it seemeth good in his Eyes They might as well sit them downquietly fall to pilling of rushes The second Branch of Papall power which was Excluded out of England was the Popes Iudiciary power I doe not mean in Controversies of Faith when he is in the Head of a councell Yet Eugeniur the fourth confesseth that in points of Faith the sentence of the councel is rather to be atteÌ„ded theÌ„ the sentence of the Pope But I mean in points of meum and tuum not onely in some rare cases between Bishop and Bishop which had been lesse intollerable and had had more shew of Iustice but generally in all cases promiscuously as if the whole nation wanted either discretion or Law to determin their own differences at home without the help of the Roman Courtier tosqueese their purses It was not Henry the eighth but the old Lawes of England which gave them this blow against Appeales to Rome The third Branch of papall
power which was turned out of England by Henry the eighth was the Popes Legislative power especially in making new Heresies by his own Authority and for his own Interest prescribing the punishment as if all the world were his Subjects Mr. Serjeant may be pleased to inform himself better that the Popes Canons and decretalls never had since the First Conversion of England the force or power of Lawes in England untill they were received by the Nation nor then any further then they were received The fourth Branch is the Soveraign patronage of the English Church with all those rights aud appurtenances which belong thereunto as to convocate the clergy and Dissolve their Assembly To exempt their persons from secular Iudgement To have the Disposition of Ecclesiasticall Dignityes and the Custodium of them in the Vacancy But these things are so notoâ—ious to all those who are acquainted with the Ecclesiasticall Customes of England that there can be no manner of Qnestion of it The Convocation was alwayes called and dissolved by the absolute and precise Mandate of the King to the Arch-Bishop Yea even when the Arch-Bishop was the Popes legate and when he might have challenged another right if the Pope had had any pretense The temporaltyes of the Bishopricks in the Vacancy were ever sèised into the hands of the King untill he granted out his Writ of Manum amoveas or Oster la main If ordinary Patrons did not present in due time to a benefice it devolved to the Ordinary and from him to the King there it stayed Nullum â—empus occurrit Regi The fifth Privilege was the receiving of Tenths and First fruits which were a late encroachment of the Bishop of Rome upon the Clergy without any just ground and upon that score were condemned in the Councells of Constance and Basile and now were seised into the Kings hand towards the discharge of the Ecclesiasticall Burthens of the Kingdome The last perqnisire whith the Pope lost was all the profits of his Court by Bulls and Palls and Pensions and Reservations and Exemptions and Licenses and Dispensations and Consirmations and Pardons and Indulgences and an hundred other pecuniary Artifices practised in his Court at Rome and in his Legantine Courts and Nunciatures abroad But this abuse is so foule that the Popes own selected Cardinalls doe cryshame upon it as much as wee and lay-down this genera Rule That it is not lawfull to make any gain by the exercise of the Keys seing wee have the firm word of Christ freely ye have received freely give c. For as the use which now prevaileth doth disgrace the See of Rome and disturbeth Christian people so the contrary practice would bring much honour to this See and marveilously edify the people These are the reall differences between the See of Rome and the Church and Kingdome of England concerning the papacy all these altercations which wee have about Thou art Peter and the Keys given to St. Peter and Feed my Sheep and I have prayed for thee are but like to the tinkling of Cybeles Priests upon their Cymballs on purpose to deafe the eares of the Spectators and to conceale the Cryes and ejulations of poore oppressed Christians To reduce them into a little better Method then they lye in the Statutes The maine quaestious are or may be reduced to four heads The first grand quaestion is concerning the Soveraignty of the English Church in respect of the externall Regiment thereof This hath four subordinate Branches First who is the right Patron of the English Church under God the King or the Pope Secondly who hath power to Convocate Synods of the Kings subjects within England The King or the Pope Thirdly whether the Pope have justly imposed new Oaths upon the Arch Bishops and Bishops fourthly whether Tenths and first fruits in England be due to the See of Rome The second question is concerning the Popes legislative power Whether the Canon law or the decretalls have been anciently esteemed binding lawes in England or ought to be so esteemed except they be received by the English Nation and metriculated among our lawes The third is concerning his judiciary power Whether the Bishop of Rome can receive Appeales from England by the Ancient lawes of that Land and send for whom he pleaseth to Rome 2. Whether Bulls and Excommunications from Rome can be lawfully executed in England except the King give leave for the execution of them 3. Whether the Pope can send Legates and set up Legantine Courts in England by the Ancient lawes of that Realme The fourth Difference is concerning the popes dispensative power whether the Pope can dispense with the lawes of England 2. Whether we stand in need of his dispensations In every one of these diffeâ—ences wee maintein that the Bishop of Rome and the Court of Rome have been guilty of most grosse Vsurpations Sect I. Cap V. To begin with the first If it were necessary to call in any forreyn subsidiary Supplies for the further fortifying of the King of Englands Soveraign Patronage under God of the Church within his Territories I might find strong recruits from the Greek Emperours to shew that they alwayes practised this power within their Dominions to place Bishops in vacant Sees and that the Contrary was hactenus inauditum never heard of in S. Gregoryes dayes To them I might adde the French and Germane Emperours who not onely injoyed the same privilege by ancient Custome but to whom the Roman Bishops disclaimed it with all their Clergy Iudges and Lawiers Adrian the first to Charles the greate Anno 774. And Leo the eighth to the Emperour Otho Anno 964. I might produce the presidents of the Spanish Monarchs Conc. Tolet 12. cap. 6. It were a most unreasonable thing that Soveraign Princes should be trusted with the Government of their people and have their Bishops who must participate in the Government by informing the consciences of their Subjects be obtruded on them by Strangers I cannot omit the observation of a Learned Bishop That Quacunque ratione ad pontificatum pateret ingressus nemo Apostolicae Cymbae gubernacula capessebat ni prius Imperatoris authoritas inâ—ercessisset By what way soever the Election of the Pope was made And Bellarmine mentioneth seven changes in the manner of choosing the Pope Yet no man was ever admitted to the actuall Government of the Apostolicall See without the Emperours confirmation But our case is strong enough without twisting any forrein presidents with it William the conquerour William Rufus and Henry the first did injoy the right of placing in vacant Sees by the tradition of a Ring and of a Crosier staffe without ever seeking for Forrein approbation or ordination or confirmation as their Predecessors Kings of England and Brittain had done before them Els it had been very strange The Roman Roâ—a will give decisive Sentence for him to be Patron of a Church who first builded it and endowed it But then
fourth Custome was this that when an Arch Bishoprick Bishoprick Abbacy or Priory did fall void the Election was to be made by such of the Principall Dignitaryes or Members of that respective Church which was to be filled as the king should call together for that purpose with the kinges consent in the kings own Chappell And there the person elected was to doe his Homage and Fealty to the King as to his Liege Lord The Pope had no part to Act neither to collate nor consent nor confirm nor Institute nor induct nor ordeine The Second Law is the Statute of Carlile made in the time of Edward the First The summe of it is this That the king is the Founder of all Bishopricks and ought to have the Custody of them in the Vacancyes and the right of Patronage to present to them And that the Bishop of Rome usurping the Right of Patronage giveth them to aliens That this tendeth to the annullation of the State of holy Church to the Disinheriting of Kings and the Destruction of the Realm And they ordained in full Parliament that this is an Oppression that is as much as an entroachment or Vsurpation and should not be suffered The third law was made in the 15th yeare of Edward the third called the Statute of Provisors wherein they affirm that Elections were First granted by the Kings Progenitors upon a certain form or Condition to demand Licenfe of the King to chuse and after the Election to have his Royall Assent Which Conditions not being kept the thing ought by reason to resort to his First nature And there fore conclude that in case Reservation Collation or Provision be made by the Court of Rome of any Arch Bishoprick c. Our Soveraign Lord the King and his Heirs shall have and enjoy the Collations for the same time to the said Arch Bishopricks Bishopricks and other dignityes Elective which be of his Aavowre such as his Progenitors had before the free Election was granted They tell the King plainly that the Right of the Crown of England and the Law of the Land is such that the King is bound to make remedyes and Lawes against such mischiefes And they acknowledge that he is Advowée Paramont immediate of all Churches Prebends and other Benifices which are of the Advowry of holy Church That is as much as Soveraign Patron of the Church Where no Election can be made without the Kings Congé d' Estire or leave antecedent nor stand good without his subsequent consent it is all one as if the Crown did Collate I come next to the second Branch of the First Question about the Patronage of the Church Who hath power to Convocate and Dissolve Ecclesiasticall Assemblyes and whether the Crown or the Pope have usurped one upon another in this particular I cannot tell whether Henry the eighth or Paul the third did mistake more about that Aiery title of the head of the english church Henry the eight supposing that the right to convocate and dissolve Ecclesiasticall Assemblyes and to receive Tenths and First fruits did esseÌ„tially follow this Title And Paul the third declaringe it to be Hereticall and Schismaticall To be head of the English Church is neither more nor lesse then our Lawes and Histories ancient and Modern doe every where ascribe to our English Kings To be Governers of Christians To be the Advocates of the Church To be Patrons and Advowées Paramont of all Churches To be Defenders of the Faâ—h there Professed And to use the Words of the Convocation it self Ecclesiae Anglicanae Protectores singulares Vnicos Supremos Dominos The same body may have severall heads of severall kinds upon Earth as Politicall and Ecclesiasticall and then that which takes care of the Archirectonicall end to see that every member doe his Duty is alwayes Supreme That is the Politicall head This truth Cardinall Poole did see clearly enough and reconcile the seeming difference by distinguishing between a Regall head and a Sacerdotall head This truth the French Divines see wel enough and doubt not to call their King the Terrene head of the Church of his Realme without attributing to him any Sacerdotall right Wee had our Sacerdotall heads too in EnglaÌ„d without seeking for theÌ„ so far as Rome As the Archbishop of Canterbury in the Reigns of our English Monarchs who of old was Nullius unquam Legati ditioni subjectus Never subject to the Iurisdiction of any Legate When the Pope sent over Guy Archbishop of Vienna into England as his Legate throughout Britaigne for the Apostolicall See It was received with wonder and Admiration of all men Inauditum scilicet in Britannia cuncti scientes quemlibet hominum super se vices Apostolicas gerere nisi solum Episcopum Cantuariae All men did know that it was never heard in Britagne that any Man whatsoever had Apostolicall power over them but onely the Archbishop of Canterbury And accordingly the new Legate did speed so it followeth Wherefore as he came so he returned received as Legate by no man nor having exercised any part of his Legantine power This was the ground of that Letter of the English Bishops to the Pope That the Church of Canterbury might not be deprived of its dignity in his times and that he would neither Diminish it him self nor suffer it to be diminished As appeareth by the Popes acknowledgment in his answer But to come up close to the Difference The Question is not whether â—he Bishop of Rome have Authority to call Synods He is a Bishop a Metropolitan a Patriarch a Prince in his own Dominions As a Bishop he may Convocate his Diocesse As a Metropolitan his Province As a Patriarch his Patriarchate under the pain of Ecclesiasticall Censure more or lesse compulsory according to that Degree of Coactive power which hath been indulged to him in these Distinct Capacities by former Soveraigns And as a Prince he may convocate his Subjects under Politicall paines The more these two powers are united and complicated the more terrible is the Censure And therefore our kings would have their Bishops denounce spirituall paines also against the Violaters of their great Charters Spirituall paiues are more heauy then Politicall but Politicall most commonly are more speedy then Spirituall And more certain Spirituall paines doe not follow an erring Key but Politicall doe Neither will I dispute at praesent whether the Bishop of Rome by his reputed Primacy of Order or Beginning of Unity may lawfully call an Oecumenicall or Occidentall Councell by power purely Spirituall which consists rather in Advise then in Mandates properly so called or in Mandates of Courtesy not Coactive in the Exteriour Court of the Church considering the Division and Subdivision of the ancient Empire and the present Distractions of Christendome it seemeth not altogether in convenient Wee see the Primitive Fathers did Assemble Synods and â—ake Canons before there were any christian Emperours but that was by aurhority meerly spirituall they
to ruine c. And by the Counsaile of my Clergy and princes we have ordained Bishops through out the Cities and constituted over them Arch-bishop Boniface the Popes Legate Qui est missus Sancti Petri. Andâ—we have decreed every Yeare to congregate a Synod that in our Presence the Canonicall Decrees and the Rights of the Church may be restored and Christian Religion Reformed And in the Synod of Arles held under the said Emperour they begin the Synod with a solemne prayer for the Emperour The Lord of all things establish in the Conservation of his Faith our Most Serene and religious Lord the Emperour Charles by whose Command wee are here congregated And they conclude the Synod with a submission to him These things which wee judged worthy to be amended wee have briefly noted and decreed them to be presented to our Lord the Emperour beseeching his Clemency that if any thing be here waâ—tinâ— it may be supplied by his Prudence if any thing be amisse it may be amended by his Iudgement if any thing be reasonably taxed it may be perfected by his help through the assistance of the Divine Clemency So the Councell of Toures begin their Synodicall Acts That which was enjoined us by so great a Prince we accomplished in meeting at the time and place appointed Where being congregated wee noted such things by Chapters as needed to be amended according to the Canonicall Rule to be shewed to our most serene Emperour So they conclude their Acts These things wee have ventilated in our Assembly but how our most pious Prince will be pleased to Dispose of them wee his faithfull servants are ready at his beck and pleasure with a willing mind Lastly the Synod called Synodus Cabilonensis in the dayes of the said Emperour beginneth thus Our Lord Iesus Christ assisting us and the most renowned Emperour Charles commanding us c. We have noted out certain Chapters wherein reformation seemed necessary to us which are hereafter inserted to be presented to our said Lord the Emperour and referred to his most sacred Iudgement to be confirmed by his prudeÌ„t examination of those things which wee have reasonably decreed and wherein wee have been defective to be supplied by his Wisdome So they conclude We have ventilated these things in our Assembly but how it shall please our most pions Prince to dispose of them we his fathfull servants with a willing mind are ready at his beck and pleasure One Egge is not liker to another then these Synodicall Representations are to our old English Customes Yet these were Catholick times when Kings convocated Synods of their own Subjects and either confirmed or rejected their Acts as they thought meete for the publick good aud did give the Popes own Legate his power of presiding in them by their Constitutions who joined with the rest in these Synodicall Acts. I proceed to the third Branch of the Popes first usurpation concerning the tying of English Prelates by Oath to a new Allegiance to the Pope No man can serve two supreme Masters where there is a possibility of clashing one with another It is true one is but a Politicall Soveraign and the other pretendeth but a Spirituall Monarchy Yet if this supposed Spirituall Monarch shall challenge either a direct power and Iurisdiction over the Temporall in the exteriour Court as Pope Boniface did Nos nos imperia regna principaâ—us quicquid habere mortales possunt auferre dare posse Wee even Wee have power to take away and give Empires Kingdomes Principalities and what soever morâ—all men are capable of Or challenge an indirect power to dispose of all temporall things in order to spirituall good which is the opinion of Bellarmine and his party Or lastly shall declare those things to be purely spirituall which are truly Politicall as the Patronage of Churches and all Coactive power in the exteriour Court of the Church In all such cases the subject must desert the one or the other and either suffer justly as a Traitour to his Prince or be subjected unjustly to the Censures of the Church and be made as an Heathen or Publicane This is a sad case But this is not all If this poore subject shall be further perswaded that his Spirituall Prince hath Authority to absolve him from all Sinnes Lawes Oaths knowing that his temporall Prince doth challenge no such extravagant power what Emperour or King can have any assurance of the Fidelity of his own naturall subjects It is true a Clerk may sweare allegiance to his King and Canonicall obediente to his Bishop but the cases are not like No Canonicall obedience either is or can be in consistent with true allegiance The law full Canons oblige without an Oath And all that Coactive power which a Bishop hath is derived from the Prince and Subjected to the Prince The question then is not whether a Pastor may enjoine his Flock to abstaine from an unjust oath An oath of allegiance to a naturall Prince is justifiable both before God aÌ„d man Nor yet whether the Clergy have immunities orought to enjoy immunities such as reÌ„der them more capable of serving God alwayes the first Article in our Great Charter of England Let the Churâ—h injoy her Immunities The question is not whether Clergy men transgressing of the Canons ought to be tryed by Canonicall Iudges according to the Canons especially in the first instance For by the Law of England the Delinquent was alwayes allowed the liberty to appeale to Caesar. But the question is whether the Pope by any Act or decree of his can acquit English Subjects or prohibit them to do homage aud sweare Allegiance to their King according to the Ancient Lawes of the Realme because they are Clergymen And can Command them whether the King will or not to take a new Oath never heard of or practised formerly An Oath of Allegiance aud Obedience to himself So it is called expresly in the Edition of Gregory the thirteenth Electo in Archiepiscopum sedes Apostolica Pallium non tradet nisi prius praestet fidelitatis Obedientiae Iuramentum The Apostolicall See will not deliver the Pall to an Archbishop elect unlesse he first take aâ— Oath of Fidelity aud Obedience Wee have seen already how Henry the First was quietly seised aud possessed of the Homage of his Prelates aud their Oaths of and their Oaths of Fidelity and his Predecessors before him So wee have heard Platina confessing that before the Popedome of Paschalis the second the Homage and Feudall Oaths of Bishops were performed to Lay Men that is to Kings not Popes Thus much Eadmerus and Nauclerus and William of Malmesbury and Hoveden and Iorvalensis doe all assure us This agreeth sweetly not onely with the Ancient Law of Feuds from whence they borrowed the name of Investitures but also is confirmed by the decrees of ancient Councels as diverse Toletan Councells and that of Aquisgrane which who so desireth to see may find
them cited at large by King Iames in his Apology for the Oath of A legiance But these Oaths land Homages and Regal Investitures as thâ—y were a Bond of Peace and Vnity between the King and his Clergy so they were a great Eyesore to the Bishops of Rome because they crossed their maine Designe to make them selves the onely Liege Lords of the Ecclesiasticks As appeareth by that severe Check which Adrian the fourth gave Frederick the first for Requiring Homage and Fealty of Bishops who are Gods and for holding their sacred hands in his hands It staied not here That Homage and Oath of Fidelity which Gregory the seventh and Calixtus did rob the King of their immediate Successour Paschalis the second did assume to himself as wee find by the unanimous consent of all Historiographers and by the Canon of Paschalis himself recorded by Gregory the ninth Significasli c. Thou signifiedst that Kings and the Peers of the Kingdome were moved with Admiration because the Pall was offered to Thee by our Apocrisiaries upon Condition to take that Oath which they brought Thee written from us c. The Admiration sheweth the novelty of it He confesseth there that the Oath was not established by the Canon of any councell but by Papall Authority and â—ustifieth it For feare of further evill That is Apostaring from the ObedieÌ„ce due to the Apostolick See The very Title doth assure us that it was an Oath of Fidelity and Obedience What manner of assurance can Soveraign Princes promise themselves of those Subjects who have sworn Allegiance and Obedience to a forrein Prince This Form at First was modest and moderate bounding the Obedience of Arch-Bishops by the Rules of the holy Fathers as wee find in the old Roman Pontificall but it was quickly changed from Regulas Sanctorum Patrum to Regalia Sancti Petri as wee find in the new Pontificall The Change in Letters was not great but in the Sense abhominable Semel falsus semper praesumitur falsus He who is apprehended in palpable forgery is alwayes deservedly suspected of forgery With what Face can Mr. Serjeant tell us that where the Method of immediate Tradition hath place it is impossible for encroachments to gaine Admittance Where were see such Hocus Pocus tricks plaid before our eyes in their Pontificall Bellarmine would perswade us that in St. Gregory the firsts time there was such an Oath of Obedience fully made to the Bishop of Rome But he doth either abuse him self or seeketh grossely to abuse us First the Oath mentioned in Saint Gregory was not an Oath of Obedience or allegiance but promissio cujusdam Episcopi haeresim suam anathematiz aniâ—s A promise of a Certeine Bishop anathematizing his haeresy or an Oath of abjuration Secondly the Oath mentioned by Saint Gregory was not imposed by his authority but taken freely by the converted Bishop to satisfie the world and to take away all suspicion of Hypocrisy ne non pura mentâ— seu simulate reversus existimer dictated to his owne Notary by the advise of his Clergy Notario meo cum consensu presbyterorâ—m Diaconorum atque Clericorum scribendum dictavi It was no Common Case of all Bishops neither did it comprehend any such obligation to mainteine the praetended royallties of S. Peter And as they extended the matter of their Oath so they did the Subject about an hundred yeares after in the time of Gregory the niuth enlarging it from Arch-Bishops to all Prelates Bishops Abbats Priors And now what remaines but to cry up the Authority of the Canons above all Imperiall Lawes Cedant Arma Togae concedat Laurea Linguae As Bellarmine doth who denyeth the superiority of Princes above Clergymen Principes Seculares respectu Clericorum non sunt Principes Princes are no Princes of Clerkes c. Politicall lawes have no coactive obligation over Clerkes but onely directive The Civill lawes of Emperours must give place to the Canons of Popes What new Monster is this To receive Protection from the Lawes of Princes aud to acknowledge no Subjection to the Lawes of Princes If Princes should put Church men out of their ProtectioÌ„ as Bellarmine exempts them from all Coactive Obligation to the Lawes of Princes They would quickly find their Errour It is an honour to Princes to preserve to Church men their old Immunities but is it a Shame to Churchmen like Swine to eat the Fruit aud never looke up to the Tree from whence it falleth Wee have viewed the spoile Committed evidently when and by whom He whose office it was to praeserve all others from spoile could not preserve himself It is a Rule in Law Ame omnia Spoliaâ—us restiâ—ui debet Before all other things he that is spoiled ought to be restored to his Right And our old English Lawes are Diametrally opposite to these new Papall Vsurpations in all the parts of them First though the Kings and Kingdome of England were alwayes carefull to preserve the Privileges of Holy Church In all our Great Charters that was the first thing was taken Care for yet not as due by Divine Law and much lesse by the Lawes of the Pope which they never regarded but as Graces aud Privileges granted by the Kings of England aud therefore they excluded from benefit of Clergy such sort of delinquents as they thought fit as Proditores Traitours against the Person of the King Insidiatores viarum such as lay in wait to doe mischief upon the High-wayes Depopulatores agrorum such as depopulated the Land And the most severe Lawes that ever they made are the Statutes of Premunire and Provisors against Church-men for siding with the Bishop of Rome in his Vsurpations even to the forfeiture of their Goods and Lands their Losse of their Liberty and the putting them out of the Kings Protection Secondly our Lawes doe acknowledge every where that Homage and allegiance is alwayes due to the King from all Clergymen what soever Edward the first injoined all the Prelates upon their faith or Allegiance which they ought him They know no Fidelity or allegiance which is due to the Pope from any English man either Clergy man or Lay man but the just contrary that they are bound by their allegiance to fight for the King against the Pope for the redresse of these and such like Vsurpations In the fourteenth Yeare of Richard the second all the Spirituall Lords did answer unanimously That if any Bishop of England were excommunicated by the Pope for having executed the sentences and commandements of the King The same is against the King and his Crown And they will and ought to be with the King in these Cases lawfully and in all other Cases touching his Crown and his Regality as they be bound in their Allegiance Our Lawes know no Oath of Allegiance or Fealty due to any person but the King they make the King to be Advowee Paramont Supreme Lord and Patron Guardian Protector and Champion of thâ—
Church of England Lastly these Papall Oaths doe necessarily suppose a Voiage to Rome either to take the Oath there or if the Oath was sent them into England one Clause in the Oathâ—was that they should come to Rome in person to receive the Popes Commands within a prefixed time But this is directly contrary to the Lawes of England which allow no Subject Clergiman or other to goe to Rome without the Kings Leave Thus much both the Prelates and Peers of the Realm told Anselm when he had a miâ—d to visit the Pope Thus much wee find attested by the Generall Assembly of the Kingdome in the Statute or Assise of Clarendon where one of the Customes or Lawes of the Kingdome is That No Ecclesiasticall person might depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings License No not though he were expresly summoned by the Bishop of Rome And at a Parliament held at Northampton in the Reign of Henry the third it was enacted that if any persons departed out of the Kingdome un lesse they would return within a prefixed time and answer it in the Court of our Lord the King let them be outlawed This was the unanimous complaint of the whole Kingdome to the Pope That the English were drawn out of the Realm by his authority contrary to the Customes of the Kingdome No Clergy man may goe to Rome without the Kings License say the ancient Lawes of the Realm Every English Prelateâ— shall come to Rome upon my command saith the Pope What Oedipus can reconcile the English Lawes and Papall mandates Commonly good Lawes proceed from evill manners and abuses doe ordinarily precede their Remedies But by the Providence of our Ancestors our English Remedies were preexistent before their Vsurpations Non remittitur Peccaâ—um nisi restituatur ablatum Vntill they restore those rights whereof they have robbed the King and Kingdome Wee may pardon them but they can hope for no forgivenesse from God I will conclude this point with an ancient Fundamentall Law in the Britannick Island anotherâ—Prince â—Prince professing Fidelity and obedience to any one besides the King Let him lose his head I come now to the last Branch of the first Papall Vsurpation Tenths and First fruits If Christ be still crucifyed between two Thieves it is between an old overgrown Officer of the Roman Court and a Sacrilegious Precisian The one is so much for the Splendour of Religion and the other for the Purity of Religion that between themâ— thâ—y destroy Religion Their Faces like Samsons Foxes locke contrary wayes but both of them have Firebrands at their tailes both of them prate of Heaven altogether both of them have their hearts nailed to the Earth On the one side if it had not been for the Avaricious Practises of the Roman Court the Papacy might have beeÌ„ a great advantage to the ChristiaÌ„ world in point of Order and Vnity at least it had not been so intolerable a BurtheÌ„ It is feared these will not suffer an Eugenius an Adrian or an Alexander to be both honest and long-lived On the otherside these Counterfeit Zelots do but renew the Policy of the two old Sicilian Gluttons to blow their Noses in the dishes that they might devour the meate alone that is cry down Church Revenues as Superstitious and Dangerous because they gape after them themselves If it were not for these two factioÌ„s wee might hope to see a reconciliation Self interest and self profit are both the procreating and conserving cause of Disunion Who would Imagin that the large Patrimony of St. Peter should not conteÌ„t or suffice an old Bishop abundantly without preying upon the poore Clergy for Tenths and First fruits and God knowes how many other waies The Revennes of that See were infinite yet the Bishops of ten complained of Want Gods blessing did not goe along with these Ravenous Courses So Pharohs lean Kine devoured the fat yet were nothing the Fatter them selves The first Tenth which the Pope had from the English Clergy was onely a single Tenth of their moveable Goods not by way of Imposition but as a Benevolence or free gift out of Courtesy But the Roman Bishops having once tasted the sweet meant not to give over so Non missura cutem nisi plena cruoris â—irudo The next step was to impose Tenths upon the Clergy not in perpetuity or as a certain Revenue due to the Papacy but for a fixed number of yeares as a stock for the Defence of Christendome against the incursions of the Turke About the same time First fruits began to be exacted not generally but onely of the Popes own Clerkes as a Gratuity or in plain English as a handsome Cloak of Simony But he that perfected the Work and made both Tenths and First fruits a certain annuall Revenue to the See of Rome was Boniface the ninth or Iohn the two and twentieth his Successor so saith Platina And with him almost all other writers doe agree This Boniface lived about the year fourteen hundred whom Turselline maketh to have been the restorer of Papall Majesty whose prudence did transcend his Age for he was but thirty yeares old He was the Vsurper that tooke away from the Romans the free choise of their Magistrates Iohn the two and twentieth lived in the time of the Councell of Constance some thing above the fourteen hundreth yeare It was he that called the Councell and was him self deposed by the Councell for grievous Crimes and the payment of First fruits abolished For neither the paiment of Tenths nor First fruits did agree with the palate of the Councells of Constance and Basile Notwithstanding their gilded pretences The Councell of Constance decreed that it was not lawfull for the Bishop of Rome to impose any Indictions or Exactions upon the Church or upon Ecclesiasticall persons in the Nature of a Tenth or any other way Which Decree was passed in the nineteenth Session though it be related afterward According to this Decree Pope Martin issued out his Mandate Wee Command that the Lawes which prohibit Tenths and other Burthens to be imposed by the Pope upon Churches and Ecclesiasticall persons be observed more Strictly And the Councell of Baâ—ill Commandeth that as well in the Roman Court as elswhere c Nothing be exacted for Tenths or Firstfruits c. But for all this the Popes could not hold their Hands Leo the tenth made a new imposition for three yeares Ad triennium proxime futurum for the old ends And it should seem that their mind was that thence forward as the cause lasted so should the imposition But the Germane Nation were not of the same mind who made this their nineteenth Grievance for as much as concerneth Tenth which Ecclesiasticall Prelates paid yearely to the Pope which the Germane Princes some yeares since did consent unto that they should be paid to the See of Rome for a certain time upoÌ„ Condition that this money should be
deposited at Rome as a stock for defence against the Turk and no otherwise But the time is effluxed since and the Princes have learned by Experience that the moneys have not been imployed againsâ— the Turkes but converted to other Vses c. The Emperour Charles the fifth was not of the same mind as appeareth by his Letter to Pope Adrian the sixth where in he reciteth the same fraud and requireth that the Tenths may be detained in Germany for that Vse for which they were first intended Lastly Henry the eighth and the Church and Kingdome of England were not of that mind nor intended to indure such an egregious cheat any longer so extremely contrary to the Fundamentall Lawes of the Kingdome and destructive to them By which Lawes the King himself who onely hath Legislative power in England may not compell his Subjects to pay any such Pensions without the Good will and Assent of the Arch-Bishops Bishops Earls Barons Knights Burgesses and other Freemen of the land Much lesse can a forrain Prince or Praelate whatsoever he be impose any such payments by his own Authority This is that which is so often Condemned in our Statutes of Provisors Namely the imposing Pensions and exporting the Treasure of the Realme The Court of Rome is so far from any Pretense of Reparation that if their Predecessors were living they were obliged to make restitution These are all the Differences that are between us concerning the Patronage of the Church of EnglaÌ„d Yet now least he should urge that these Lawes alledged by mee are singular obsolete Lawes not Consonant to the Lawes of other Christian Kingdomes I will Paralell them with the Lawes and Liberties of France which he him self acknowledgeth to be a Catholick Country as they are recorded in two Authentick Bookes One of the Rights and Libertyes of the Gallican Church The Other The Defence of the Court of Paris for the Liberty of the Gallican Church against the Roman Court both printed by Authority First for the Patronage of the Church The fourth Liberty is The King hath power to Assemble or cause to be Assembled Synods Provinciall or Nationall and therein to treat of such things as concern Ecclesiasticall Order The seventh Liberty is The Prelates of the French Church although commanded by the Pope for what cause so ever it be may not depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings Commandement aâ—d License The eleventh Liberty is The Pope cannot impose Pensions in France upon any Benifices having Cure of Soules Nor upon any other but according to the Canons c. The Fourteenth Liberty is Ecclesiasticall persons may be Convented Iudged and sentenced before a secular Iudge for the First enormious Crime or for lesser offences after a relapse The fifteenth Liberty is All the Prelatest of France are obliged to swear Fealty to the King and to receive from him their Investitures for their Fees and Manours The nineteenth Liberty is Provisions Reservaâ—ioÌ„s expectative graces have no place in FraÌ„ce This is the brief summe of those Liberties which concern the Patronage of the Gallican Church agreeing perfectly with our old English Customes I shall shew him the same perfect Harmony between their Church Liberties and our English Customes the Assise of Clarendon the Statutes of Provisors and Premunire through out Either Mr. Serjeant must make the Gallican Church Schismaticall which he dare not doe and if I conjecture rightly hath no mind to doe or he must acknowledge our English Lawes to be good Catholick Lawes for Company Sect. I. Cap. VI. The next Vsurpation which offereth it self to our Consideration is the Popes Legislative power ouer the Church and Kingdome of England either in his person or by his Legates For the clearer understanding whereof the Reader in the first place may be pleased to take notice that we receive the ancient Canons of the Catholick church and honour them more then the Romanists themselves as being selected ouâ— of the Canons of Primitive Councells before the Roman Bishops did challenge any plenitude of Legislative power in the Church And especially of the first four General Councells of which King Iames said most truly that Publica Ordinum nostrorum Sanctione recâ—pta sunt They are received into our Lawes We acknowledge that just Canons of Councells lawfully Congregated and lawfully proceeding have power to bind the Conscience of Subjects as much as Politicall Lawes in themselves not from themselves as being humane lawes but from the Ordinance of God who commandeth Obedience of Subjects to all sorts of Superiours We receive the Canons of other Primitive Councells but not with the same degree of Reverence as wee doe the first four generall Councells No more did S. Gregory of old No more doth the Pope now in his solemne Profession of his Faith at his election to the Papacy according to the decree of the Councell of Constance That which restrained them restraineth us I am more troubled to thinke how the Pope should take himself to be an Ecclesiasticall Monarch and yet take such a solemne Oath In the Name of the Holy and undivided Trinity Father Son and Holy Ghost to keep the Faitâ— of the Councell of Chalcedon to the least Tittle What the faith of the Fathers of Chalcedon was in this greate Controversy about the Papacy may appeare by the six teenth Session and the Acclamation of the Fathers to the Sentence of the Iudges Haec justa Sententia haec omnes dicimus haec omnibus placent c. This is a just Sentence These things wee all say These things please us all c Secondly we acknowledge that Bishops were alwayes esteemed the proper judges of the Canons both for composing of them and for executing of them but with this caution that to make them Lawes the confirmation of the Prince was required and to give the Bishop a coactive power to execute them the Princes grant or concession was needfull The former part of this caution is evident in Iustinians confirmation of the fifth Generall Synod Haec pro communi Pace Ecclesiarum Sanctissimarum statuimus haec sententiavimus sequentes Sanctorum PatruÌ„ dogmata c. These things wee ordaine these things wee have sentenced following the opinion of the Holy Fathers c. Quae Sacerdotio visa sunt ab Imperio confirmata Which were approved by the Clergy and confirmed by the Emperour The second part of the caution is evident out of the Lawes of William the conquerour Qui decimam deâ—inuerit per justitiaÌ„ Episcopi Regis si necesse fueriâ— ad soluttioneÌ„ arguatur c. Who shall detain his Tythe Let him be convinced to pay it by the justice of the Bishop and if it be needfull of the King For these things S. Austin preached and taught and these things that is both Tythes and jurisdictioÌ„ were granted froÌ„ the King the Barons and the People So hitherto there is no difference betweeÌ„ us they acknowledge that the King
is the Keeper of both the Tables and wee say that for the first Table the Bishops ought to be his Interpreters Thirdly as wee question not the Popes legislative or coactive power over his own subjects so we submit to the judgemeÌ„t of the Catholick church whether he ought to have a primacy of order as the successour of S. Peter and as a consequent thereof a right if he would content himself with it to summoÌ„ Councells when and where there are no Christian Soveraignes to doe it and to joyne with other Bishops in making spirituall Lawes or Canons such as the Apostles made and such as the primitive Bishops made before there were christiaÌ„ Emperours But then those Canons are the Lawes of the Church not of the Pope As those Canons in the Acts of the Apostles were the Lawes of the Apostolicall College The Apostles and Elders and Brethren not the Lawes of S. Peter Then their Lawes have no Coactive Obligation to compell Christians in the outward Court of the Church against their Wills or further then they are pleased to submit theÌ„selves All exteriour coactive power is from the Soveraigne Prince and therefore when and where Emperours and Kings are Christians to them it properly belongeth to summon Councells and to confirm their Canons thereby making them become lawes Because Soveraign Princes onely have power to License and Command their Subjects to Assemble to assign fit places for their Assembling to protect them in their Assemblyes and to give a Coactive power to their Lawes without which they may doe their best to drive away Wolves and to oppose Heriticks but it must be with such Armes as Christ had furnished them withall that is persuasions Prayers Teares and at the most seperating them from the Communion of the faithfull and leaving them to the Iudgement of Christ. The Controversy is then about new upstart Papall Lawes either made at Rome such are the decretalls of Gregory the ninth Boniface the eighth Clement the fifth and succeeding Popes Or made in England by Papall Legates as Otho and Othobone Whether the Pope or his Legates have power to make any such Lawes to bind English Subjects and compell them to obey them against their Wills the King of England contradicting it The first time that ever any Canon of the Bishop of Rome or any legislative Legate of his was attempted to be obtruded upon the King or Church of England was eleven hundred yeares after Christ. The first Law was the Law against taking Investitures to Bishopricks from a Lay hand And the first Legate that ever presided in an English Synod was Iohannes Cremensis of both which I have spoken formerly Observe Reader and be astonished if thou hast so much faith to believe it That the Pope should pretend to a legislative power over British and English Subjects by divine right and yet never offer to put it in execution for above eleven hundred yeares It remaineth now to prove evidently that Henry the eighth by his Statute made for that purpose did not take away from the Bishop of Rome any Privilege which he and his Predecessors had held by Inheritance from St. Peter and been peaceably possessed of for fifteen hundred yeares But on the contrary that eleven hundred yeares after St. Peter was dead the Bishops of Rome did first invade the right of the Crown of England to make Lawes for the externall Regiment of the Church which the Predecessors of Henry the eighth had enjoyed peaceably untill the dayes of William Rufus nemine contradicente And that the Kings Lawes were evermore acknowledged to be true Lawes and obligatory to the English Subjects but that the Popes decrees were never esteemed to be binding Lawes in England except they were incorporated in to our Lawes by the King and Church or Kingdome of England Whence it followeth by irrefragable consequence that Henry the eighth was not the Schismatick in this particular but the Pope and those that maintain him or adhere to him in his Vsurpations First for the Kings right to make Lawes not onely concerning the outward RegimeÌ„t of the Church but even coÌ„cerning the Keys of Order and jurisdiction so far as to oblige them who are trusted with that power by the Church to doe their dutyes it is so evident to every one who hath but cast his Eyes upon our English Lawes that to bestow labour on proving it were to bring Owles to Athens Their Lawes are extant made in all Ages concerning faith and good Manners Heresy Holy Orders the Word the Sacraments Bishops Priests Monkes the Privileges and Revenues of Holy Church Marriages Divorces Simony The Pope his SenteÌ„ces his oppressions and usurpations Prohibitions Appeales from Eeclesiasticall judges and generally all things which are of Ecclesiasticall Cognifance and this in those times which are acknowledged by the Romanists themselves to have been Catholick More then this they inhibited the Popes own Legate to attempt to decree any thing contrary to the Kings Crown and dignity And if they approved the decrees of the Popes Legates they confirmed them by their Royall Authority and so incorporated them into the Body of the English Lawes Secondly that the Popes decrees never had the force of Lawes in England without the Confirmation of the King Witnesse the decrees of the Councell of Lateran as they are commonly called but it is as cleare as the day to any one who readeth the eleveÌ„th the six and fortieth and the one and sixtieth Chapters that they were not made by the Councell of Lateran but some time after perhaps not by InnoceÌ„t the third but by some succeeding Pope For the author of them doth distinguish himself expresly from the Councell of Lateran It was well provided in the Councell of Lateran c. But because that statute is not observed in many Churches we confirming the foresaid statute doe adde c. Again It is known to have been prohibited in the councel of Lateran c. But we inhibiting the same moro strongly c. How soever they were the Popes decrees but never were received as Lawes in England as wee see evidently by the third Chapter That the Goods of Clergimen being convicted of Heresy be forfeited to the Church That all Officiers Secular and Ecclesiasticall should take an Oath at their Admission into their Office to their power to purge their Territories from Heresy That if a Temporall Lord did neglect being admonished by the Church to purge his Lands from Heresy he should be excommunicated And if he contemned to satisfy within a yeare the Pope should absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance And by the three and fortieth Chapter That no Ecâ—â—â—siasticall person be compelled to swear allegiance to a Lay man And by the six and fortieth Chapter that Ecclesiasticall persons be free from taxes Wee never had any such Lawes all Goods forfeited in that kind were ever confiscated to the King We never had any such Oaths Every one is to answer for himself We know
no such power in the Pope to absolve Subjects from their allegiance in our Law With us Clergymen did ever pay Subsidies and taxes as well as lay men This is one Liberty which England hath not to admit of the Popes Lawes unlesse they like them A second Liberty of England is to reject the Popes Lawes in plaine termes The Pope made a Law for the Legitimation of Children borne afore Matrimony as well as those borne in Matrimony The Bishops moved the Lords in Parliament that they would give their consent to the Common Order of the Church But all the Earles and Barons answered with one voice that they would not change the Lawes of the Realm which hitherto had been used and approved The Popes legislation could not make a Law in England without the concurrence of the three Orders of the Kingdome and they liked their own old Lawes better then the Popes new Law A Third Liberty of England is to give a legislative Interpretation to the Popes Lawes which the Pope never intended The Bishop of Rome by a constitution made at the Councell of Lions excluded Bigamists men twice Married from the Privilege of Clergy that is that should Marry the second time de futuro But the Parliament made an Act that the constitution should be understood on this wise that whether they were Bigamists before the constitution or after they should not be delivered to the Prelates but Iustice should be executed upon them as upon other Lay people Ejus est Legem Interpretari cujus est condere They that can give a Law a new sense may abrogate it if they please A fourth Liberty of England is to call the Popes Lawes Vsurpations Encroachments Mischiefs contrary to and destructive of the Municipall Lawes of the Realme derogatory to the Kings Regality And to punish such of their Subjects as should pursue them and obey them with Imprisonment with Confiscation of their Goods and Lands with outlawing them and putting them out of the Kings Protection Witnesse all those noble Lawes of Provisors and Premunire Which we may truely call the Palladium of England which preserved it from being swallowed up in that vast Gulfe of the Roman Court made by Edward the first Edward the third Richard the second and Henry the fourth All those Collations and Reservations and Provisions and Privileges and Sentences which are condemned in those Statutes were all grounded upon the Popesâ—Lawes and Bulls and Decrees which our Ancestors entertained as they deserved Othobon the Popes Legate in England by the Command of Vrban the fifth made a Constitution for the endowment of Vicars in Appropriations but it prevailed not whereas our Kings by two Acts of Parliament did easily effect it No Ecclesiastical Act is impossible to them who have a Legislative power but many Ecclesiasticall Acts were beyond the Sphere of the Popes Activity in England The King could make a spirituall Corporation but the Pope could not The King could exempt from the Iurisdiction of the Ordinary but the Pope could not The King could Convert Seculars into Regulars but the Pope could not The King could grant the Privilege of the Cistercians but the Pope could not The King could Appropriate Churches but the Pope could not Our Lawes never acknowledged the Popes plenitude of Ecclesiasticall power which was the ground of his legislation Euphemius objected to Gelasius that the Bishops of Rome alone could not condemne Acatius ab uno non potuisset damnari Gelasius answered that he was condemned by the Councell of Chalcedon and that his Predecessor was but the Executor of an old Law and not the Author of a new This was all the ancient Bishops of Rome did challenge to be Executors of Ecclesiasticall Lawes and not single Law makers I acknowledge that in his Epistle to the Bishops of Dardania he attributeth much to the Bishops of Rome wich a Councell but it is not in making new Lawes or Canons but in executing old as in the case of Athanasius and Chrysostome The Privileges of the Abby of Saint Austin in EnglaÌ„d granted by the Popes were condemned as null or of no validity because they were not ratified by the King and approved by the Peers William the Conquerer would not suffer any man within his Dominions to receive the Pope for Apostolicall Bishop but by his command nor to receive his letters by any meanes â—nlesse they were first shewed to him It is â—ikely this was in a time of Schisme when there were more Popes then one but is sheweth how the King did interest himself in the affaires of the Papacy that it should have no further influence upon his subjects then he thought fit He who would not suffer any man to receive the Popes letters without his leave would much less suffer them to receive the Popes lawes without leave And in his prescript to Remigius Bishop of Lincolneâ— know ye all Earles and Viscounts that I â—ave judged that the Episcopall or Ecclesiasticall lawes which have bene of force untill my time in the Kingdome of England being not well constituted according to the praecepts of the holy Canons should be amended in the common assembly and with the Counsaile of my Arch-Bishops and the rest of the Bishops and Abbats and all the Princes of my Kingdome He needed not the helpe of any forreine Legislation for amending Ecclesiasticall Canons and the externall regiment of the Church Now let us see whether the Libertyes of France be the same with our English Privileges The second Liberty is this The Spirituall Authority and power of the Pope is not absolute in Franee if it be not absolute then it is not singly Legislative but limited and restreined by the Canons and ancient Councells of the Church If it be limâ—ted by Ancient Canons then it hath no power to abrogate Ancient Canons by new Canons Their ancient Canons are their Ecclesiasticall Lawes as well as ours and those must be received in that Kingdome They may be excellent Advisers without reception but they are no Lawes without publick reception Canons are no Canons either in England or in France further then they are received The third Liberty is No Command whatsoever of the Pope Papall decrees are his chief Commands can free the French Clergy from their Obligation to obey the Commands of their Soveraign But if Papall power could abrogate the ancient Lawes of France it did free their Clergy from their Obedience to their Soveraign Prince The sixteenth Liberty is The Courts of Parliament have power to declare null and voide the Popes Bulls wheÌ„ they are found contrary to the Liberties of the French Church or the Prerogative Royall The twentieth Liberty The Pope cannot exempt any Church Monastery or Ecclesiasticall Body from the jurisdiction of their Ordinary nor erect Bishopricks into Arch Bishopricks nor unite them nor divided them without the Kings license England and France as touching their Liberties walk hand in hand To conclude the Popes
legislative power in England was a grosse Vsurpation and was suppressed before it was well formed But they are affraid of the old Rule Breake ice in one place and it will crack in more If they did confesse one Errour they should be suspected of many If their Infallibility was lost all were gone And therefore they resolve to bear it out with head and shoulders and in place of disclaiming a single power to make Ecclesiasticall Lawes and to give them a coactive obligation in exteriour Courts they challenge a power to the Pope some say ordinarily others extraordinarily some say directly other indirectly to make and abrogate Politicall Lawes throughout Christendome against the Will of Soveraign Princes They who seem most moderate and Cautelous among them are bad enough and deserve right well to have their workes inserted into the Rebells Catechisme If a Civill Law be hurtfull to the Soules of Subjects and the Prince will not abrogate it If another Civill Law be healthfull to the Soules of the Subjects and the Temporall Prince will not enact it The Pope as a Spirituall Prince may abrogate the one and establish the other For Civil power is inferiour and consequently subject to Spirituall power And The Ecclesiastick Republâ—ck ought to be perfect and sufficient to atteine its end But the power to dispose of things Temporall is necessary to atteine Spirituall ends And It is not lawfull to chuse an Infidel or Hereticall Prince but it is the same danger or dammage to chuse one who is no Christian and to tolerate one who is no Christian and the determination of the Question whether he be fit to be tolerated or not belongs to the Pope In good time From these premisses wee may well expect a necessary Collusion Who ever see such a Rope of Sand so incoherent to it self and consisting of such Heterogeneous parts composed altogether of mistakes Surely a man may conclude that either nocte pinxit The learned Author painted this Cypresse tree in the night or he hath a pittifull penurious Cause that will afford no better proofes But I hope the quarrel is dead or dying and with it much of that Animosity which it helped to raise in the World At least I must doe my Adversaryes in this cause that right I find them not Guilty of it Let it dye and the memory of it be extinguished for ever and ever Sect. I. Cap. VII So I passe over from the Popes Legislative power to his Iudiciary power Perhaps the Reader may expect to find something here of that great Controversy between Protestants and Papists whether the Pope be the last the highest the infallible Iudge of Controversies of faith with a Councell or without a Councell For my part I doe not find them so well agreed at home who this Iudge is All say it is the Church but in Determining what Church it is they differ as much as they and wee Some say it is the Essentiall Church by reception whatsoever the Vniversall Church receiveth is infallibly true Others â—ay it is the Representative Church that is a Generall councell Others say it is the Virtuall Church that it is the Pope Others say it is the Virtuall Church and the Representative Church together that is the Pope with a Generall Councell Lastly others say it is the Pope with any councell either Generall or Patriarchall or Provinciall or I thinke his College of Cardinalls may serve the turne And concerning his infallibility all men confesse that the Pope may erre in his Iudgement and in his Tenets as he is is a private Doctor but not in his Definitions SecoÌ„dly the most men doe acknowledge that he may erre in his Definitions if he Define alone without some Councell either generall or Particular Thirdly others goe yet higher that the Pope as Pope with a particular Councell may Define erroneously or heretically but not with a Generall Councell Lastly many of them which goe along with others for the Popes Infallibility doe it upon a Condition Si maturus procedat consilium audiat aliorum Pastorum If he proeeed maturely and hear the Counsell of other Pastors Indeed Bellarmine saith that if any man should demand Whether the Pope might erre if he defined rashly Without doubt they would all answer that the Pope could not define rashly But this is meer presumption without any colour of proofe I appeale to every rationall man of what communioÌ„ soever he be whether he who saith The Pope cannot erre if he proceed maturely upon due advise doe presume that the Pope cannot proceed immaturely or without due advise or not rather that he may proceed rashly and without due advise Otherwise the condition was vainly and suâ—eâ—fluously added frustra fit perplura quod fieri potest per pauciora But the truth is wee have nothing concerning this Question nor concerning any Iurisdiction meerly Spirituall in all the Statutes of Henry the eighth They doe all intend Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court of the Church Yet although nothing which he saith doth constrain me I will observe my wonted Ingenuity Wee give the Supreme Iudicature of Controversies of Faith to a Generall Councell and the Supreme Power of Spirituall Censures which are Coactive onely in the Court of conscience but if the Soveraign Prince shall approve or confirm the Acts of a generall Councell then they have a Coactive power in the Exteriour Court both Politicall aud Ecclesiasticall There is nothing that wee long after more then a generall Councell rightly called rightly proceeding or in defect of that a free Occidentall Councell as Generall as may be But then wee would have the Bishops to renounce that Oath which hath been obtruded upon them and the Councell to declare it void I. A. Bishop c. will be faithfull to St. Peter and to the Holy Apostolicall Church of Rome and to our Lord Pope Alexander c. I will be an assistent to retein and to defend the Roman Papacy and the Royalties of St. Peter Where this Oath is esteemed Obligatory I doe not see how there can be a Free Councell But I retire my self to that which concerneth our present Question and the Lawes of Henry the eyghth concerning Iudiciary Power in the Exteriour Court of the Church The First Branch of this third Vsurpation s Whether the Bishop of Rome can receive Appeales from England and send for what English Subjects he pleaseth to Rome without the Kings leave The First President and the onely President that we have of any Appeale out of England to Rome for the First thousand yeares after Christ was that of Wilfrid Arch-Bishop of Yorke though to speak the truth that was rather an Equitable then a Legall appeale to the Pope as the onely Bishop of an Apostolicall Church in the west and an honorable arbitrator and a Faithfull Depositary of the Apostolicall Traditions not as a Superiour Iudge For neither were the Adverse Parties summoned to Rome nor any witnesses produced both
which ought to have been done in a Legall Appeale But the successe was so contrary to the Popes Interest and the Resolution of the King Church and Kingdome of England so unanimous That they could not assent to the Popes Legation because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councell of the English should be restored upon the Popes Letter that England was never troubled with any more appeales to Rome untill after the Conquest Neither Durst the Pope send any Bulls or Mandates then but a plain Letter The next Appellant was Anselm a Stranger who knew not the liberties of England in the Dayes of Henry the first as succeslesse as Wilfrid had bene Will you trust the Testimony of a King And I know not why a King should not be trusted for the Customes of his own Kingdome Hear King Henry the First the Sonne of the Conquerour It is a Custome of my Kingdome instituted by my Father instituted indeed but not first instituted for it was an old Saxon Custome that no Pope be appealed to without the License of the King Another Law of the same King was By all meanes wee discharge forrain Iudgements If you will not trust the King trust the whole Kingdome upon their Oaths in the Dayes of Henry his Grandchild The First English Custom recited in the Assise of Clarendon is this That all Appeales in England must proceed regularly froÌ„ the Archdeacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Arch Bishop and if the Arch Bishop failed to doe Iustice the last coÌ„plaint must be to the King to give order for redresse If wee will not trust the King and Kingdome Yet lâ—t us trust the Pope him self thus Paschal the secoÌ„d writeth to our Henry the first The Popes Nuncioes and Letters doe find no reception within thy Iurisdiction There are no Complaints from those parts no Appeales are destined to the Apostolick See The Abbat of Thorney found this true by experience who lay long in prison notwithstanding his Appeale to Rome The Case is so plaine that I shall not cite one Authority more in it but onely one of our Statute Lawes made not onely by the Assent as is usnall but upon the prayer and grievous and clamorous Complaints of the Peers and Commons That because People are Drawn out of the Realm to answer things the Cognisance whereof belongeth to the Kings Courts and the Iudgements of the Kings Courts are impeached in another Court the Court of Rome to the disinheriting of the king and his Crown and the undoing â—and destruction of the Common Law of the Land Therefore it is ordeined that whosoever shall draw a man out of the Realm in Plea if he doe not appeare upon Summons and conform to the sentence of the kings Court he shall forfeit Lands and Goods be outlawed and imprisoned Against such Fortifications grounded upon Prescription and Imperiall Lawes the Canon of the Councell of Sardica will make no great Battery Take the Councell of Sardica at the best waving all exceptions yet certainly it was no generall Councell If it were it had been one of the four first If it had been a generall Councell it self three succeeding Popes were much to blame to Father the Canons of it upon the first Generall Councell of Nice The Canons of the Councell of Sardica did not bind the Africans of old much lesse bind us now Secondly the Canon of Sardica doth onely give way to Appeales to Rome in cases between two Bishops but the Court of Rome admitteth Appeales from inferiour Clergy men from Lay men from all sorts of men in all sorts of Causes that are of Ecclesiasticall Cognisance Thirdly the Canon of Sardica is a meer permission no precept what may be done in discretion not what ought to be done of necessity it was proposed with a Si vobis placet If it please you and the ground of it is a Complement Let us honour the Memory of S. Peter Fourthly There is one great Circumstance in our Case which varieth it quite from that proposed by Osius to the Sardican Fathers that is that our King and the Lawes of the Realm do forbid Appeales to Rome If there had been such an Imperiall Law then doe wee thinke that the Fathers of Sardica would have been so disloyall or so simple to thinke to abrogate the Imperiall Lawes by their Canons which are no Lawes but by the Emperours Confirmation No the Fathers of that Age did know their duty too well to their Emperour and if they could have foreseen what avaricious practises and what grosse Oppressions would have sprung in time from this little seed of their Indulgence they would have abhominated them Lastly supposing the Sardican Councell had been of more Authority and the Canon thereof of more Extent then it was and more peremptory and that there had been no such intervening impediment why English Subjects could not make use of that Remedy yet the Councell of Sardica can give but humane right And a contrary Prescription for a thousand years is a sufficient Enfranchisement from all pretence of humane right The second branch of this Vsurpation is as cleare as the former concerning Papall Bulls and Excommunications That by our ancient Lawes they cannot be executed in England without the Kings Leave In the Assise of Clarendon this is found to be one of the ancient Customes of England That none of the Kings Servants or Tenents that held of him in Capite might be excommunicated or their Lands interdicted before the King was made acquainted There was a severe Lawe made in the Reign of the same King If any man be found bringing in the Popes Letter or Mandate Let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a Traitour to the King and Kingdome It seemeth that the first and second Henryes were no more propitious to Rome then Henry the eighth Take one Statute more it was enacted in full Parliament by Richard the secoÌ„d that if any did procure or pursue any such Processesâ—or excommunications in the Court of Rome as are there meÌ„tioned that is concerning presentatioÌ„s to benefices or dignities Ecclesiasticall and they who bring them into the realm or receive them or execute them shall be put out of the Kings protection their Lands Goods and Chattells be confiscated to the King and their Bodies attached They had the same respect for the Popes Bulls as often as they did not like them in Henry the fourths time as wee see by the Statute made against those who brought or prosecuted the Popes Bulls granted in favour of the Cystercians By the Law of England if any man denounced the Popes Excommunication without the assent of the King he forfeited al his Goods And it is recorded in particular how the Kings writ issued out against the Bishops of London and Norwich as being at the Kings Mercy because contrary to the Statute of
Matrimony of Cloysterers from their Vowes of Celibate of all sorts of persons from all Obligations Civill or sacred And whereas no Dispensation ought to be granted without just cause now there is no cause at all inquired after in the Court of Rome but onely the Price This is that which the nine choise Cardinalls laid so close to the conscience of Paul the third How Sacred and Venerable the Authority of the Lawes ought to be how unlawfull and pernicious it is to reape any gaine from the exercise of the Keys They inveigh sadly throughout against dispeÌ„satioÌ„s and among other things that Simoniacall persons were not affraid at Rome first to commit Simony and presently to goe buy an AbsolutioÌ„ and so reteine their Benefice Bina Venena juvant Two grosse Simonies make a title at Rome Thankes to the Popes dispensations But I must contract my discourse to those Dispensations which are intended in the Lawes of Henry the eight that is the power to dispense with English Lawes in the Exteriour Court Let him bindor loose inwardly whom he will whether his Key erre or not we are not concerned Secondly as he is a Prince in his own Territories he that hath power to bind hath power to loose He that hath power to make Lawes hath power to dispense with his own Lawes Lawes are made of Common Events Those benigne Circumstances which happen rarely are left to the dispensative Grace of the Prince Thirdly as he is a Bishop whatsoever dispensative power the ancient Ecclesiasticall Canons or Edicts of Christian Emperours give to the Bishop of Rome within those Territories which were subject to his Iurisdiction by Humane right we do not envy him So he suffer us to enjoy our ancient Privileges and Immunities freed from his encroachments and Vsurpations The Chief ground of the Ancient Ecclesiasticall Canon was Let the Old Customes prevaile A Possession or Prescription of eleven hâ—ndred yeares is a good ward both in Law and Conscience against humane Right and much more against a new pretense of divine right For eleven hundred yeares our Kings and Bishops enjoyed the â—ole dispensative power with all English Lawes Civill and Ecclesiasticall In all which time he is not able to give one Instance of a Papall Dispensation in England nor any shadow of it when the Church was formed Where the Bishops of Rome had no Legislative power no Iudiciary power in the Exteriour Court by necessary consequence they could have no Dispensative power The first reservation of any Case in England to the Censure and absolution of the Pope is supposed to have been that of Albericus the Popes Legate in an English Synod in the yeare 1138. Neque quisquam ei praeter Romanum Pontificem nisi mortis urgente periculo modum paenitenttae finalis injungat Let no man injoyn him the manner of finall Pennance but the Bishop of Rome except in danger of death But long before this indeed from the beginning our own Bishops as the most proper Iudges who lived upon the place and see the nature of the Crime and the degree of the Delinquents Penitence or Impenitence did according to equity relaxe the rigour of Ecclesiasticall Canons as they did all over the Christian world before the Court of Rome had usurped this gainfull Monopoly of Dispensations In the Lawes of Alured alone and in the conjoint Lawes of Alured and Guâ—thrun we see how many sortes of Ecclesiasticall crimes were dispeÌ„sed withall by the sole authority of the King and Church of England and satisfaction made at home to the King and to the Church and to the Party grieved or the Poore without any manner of reference at all to the Court of Rome or to any forrein Dispensation The like we find in the the lawes of some other Saxon Kings There needed no other paenitentiary taxe Dunstan the Arch-Bishop had Excommunicated a great Count He made his Peace at Rome and obteined the Popes Commaund for his restitution to the bosome of the Church Dunstan answered I will obey the Pope willingly when I see him paenitent But it is not Gods will that he should lie in his sinne free from Ecclesiasticall discipline to insuâ—t over us God forbid that I should relinquish the law of Christ for the cause of any mortall man Roman dispensations were not in such Request in those daies The Church of England dispensed with those Nunnes who had fled to their Nunneries not for the love of religioÌ„ but had takeÌ„ the veile upon them meerly for feare of the French and this with the counseile of the King in the daies of Lanfranke and with Queene Maud the wyfe of HeÌ„ry the First in the like case in the daies of Anselme without any suite to Rome for a forreine dispensatioÌ„ There can be nothing more pernicious then where the sacred Name of Law is prostituted to avaricious ends Where Statutes or Canons are made like Pitfals or Traps to catch the Subjects by their purses where profitable faults are cherished for private Advantage by Mercinary Iudges as beggers doe their sores The Roman Rota doth acknowledge such ordinary avaricious Dispensations to be Odious things The Delected Cardinalls make them to be sacrilegious things an unlawfull selling of the power of the Keys Commonly they are called Vulnera Legum The woâ—nds of the Lawes And our Statutes of Provisers doe stile them expresly the undoing and Destruction of the Common Law of the Land The King the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the whole Common wealth of England complained of this abuse as a mighty Grievance Of the frequent comming among them of this infamous Messenger the Popes Non Obstante that is his Dispensations by which Oaths Customes Writings Grants Statutes Rights Privileges were not onely weakened but exinanited Sometimes these Dispensative Bulls came to legall Tryalls and were condemned By the Law of the Land the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was Visiter of the Vniversity of Oxford Boniface the eyght by his Bull dispeÌ„sed with this law and exeÌ„pted the Vniversity from the Iurisdiction of the Arch-Bishop Whereupon there grew a Controversy and the Bull was decreed voide in Parliament by two succeding Kings as being obtained to the Prejudice of the Crown the weakning of the Lawes and Customes of the Kingdome in favour of Lollards and hereticks and the probable Ruine of the said Vniversity How the Liberties of France and the Lawes and Customes of England doe accord in condemning this Vsurpation wee have seen formerly The power of the Pope is not absolute in France but limitâ—ed and restrained by the Canons of Ancient Councells If it be Limitted and restrained by Ancient Canons then it is not Paramount above the Canons then it is not dispensative to give Non Obstante's to the Canons And the Popes Legate may not execute his Commission before he have promised under his Oath upon his holy Orders that he will not attempt any thing in the exercise of his Legantine power to
the Prejudice of the Decrees of Generall Councells or the Privileges of the French Church Then he must give no Dispensarions against the Canons or Contrary to those Privileges Thus we have viewed all the reall differences between the Church of Rome and us concerning Papall power which our Lawes take notice of There are some other petâ—y Abuses which we complain of but they may be all referred to one of these four heads The Patronage of the Church of England The Legislative The Judicary and Dispensative powers Other differences are but the Opinions of particular Persons But where no Law is there is no Transgression Wee have seen evidently that Henry the eighth did cast no Branch of Papall power out of England but that which was diametrally repugnant to the Ancient Lawes of the Land made in the Reign of Henry the fourth Richard the second Edward the third Edward the first Henry the third Henry the second And these Lawes ever of Force in England never repealed no not so much as in Queen Maryes time when all the Lawes of Henry the eighâ—h and Edward the sixth which concerned the Bishop of Rome were repealed So that I professe clearly I doe not see what advantage Henry the eighth could make of his own Lawes which he might not have made of those ancieÌ„t lawes except onely a gawdy title of Head of the English Church which survived him not long and the Tenths and first fruits of the Clergy which was so late an usurpation of the Pope that it was not in the nature of things wheÌ„ those ancient lawes were made And since I have mentioned the Novelty of that upstart Vsurpation give me leave to let you see how it was welcommed into England whilest it was but yet hatching with the shell upon the Head of it By a Law of Henry the fourth about an Hundred yeares before Henry the eyghth so late this Mushrom began to sprout up For the grievous Complaints made to the King by his Commons in Parliament of the horrible Mischiefs and Damnable Custome which is introduced of new in the Church of Rome that none could have Provision of an Archbishoprick untill he had compounded with the Popes Chamber to pay great excessive summes of money as well for the First fruits as other lesser Fees and Perquisites c The King ordeineth in Parliament as well to the Honour of God as to eschew the Dammage of the Realm and perill of soules That whosoever shall pay such summes should forfeit all they had or as much as they might forfeit Wherein are Henry the eights Lawes more bitter against the Bishop of Rome or more severe then this is To conclude we have seen the precise time when all these Weeds did first begin to peep out of the earth The very first Introduction to the intended Pageant was the spoiling of Christian Kings of the Patronage of the Church which Bellarmine confesseth that they held Per non breve tempus For a long time A long time indeed so long as there had been Christian Princes in the world from Constantine the Great to Henry the fourth in the Empire and yet longer with us in Brittaine from King Lucius to Henry the First The Clergy of Liege say Nimium effluxit tempus quo haeâ— consuetudo incepit e. It is too long since this Custome of swearing fidelity to Princes did begin Aud under this Custome Holy and Reverend Bishops have yielded up their soules to God giving to Caesar that which was Caesars and to God that which was Gods But theÌ„ rose up Pope Hildebrand otherwise called Gregory the seventh Fortissimus Ecclesiae Dei Vindex The most undaunted Vindicator of the Church of God Who feared not to revoke and defend the old Holy Ecclesiasticall Lawes With this accordeth the Church of Liege Hildehran dus Papa Author hujus Novelli Schismatis primus Levavit Sacerdotalem Lanceam contra Diadema Regni c. Pope Hildebrand the author of this new Schisme first lift up his Episcopall Lance against the Royall diadeÌ„ And a little after Si utriusque Legis totam Bibliothecam c. If I turn over the whole Library of the old and new Law and all the ancient Expositors thereof I shall not find an Example of this Apostolicall precept onely Pope Hildebrand perfected the Sacred Canons when he Commanded Maud the Marchionesse to subdue Henry the Emperour for remission of her Sinnes I take no exceptions to the person of Pope Hildebrand others have done it sufficiently Whether the Title of Antichrist was fastened upon him justly or injustly I regard not Yet it was in the time of this Hildebrand and Paschalis his Successor that the Arch-bishop of Florence affirmed by revelatioÌ„ for he protested that he knew it most certainly that Antichrist was to be revealed in that age And about this time the Waldenses of whom St. Bernard saith that if we inquire into their Faith nothing was more Christian if into their Conversation nothing was more irreprehensible made their Secession from the Bishop of Rome And not long after in the yeare 1120. published a Booke to the world that the great Antichrist was come That the present Governers of the Roman Church armed with both Powers Secular and Spirituall who under the specious Name of the Spouse of Christ did oppose the right way of Salvation were Antichrist But I cannot but wonder what are those old holy Ecclesiasticall Lawes which Bellarmine mentioneth Those Institutions of the Holy Fathers which Hildebrand himself professeth to follow Sanctorum Patrum instituta sequenâ—es Why doe they mention what they are not able to produce or pretend what they never can perform Bellarmin hath named but one poore counterfeit Canon without Antiquity without Authority without Vse without Truth If Mr. Serjeant be able to help him with a recruit it would come very seasonably for without some such helps his pretended Institutions of the Fathers will be condemned for his own Innovations and for arrant Vsurpations and the Guilt of Schism will fall upon the Roman Court. Sect. I. Cap. IX But I expect it should be objected that besides these Statutes which concern the Patronage of the English Church the Legislative the Iudiciary the Dispensative power of Popes there are two other Statutes made by Henry the eighth The one an Act for extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome The other an Act for establishing the Kings Succession in the Crown wherein there is an Oath that the Bishop of Rome ought not to have any Iurisdiction or Authority in this Realm And that it is declared in the 37. Article of our Church that the Bishop of Rome hath no Iurisdiction in this Kingdome of England And in the Oath ordained by Queen Elisabeth That no Forrein Prelate hath or ought to have any Iurisdiction or Authority Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall with in this Realm I answer this Objection three wayes First as to the two Lawes
Court of the Church whereby men are compelled against their wills by Exteriour Meanes This the Apostles had not froÌ„ Christ nor their Successours froÌ„ them Neither did Christ ever assume any such power to him self in the world My Kingdome is not of this world And Man who made me a Iudge or divider over you Yet the greatest Controversies at this day in the Ecclesiasticall Court are about Possessions as Glebes Tithes Oblations Portions Legacies Administrations c. And if it were not for these the rest would not be so much valued in Criminibus non in Possessionibus potestas vestra quontam propter illa non propter has accepistis Claves regni Caelorum Saith St. Bernard well to the Pope Your power is in Crimes not in possessions for those and not for these you received the Keys of the kingdome of Heaven But suppose the Controversy to be about a Crime Yet who can summon another mans Subjects to appear where they please and imprison or punish them for not appearing without his leave All that power which Ecclesiasticall Iudges have of Externall Coaction they owe it wholy either to the Submission of the parties where the Magistrate is not Christian as the Iewes at this day doe undergoe such Penitentiall Acts as are enjoined them by their Superiours because the Reverence of them who obey doth supply the defects of their power who Command Or where the Magistrate is Christian they owe it to his Gracious Concessions Of which if any Man doubt and desire to see how this Coactive power how these externall Privileges did first come to be enjoyed by Ecclesiasticall persons Let him read over the first booke of the Code and the Authenticks or Novels of Iustinian And for our English Church in Particular let him consult with our best Historiographers Eadmerus was one whom they need not suspect of partiality as being Pope Vrbanes own Creature and by his speciall appointment placed over Anselm at his own intreaty as a Superviser to exercise his Obedience Whose injunctions had so much power over him that if he placed him in his Bed he would not onely not rise without his Command but not so much as turn him self from one side to another Vt cum Cubili locasset non solum sine praecepto ejus non surgereâ— sed nec latus inverteret What Marvell is it if the ancient Liberties of the English Church went first to wrack in Anselms Dayes about the Yeare of our Lord 1000 for he died Anno 1109 who being a Stranger Primate had so totally surrendered up his own reason to the Popes Creature Yet this Eadmerus saith of Lanfranke His wisdome recovered other Customes which the Kings of England by their Munificence had granted to the Church of Canterbury in ancient times and established them for ever by their sacred Decrees that it might be most free in all things All externall exemption and Coaction is Politicall and proceedeth originally from the Soveraign Prince This is that which S. Paul teacheth us The weapons of our warfare are not Carnall The weapons of the Church are Spirituall not worldly not externall But Citations and Compulsories and Significavits and Writs ad excommunicatum capiendum which are not written by the Bishops own hand yet at his beck and Apparitors and Iaolers c Are Weapons of this world and tend to externall Coaction For all which the Church is beholden to the Civill power to whom alone externall Coaction doth properly and originally belong This is that which St. Chrysostome observed in his comparison between a Bishop and a Shepheard It is not lawfull to cure men with so great Authority as the Shepheard cureth his Sheep For it is free for the Shepheard to bind his sheep to drive them from their meat to burn them to cut them But in the case of the Bishop the Faculty of curing consisteth not in him who administreth the Phisick but in him that is sick c. St. Chrysost. speaketh of power purely Spirituall which extendeth it self no further theÌ„ the Court of conscieÌ„ce where no man can be cured against his will But Soveraign Princes have found it expedieÌ„t for the good both of the Church and of the Commonwealth to strengthen the Bishops haÌ„ds by imparting some of their Politicall authority to him from whose gracious indulgence all that externall coactive power which Bishops have doth proceed Now to apply this to our purpose Wheresoever our Lawes doe deny all Spirituall Iurisdiction to the Pope in England it is in that sense that wee call the exteriour Court of the Churâ—h the Spirituall Court They doe not intend at all to deprive him of the power of the Keys or of any Spirituall power that was bequeathed unto him by Christ or by his Apostles when he is able to prove his Legacy Yea even in relation to England it self Our Parliaments never did pretend to any power to change or Abridge divine right Thus much our very Proviso in the body of our Law doth testify that it was no part of our meaning to vary from the Articles of the Catholick Faith in any thing Nor to vary from the Church of Christ in any other thing declared by the holy Scripture and the word of God necessary to salvation If wee have taken away any thing that is of divine right it was retracted before it was done Then followeth the true Scope of our Reformation Onely to make an Ordinance by Pollicies necessary and convenient to represse Vice and for good Conservation of the Realm in peace unity and tranquillity from ravine and spoile insuing much the ancient Customes of this Realm in that behalf That wich professed it self a Politick Ordinance doth not meddle with Spirituall Jurisdiction If it had medled with Spirituall Iurisdiction at all it had not insued the ancient Customes of the Realm of England In summe that externall Papall power which we rejected and cast out and which onely we cast out is the same which the English Bishops advised Aâ—selm to renounce when it was attempted to be obtruded upon the Kingdome But know that all the Kingdome complaineth against thee that thou endeavourest to take away from our Common Maister the Flowers of his Imperiall Crown Whosoever takes away the Customes which pertein to his royall dignity doth take away his Crown and Government together for we prove that one cannot be decently had without the other But we beseech the consider and cast away thy Obedience to that Vrban who cannot help the if the King be offended nor hurt thee if the King be pacified Shake of the yoke of Subjection and freely as it becomes an Arch-bishop of Canterbury in all thy Actions expect the Kings pleasure and Commands What soever power our Lawes did divest the Pope of they invested the King with it but they never invested the King with any Spirituall power or Iurisdiction witnesse the Injunctions of Queen Elisabeth witnesse the publick Articles of
our Church witnesse the Professions of King Iames witnesse all our Statutes themselves wherein all the parts of Papall power are enumerated which are taken away His Entroachments his Vsurpations his Oaths his Collations Provisions Pensions Tenths First fruits Reservations Palls Vnions Commendams Exemptions Dispensations of all kinds Confirmations Licenses Faculties Suspensions Appeales and God knoweth how many pecuniary Artifices more but of them all there is not one that concerneth Iurisdiction purely Spirituall or which is an essentiall right of the power of the Keys They are all Branches of the Externall Regiment of the Church the greater part of them usurped from the Crowne sundry of them from Bishops and some found out by the Popes themselves as the payment for Palls which was nothing in S. Gregoryes time but a free gift or liberality or bounty free from imposition and exaction Lastly consider the grounds of all our grievances expressed frequently in our Lawes and in other writers The disinheriting of the Prince and Peers The destruction and Anullation of the Lawes and the Prerogative Royall The Vexation of the King Liege people The impoverishing of the Subjects the draining the Kingdome of its treasure The decay of Hospitality The disservice of God And filling the Churches of England with Forreiners The excluding Temporall Kings and Princes out of their Dominions The Subjecting of the Realm to spoil and ravine grosse Simoniacall contracts Sacrilege Grievous and intolerable oppressioÌ„s and extortions Iurisdiction purely Spirituall doth neither disinherit the Prince nor the Peers nor destroy and anull the Lawes and Prerogative royall nor vex the Kings Liege people nor impoverish the Subject nor draine the Kingdome of its Treasures nor fill the Churches with Forreiners nor exclude Temporall Kings out of their Dominions nor subject the Realm to spoile and Ravine Authority purely spirituall is not guilty of the decay of Hospitality or disservice of Almighty God or Simony or Sacrilege or oppressions and extortions No No it is the externall regiment of the Church by new Roman Lawes and Mandates by new Roman Sentences and Iudgements by new Roman Pardons and dispensations by new Roman Synods and Oaths of Fidelity by new Roman Bishops and Clerkes It is your new Roman Tenths and First fruits and Provisions and Reservations and Pardons and Indulgences and the rest of those horrible mischiefs and damnable Customs that are apparently guilty of all these evills These Papall Innovations we have taken away indeed and deservedly having shewed the expresse time and place and person when and where and by whom every one of them was first introduced into England And we have restored to every Bird his own Feather To the King his Politicall Supremacy to the Peers their Patronages to the Bishops that Iurisdiction which was due to them either by Divine right or Humane right More then these Innovations we have taken nothing away that I know of Or rather it is not wee nor Henry the eighth who did take these Innovations away but our Ancesters by their Lawes three foure five hundred yeares old so soone as they began to sprout out or indeed before they were well formed as their Statutes yet extant doe evidence to the world But that filth which they swept out at the Fore doore the RomaÌ„ Emissaryes brought in again at the back doore All our part or share of this worke was to confirm what our ancesters had done I see no reason why I might not conclude my discourse upon this Subject Mutatis Mutandis with as much Confidence as Sanders did his visible Monarchy Quisquis jurabit per Viventem in aeternum c. Whosoever shall sweare by him that liveth for ever that the Church of England is not Schismaticall in respect of any Branches of Papall power which shee hath cast out at the Reformation he shall not forswear himself But Wagers and Oaths and Protestations are commonly the Arguments of such as have got the wrong end of the staffe I will shut up this long Discourse concerning Henry the eighths Reformation with a short Apostrophe to my Countrymen of the Roman Communion in England They have been taâ—ght that it is we who Apostate from the Faith of our Ancesters in this point of the Papacy that it is we who renounce the Vniversall and perpetual Tradition of the Christian world Whereas it is we who maintain ancient Apostolicall Tradition against their upstart Innovations whereas it is we who doe propugne the Cause of our Ancesters against the Court of Rome If our Ancesters were Catholick in this Cause we cannot be Schismaticall Let them take heed least whilst they fly oâ—t of a Panicall Feare from a supposed Schisme they doe not plunge themselves over head and eares into reall Schisme Let theÌ„ choose whether they will joine with their Ancesters in this cause or with the Court of Rome for with both they cannot joine If true English blood run in their veins they cannot be long deliberating about that which their Ancesters even all the Orders of the Kingdome voted unanimously That they would stand by their King and maintaine the rights of his Imperiall Crown against the Vsurpations of the Roman Court. I have represented clearly to you the true Controversy betweeÌ„ the Church and Kingdome of England and the Court of Rome concerning Papall power not as it is stated by private writers but in our English Lawes a glasse that cannot deceive us for so farre as to let us see the right Difference Let them quit these grosse Vsurpations Why should they be more ashamed to restore our lust rights then they were to plunder us of them Let them distinguish between Iurisdiction purely Spirituall and Iurisdiction in the exteriour Court which for the much greatest part of it is Politicall between the power of the Sword which be longeth to the Civill Soveraign and not to the Church further then he hath been graciously pleased to communicate it between that Obedience with procedeth from feare of wrath or from feare of Gods Revenger to execute wrath that is the Soveraign Prince and that Obedience which proceedeth meerly from conscience And then there is hope we may come to understand one another better It is true there are other Differences between us but this is the main Difference which giveth Denomination to the Parties And when they come to presse those Differences they may come to have such another account as they have now The wider the hole groweth in the middle of the Milstone Men see clearer through it Dies Diei eructat verbum nox nocti indicaâ— Scientiam The latter day is the Schollar of the former Sect. I. Cap. X. BY this time wee see that Mr. Serjeants great Dispatch will prove but a sleevelesse Errand and that his First Movership in the Church which he thought should have born down all before it is an unsignificant expression and altogether impertinent to the true Controversy between them and us Vnlesse as Dido did encompasse the
whole Circuit of Cathage with a Bulls hide by her art so he within his First Movership can comprehend the Patronage of the English Church and the right to Convocate and dissolve and confirm English Synods and to invalidate old Oaths and to impose new Oaths of Allegiance and to receive Tenths and first fruits and all Legislative Judiciary and dispensative power Coactively in the exteriour Court of the Church over English Subjects He cannot plead any Charter from England we never made any such Grant and althoâ—gh we had yet considering how infinitely prejudiciall it is to the Publick Tranquility of the Kingdome we might and ought more advisedly to retract what we unadvisedly once resolved And for Prescription he is so far to seek that there is aâ— cleare Prescription of eleven hundred Yeares against him So there is nothing remaineth for him to stick to but his empty pretense of divine Right which is more ridiculous then all the rest to claime a divine right of such a Soveraign power which doth branch it self into so many particulars after eleven hundred Yeares which for so many Ages had never been acknowledged never practised in the English Church either in whole or in part We cannot believe that the whole Christian world were Mole-eyed or did sit in darknesse for so many Centuries of years untill Pope Hildebrand and Pope Paschalis did start up like two new Lights with their Weapons in their hands to thumpe Princes and knock them into a right Catholick beliefe And indeed this Answer to his pretended demonstration by a reall demonstration where the true Controversie doth lye and who are the true innovators doth virtually answer whatsoever he hath said So I might justly stop here and sâ—spend my former paines but that I have a great mind to try if I can find out one of those many Falsifications and Contradictions which he would make ns believe he hath espied in my discourse if it be not the deception of his sight First he telleth us that our best Champions doe grant that our faith and its grounds are but probable Surely he did write this between sleeping and waking when he could not well distinguish between necessary points of faith and indifferent Opinions concerning points of faith Or to use Cajetans expression between determinare de fideformaliter and determinare de eo quod est fidei Materialiter Between points of faith necessary to be believed And such Questions as doe sometimes happen in things to be believed As for Essentialls of faith the Pillars of the Earth are not founded more firmly then our beliefe upon that undoubted Rule of Vincentius Quicquid ubique semper ab omnibus c. Whatsoever we believe as an Article of our faith we have for it the Testimony and Approbation of the whole Christian World of all Ages and therein the Church of Rome it self But they have no such perpetuall or Vniversall Tradition for their twelve new Articles of Pope Pius This Objection would have become me much better then him Whatsoever we believe they believe and all the Christian World of all Places and all Ages doth now believe and ever did believe except condemned Hereticks But they endeavour to obtrâ—de new Essentialls of faith upon the Christian World which have no such Perpetuall no such Vniversall Tradition He that accuseth another should have an eye to himself Does not all the World see that the Church of England stands now otherwise in order to the Church of Rome then it did in Henry the sevenths dayes He addeth further that it is confessed that the Papall power in Ecclesiastical affaires was cast out of EnglaÌ„d in Henry the eights dayes I answer that there was no Mutation concerniâ—g faith nor concerning any Legacy which Christ left to his Church nor concerning the power of the Keys or any Iurisdiction purely Spirituall but concerning coactive power in the exteriour Court concerning the Politicall or Externall RegimeÌ„t of the Church concerning the Patronage or civill Soveraignty over the Church of EnglaÌ„d and the Legislative Iudiciary and Dispensative power of the Pope in EnglaÌ„d over English Subjects Which was no more then a Reinfranchisement of ourselves from the upstart Vsurpations of the Court of Rome Of all which I have shewed him expresly the first source who began them when and where before which he is not able to give one instance of any such Practises attempted by the Bishop of Rome and admitted by the Church of England Who it is that lookes asquint or awry upon the true case in Controversy between us let the ingenuous Reader Iudge I doe not deny nor ever did deny but that there was a reall separation made yea made by us from their Vsurpations but I both did deny and doe deny that there was any SeparatioÌ„ made by us from the Institution of Christ or from the Principles of Christian Vnity This Separation was made long since by themselves when they first introduced those novelties into the Church and this Seperation of theirs from the pure Primitive Doctrine and Discipiine of the Church doth acquit us and render them guilty of the Schisme before God and man And therefore it is a vain and impertinent Allegation of him to tell us that Governours may lawfully declare themselves publickly and solemnly against the renouncers of their Authority by Excommunication unlesse he could shew that the Bishop of Rome hath such an absolute Soveraignty over us as he imagineth extending it self to all those Acts which are in Controversy between us And that in the exercise of the power of the Keys they proceded duely in a legall manner And especially that they did not mistake their own Vsurpation for the Institution of Christ as we affirm and know they did His whole Discourse about immediate Tradition is a bundle of uncertain presumptions and vain Suppositions First he supposeth that his Rule of so vast a multitude of Eye-witnesses of Visible things is uniform and vniversall but he is quite mistaken the practiâ—e was different The Papalms made Lawes for their Vsurpations and the three Orders of the Kingdome of England made Lawes against them To whom in Probability should our Ancestors adhere to their owâ— Patriots or to Strangers Secondly he presumeth that this uniform practise of his Ancestors was invariable without any shadow of Change but it was nothing lesse First Investitures were in the Crown and an Oath of Fidelity made to the King without any Scruple even by Lanfranke and Anselm both Strangers Afterwards the Investitures were decried as profane and the Oath of Fidelity forbidden Next a new Oath of Allegiance was devised of Clergimen to the Pope First onely for Archbishops then for all Prelates And this Oath at first was moderate to observe the Rules of the holy Fathers but shortly after more Tyrannous to maintain the Roâ—alties of Sainct Peter as their own Pontificalls the old and the new do witnesse First when they tooke away Investitures from the Crown they were all
their fore fathers to be the infallible voice of the Church At other times he maketh the extent of Papall power to be a matter of Indifferency wherein every Church is free to hold their own Opinions In his Rule of Discipline he maketh St. Peter onely to be the Head the Chiefe the Prince of the Apostles the First mover in the Church all which in a right sense we approve or do not oppose Why doth he not acknowledge him to be a visible Monarch an absolute Soveraign invested with a plenitude of power Soveraign Legislative Iudiciary Dispensative All the rest of the Apostles were First Movers in the Church even as well as St. Peter except onely his Primacy of order which we allow When your men come to aâ—swer this they feign the Apostles were all equall in relatioÌ„ to ChristiaÌ„ people but not in relatioÌ„ to one another Yes even in Relation to themselves and one another as hath beeÌ„ expresly declared long since in the First Generall Councell of Ephesus not now to be contradicted by them Petrus Ioannes aequalis sunt ad alterutrum dignitatis Peter and Iohn were of equall Dignity one towards another A Primacy of Order may confist with an Equality of Dignity but a Supremacy of power taketh away all Parity Par in parem non habet potestatem He is blind who doth no see in the History of the Acts of the Apostles that the supremacy or Soveraignty of power did not rest in the person of any one single Apostle but in the Apostolicall College These indefinite Generalities he stileth Determinate points It may be Determinate for the generall truth but Indeterminate for the particular manner about which all the Controversy is Yet he who never wanteth Demonstrative Arguments to prove what he listeth will make it evident out of the very word Reformation which we own and extoll that we have broken the Rule of Unity in Discipline If he doe he hath good luck for by the same reason he may prove that all the Councells of the Christian world both Generall and Provinciall have broken the Bond of Vnity by owning and extolling the very word Reformation both name and thing As for the points of our Reformation I doe not referre him to Platonicall Ideas to be found in the Concave of the Moone but to our Lawes and Statutes made by all the Orders of our Kingdome Church and Commonwealth not as they are wrested by the tongnes and pens of our Adversaries Malice may be a good informer but a bad judge but as they are expounded by the Genuine and Orthodox Sons of the English Church by our Princes by our Synods by our subsequent Parliaments by our Theologians by our most Iudicious Lawiers in their Injunctions in their Acts in their Canons in their writings which he may meete with if he have such a mind in earnest without any great search in every Library or Stationers shop Sect I. Cap. XI We doe not suffer any man to reject the 39. Articles of the Church of England at his pleasure yet neither doe we looke upon them as Essentialls of saving Faith or Legacies of Christ and of his Apostles but in a meane as pious Opinions fitted for the Preservation of Vnity neither doe we oblige any man to believe them but onely not to contradict them Yet neither is the Bishop got into a wood nor leaveth his Reader in another further from knowing what these Doctrines of saving Faith are then he was at first It is Mr. Serjeants Eyesight that failes him through too much light which maketh him mistake his ancient Creed for a wood and the Articles for trees persons who are gogle eied seldome see well wherein all things necessary to be believed are comprehended And although he inquire Where are the processions of the Divine Persons the Sacraments Baptism of Children the Government of the Church the acknowledging there is such a thing as Scripture to be be found in the creed The Bishop is so far from being gravelled with sâ—ch doughty Questions that he pitieth his simplicity aÌ„d returneth him for answer that if he be not mopâ—eyed he may find the Procession of the Divine Persons in his Creed that the Sacraments and Discipline of the Church are not to be reckoned amoÌ„g the Credenda or things to be believed but among the Agenda or things to be acted and the Holy Scripture is not a particular Doctrin or point of Faith but the Rule wherein and whereby all Fundamentall Doctrins or points of Faith are comprehended and tried So still his truth remaineth unshaken that the Creed is a Summary of all particular points of saving faith which are necessary to be believed He proceedeth that the Protestants have introduced into the Church since the Reformation no particular Form of Government in stead of that they renounced A grievous accusation We had no need to introduce new formes having preserved the old They who do onely weed a Garden have no need to set new Plants We have the Primitive Discipline of the Church and neither want Spirituall nor Ecclesiasticall nor Politicall Government If you have any thing to say against it cough out and spare not And although we want such a free and generall Communion with the Christian World as we could wish and such as Bishops had one with another by their formed Letters Yet we have it in our desires and that we have it not actually it is principally your faults who make your Vsurpations to be Conditions of your Communion And so I leave him declaiming against Libraries of Bookes filled with dead words and thousands of Volumes scarcely to be examined in a mans whole life time and quibling about Forefathers and inheriting and Reformation and Manasseh Ben Israel and repeating the same things over and over againe as if no man did understand him who did not heare him say over the same things an hundred times He Chargeth me that having granted that They and we do both maintain his Rule of Vnity yet I do immediatly disgrace it by adding that the Question is only who have changed that Doctrin or this Discipline we or they We by substraction or they by Addition Which is as much as to say the pretended Rule is no Rule at all When he and his Merry Stationer were set upon the Pin of making Contradictions doubtlesse this was dubbed a famous Contradiction or an absurdity at least As if a man might not hold one thing in his Iudgement and pursue another in his Practice professe one thing in words and perform another in deeds Video melior a proboque Deterior a sequor Medea see that which was right and approved it but swerved altogether from it in her Practise They professe saith St. Paul that they know God but in workes they deny him The Church of Rome professeth in words to adde nothing to the Legacies of Christ and his Apostles but in their deeds they doe adde and adde
as inferiour truths to those who are under their Iurisdiction nor the obliging of their Subjects not to oppose their Determinations for peace and tranquilities sake but the adding of new Articles or Essentialls to the Creed with the same Obligation that the old Apostolicall Articles had to be believed under pain of Damnation Either all these 12 new Articles which were added to the Creed by Pius the Fourth were implicitly or virtually comprehended in the 12 old Articles of the Apostles and may be deduced from them by necessary Consequence the contrary where of is evident to all men or it is appareâ— that Pius the 4. hath corrupted the Creed and changed the Apostolicall Faith He might even as well let our 39. Articles alone for old acquaintance sake Dissuenda non dissecanda est amtcitia as to bring them upon the Stage and have nothing to say against them Some of them are the very same that are contained in the Creed some others of them are practicall truths which come not within the proper list of points or Articles to be believed lastly some of them are pious opinions or inferiour truths which are proposed by the Church of England to all her Sonnes as not to be opposed not as Essentialls of Faith necessary to be believed by all Christians Necessitate medii under pain of damnation If he could charge us with this as we do them he said something The Nicene Constantinopolitan Ephesian Chalcedonian and Atbanasian Creeds are but Explications of the Creed of the Apostles and are still called the Apostles Creed He will not for shame say that Pius the fourths Creed is onely an Explication of the Apostles Creed which hath 12. new distinct Articles added at the Foot of the 12. old Articles of the Apostles I doe not say that there can be no new Heresy but what is against some point found in the Creed I know that as there are some Errours heretical in their own nature so there are other Errours which become hereticall meerly by the Obstinacy of them who hold them Yet if I had said so I had said no more then some Fathers say and sundry of their own Authors Neque ulla unquam exit it heresis quae non hoc Symbolo damnart poâ—uerit There was never any Heresy which might not be condemned by this Creed And so he may see clearly if he will that it was no incomparable straine of weaknesse nor self contradicting absurdity nor nonsense as he is pleased to Vapour to charge them with changing the Legacy of Christ and his Apostles by the Addition of new Essentialls of Faith I will conclude this point with the excellent Iudgement of Vincentius Lirinensis Peradventure some man will say shall there be no growth of the Religion of Christ in the Church Yes very much but so that it be a growth of Faith not a change Let it increase but onely in the same kind the same Articles the same sense the same Sentences Let the Religion of soules imitate the manner of bodies c. The members of infants are little young mens great yet they are the same Children have as many joints as men c. But if any thing be added to or taken from the number of the members the body must of necessiâ—y perish or become monstrous or be enfeebled so it is meet that Christian Religion doe follow these Lawes of Proficiency c. But now he brings a rapping Accusation against me charging me with four falsifications in one sentence and then concludes triumphantly Goe thy wayes brave Bishop If the next Synod of Protestants doe not Canonise thee for an Interpreter of Councells they are false to their best interests Who so bold as blind Bayard Here is a great deale more Cry then Wooll But let us examin these great falsifications my words were these The Question is onely who have changed that doctrin or this Disciplin we or they we by Substraction or they by Addition The Case is cleare The Apostles contracted this Doctrin into a Summary that is the Creed the Primitive Fathers expounded it where it did stand in need of clearer Explication Then follow the words which he excepteth against The Generall Councell of Ephesus did forbid all men to exact any more of a Christian at his Baptismall Profession It is strange indeed to find four falsifications in two short lines but to find four falsifications where there is not one sillable cited is altogether impossible I relate as of my self what the Councell of Ephesus did I cite no Authority at all neither in the â—â—ext nor in the Margent nor put one word into a different Character His pen is so accustomed to overreach beyond all aime that he cannot help it A Scotch man would take the Liberty to tell him that he is very good Company The truth is I did forbear to cite it because I had cited it formerly in my answer to Monsieur Militier where he might have found it if he had pleased That it should be lawfull for no man to publish or compose another Faith or Creed then that which was defined by the Nicene Councell And that whosoever should dare to compose or offer any such to any persons willing to bâ— converâ—ed from Paganisme Iudaisme or Heresy if they should be Bishops or Clerkes should be deposed if Laymen Anathematised If he can find any Falsification in this let him not spare it but to find four falsifications where not one word was cited was impossible In a word to deale plainly with him his fâ—ur pretended Falsifications are a silly senslesse ridiculous Cavill To cleare this it is necessary to consider that this word Faith in holy Scripture Councells and Fathers is taken ordinarily for the Obâ—ect of Faith or for the summe of things to be believed that is the Creed and so it is taken in this very place of the Councell of Ephesus and cannot be taken otherwise for it is undeniable that that Faith which was defined published and composed by the Nicene Fathers was the Nicene Creed or the Creed of the Apostles explicated by the Nicene Fathers Secondly we must consider that the Catholick Church of Christ from the very Infancy of Christian Religion did never admit any person to Baptisme in an ordinary way but it required of them a free profession of the Creed or Symbolicall Faith either by themselves or by their sureties if they were Infants and so did baptise them in that Faith This was the practise of the Apostolicall Church this was that good profession which Timothy made before many witnesses This was the universall practise in the Primitive Church and continued ever since untill this day Abrenuncâ—as Abrenuncio Credis Credo Dost thou renounce the Devill and all his workes I do renounce them Dost thou believe in God the Father Almighty c. All this I stedfastly believe Wilt thou be baptised in this Faith It is my desire This baptisticall profession which he ignorantly laugheth
advanceth the Papacy above the Representative Church is no worse then their Virtuall Church the Pope and the Court of Rome with all their adherents they who have the Keys in their hands such a party as he dare not say his soule is his own against them nor maintain the Contrary that a Generall Councell is above the Pope He urgeth that I ascribe no more to S. Peter and the Pope for their first Movership but onely Authority to sit first in Councell or some such things I ascribe unto the Pope all that power which is due unto him either by divine right or humane right at the Iudgement of the Church but I doe not hold it meet that he should be his own Carver And for S. Peter why doth he not leave his wording of it in Generalls and fall to work with Arguments in particular if he have any We offer him a faire tryall for it that S. Peter never enjoyed or exercised any greater or higher power in the church then every one of the Apostles had either extensively or intensively either in relation to the Christian world or the Apostolicall College except onely that Primordium Vnitatis or Primacy of Order which he scoffeth at every where Yet neither do we make his first Movership void of all Activity and influence as he accuseth us First we know he had Apostolicall power which was the highest spirituall power upon Earth As my Father sent me so send I you Secondly some power doth belong to a First Mover even by the Law of nature besides the First seate As to convocate the Members to preserve Order to propose such things as are to be discussed to receive the Votes to give the Sentence and to see it executed so far as he is trusted by the Body What the Church of England believeth of the Popes inheriting St. Peters Privileges and the exercise of that power before the Reformation and how the breach was made and when I have shewed abundantly already Wee have seen his rare skill in the discovery of a Falsification or a ContradictioÌ„ now let us see if his sent be as good to find out an Absurdity He maketh me argue thus The Pope did not exercise St. Peters power because he exercised St. Peters power and much more which is as much as to say totum est minus parte aud more does not contain lesse and then he Crowes out his Victory aloud a hopefull Disputant who châ—seth rather to run upon such Rocks c. What Rocks doth he mean I hope none of the Acroâ—eraunia those ridiculous things which he calls Rocks are soapy bubbles of his own Blowing This inference is none of mine but his own Is it not possible for this great pretender to sincerity to misse one Paragraph without Falsifications Give him leave to make Inferences and Periphrases which is as much as to say and Africa did never abound so much with Monsters as he will make the most rationall writing in this world abound with Absurdities I desire the Courteous Reader to view the place and either to pitty his Ignorance or detest his Impudence The words which I answered were these That the Bishops of Rome actually exercised St. Peters power in all those Countries which kept Communion with the Church of Rome that very yeare when this unhappy Seperation began My answer was that this Assertion did come far short of the truth in one respect for the Popes exercised much more Power in those Countries which gave them leave then ever St Peter pretended to Here is no other inference but this The Pope exercised more power then ever St. Peter pretended to therefore this Assertion that he exercised St. Peters power came short of the truth which consequence is so evideâ—t that it can admit neirher denyall or doubting What hath this to do with his whole is lesse then the part or more does not contain the lesse But now suppose I had said as he maketh me to say on his own head that in this case the whole is lesse then the part or more does not contain the lesse what had he to carpe at Hath he never heard or read that in morality the half is more then the whole Hath he forgotten his Ethicks that he who swerveth from the Meane or strict measure of virtue whether it be in the excesse or in the defect is alike Culpable and commethshort of his Duty If the Pope as Successour to S. Peter did usurp more power then S. Peter had right to no man in his right wits can call it the actuall exercising of S. Peters power The second part of my answer was that as the Pope exercised more power then was due to him in some places where he could get leave so in other places no lesse then three parts of foure of the Christian World that is all the Eastern Southern and Northern Churches his Vniversall Monarchy which he claimed was Vniversally rejected For this I am first reviled Are moderate expressions of shamelesnesse sufficient to Character this man c. If better was within better would come out But Stultis the saurus iste est in linguasitus ut discant male loqui melioribus And then when he hath first censured me he attempteth to answer me as well as he is able that the Pope exercised his power over them by excommunicating them as Revolters As Revolters In good time They were Christians and had Governours of their own before either there was a Church of Rome or Bishop of Rome and never acknowledged themselves to be his Subjects untill this day nor regarded his Excommunicatious upon that score at all If they were Revolters the Apostolicall Age and all succeding Ages were joined in the Revolt These are his rigorous demonstrations to prove the Popes single Iurisdiction by divine right from his own impotent Actions If the Pope have a Supremacy of Power by divine right he hath it over the world but that we see evidently he never enjoyed from the beginning if he did did not enjoy it universally from the beginning then certainly it cannot be an Apostolicall Tradition I doe begin with the Eastern Church because their case is plainest as having Proto-patriarchs of their own and Apostolicall Churches of their own but when that is once acknowledged I shall be contented to joine issue with him in the West First for our Britannick Churches and next even for the Church of Rome it self that the Popes Vniversall Monarchy and plenitude of Soveraign power by divine right was neither delivered from Parents to Children by perpetuall Tradition as a Legacy of Christ and his Apostles nor received by the Sonnes of that Individuall Church as a matter of Faith but onely a Primacy of Order or beginning of Vnity which we do not oppose nor yet those accessions of humane power which Christian Emperours and Oecumenicall Councells have conferred upon that See provided they be not exacted as a divine right His First Movership and
his First Governourship are but generall unsignificant Termes which may agree as well to a beginning of Vnity or Primacy of Order as to an absolute Monarchy or plenitude of power If he will say any thing to purpose he must say it particularly particulars began the breach particulars must stop rhe breach I have given him an account what particular Differences we have with him concerning St. Peter what particular Differences we have with him concerning the Pope let him apply him self to those aud not make continuall Excursions as he doth out of the Lists When I acknowledged an Authority due to the Roman Bishop in the Church as a Bishop in his Diocesse as a Metropolitan in his Province as the Bishop of an Apostolicall See and Successour of St. Peter I expected thaÌ„kes there are many that will not yield him one inch of all these steps without a new conflict But behold the evill natures or evill manners of this Age I am accused for this of frivolousnesse and insincerity Yet I will make bold to tell this Apprentice in Theology that whensoever the case commeth to be solidly discussed it will be found that the principall grounds if I had said the onely grounds I had not said much amisse of the Popes pretended Monarchy are the just rights and Privileges of his Patriarchateship his Protopatriarchateship and his Apostolicall Chaire mistaken for Royalties for want of good Distinction I know the Court of Rome who have been accustomed in these latter times to milke the purses of their Clients doe not love such a dry Primacy as he phraseth it but where they have no more right and other Churches have a care to preserve their own Privileges they must have patience perforce His Parallel between the King of England and the Pope will be then to some purpose when he hath first proved that the Pope hath a Monarchy untill then it is a mere begging of the Question what a grosse Solecisme that is in Logick he cannot chuse but know But since he is favourably pleased to dispense with all men for the extent of Papall power so they believe the Substance of it and yet he himself either cannot or dare not determin what the Substance of Papall power is he might out of his Charity have compassion and not stile us Mountebankes who know no difference between Roman Catholiks and our selves about the Papacy but onely about the extent of Papall power Although he stile us hereticks now yet he was lately one of us himself and would have continued so longer if he had understood himself better or the times bene less Clowdy Let him call it Substance let him call it extent let him call it what he will I have given him our Exceptions to their Papacy let him satisfy them as well as he â—an and let truth prevaile We have not â—enounced the substance of the Papacy exâ—ept the substance the Papacy doe consist â—n Coactive power I side with no parties â—ut honour the Church of England and welcome truth wheresoever I meet it Tros Tyriusve mihi nullo discrimine habetur He telleth his Reader that I grant the whole question where I affirm that the Bishop of Rome had Authority all over as the Bishop of â—n Apostolicall Church or Successor of St. Peter Much good may it doe him As if every Bishop of an Apostolicall Church were straight way an universall Monarch or as if Authority did alwaies necessarily imply jurisdiction or every Arbitrator or Depositary were a legall judge I had reasoÌ„ to place a Bishop of an Apostolicall Church in my Climax after a Patriarch for the larger extension of his Authority every where not for the higher intension of his jurisdiction any where I urged that if the Bishop of Rome did succeed St. Peter by the ordinance of Christ in this Privilege to be the Prince and Soveraign of the Church endowed with a single Soveraignty of power that the Great Councell of Chalcedon was much to be blamed to give equall Privileges to the Patriarch af Constantinople with the Patriarch of Rome and to esteem the Imperiall City more then the Ordination of Christ. To the second part of this Argument that the great Councell of Chalcedon did ground the Advancement both of Rome and Constantinople upon the Imperiall Dignity of those two Cities and to much more which is urged there against him he is as mute as a Fish but to the former part he answereth that for any thing I know to the Contrary Rome might remain superiour in Iurisdiction though they had equall Privileges Very pretty indeed He would have his Readers to believe that a Soveraign and his Subjects have equall Privileges Equalls have no power one over another there may be a Primacy of Order among Equalls but Supremacy of power taketh away Equality Doth not he himself make it to be S. Peters Privilege to be Prince of the Apostles And doth not he tell us that this Privilege descended from S. Peter upon the Bishop of Rome Then if the Bishop of Constantinople have equall Privileges with the Bishop of Rome he is equall to him in this Privilege which descended froÌ„ S. Peter Let him listen to the eight and twentieth Canon of that Councell where having repeated and confirmed the decree of the Generall Councell of Constantinople to the same purpose they conclude thus for the Nicene Fathers did justly give Privileges to the See of old Rome because it was the Imperiall City And the hundred and fifty Godly Bishops in the Councell of Constantinople moved with the same consideration did give equall Privileges to the See of new Rome Rightly judging that that City which was the Seat of the Empire and the Senate should enjoy equall Privileges with the ancient Imperiall City of Rome and be extolled and magnified in Ecclesiasticall affaires as well as it being the second in Order from it And in the last sentence of the Iudges upon the Review of of the Cause The Archbishop of the Imperiall City of Constantinople or new Rome must enjoy the same Privileges of honour and have the same power out of his own Authority to ordain MetropolitaÌ„s in the Asiatick Pontick and Thracian Diocesses That is as much in Law as to say have equall Iurisdiction for all other rights doe follow the right of Ordination But he knoweth right well that this will not serve his turn his last refuge is to deny the Authority of the Canon telling us that it was no free Act but voted tumultuously after most of the Fathers were departed And miscalling it a Bastard issue pinned to the end of the Councell Which is altogether as false as any thing can be imagined to be It was done before the Bishops had their License to depart It had a secâ—nd hearing and was debated by the Popes own Legates on his behalf before the most glorious judges and maturely sentenced by them in the name of the Councell This was one of those four
fathers as the Legacies of Christ and his Apostles are onely to be acknowledged or Obligatory So we acknowledge both his Rules in the Literall sense de facto but the Popes single Supremacy of Power and particular Tradition were never Principles of Vnity neither de facto nor de jure and so he may seek for his flat Schismatick de facto at Rome I said there was a Fallacy in Logick of more interrogations then one when Questions of a different nature are mixed to which one Vniform answer can not be given He saith he put no Interrogatory at all to me True but he propounded ambiguous Propositions to be answered by me confounding St. Peter and the Pope an Headship of Order and an Headship of power which is all one An head of Order hath power to Act First as well as sit â—irst but he acteth not by his own single power but by the conjunct power of the body or College To shew him that I am not ashamed of my voluntary railing as he phraseth it too silly to merit transcribing or answering I will transcribe it for him The Church or Court of Rome have Sophisticated the true Doctrin of Faith by their supplementall Articles contrary to the First Principle and have introduced into the Church a Tyrannicall Government contrary to the second Principle and are so far from being the entire Catholick Church that by them both they are convicted to have made them selves guilty of Superstition and Schisme If this be railing what Terme doth his Language deserve If this be silly what pitifull stuffe is his He said my onely way to cleare our church from Schisme was to disprove his two Rules I answered he was doubly mistaken first in putting us to prove or disprove who are the persons accused the defendants duty is to answer not to prove that is the duty of the accuser They accuse us of Schisme therefore they ought to prove their Rules whereon they ground their Accusation in that Sense wherein they take them not put us to disprove them He urgeth that by this Method no Rebell ought to give any reason why he did so because he is accused of Rebellion by his lawfull Governour By his leave he that condemneth a Subject of Rebellion before he have proved his accusation doth him wrong But he saith the truth is wheresoever there is a contest each side accuses the other and each side defends it self against the others Accusations but we were the first accusers who could not with any Face have pretended to reform unlesse we accused first our actuall Governour of Vsurpation I told him before that he was doubly mistaken now I must be bold to tell him that he is three wayes mistaken First the Pope was none of our actuall Governour in the externall Regiment of the Church by the Lawes of England Secoâ—dly our Reformation was no Accusation but an Enfranchisement of our selves sub moderamine inculpatae tutelae Thirdly I have already manifested the VsurpatioÌ„s of the Court of Rome upoÌ„ other manner of grounds them his ambiguous Rules As we have proved our intention so let him endeavour to prove his My second answer was that although the proofe did rest on oursides Yet I did not approve of his advise that was to disprove his two Rules My reason is evident we approve of his two rules as they were set down by himself it is not we but they who have swerved from them and therefore it were madnesse in us to disprove them He saith he dare sweare in my behalf that I never spake truer word in my life and out of his Supererogatory kindnesse offers him self to be bound for me that I shall never follow any advise that bids me speake home to the point What silly nonsense is this should I follow any maÌ„s advise to disprove that which I approve I have spoken so home to the point without any advise that I expect little thankes from him and his fellowes for it What he prateth of a discipline left by Christ to the Church of England in Henry the eighths time is ridiculous indeed And it equally ridiculous to hope to make us believe that the Removall of a few upstart Usurpations is a change of the discipline left by Christ to his Church And lastly it is ridiculous to Fancy that later usurpations may not be reformed by the Pattern of the Primitive times and the ancient Canons of the Church and the Practise of succeeding Ages because we received them by particular Tradition from our immediate Fathers That one place which he repeateth as having been omitted by me hath been answered fully to every part of it The rest of this Section is but a Repetition of what he hath said without adding anything that is new and in the Conclusion of this Treatise he giveth us a Summa totalis of it again either he must distrust his Readers memory or his Iudgement and yet for feare of not being understood he recapitulates it all over again in his Index Surely he thinketh his discourse so profound that no man understands him except he repeat it over and over again and for my part I did never meet with such a Torrent of Words and such Shallownesse of matter And so I leave him to S. Austins censure alledged by himself In mala causa non possunt aliter at malam causam quis coegit eos habere Sect. II. That they who cast Papall power out of England were no Protestants but Roman Catholicks throughout except onely in that one point of the Papacy HItherto he saith he hath been the larger in his reply because the former points were Fundamentall concerning and totally decisive of the Question They doe concern the Question indeed to blunder and to confound Vniversal Tradition with particular Tradition a Primacy of Order with a single Supremacy of power Iurisdiction purely Spirituall with externall Iurisdiction in foro contensioso otherwise they concern not the Question And for deciding of the Question wherewithall should he decide it who hath not so much as alledged one Authority in the Case Divine or Humane not a Text of Scripture not a Canon of a Councell not a Testimony of a Father who hath not so much as pretended to any Vniversall or perpetuall Tradition but onely to the Particular immediate Tradition of the Roman Church and this he hath onely pretended to but neither proved it nor attempted to prove it nor is it possible for him to prove by the particular TraditioÌ„ of the Roman Church it self that the Bishop of Rome is the Soveraign Monarch of the Church by Christs own Ordination His onely grounds are his own Vapourous Fancies much like Zenoes Vaunts who used to bragge that he sometimes wanted Opinions but never wanted Arguments My six grounds he stileth Exceptions And why Exceptions But let them be grounds or exceptions or whatsoever he will have them to be and let him take heed that every one of those Trifles and Toyes
he peradventure never read it But what doth he thinke of the Councells of Constance and Basile who professe themselves every where to be qualified to reform the Church tam in Capite quam in membris as well in the head as in the members They escape fairly if he doe not censure them as Protestants for they were great Reformers and they were no great Papists placing the Soveraign power under Christ in the Church and not in the first Mover I might well call the Reformation in Henry the eights time their Reformation the Papists Reformation rather then ours if the Reformers were more Papists then Protestants as it most evident I pressed him that if the Renunciation of the Bishop of Romes absolute vniversall Monarchy by Christs own Ordination be the essence of a Protestant then the Primitive Church were all Protestants He answereth it is flatsy false I am contented to be silent for the present but when time serveth it may be made appeare to be flatly true and that all that the Primitive Fathers did attribute to the Bishop of Rome was no more them a Primacy of Order or beginning of Vnity and that an absolute Monarchy by Christ Ordination is absolutely repugnant to the Primitive Discipline I proceeded then all the Graecian Russian Armenian Abyssen Christians are Protestants this day He answereth that it it is partly true and partly false and serveth onely to prove that the Protestants have fellow Schismaticks And why partly true and partly false when all the world seeth that all these Churches doe disown and disclaime the Popes Monarchy This is just the old condemned Tenet of the Schismaticall Donatists who did most uncharitably limit the Catholick Church to their own Party excluding all others from hope of Salvation as the Romanists doe now The best is we must stand or fall to our owne Master But by this means they have lost one of the notes of their Church that is multitude for they exclude three or four times more Christians out of the Communion of the Catholick Church then they admit into it I proceeded yet higher then we want not store of Protestants even in the bosome of the Roman Church it self His answer is that to speake moderately it is an impudent falshood and a plain impossibility for whosoever renounceth the Substance of the Popes Authority and his being head of the Church becomes totally disunited from the Church Good words His groundworke is to weake to support the weight of such an heavy accusation A Primacy of Order implyeth an headship as well as Supremacy of power neither is it destitute of all power It hath some power essentially annexed to it to congregate sub paena purè spirituali to propose to give sentence according to the votes of the College It may have an accessary power to execute the Canons according to the Constitutions of Councells and Imperiall Sanctions and Confirmations But all this commeth far short of that headship which he asserteth a Soveraign Monarchicall Headship of absolute power above the whole Church by Christs Ordination This is that Headship which he mainteineth against me every where This is that Headship which the Primitive Church never acknowledged This is that Headship which the Grecians Russians Armenians Abyssines and the Church of England renounce at this day This is that Headship which many of his own Communion who live in the bosome of the Roman Church do not believe as the Councells of Constance and Basile and Pisa the Schoole of Sorbon and very many others every where who do all reject it some more some lesse The maine difference and almost the whole difference between him and me is concerning Coactive power in the Exteriour Court over the Subjects of other Princes against their wills this is so far from being vniversaly believed throughout all places of the Roman Communion that it is practically received in few or no places further then it seemeth expedient to Soveraign Princes If the Pope himself did believe that he had such an absolute Soveraignty of Monarchicall power in the exteriour Court by Christs own Ordination to him and his Successors How could he alienate it from his Successors almost wholy to the Princes of Sicily and to their Heirs for ever within that Kingdome Or how could the Princes retein it If the King and Kingdome of France did believe that the Pope had such an absolute Monarchicall power in the Exteriour Court by Christs own Ordination how could the King of France forbid the Popes Legates without his License or restrain their Legantine Commissions by his Parliaments or sweare them to act nothing contrary to the Liberties of the Gallican Church and to cease to execute their Commissions whēsoever the King and Kingdome should prohibit them or reject Papall decrees further then they are received in that Kingdome Or if the Councell of Brabant did believe it how could they forbid the Subjects to repaire to Rome out of their own Country upon the Popes Summons All men know that there is no Privilege or Prescription against Christs own Ordination Qui pauca considerat facile pronunciat This is ever the end of his Contradictions Lastly he Chargeth me for omitting to answer to his reason that the renouncing the Pope is essentiall to Protestantisme Truly I neither did nor do hold it worth answering Cannot he distinguish between the whole Essence of any thing and one Essentiall He might as well affirm that he who believeth but one Article of his Creed is a Christian. This requireth no great skill to explicate it but I have remitted this Controversy to the Reader as fittest for his determination Sect. III. That Henry the 8. made no new Law But onely vindicated the ancient Liberties of England CHristian Reader thou hast seen hitherto how Mr. Serjeant hath failed altogether to make good his pretensions and in stead of those great mountains of Absurdities and falsifications and Contradictions which he promised hath produced nothing worthy of so weighty a cause or an ingenious Schollar but his own wilfull ridiculous mistakes We are now come to his third Section wherein thou maiest see this young Phaeton mounted in his Triumphant Chariot driving the poore Bishop as a Captive before him now expect to see him tumbling down headlōg with a fall answerable to his height of pride and insolence He professeth himself willing to stand to the Award of the most partiall Protestant living who hath so much sincerity as to acknowledge the Suns shining at noone day or that the same thing cannot both be and not be at once If after this lowd confident bragge he be not able to make any thing good that is of weight against me he hath forfeited either his Iudgement or his ingenuity and deserveth not to be a writer of Controversies I need no partiall Iudges but appeale to the indifferent Reader of what communion soever he be he needeth but to compare my Vndication his Answer my Reply his Rejoinder and my
Surrejoinder together in this one short Section and give sentence readily who is the Mountebanke and Prevaricatour And first I challenge this great Champion of downright Cowardise as great as ever his Predecessour Thraso shewed in the Comedy in smothering and concealing palpably and shamefully his Adversaries reasons and declining the heat of the assault The maine subject of this Section was to shew that the ancient Kings of England did assume as much power in Ecclesiasticall affaires as Henry the eighth did that the Lawes of Henry the eighth were no new Lawes but onely renovations and Confirmations of the ancient Lawes of England which had never bene repealed or abrogated in the dayes of his Predecessors but were of force in England at that very time when he made his Lawes As the Statutes of Clarendon The Statute of Carlile The Articles of the Clergy The Statutes of Provisors and other old Lawes made in the time of Henry the first Henry the third Edward the first and Edward the third Richard the second Henry the Fourth all of them dead and gone many ages before Henry the eighth was born I shewed particularly that they suffered not the Pope to send for any English Subject out of England to Rome without leave nor to send any Legate into England without leave nor to receive any Appeale out of England without leave They made it death or at least the forfeiture of all a mans estate to bring any Papall Bulls or Excommunications into England They called Ecclesiasticall Councells made Ecclesiasticall Lawes punished Ecclesiasticall persons prohibited Ecclesiasticall Iudges received Ecclesiasticall Appeales made Ecclesiasticall Corporations appropriated Ecclesiasticall Benifices rejected the Popes Lawes at their pleasure with a Nolumus wee will not have the Lawes of England to be Changed or gave Legislative Interpretations of them as they thought fit All this I have made evideÌ„t out of our ancient Lawes our Records our Historiographers in my Vindication in my Reply and in this Treatise And therefore I might well retort upon him his own Confident bragge that it is as cleare as the suns shining at noone day or that the same thing cannot be and not be at once that our Ancestours who did all this and much more then this did acknowledge no Monarchicall power of the Pope in the Exteriour Court by Christs own Ordination as Mr. Serjeant asserteth and that they did exercise as much power in the externall Regiment of the Church as Henry the eighth did and that Henry the eighths lawes were no new lawes devised by himself but were the lawes of these ancient Kings renewed by him or rather the Fundamentall Lawes and Liberties of England exposed by these ancient Kings as a Buckler against the Encroachments of the Roman Court. Now to all this cleare evidence what answer doth Mr. Serjeant make Iust Thraso-like when the matter comes to push of pike he sneaketh away post principia into the securest place he can find Speak the truth in earnest did Pyrrhus use to doe thus It is not possible to squeese one word of particular answer out of him onely in generall he saith I bring divers allegations wherein the Popes pretenses were not admitted c. And so proceedeth doe we professe the Pope can pretend to no more then his right c. Lawes and Records are but bare Allegations with him and prohibiting under pain of Death or Confiscation of Goods is no more but not admitted Speake out man and shame the devill whether did the Pope pretend more then is right or not whether were the ancieÌ„t English Lawes just Lawes or not This is certain his Pretensions and these Lawes cannot both be just The very substance of his Monarchicall power in the exteriour Court is prohibited by these Lawes his Soveraign power or Patronage of the English Church his Iudiciary Power his Legislative Power his dispensative Power all are lost if these Lawes stand All which Mr. Serjeant blancheth over with this generall expression such and such things Will the Court of Rome thank such and such an Advocate who forsakes them at a dead lift I trow no. And although I called upon him in my reply for a fuller and more satisfactory answer to these Lawes yet he giveth none in his Rejoinder but shuffleth up the matter in Generalls As for his particularities entrenching on or pretended to entrench on the Popes Authority whether they were lawfully done or no how far they extended in what Circumstances or cases they held in what not how the Letter of those Lawes are to be understood c. all which the Bishop Omitts though he expresse the bare words it belongs to Canon and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about them not me I hold my self to the Lists of the Question and the limits of a Controvertist Yes even as Thrasoheld himself to the Lists when he stole behind the second wards This is neither more nor lesse but flat running away and crying to the Canonists for help If the subject be improper for him why did he undertake it and not try first Quid ferre recusent Quid valeant humeri Why did he undertake it with so much youthfull Confidence and insulting scorn and petulance to accuse his adversary of impudence And as if impudence were too moderate a Character for him as a profest and sworn enemy of truth shame and honesty making him worse then a mad man or born foole And all this for pretending that Henry the eighth did no more against the Papacy then his Ancestour Kings had done before him and now when his Cavills are thrust down his own throat when the impudence is brought home to him and laid at his own doore when the very Lawes of his Ancestours are produced wherein they provided the same remedies for the Roman Court that Henry the eighth did he would with draw his own neck oâ—t of the Collar and leave the defence of his cause to the CanoÌ„ and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about the sense of these ancieÌ„t Lawes and whether they were law fully done or no and how far they extended and in what cases they hold in what not And this is all the answer which he vouchsafeth to these ancient English Lawes that is as much as to say he knoweth not what to answer or it doth not belong to him to answer and this he calleth holding himself to the Lists of the Question but all other men call it leaping out of the Lists of the Question and a shamefull deserting the cause he had uâ—dertaken to defend I ever acknowledged that Henry the eighth made sundry new Staâ—utes against the Vsurpations of the Court of Rome but I adde that these Statutes were declarative of old Law not Enactive of new Law This is as cleare as his noone day-light And I proved it by the Authority of two of our greatest Lawiers Fitz Herbert and my Lord Cooke persons sufficient to know the difference between a Statute declarative of old Law and a Statute Enactive of new
Secondly I proved it by one of the Principall Statutes themselves those terms of Law which declare old Law are not the same with those which enact new Law This proofe is demonstrative He urgeth if there were something new it was new and a Statute we Englishmen use to term a Law So if he new turn his Coat there is something new yet we English men say his Coat is and old Coat for all that Magna Charta or the great Charter of England is an old Law yet it hath been renewed or newly declared by almost every succeeding King New Statutes may declare old Lawes He saith I cite two Protestants Fitz-Herbert and my Lord Cooke both of mine owne party to speake in behalf of Protestants I cite no Protestants as Protestants nor to speak for Protestants nor as witnesses in any case in difference between Protestants and Papists but I cite two great English Iudges as Iudges to speak to the Difference between a Declarative Statute and an Enactive Statute by the Law of England and who could be so proper witnesses of the Law of England as they Secondly who told him that Fitzherbert was a Protestant No more a Protestant then himself for any thing that ever I could perceive He was a great Iudge lived in Henry the eighths time and writ sundry workes Where he setteth down the Charge against a Papist he doth it in such a manner that it can hurt no man except he will confesse himself to have done what he did obstinately and maliciously but where he setteth down the charge of a Iustice of Peace against Hereticks or Lollards he giveth it home But Mr. Serjeant hath the art to make Protestants or Papists of whom he list so it serve his present turn Thirdly though Fitzherbert and my Lord Cooke had said nothing yet the case is as cleare as the light that this very Statute is Declarative of old Fundamentall Law not Enactive of new Law And this I prove first by view of the Statute it self He that hath but half an eye in his head may easily discern the difference between an Enactive Statute and a declarative Satute An Enactive Statute looketh onely forward to the time to come and medleth not at all with the time past but a declarative law looketh both wayes backwards and forwards forward to the time to come and backward to the time past Again the very from and tenour of the words is not the same in an Enactive Statute and in a Declarative Statute An Enactive Statute regardeth onely what shall be but a Declarative regardeth what is and what hath been an Enactive Statute createth new Law by the authority of the present Lawgiver a Declarative Statute cōfirmeth old Law and is commonly grounded upon the Fundamentall Constitution of the Kingdome Now then let us take a view of this very Law By divers old authētick histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared that this realm of England in an Empire and so hath been accepted in the world governed by one supreme head and King c. unto whom a body Politick compact of all sorts and degrees of people divided by names of Spiritualty and Temporalty owe next to God a naturall obedience he being instituted by the goodnesse of God with plenary power to render finall justice for all matters You see plainly that this Statute looketh both wayes forward and backward and doth not onely create new Law but also declare what hath been what is and what ought to be the perpetuall Law of England By diverse old authentick Histories and Chronicles it is manifestly declared c. then it is manifest that this is a declarative Law He saith I quote the Schismaticall King himself and the Schismaticall Parliament to speake in their own behalf By his leave he is mistaken I ground not my reason upon the Authority of the King and Parliament but upon the form or tenour of the Statute whether these words doe contain the form of an Enactive Statute or a Declarative Statute Secondly if I did so yet he hath no reason to complain of it who maketh the Pope and his Councell to be the last Iudge in his own case Thirdly I shall be bold to scrue up this pin a note higher and tell him that if Henry the eight did make himself the last Iudge in those differences between him and the Papacy which concerned the Church and Kingdome of England he did no more then many other Christian Kings and Princes have done before him as I have shewed in the Empire Spain Italy Brabant c. Fourthly if that which was decreed in this Law was decreed in former Lawes standing in full force and unrepealed then it is not Enactive of new Law but Declarative of old Law but I have produced him the Lawes themselves wherein the self same things have been decreed and he turneth his back upon them and referreth us to the Canonists for an answer Lastly it is so far from being true that those Statutes made by Henry the eighth were new Lawes tha◠those ancient Statutes of Clarendon of Carlile the Articles of the Clergy the Statutes of Provisors were no new Lawes when they were made but new declarations of the Fundamētall Lawes of England or of the Originall Constitution of the English Empire as appeareth undeniably by the Statutes of Clarendon the Statute of Carlile and the Statutes of Provisors wherein the same truth is affirmed as positively as I can do it But now Reader wilt thou see a convincing proofe of the extreme carelesnesse and unconscionable oscitance of this great Champion who writeth his answers at Randome and never so much as readeth what is objected against him I cited two Statutes the one of 24. Hen. 8. cap. 12. the other of 16 Ric. 2. cap. 5. The Printer citeth them right i◠the margent but a little confusedly but when Mr. Serjeant commeth to answer them he confoundeth them indeed attributing Richard the seconds Statute to Henry the eighth And lest any man should excuse him and say it was the fault of the Printer heare him he alledgeth another Statute made in the 24. of Henry the 8 Yes well guessed otherwise called the 16. of Richard the second And a little after what maters it what this Statute sayes being made two yeares after his unlawfull marriage with Anna Bullen I know not where he learned this except it was from the old Puppet player who would have Queen Dido to be Richard the thirds Mistresse he might perchance have such another odde Fancy that Richard the second was Anne Bullens Servant That which I observe in earnest is this that he answereth at Random to he knoweth not what and never peruseth that which is objected against him If it had been some rare piece that was cited that he could not have come by it it had bene the more pardonable but it is an English Statute which he might have found in every Bookebinders Shop in every Lawiers Study in every Iustice
of Peaces Closet And yet he is as confident as Gawen the best Statute he could pick out you may be sure How doth he know that We all see he never read it nor knoweth whether it be a Statute or no. Then he telleth us there is not a Syllable in it concerning Spirituall Iurisdiction Well guessed by Instinct but for once his Instinct hath deceived him if Excommunication be any part of Spirituall Iurisdiction there is more then one Syllable of Spirituall Iurisdiction in it But concerning our English Statutes both ancient and new which concern the casting of Papall Authority out of the Kingdom I have given him a full satisfactory account formerly to which I refer him We have seen how carelesse he is in reading over Lawes before he answer them Now let us observe the same Oscitance or want of Ingenuity towards his Adversary that he may learn what he gets by his Falsifications Nempe hoc quod Veneri donatae a virgine puppae Reall falsifications retorted upon him instead of his feigned ones He answered that to limit an Authority implyes an admittance of it in cases to which the Limitation extends not I replyed that these ancient Lawes of England did not onely limit an Authority but deny it that is deny it in such and such cases mentioned in the Lawes deny it Coactively in the exteriour Court without the leave of the Soveraign Prince So the Lawes may differ the restraints may differ the leave may differ in degrees according to the difference of places notwithstanding this denyall That which he beateth at is this that we deny all Papall power whatsoever but other Churches do onely limit it I answer we doe not deny the Bishop of Rome all manner of power We deny him not the power of the Keys we deny him not any power purely Spirituall we deny him not his beginning of Vnity if he could he contended with it but we deny him all Coactive power in the Exteriour Court over the Subjects of other Princes without the Soveraigns leave If some Princes give more leave then others as finding it more expedient for their affaires we doe not envy it But he urgeth that I do not deny equivalent Lawes in France Spain Germany Italy I neither deny it nor affirm it or I affirm it onely in part Yes there are some such Lawes in all these places by him mentioned perhaps not so many but the Liberties of the French Church are much the same with the English Some such Lawes not so many much the same are no proofes of Equivalence or if he will call them Equivalent it is onely secundum quid not simpliciter respectively in some cases not vniversally in all cases But he hath another place which striketh home where I affirm that the likâ— lawes may be found in Germany Poland France Spaine Italy Sicily and if we will trust Padre Paolo the Papacy it self But did either I or Padre Paolo speak of those ancieÌ„t English lawes by me cited made to restraine the Vsurpations of the Bishops of Rome So he saith but it is a grosse Falsification I did neither speake of them in that place nor Padre Paolo but we both speake of another Law of a quite different nature from these that is the Law of Mortmain a Law meerly Politicall to restrain men from giving Lands to the Church without License Of this I said there are found like Lawes to it in Germany Poland France Spain Italy Sicily and Padre Paolo addeth in the Papacy it self What an Adversary have I to deale with who either understandeth not what the Law of Mortmain is or regardeth not how he falsifieth his Adversaries words But from these mistaken and mishapen premisses he draweth ten Conclusions every one of them driving me to a Contradiction or Absurdity at least The first second third and fourth are the same in effect or all comprehended in the first that it is opposite to the generall opinion of the whole world Catholicks Protestants Puritans Secondly that it is against the profession of the Protestants who extoll that happy time when England was freed from the yoke of Rome Thirdly that it contradicts our Reformation in the point of the Popes Supremacy there could be no Reformation of that which was not otherwise before and therefore Henry the eighth added something of his own to these ancient Lawes Fourthly he saith that Doctor Hammond acknowledgeth that Papall power was cast out of England in Henry the eights dayes And the sixth is that this Position is particularly opposite to the Common â—onsent of the Catholick Countries who all looked on Henry the eighth and the Church of England ever since as Schismaticall Doubtlesse he meaneth Roman Catholick Countries Was it not enough to say that it was Contrary to the Generall opinion of the whole world unlesse he added Protestants and Reformers and Doctor Hammond and Roman Catholicks as if they were none of the world Reader I undertooke to prove that HeÌ„ry the eighths Lawes against the Vsurpations of the Roman Bishop were no new Lawes but ancient Lawes of England I have done it by producing the ancient Lawes themselves five or six hundred yeares old and I am yet ready to shew further that they were no new Lawes then but the Fundamentall Lawes of England derived from the first founding of the British and English Churches as to the substance of them To all my premisses or particularities as he calleth them he hath been able to answer nothing but leaves them to the Canon and Secular Lawiers to scuffle about them but he utterly denyeth my Conclusion what an absurdity that is he is not ignorant But alas what doth the world know of the Municipall Lawes of England untill we instruct them better and what Opinion can Forreiners have of us but what they learn from him and his Fellowes We acknowledge with Doctor Hammond that Papall Vsurpations were cast out of England in Henry the eights time but we adde not by the Creation of new Lawes but by the vigorous execution of the ancient Lawes being first renewed and confirmed by himself We acknowledge that Henry the eighth did finally shake of the yoke of Rome which could not have been done if there had been nothing to have been shaken of or reformed but this doth not hinder but that his Predecessors did attempt to shake it of long before even at the first appearing of it yea and did actually shake it of for a time in a great part His fifth Objection is that according to me the Lawes made by Henry the eighth did no more then the former Lawes Where did I say so untill he is able to shew it me which I shall expect at the Greek Calends I shall score it up among his lesser Falsifications And for his inference which he makes that he never heard it pretended that they did shake of the Roman yoke in part or for a time therefore they did it not it sheweth but his ignorance in
the Lawes and histories of his native Country If he had perused them diligently he might have observed how the Court of Rome and Crown of England were long upon their Gards watching one another and the one or the other gained or lost mutually according to the Vigour of their present Kings or Popes or according to the exigence of the times His seventh Objection that the like Lawes to ours in England were made in the Papacy it self but those could not be against the Popes Headship of the Church and his tenth Objection that then there never was a Papist Country in the world because equivaleÌ„t Lawes to ours were made in France Spaine Italy Sicily Gormany Poland c and his answer to my demand what law full Iurâ—sdiction could remaine to the Pope in England where such and such Lawes had force The same that remaines still to him in France Spaine Italy where the like lawes are in force in his last paragraph are a dish of unsavoury mushromes all sprung up from his own negligent mistake or wilfull Falsification let him chuse whether he will in confounding the Lawes of Mortmain with the other Lawes against the Popes Vsurpations Which I distinguished exactly both at the beginning of that discourse the Statute of Mortmain justified and at the Conclusion But to leave this Digression But besydes this grosse errour there want not other inconsequences and fallacies in his discourse as in his seventh Objection from the Popes particular Headship of his own Church to an Vniversall Headship over the Catholick Church and from an Headship of order to a Monarchicall Headship of power and in his tenth Objection from like lawes to the same Lawes from Lawes made to Lawes duely observed We had Lawes made against Non-conformists in England will he conclude thence that we have no Non-conformists in England the Argument would hold better the Contrary way Ex malis moribus bonae leges And in his last Paragraph from Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court to Iurisdiction purely Spirituall in the Court of Conscience and from Coactive Iurisdiction with the leave of the Prince to the same without Leave Wee see all Roman Catholick Countries doe stint the Popes Coactive Iurisdiction over their Subjects more or lesse according to their severall Liberties which they could not doe at all if he held it by Christs own Ordination His eighth Objection that upon this new Law made by Henry the eighth England stood at another distance then formerly from Rome is a Fallacy non causae pro causa when a false cause is assigned for a true cause Our just Lawes are not the right cause of our distance from Rome but the Popes unjust Censures and that Character which some of our Countrimen give of us But this distance is greater among the Populacy then between the Estates who do not much regard the Popes Censures either in making or observing of Leagues To his ninth Objection in his order and his last in my order that this Posiâ—â—on takes away the Question and makes all the Controvertists in England on both sides talke in the aire because it makes the Pope to have had no Authority there to be cast out I answer I wish it did but it doth not The Pope had Authority there and Authority usurped fit to be cast out notwithstanding our former good Lawes But yet I must confesse this Position doth much change the Question from spirituall Iurisdiction in the inner Court to Coactive Iurisdiction in the exteriour Court and makes him and many other such Controvertists talk in the aire who dispute onely about Headships and First Moverships when the true Controversy lieth in point of Interest and profit Sect. 4. That the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrein Iurisdiction for the first six hundred years and so ought to continue After I had shewed the Equality of the Apostles except onely a Priority of Order and that the Supremacy of power did not rest in any single Apostolicall College that Nationall Patriarchs were the highest Order constituted by the Apostles in the Church and how some Patriarchs came to be advanced above others with the true dignity or Preheminence of Apostolicall Churches the summe of all the rest of this Section might be reduced to a Syllogisme Those Churches which were exempted from all forrain Iurisdiction for the first 600 years cannot be subjected to any forrain Iurisdiction for the future against their own wills But all the Britannick Churches were ever exempted from forrain Iurisdiction for the first six hundred yeares The Major Proposition was proved by me undeuiably out of the first Generall Councell of Ephesus to which Mr. Serjeant hath objected nothing Next I proved the Minor First by Prescription Affirmanti incumbit probatio The burthen of the proofe in Law resteth upon the Affirmer but they are not able to shew so much as one single act of Iurisdiction which ever any Bishop of Rome did in Brittaign for the first six hundred yeares Secondly I proved it from the Antiquity of the Britannick Church which was ancienter then the Roman it self and therefore could not be subject to the RomaÌ„ from the beginning Thirdly because the Britannick Churches sided with the Eastern Churches against the Roman and therefore were not subject to the Roman Foâ—rthly because they had their Ordinations ordinarily at home which is an infallible sign of a free Church subject to no Forrein Iurisdiction Lastly because they renounced all Subjection to the Bishop of Rome I am forced to repeat thus much to let the Reader see the contexture of my discourse which Mr. Serjeant doth whatsoever he can to conceale or at least to confound and disjoint Out of this he picketh here and there what he pleaseth First he pleadeth that my Title is the Vindication of the Church of England but the Church of England can derive no title from the Britannick or Scottish Churches He never read or quite forgetteth the State of the QuestioÌ„ I will help his memory Let him read the Vindication by the Church of England we understand not the English Nation alone but the English dominion including the British and Scotish or Irish Christians So at unawares he hath yielded the Bishopricks of Chester Hereford Worcester for all these were Suffragans to Carleon Wales Cornwall Ireland Scotland with all the adjacent Ilands that is to say two third parts of the English Dominion Secondly he pleadeth that for this many hundred yeares they acknowledged the Popes Authority as well as the Church of England I answer that this will doe him no good nor satisfy the Generall Councell of Ephesus at all which hath decreed expresly in the case of the Cyprian Prelates and they Command the same to be observed in all Provinces that no Bishop occupy another Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his Predecessors and if any doe occupy another Province that in this case let him restore it
that the Canons of the Fathers be not sleighted But they who never exercised one Act of IurisdictioÌ„ in the Brittannick Iland for the first 600 years cannot pretend that it was under their power in the time of the Councell of Ephesus or long after It was not for nothing that he concealed the words of the Councell Yet he asketh what do the Scots concern the Church of Englands Vindication Do they not Are not the Scots a part of the Britannick Ilands and so comprehended under the name of the Church of England in this Question Besides he must know that I challenge some Interest among the Irish Scots from whom I derive my Episcopall Orders Against the Irish Ordination never any man had any pretense of Exception to this Day The Irish were the ancient and principall Scots and the Britannick Scots a Colony derived from them That they are the ancient Scots who did join with the Britons in not submitting to the See of Rome I shall shew him clearly from the Authority of Lawrence Successor to S. Austin in his Archbishoprick and the other English Bishops of that Age in their Letter to the Bishops of Scotland To conclude he tooke not onely Care of the new Church collected of the English but of the old Inhabitants of Britain and also of the Scots who inhabit Ireland the next Island to Britain For assoone as he knew that their life and profession in their Country was like that of the Brittons in Britany not Ecclesiasticall c. That is to say not Roman He seeth I had some reason not to â—eave out the Scots Besides the Britons the Scots and the Irish I urged that the great Kingdomes of Morcia and Northumberland were converted by the Scots and had their Religion and Ordination first from the Scots afterwards among themselves without any forrein dependence and so were as free as the Britons He saith all the force lieth in these words without any Forrein dependence wich I obtrude â—pon them without any proofe His mistakes are infinite my proofe is Demonstrative They who had their first Ordination from the Scots and ever after were Ordeined among themselves never had any Ordination from the Bishop of Rome and consequently were never subject to the Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome For it is a Maxime in the Law and is most evident in the case of the Cyprian Bishops in the Councell of Ephesus that the right of â—urisdiction doth follow the right of Ordination And if it were not so yet what man in his right wits could Imagin that the Scots who were the Converters should renounce Subjection to the Bishop of Rome themselves and teach their Converts the Mercians and Northumbrians to submit to the Bishop of Rome But if I had said no more but onely that they were without any forrein dependence it had been enough on my part It belongeth not to me to prove a Negative and such a continued Negative as this is but the burthen of the proofe resteth wholy upon him both in reason and Law to prove his Affirmative that the MerciaÌ„s and Northumbrians did depend upon the Bishop of Rome in those dayes in point of practise for Ordination and Iurisdiction which he is not able to doe What he addeth that I said Ordination is nothing at all to Iurisdiction is for want of Vnderstanding because he is not able to distinguish between the right of Ordination and the Act of Ordeining We attribute to the Scots the Act of Ordeining not a Superiour right of Ordination In the next place I urged that a world of British Christians staid behind among the Saxon Conquerours every where all over England such whom they had no cause to feare for their power Activity or Influence upon others which poore Conquered Christians had a right to the just Privileges of their Ancestours He would perswade us First that all of them or all except some few fled into Wales or Cornwall What to do To be repacked there as herrings Or like Camelions to live upon the aire and leave all the rest of the Kingdome desolate It was not ten or twenty nor a hundred nor aâ— thousand little Vessells could bring over Saxons enough with their wifes and Children and Servants to plant the Kingdomes of England We see dayly that the very Armies of such Conquerours doe consist for the greater part of Natives and that it is not their forrain Numbers but their Military Skill and resolution which gaineth them the Victory Looke upon all the Kingdomes of the world Italy Spain France England c. and what are they but mixed Societies of Forreiners and Natives Conquerers and Conquered persons now iâ—corporated with little or no distinction by long Tract of time After the Norman Conquest hundreds of English inhabited England for one Norman In the beginning of the late Insurrection in Ireland notwithstaÌ„ding those great nâ—mbers which came over daily into Ireland and Scotland to seeke for Plantations for thirty or forty yeares together yet there were ten Irish for one English and Scotch and yet we do not find that these Saxon warres were so bloudy as the Irish warres or that either they persecuted the persons of the Britons with Cruelty or so much as demolished their Churches But he supposeth that if there were any such British Christians yet they became subject to the Pope I believe some of them were subject to the Pope as to the Bishop of their Mother Church and all of them as to the Bishop of an Apostolicall Church that is to be guided by his grave advise and direction but I deny that ever the Saxon Bishops were subject to the Pope as to an absolute Monarch by Christs own ordination or that the Pope enjoyed the Soveraign Patronage of the Saxon Church or the Supreme Legislative Iudiciary or dispensative power over it This the Saxon Kings and their Bishops under theÌ„ ever enjoyed as the Britons did before them and this is all which our Kings desire or we claime for them If he have any thing to say to this point let him bring Authorities not words He saith This is all one as if some few men setling by accident in France should pretend an exemption from the French Lawes and expect English Privileges Nay it is cleare contrary as if some French men comming into Britaine and planting and propagating there should expect the British Privileges to their Posterity So the Saxons planting in Britain so soone as their Posterity was capable of them by becomming Christians might justly claime the Liberties and Privileges of British Christians I said the Saxon Conquest gave them as good title to the Privileges as to the Lands of the Britons He stileth it a rare reason as if I meant that Ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction were a thing of that nature to be won by the sword Or rather as if he meant Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court and Iurisdiction purely Spirituall which Christ left unto his Church is all one I
Subjection at all to another Church They all agree in this the Britons were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 all waies ordained at home independent upon any forrain Prelate ought no subjection to Rome And there fore it is no great wonder if Pope Gregory did not know when he was the favourite both of the Pope and people not long before his own promotion to the Papacy whether the Ilanders of Britain were Pagans or Christians To the same purpose speaketh Nicolas Trevet who having commended this Dinoth for a learned and a prudent man he addeth that Austin meeting him did demand that they should performe subjection to him as a Legate sent into this Land by the Pope and Court of Rome and demanded further that he would help him in preaching but he denied the one and the other Still Subjection is denied With these Baleus writing of Dinoth and the life of Austin in Sr. Henry Spellman and all our Antiquaries doe agree exactly And none of our Historiographers that I know doe disagree from it in the least who write upon that subject though some set it down more fully then others Iudge now Reader of Mr. Serjeants Knowledge or Ingenuity who telleth the so Confidently that the right of Subjection never came into play and when I said the British Clergy did renounce all obedieÌ„ce to the Bishop of Rome citing Bede and all others telleth me so confidently that I belied Bede and all our Historiographers at once I challenge him to name but one Historiographer who affirmeth the contrary to that which all these doe affirm if he be not able as he is not I might safely say without asking him leave that it striketh the Question dead His third Exception that it appeareth not that Sr. Henry Spellman found any other Antiquity in that Welsh Manuscript worth mentioning is so dull and unsignificant a piece that I will neither trouble myself nor the Reader with it And such like are his other Obâ—ections which helpresseth not but toucheth gently the Heads of them will not merit a repetition having been answered already by Doctor Hammond But when he is baffeld in the cause he hath a Reserve that Venerable Bede and Gildas and Fox in his Acts and Monuments do brand the Britons for wicked men making them as good as Atheists Of which Gang if this Dinoth were one he will neither wish the Pope such Friends nor envy them to the Protestants What needed this when he hath got the worst of the cause to revenge himself like a Pinece with a stinke We read no other Character of Dinoth but as of a pious learned and prudent man If Gildas or Bede have spoken any thing to the prejudice of the Britons it was not intended against the whole Nation but against particular persons There were St. Davids St. Dubricius's St. Thelaâ—s's St. Oudoceus's and Dinoths as well as such persons as are intended by Gildas or Beda What have they said more of the Britons then God himself and his Prophets have spoken of his own people or more then the Saxons have said one of another or more then maybe retorted upon any NatioÌ„ in Europe Have Gildas or Beda said more of the Birions theÌ„ St. Bernard and others have said of the Irish and yet Ireland was deservedly called the Island of Saints The Question is whether the British Church did ever acknowledge any Subjection to the Bishop of Rome Let him adorn this Sparta and leave other impertinencies Sect. V. That the King and Church of England had sufficient Authority to withdrawe their obedience from Rome The sixth Chapter of my Vindication comprehended my fourth ground consisting of these three particulars That the King and Church of England had sufficient Authority to reform the Church of England That they had sufficient Grounds for doing it And that they did it with due moderation His Rejoinder to this my fourth ground is divided into three SectioÌ„s whereof this is the first Whatsoever he prateth in this Section of my shuffing away the whole Question by balking the Bishop of Romes divine right to his Soveraignty of power to treat of his Patriarchall right which is humane is first vain For I alwayes was and still am ready to joine Issne with him concerning the Bishop of Romes divine right to a Monarchicall power in the Church saving alwaies to myself and my cause this advantage That a Monarchy and a Patriarchate of the same person in the same Body Ecclesiasticall are inconsistent And this right being saved I shall more willingly join issue with him about the Popes Monarchy then about his Patriarchate Secondly as it is vaine so it is altogether impertinent for my Ground is this that a Soveraign Prince hath power within his own Dominions for the publick good to change any thing in the externall Regiment of the Church which is not of divine Institution but the Popes pretended Patronage of the English Church and his Legislative Iudiciary and dispensative power in the exteriour Courtes of the same Church doe concern the externall Regiment of the Church aud are not of divine Institution Here the Hindge of our Controversy doth move without encombring our selves at all with Patriarchall Authority Thirdly I say that this discourse is not onely vaine and extravagant but is likewise false The Popes Protopatriarchall power and the Authority of a Bishop of an Apostolicall Church as the keper of Apostolicall Traditions deposited in that Church are the fairest flowers in his Garland Whatsoever power he pretendeth to over the whole Church of Christ above a Primacy of Order is altogether of humane right and the Application of that Primacy to the Bishop of Rome is altogether of humane right And whatsoever he presumeth of the Vniversall Tradition of the Christian Church or the Notion which the former and present world and we our selves before the Reformation had of the Papacy that is of the Divine right of the Popes Soveraignty is but a bold ratling groundlesse bragge I did and doe affirm that the Pope hath quitted his Patriarchichall power above a thousand yeers since not explicitly by making a formall Resignation of it but implicitly by assuming to himself a power which is inconsistent with it I was contented to forbeare further disputing about Patriarchall rights upon two Conditions one that he should not presume that the Pope is a Spirituall Monarch without proving it The other that he should not attempt to make Patriarchall Privileges to be Royall Prerogatives This by one of his peculiar Idiotisms he calleth Bribing of me If he had had so much Civility in him he might rather have interpreted it a gentle forewarning of him of two Errours which I was sure he would Commit After all his Bravadoes all that he hath pretended to prove is but a Headship a First Movership a Chief Governourship about which we have no Difference with them and all the proofe he bringeth even of that is a bold presumption that there
Apostolicall Bishop and his Primacy of Order so loÌ„g as the Church thought fit to continue it to that See if this would content him To my third reason he excepteth If Monarchy be of Divine Institution the Venetians and the Hollanders are in a sad case I am glad when I find any thing in him that hath but a resemblance of matter more then wind and empty words although they weigh nothing when they come to be examined The Venetians and Hollanders may be in a sad Condition in the Opinion of such rash Censurers as himself is who have learned their Theology and Politicks but by the halues Who taught him to argue from the Position of one lawfull forme of Government to the Deniall of another All lawfull Formes of Government are warranted by the Law of Nature and so have their Institution from God in the Law of Nature The Powers that be are ordained of God whether they be Monarchicall or Aristocraticall or Democraticall Man prepareth the Body God infuseth the Soule of Power which is the same in all Lawfull Formes But though all lawfull Formes of GovernmeÌ„t be warranted by the law of nature yet not all in the same Degree of Eminency There is but one soule in the body one Sun in the heaven one Maister in a Family and anciently one Monarch in each Society all the first Governours were Kings The soule of Soveraign Power is the same in all Formes but the Organ is more apt to attain its end in one Form then another in Monarchy then in Aristocracy or Democracy And we say God and Nature doe alwaies intend that which is best Thus it is in the Law of Nature which is warrant sufficient for any form of Government but in the Positive Law of God he never instituted or authorised any form but Monarchy In the last Paragraph where I say that the Popes Headship of Iurisdiction is not of divine Institution he excepteth that it is my bare saying and my old â—rick to say over againe the very point in dispute between us If this be the very point in dispute beâ—ween us as it is indeed it is more shame for him who letteth the very point in dispute alone and never offereth to come neare it especially having made such lowd bragges that he would charge the Crime of Schisme upon the Church of England with undeniable Evidence and prove the Popes Headship of Iurisdiction or Power by a more ample cleare and continued Title then any right of Law or Humane Ordinances can offer Quid tanto dignum tulit hic promiss or hiaâ—u As for my part I know my Obligation whilest I am upon the defensive to make good my ground and when it is my turn to assault I shall discharge my duty If he have any thing to say to the Huguenots of France they are at age to answer him themselves Our Controversy is onely concerning the Church of England SECT 6. That the King and Church of England had sufficieÌ„t grounds to seperate from the Court of Rome I had reason to wonder not at our Grounds but their sileÌ„ce that having so long so ofteÌ„ called for our grounds of Seperation and charged us that we have no grounds that we could have no grounds now when sufficient Grounds are offered to them two of them one after another should passe by them in deep silence And this Dispatcher being called upon for an answer unlesse he would have the cause sentenced against him upon a Nihil dicit with more haâ—â— then good speed gives us an answer and no Answer like the Title of an empty Apothecaries Box. If there be any Monster the Reader may looke for it on that side not on our side He may promise the View of a strange Monster in his Antepasts and Postpasts and blow his Trumpet to get pence a piece to see it as he phraseth it but if the Readers expect till he shew them any such rare sight they may wait untill Dooms day and all the remedy he offers them is to say he hath abused them as he doth often Now roome for his Case or his two Principles of Vnity which are evermore called in to help at a dead lift But his case is not the true case and his Rules are leaden Rules they might be streighâ— at the beginning but they have bended them according to their self Interest Both his case and his Principles have been sufficiently discussed and fully cleared so that I will not offend the Reader with his sleight dish of Coleworts sodden over and over againe He is angry that I make our seperation to be rather from the Court of Rome then from the Churcâ— of Rome and stileth it perfect Impudence So my Assertion be evidently true I weigh not his groundlesse Calumnies Let any man looke upon our GrievaÌ„ces and the Grounds of our Reformation 1. the intollerable extortion of the Roman Court 2. the unjust Vsurpations of the Roman Court 3. the malignant influence of the Roman Court upon the body politick 4. the like malignant influence of the Roman Court upon the body Ecclesiastick 5. and lastly the Violation of ancient Liberties and Exemtions by the Roman Court and he can not doubt from whence we made our Separation All our sufferings were from the Roman Court then why should we seek for ease but where our Shoe did wring us And as our GrievaÌ„ces so our ReformatioÌ„ was onely of the Abuses of the Roman Court Their bestowing of prelacies and dignities in England to the prejudice of the right patrons Their Convocating Synods in England without the Kings leave Their prohibiting English Prelates to make their old Feâ—dall Oaths to the King and obliging them to take new Oaths of Fidelity to the Pope Their imposing and receiving Tenths and First fruits and other arbitrary Pensions upon the English Clergy And lastly their usurping a Legislative Iudiciary and Dispensative Power in the exteriour Court by Politicall Coaction These are all the Branches of Papall power which we have rejected This Reformation is all the Separation that we have made in point of Discipline And for Doctrine we have no Difference with them about the old Essentialls of Christian Religion And their new Essentialls which they have patched to the Creed are but their erroneous or at the best probable Opinions no Articles of Faith He is still bragging of his Demonstrations yet they are but blind Enthymematicall Paralogismes wherein he maketh sure to set his best legge formost and to conceale the lamenesse of his Discourse as much as he can from the eyes of the Reader and still calling upon us for rigorous Demonstration I wish we knew whether he understaÌ„d what rigorous Demonstration is in Logick for no other Demonstration is rigorous but that which proceedeth according to the strict Rules of Logick either a priore or a posteriore from the cause or the effect And this Cause in Difference between us whether those Branches of power which the Pope claimeth and we have
rejected be the Legacies of Christ or Papall VsurpatioÌ„s is not capable of such rigorous Demonstration but dependeth upon Testimony which Logicians call an Inartificiall way of arguing But if by rigorous Demonstration he uâ—derstand convincing proofes those grounds which I offer in this Section do contain a rigorous Demonstration That Discipline which is brimfull of intollerable Rapine and Extortion and Simony and Sacrilege which robbeth Kings and Subjects Ecclesiasticall and Secular of their just rights which was introduced into the Church of England eleven hundred yeares after Christ which hath a Malignant Influence upon the Body Politick which is Destructive to the right ends of Ecclesiasticall Discipline which in stead of securing men in peace doth thrust them into Manifest and manifold Dangers both of soule and body which is contrary to Generall Councells and the ancient Liberties of particular Churches qua talis as it is such is no Legacy of Christ but ought to be purged and reformed from all such abuses and VsurpatioÌ„s But such is that Papall Discipline which the Bishop of Rome excercised in EnglaÌ„d before the Reformation and lesse then which they will not goe and such are all those Branches of Papall power which we have cast out The truth of this AssertioÌ„ I have made manifest in my Vindication c. 6 and this is the place of a further examination of it if he did discharge the part of a faire solid Disputant to leave his windy Invectives which signify nothing to the cause but to his own shame and to proceed closely and ingenuously to the investigation of truth without prejudice or partiality But on the Contrary he minceth my grounds and concealeth them and skippeth over whatsoever disliketh him and choppeth them and chaÌ„geth them and confoundeth them that I caÌ„not know mine own Conceptions againe as he hath dressed them aÌ„d disordered them and mutilated them I proposed five distinct Grounds of our ReformatioÌ„ aÌ„d casting out so many Branches as we did of Papall power if he dealt like a just Adversary he should pursue my Method step by step but he reduceth my five grounds into three that between two Methods he may conceale and smother whatsoever he hath no disposition to answer as he dealeth with many points of weight and moment and particularly with all those Testimonies and instances I bring to prove the intolerable extortions and manifold Vsurpations and malignant Influence of the Roman Coutt upon the Body Politick and Ecclesiastick being much the greater part of my discourse But I doe not altogether blame him for they are so foule that a man can find small credit or contentment in defending them For once rather then loose his Company I will pursue his Method Let us give him the hearing He reduceth my five grounds to three first such as entrench upon Eternity and Conscience May not any Heretick object that the Church imposed new Articles of faith c. or complain of new Creeds when she addeth to her publick Professions some points of Faith held formerly Might not he Complaine of perill of Idolatry as your Brother Puritans did for Surplesses c Might not he pretend that all Hereticks and Schismaticks were good Christians and that the Church was Tyrannicall in holding them for excommunicate Might he not shuffle together Faith with Opinion and falsly allege as you doe here you were forced to approve the Popes Rebellion against Generall Councells and take Oaths to maintain Papall Vsurpations This is all the Answer I get of this brave Disputant as if the unjust complaints of the Puritans did satisfy the just exceptions of the Protestants It is probable enough that he him self was one of our Brother Puritans in those dayes otherwise he could not well have talked so wildly of perill of Idolatry from Surplesses His discourse is so sleight and impertinent that I will not vouchsafe any answer but leave it to the Reader to compare my Vindication and Reply with his Rejoinder That they have added new Essentialls to Faith is fully evinced against them in this Treatise Sect. 1. cap. 11. What our Iudgement is concerning their Idolatry he shall find exactly set down in my answer to Militier Pa. 133. As for the Oaths of Fidelity which every Bishop must make to the Pope he may satisfy him self Sect. 1. Cap. 5. and see the From of it cap 7. Or if he Desire to see a later form let him take this I Henry Archbishop of Canterbury will be faithfull and Obedient to St. Peter from this houre as formerly and to the holy Apostolick Church of Rome and to my Lord Pope Alexander the sixth and his Successours I will give no counsaile nor consent nor act any thing towards the losse of their lifes or members or liberty I will discover their Counsailes to no man to their prejudice which they have communicated to me by themselves or their Messengers I will help them to retein and defend the Roman Papacy and the Royalties of St. Peter saving my Order against all men I will entertein the Popes Legates honorably going and comming and help them in their necessities I will visit the Papall Court every yeare if it be on this side the Alpes and every two yeares if it beyond the Alpes unlesse the Pope dispense with me So help me God and the Holy Gospell What fidelity can a King expect from a Subject who hath taken this Oath if the Pope please to attempt any thing against him If the Popes Superiority above a Generall Councell be but held as an indifferent Opinion in their Church and not a point of Faith as he intimateth yet it is such an Opinion as he dare not contradict it is fere communis it is almost the Common OpinioÌ„ of all RomaÌ„ Catholicks if Bellarmine say true and fere de fide almost a point of Faith upoÌ„ which modern Popes and Councells are accorded It is determined expresly in their last Generall Councell of LateraÌ„ that the Bishop of Rome alone hath Authority over all Councells Were these all the grounds he could find which entrench upon Eternity and Conscience He might have found more that by means of Papall abuses there described hospitality was not kept the poore not susteined the word not preached churches not adorned the Cure of soules neglected divine Offices not performed Churches ruined He might have found Oaths Customes writings grants statutes rights privileges to have been not onely weakened but exinanited by the Popes infamous Messenger called Non obstance And all this attested by the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the whole Common-wealth of England But it is no matter whether he take notice of it or not whilest he answereth nothing He faith my second sort of Grounds are those which relate to Temporall inconveniences and injuries to the State by reason of the Popes pretended encroachments which I huddle together in big Terms Do I huddle theÌ„ together Nay I haÌ„dled them distinctly under three heads or notions First the intolerable
Represētative Church that is a Generall Councell or Synod nor the Executive headship of each Patriarch in his Patriarchate nor the Bishop of Romes headship of Order among them and thus this great Objection is vanished By this he may see that we have introduced no new Form of Ecclesiasticall Government into the Church of England but preserved to every one his due right if he will accept of it and that we have the same Dependence upon our Ecclesiasticall Superiours which we had evermore from the Primitive times He chargeth us that we give no certain Rule to know which is a Generall Councell which not or who are to be called to a Generall Councell There is no need why we should give any new Rules who are ready to observe the old Rules of the Primitive Church Generall Summons to all the Patriarchs for them and their Clergy Generall Admittance of all Persons capable to discusse freely and to define freely according to their distinct Capacities and lastly the presence of the five Protopatriarchs and their Clergy either in their persons or by their suffrages or in case of Necessity the greater part of them doe make a Generall Councell Whilest we set this rule before us as our pattern and swerve not from it but onely in case of invincible Necessity we may well hope that God who looketh upon his poore Servants with all their Prejudices and expecteth no more of them then he hath enabled them to performe who hath promised that where two or three are gathered together in his name there will he be in the midst of them Will vouchsafe to give his assistence and his Blessing to such a Councell which is as Generall as may be although perhaps it be not so exactly Generall as hath been or might have been now if the Christian Empire had flourished still as it did anciently In summe I shall be ever ready to acquiesce in the Determinaation of a Councell so Generall as is possible to be had so it may be equall not having more Iudges of one Country then all the rest of the Christian world as it was in the Councell of Trent but regulated by the equall votes of Christian Nations as it was in the Councells of Constance and Basile and so as those Nations which cannot in probability be personally present may be admitted to send their Votes and Suffrages as they did of old and lastly so it may be free called in a free place whither all parties may have secure accesse and Liberty to propose freely and define freely according to the Votes of the Fathers without being stinted or curbed or overruled by the Holy Ghost sent in a Curriers Budget And for the last part of his exception that Hereticks should not be admitted I for my part should readily consent provided that none be reputed Hereticks but such as true Generall Councells have evidently declared to be Hereticks or such as will not pronounce an Anathema against all old Heresies which have been condemned for Heresies by undoubted Generall Councells But to imagin that all those should be reputed Hereticks who have been condemned of Heresy or Schisme by the Roman Court for their own interest that is foure parts of five of the Christian world is silly and senselesse and argueth nothing but their fear to come to a faire impartiall Tryall And this is a full answer to that which he allegeth out of Doctor Hammond that Generall Councells are now morally impossible to be had the Christian world being under so many Empires and Divided into so many Communions It is not credible that the Turke will send his Subjects that is four of the Protopatriarchs with their Clergy to a Generall Councell or allow them to meet openly with the rest of Christendome in a Generall Councell it being so much against this own Interest but yet this is no impediment why the Patriarchs might not deliver the Sense and Suffrages of their Churches by Letters or by Messengers and this is enough to make a Councell Generall In the First Councell of Nice there were onely five Clergymen present out of the Western Churches In the Great Councell of Chalcedon not so many In the Councells of Constantinople and Ephesus none at all And yet have these four Councells evermore been esteemed truly Generall because the Western Church did declare their consent and concurrence Then as there have been Generall Orientall Councells without the personall presence of a Western Bishop so there may be an Occidētall Councell without the personall presence of one Eastern Bishop by the sole Communication of their sense and their Faith Neither is such Communication to be deemed impossible considering what correspondence the Muscovian Church did hold long with the Patriarch of Constantinople and the Abyssine hath long held and doth still hold with the Patriarch of Alexandria It is cōfessed that there are too many different Communions in Europe it may be some more then there is any great cause for and perhaps different Opinions where there is but one Communion as difficult to be reconciled as different Communions But many of these Mushrome Sects are like those inorganicall Creatures bred upon the Bankes of Nilus which perished quickly after they were bred for want of fit Organs The more considerable parties and the more capable of reason are not so many if these could be brought to acquiesce in the determination of a free Generall Councell they would towe the other like lesser Boats after them with ease No man wil say that the Vnity of the Church in point of Government doth consist onely in their actuall subordination to Generall Councells Generall Councells are extraordinary Remedies proper for curing or composing new differences of great Concernment in Faith or discipline That being done Generall Councells may prove of more Danger then use No healthfull man delighteth in a continuall course of Phisick But Vnity consisteth also and Ordinarily in Conformity and submission to that discipline which Generall Councells have recommended to us either as the Legacies of Christ and his Apostles or as Ecclesiasticall Policies instituted by them with the Concurrence or Confirmation of Christian Soveraigns for the publick good of the Catholick Church He chargeth us that we have so formed Gods Church that there is no meanes left to asssemble a Generall Councell having renounced his Authority whose proper Office it was to call a Generall Councell His errours seldome come single but commonly by Clusters or at least by paires What height of Confidence is it to affirm that it is the proper Office of the Pope to call Generall all Councells when all ingenuous men doe acknowledge that all the First Generall Councells were Ab Imperatoribus Indicta Called by Emperours To which the Popes Friends adde that it was by the Advise and with the Consent of the Pope And Bellarmine gives diverse reasons why it could not be otherwise First because there was a Law which did forbid frequent Assemblyes for feare af Sedition Secondly
passe muster for once Here is a Contradiction deserves a Bell and a Bable Catholick Countries did maintein their Privileges inviolate by such means at one time not at another in one place not in another in one degree not in another in one respect not in another The last mock Contradiction is that I say The Lawes which denied the Pope all Authority and were actually in force that is actually left him none were not sufficient Remedies against the abuses of that Authority Which had quite taken them away This is not finding of Contradictions but making of them Give him leave to use this id est that is and he will make a hundred Contradictions in every page of the Bible as here actually in force that is which actually left the Pope no Authority or which had quite taken his Authority away If this id est that is be mine then he may object the Contradiction to me if it be not then he may keep the Contradiction to himself such as it is He knoweth and all the world know that a law is said to be actually in force whilest it is unrepealed in this sense I did and all men but himself doe use that expression And here he committeth a third grosse fault against the Rule of Opposition which ought to be ever 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the same Respect The Law taketh away abuses as a Rule but the Magistrate by due execution as an Artificer The Law is sufficient when it is sufficiently penned and promulged but the effect followeth the due execution The not observing of this obvious and easy truth hath made us all this stirre about Imaginary Contradictions as I have shewed in my answer to his last â—â—ragraph which alone is a sufficieâ—â— answer to all these pretended Contradictions but whether it will be so actually in force to procure his assent is more then I know if it do not it detracteth nothing frem the sufficiency of the answer Goe Mr. Serjeant goe bring us lesse wind and more weight Saepius in libro memor atur Perseus uno Quam levis in totâ Tharsus Amazonide In the last Paragraph is nothing but a Calumny against Henry the eight which he is not able to prove and if he were it neither concerneth us nor the Question SECT VII That the King and Church of England proceeded with due Moderation THis Section doth not much concern either us or the merit of the cause A Reformation might be just and necessary although the Reformers did exceed the bounds of due Moderation neither are we answerable for their excesses further then we ourselves doe maintein them I passe by his pleasant Topick unsaluted as being impertinent and having nothing in it deserving the least stay of a serious Reader I reckoned this as the first Branch of our moderation that we deny not to other Churhes the true being of Churches nor possibility of Salvation nor seperate from Churches but from Accidentall Errours For all his scoffing if their Church would use the like moderation it would save the world a great deale of needlesse debate Against that which I say he objecteth thus Now the matter of Fact hath evidenced undeniably that they the Protestants seperated from those points which were the Principles of Vnity both in Faith and Government He hath brought his matter of Fact and his Principles of Vnity so often upon the Stage already and they have been so often clearly answered that I will not insist upon such a threedbare subject or trouble the Reader with an irksome repetition We have seen how far his Principles of Vnity or his Fundamentall of Fundamentalls is true and ought to be admitted and in a right sense we adhere much more firmly unto them then the Church of Rome it self He procedeth that the Church of England defines that our Church the Church of Rome erreth in matter of Faith Artic. 19. The words of the Article are Non solum quoad agenda Ceremoniarum ritus verum etiam in iis quae credenda sunt that is Not onely in Practicall Observations and Ceremoniall rites but also in those things which are to be believed that is to use Cardinall Cajetans distinction Not in those things which are de fide formaliter in necessary Fundamentall Articles for we acknowledge that the Church of Rome doth still retein the essentialls of Faith but in those things which are fidei materialiter in inferiour Questions which happen in things to be believed that is to say Opinions wherein himself acknowledgeth that a particular Church may erre That this is the right sense of the Article appeareth hence that the Article doth contradistinguish Credenda or things to be believed not to Opinions but to agenda things to be practised He urgeth that we have declared four points of their faith to be vain Fictions contradictory to Gods word Artic. 22. That is to say their Doctrin of Purgatory Indulgences their Adoration of Images and Relicks Invocation of Saints Right four points of their new Faith enjoined by Pius the fourth but no Article of the old Apostolicall Faith and at the best onely Opinions Yet neither doth he cite our Article right which doth not define them to be contrary to Scripture but onely besides the Scripture or not well grounded upon any Texts of Scripture He addeth the like Character is given of another point Art 28. That is Transubstantiation Our highest Act of Devotion Art 31. is stiled a blasphemous fiction and pernicious imposture that is the Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Masse Concerning Transubstantiation what is our Opinion I referre him to my answer to Militier in the very beginning of it And concerning their Propitiatory Sacrifice of the Masse to the same answer pag. 152. Edit 2. The true state of the Controversy was not so clearly understood at first on either side as it is now He cannot goe one step further then we doe in that cause without tumbling into direct Blasphemy It followeth And Art 33. that those who are cut of from the Church publickly should be held as Heathens and Publicans Well here is no distinction between Roman Catholicks and Protestants And Franciscus a Sancta Clara in his Paraphrasticall ExpositioÌ„ of the English Articles giveth this Iudgement of this Article This Article is Catholick and agreeable as well to holy Scripture as to antiquity Then why doth he snarle at this Article which he cannot except against Because he conceiveth that the Article meaneth Catholicks or at least doth include them Iudge Reader what a spirit of Contradiction dâ—th possesse this man who when he is not able to pick any quarrell at the words of the Article calumniateth the meaning upon his own groundlesse suspicion But nothing was more common in the mouths of our Preachers then to call the Pope Antichrist the Church of Rome the VVhore of Babilon Idolatrous Superstitious Blasphemous and to make up the Measure of his Forefathers sinnes the Bishop calles here the two Principles of
Vnity in Faith and Government errours and Falshoods If any of our Preachers being exasperated 〈◊〉 some such Boutifeus as himself have in theiâ— Pulpits used any Virulence or Petulancâ— against the Church of Rome Let him makâ— use of his stile against them who wilâ— furnish him with Lettuce suitable to hiâ— Lips What is that to the Church of England what is that to us Quid immerentes hospites vexat Canis Ignavus adversus lupos Let him but observe what Liberty be himself taketh without any maÌ„ner of Provocation But as for my self he doth me notorious wrong I did not mention any Principles of Vnity in this place nor so much as dream of them but that he must needs bring them in by head and shoulders in every Paragraph All I said was this That we doe not separate from other Churches but from their Accidentall Errours but some men are like Nettleâ— touch them gently and they sting you The first part of our Moderation was not to censure other Churches for no Churches nor deny them possibility of Salvation nor thrust them from our Communion which I shewed in the Example of St. Ciprian In answer to this he sheweth the unlawfulnesse of Communicating with Idolaters which is reconciling Christ with Anti-Christ Was not this impertinent if he himself were Iudge I said it might be very lawfull in some cases to communicate with materiall Idolaters Hereticks aÌ„d Schismaticks that is such as erre through ignorance and frailty not obstinacy in Religious Duties And for proofe hereof I produced the instaÌ„ce of the Primitive Christians communicating in some cases with the Hereticall Arrâ—ans and the Schismaticall Novatians He demands first who forbids them to goe visit the sick I adde or pray with them also which was as much as I said there but because he falleth with such Violence upon the point I will now take the Liberty to expresse my self more fully First it is to be remembred that I did speake onely of Materiall Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks not Formall SecoÌ„dly of pious Offices not of Idolatrous Acts nor any thing favouring Heresy or Schisme Thirdly I do new exclude case of Scandall for just scandall may make that Act to be unlawfull which in it self is Lawfull Fourthly I except cases of Just Obedience the prohibition of a lawfull Superiour Civill or Ecclesiasticall may make that Act to be unlawfull which was Indifferent Lastly I distinguish between persons Learned and grounded in Religion and persons unlearned and ungrounded the former may and ought to communicate with Idolaters Hereticks and Schismaticks as far as they can with a good Conscience to gain them to the truth the latter are obliged not to come over near to pitch least they be defiled The Question being thus stated I believe the main point hath no great Difficulty in it For they who are Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks onely materially not formally that is against their meanings resolutions and intentions are no Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks in the eyes of God or discerning men neither are they out of the Pale of the Church or out of the way of Salvation as the Bishop of Chalcedon saith most truely VVe allow all those to have saving Faith to be in the Church in way of Salvation for so much as belongeth to Faith who hold the Fundamentall points and invincibly erre in not Fundamentalls But all Idolaters Hereticks and Schismaticks who are onely materially Idolatrous Hereticall or Schismaticall doe erre invincibly for if they erred vincibly then they were formall Idolaters Hereticks or Schismaticks Thus much I lay down for certain the rest I onely propose that although they were formall Hereticks or Schismaticks yet they are not altogether out of the Pale of the Church but onely in part Ex ea parte in texâ—urae compage deâ—inentur in caeâ—era scissi sunt So farre they are woven into the web for the rest they are divided as St. Austin saith And Bellarmâ—ne out of him acknowledgeth that they are absolutely in the Church untill they goe out of it by Obstinacy which they who ate onely materially Hereticks or Schismaticks do not and after they are gone out of the Church by Obstinacy yet they are still in the Church secundum aliquid non simpliciter not absolutely but respectively or in part And after he hath vapoured a long time to no purpose thus much is acknowledged by himself as long as Schismaticks are not hardened into an Obstinacy as no Schismaticks are who are onely materially Schismaticall there is a prudentiall Latiâ—ude allowed by the Church delaying her Censures as long as she can possibly without wronging her Government as was de facto practised in England till the 10 of Queen Elizabeth This is full as much as I said that it may be lawfull to communicate in some cases with materiall Schismaticks And whatsoever I said was rather to make a Charitable Construction of their materiall Idolatry then out of fear that they should be able to attaint us of any Schisme either materiall or formall if he had any thing of reality to object against us he would be ashamed to intimate our inclinations to favour Arrianisme which he himself knoweth our soules abhorre and which he himself knoweth to be expresly condemned in the second Article of our Church He may find my Instances of the Primitive Christians communicating with the Arrians and Novatians in Church Offices in my answer to the Bishop of Chalcedons Preface pa. 36 if he have any thing to say to them Neither was it at the first sprouting of the Arrian Heresy but after they had formed severall Doxologies to themselves nor at the First beginning of the Novatian Schisme but towards the Conclusion of it I cited St. Cyprian for no other purpose but to shew that his moderation in absteining from censuring did preserve him free from Schisme although he was in an errour When Optatus called the Donaâ—ists his Brethren he did not mean his Brethren in Adam but his Brethren in Christ and wonders why his Brother Parmenian a Donatist would ranke himself with Heretieks who were falsifiers of the Creed If this be the infallible marke of an Heretick Let Pius Quartus and his party looke to themselves I disliked a position of his which the Reader shall have in his own words I cannot say my Religion is true but I must say the Opposite is false mine is good but I must say the Opposite is naught mine necessary but I must Iudge that which is inconsistent carries to damnation Therefore who does not censure a Contrary Religion holds not his own certain that is hath none Upon this he pursueth me with a full Crye that the Common Principle of Nature if any thing be true the Opposite is false or a thing cannot both be and not be at once is denyed by the Bishop Stay Mr. Serjeant be not so fierce the Bishop knoweth as well as your self that the disjunction of Contradictories is eternall and
to pervert as many as they can not to sow good seed in the Lords Field but to superseminare or sow Tares above the wheat We should thank them more to stay at home then to compasse Sea and Land to gaine Proselites as the Pharisees did and made them twofold more the Children of Hell then themselves He saith that this is the solemne Custome of their Church every Good Friday Let it be so but they have not the same incentive and provocation which we have we do not curse and Anathematise theÌ„ the day before as they doe us This Advantage we have over them that we render blessing for cursing which they doe not He addeth that they cannot be understood under the notion of Hereticks first because we acknowledge theirs to be a true Church and therefore not hereticall Secondly they are of Christs Flock already and therefore not reductble to his Flock To the First â— answer that a particular Church which is onely materially Hereticall not formally doth still continue a true Church of Christ. The Bishop of Chalcedon understood these things much better then himself this is confessed by him in the place formerly alleged A particular Church may be really Hereticall or Schismaticall and yet morally a true particular Church because she is invincibly ignorant of her Heresy or Schisme We agree with him wholy in the sense onely we differ in the expression What he calleth really Hereticall we stile materially Hereticall and what he calleth morally a true Church we use to stile Metaphysically a true Church that is by truth of Entity not of Morality Secondly I answer that the Flock of Christ is taken variously sometimes more largely sometimes more strictly more largely for all those that are In domo by outward profession more strictly for those who are Ex domo so in the Church that they are also of the Church by inward Sanctification And our Collect hath reference to this later acception of this word Flock So Fetch them home blessed Lord to thy Floek that they may be saved He taketh it ill that our Church hath chaÌ„ged these words in the Missall recall them to our Holy Mother the Catholick and Apostolick Church into this dwindling puling puritanicall expression of one Floek and one Fold under one Shepheard Whether it be because he hath a Pick against Scripture phrases as sounding too preacherlike or rather because our Church did presume to name the right Shepheard Iesus Christ and not leave it to their Glosses to entitle the Pope to that Office But certainly the Authority of the Catholick Church is not formidable at all to any Genuine Sonnes of the Church of England I doe readily acknowledge that it is the duty of each Orthodox Church to Excommunicate Formall Hereticks and them who swerve from the Apostles Creed as the rule of Faith but this doth not oblige the Church of England to Excommunicate all materiall Hereticks who follow the dictate of their conscience in inferiour Questions which are not Essentialls of Faith and do hold the truth implicitly in the preparation of their minds Neither do I ever know that the Church of England did ever excommunicate Papists in grosse qua tales but onely some particular Papists who were either convicted of other Crimes or found Guilty of Contumacy It were to be wished that the Court of Rome would use the same Moderation and remember how Ireneus reproved Pope Victor that he had not done rightly to cut of from the Vnity of the Mysticall body of Christ so many and so great Churehes of God This is that great nonsense which this egregious Prevaricatour hath found in our Collect that the English Church cannot reconcile her doctrine and her practise together Let him not trouble his head with that but rather how to recoucile himself with his own Church He will have prayers to be onely words no works but his Church maketh Prayer Fasting and Almes to be three satisfactory works My third proofe of our Moderation was that we doe not challenge a new Church a new Religion or new holy Orders but derive our Church our Religion our Holy Orders from Christ and his Apostles by an uninterrupted Succession we obtrude no Innovations upon others All this is quite omitted by this great pretender to Sincerity and yet he knoweth or may know that there have been pretended Reformers who have committed all these excesses But he catcheth hold of two words of my defence that we have added no thing I wish they could say as much nor taken away any thing but Errours To the former part he excepteth that he who positively denies ever addes the contrary to what he takes away He that makes it an Article there is no Purgatory no Masse no prayers to Saincts hath as many Articles as he who holds the Contrary I have taken away this answer before and Demonstrated that no negative can be a Fundamentall Article or necessary Medium of Salvation because it hath no Entity That there are an hundred greater disputes and Contradictions among them selves in Theologicall Questions or in these things quae sunt fideâ— materialiter then those three are between us and them Yet they dare not say that either the Affirmatives or Negatives are Articles of Faith The ChristiaÌ„ Church for fifteen hundred yeares knew never more then 12. old Articles of Faith untill Pius the 4th added twelve new Articles And now this young Pythagoras will make us more then 1200. Articles affirmative Articles and Negative Articles Fundamentall Articles and Superstructive Articles Every Theologicall truth shall either be a Fundamentall Article or an indifferent and unconcerning Opinion He saith our 22. Article defineth the Negative to Purgatory yet I like an ill tutored Child tell my old Crasy Mother the Church of England that she lies I hope by this time the Reader knoweth sufficiently that his penne is no slander If the Church of England did ever ill it was when she begot him Neither doe I tell the Church of England she lies nor dissent in the least from the Definition of the Church of England neither doth the Church of England define any of these Questions as necessary to be believed either necessitate medâ—i or necessitate praecepti which is much lesse but onely bindeth her sonnes for peace sake not to oppose them But he himself can hardly be excused from lying where he telleth us the good simple Ministers did sweare to maintein them Perhaps he was one of the simple Ministers did he ever sweare to maintein them did he ever know any man who did sweare to maintein them For him to urge such falshoods after they have been so often detected is double Effronterie Periisse puto â—ui pudor periit He inferreth further By the Bishops Logick these propositions that there are not two Gods that the devills shall not be saved nor the Saints in Heaven damned that there is no Salvation but through Christ must cease to be Articles of Faith and
become indifferent unconcerning Opinions because they are Negative I wish no more disparagement to any man then to be the authour of such an absurd assertion Either they are Fundamentall Articles or unconcerning Opinions How should they cease to be Articles which never were Articles That there is one God and one Saviour Iesus Christ that the life of the Saints is everlasting and the Fire of the devills Everlasting are Articles of Faith but every thing which may be deduced from these is not a distinct Article of Faith To the latter part of my plea that we tooke nothing away but weeds he pleadeth first that it is but a self supposition or a begging of the Question By his leave I have demonstrated that all the Branches of Papall power which are in controversy between them and us are all grosse Vsurpations and weeds which did never sprout up in the Church of England untill after 1100 yeares no man can say without shame that such were planted by Christ or his Apostles Secondly he excepteth that to take away Errours is a requisite act af Iustice not a proofe of Moderation On the contrary therefore it is a proofe of Moderation because it is a requisite Act of Iustice all virtue consisteth in the meane or in a moderation It is not his particular pretended supposititious Tradition which doth secure us that Christ was and that the Holy Scripture is the Genuine word of God but the Vniversall and perpetuall Tradition of the Catholick Church of Christ. My last proofe of our Moderation was that we are ready in the preparation of our minds to believe and practice whatsoever the Catholick Church of this present Age doth believe and practice And this is an infallible preservative to keep a man within the Pale of the Church whosoever doth this Cordially cannot possibly be a formall Heretick or Schismatick because he is invincibly ignorant of his Heresy or Schisme No man can have iust cause to seperate his Communion a Communione orbis Terrarum from the Communion of the Christian world If he would have confuted this his way had been to have proposed something which the Christian World united doth believe or practise which wee are not ready to believe or Practice This he doth not so much as attempt to doe but barketh and raileth without rime or reason First he telleth us we say that there is no Vniversall Church Chuse Reader whether thou wilt believe him or our Leiturgy wherein we pray dayly that God will inspire the Vniversall Church with the Spirit of Truth Vnity and Concord He telleth us that they doe not doubt but we have renounced our Creed Chuse Reader whether thou wilt believe him or our Leiturgy wherein we make profession dayly of the Apostolick Nicene and Athanasian Creeds He telleth us that we have renounced our reason If he had said onely that we had lost our reason it is more then any man in his right wits would say but to say we have renounced our reason is incredible The reason of all this is because we give no certein Rule to know a true Church from an Hereticall He supposeth that no Hereticall Church is a true Church The Bishop of Chalcedon may instruct him better that an Hereticall Church is a true Church whilest it erreth invincibly He saith that he hath lived in Circumstances to be as well acquainted with our Doctrin as most men are Yet he professeth that if his life were at stake be could not Determine absolutely upon our Constant Grounds VVhether Presbyterians Anabaptists or Quakers are to be excluded from the Vniversall Church or no. The nearer relation that he hath had to the Church of England the more shame for him to scoffe so often at the supposed Nakednesse of his Mother and to revile her so virulently without either ground or Provocation which gave him his Christian being He hath my Charitable Iudgement of Presbyterians in my Reply to the Bishop of Chalcedons Epistle And for the other Sects it were much better to have a little patience and suffer them to dye of themselves then trouble the world so much about them they were produced in a Storme and will dye in a Calme He may be sure they will never molest him at any Councell either Generall or Occidentall It is honour enough for them to be named in earnest by a Polemick writer But what manner of Disputing is this to bring Questions in stead of Arguments As what new Form of Discipline the Protestants have introduced What are the certain Conditions of a right Oecumenicall Councell What is the Vniversall Church and of what particular Churches it doth consist What are the notes to know a true Church from an Hereticall We have introduced no new discipline but reteined the old Our Conditions of a right Oecumenicall Councell are the same they were not altogether so rigorously exacted in case of invincible necessity We are readier to give an account of ourselves then to censure others either to intrude ourselves into the Office of God to distinguish perfectly formall Schismaticks from materiall Or into the Office of the Catholick Church to determine precisely who ought to be excluded from her Communion who not We exclude all those whom undoubted Generall Councells have excluded the rest we leave to God and to the determination of a free Councell as Generall as may be But because I would not leave him unsatisfied in any thing I am contented to admit their own Definition of the Vniversall Church That is the Company of Christians knit together by the profession of the same faith and the Communion of the same Sacraments under the Government of lawfull Pastours Taking away that purple patch which they have added at the latter end of it for their own Interest And especially of the Roman Bishop as the onely Vicar of Christ upon Earth And if they had stinted at a Primacy of Order or beginning of unity I should not have excepted against it He objecteth that Protestants have no grounds to distinguish true believers from false That were strange indeed whilest we have the same Scriptures interpreted by the same perpetuall Tradition of the Vniversall Church according to the same Analogy of Faith wherein we give this honour to the Fathers not to be Authours but witnesses of Tradition whatsoever grounds they have to distinguish true believers from false we have the same But because I made the Apostles Creed to be the rule of Faith he objecteth First then the Puritans who deny the Article of Christs descent into Hell must be excluded quite from the Vniversall Church If they be so what is that to the Church of England if they be turned out yet let them be heard first They plead that the manner of Christs descent is not particularly determined but let it be determined or not they ought to be turned out of the Vniversall Church by a Generall Councell and it may be they will submit to the Authority of a Generall
that Authority which he doth challenge and not wave the extent as a thing Indifferent If he challenge it out of Prudentiall Reasons it ought to be considered whether the Hopes or the Hazards the Advantages or Disadvantages the ConvenieÌ„ces or Inconveniences of such a Form of Government particularly circumstantiated doe over ballance the one or the other And the surest tryall of this is by experience It will trouble him to find so many Advantages which the Church and Kingdome of England have received from Papall Iurisdiction I speak not of the Key of Order as may overweigh all those Disadvantages which they have susteined by the Extortions and Vsurpations and Malignant Influence of the Papacy If he attribute no more power to the Pope then all Roman Catholicks universally do approve which is the onely Rule that he giveth us to know what is the Substance of Papall Authority he need not be so impetuous this Question is near an end He askes whether wee and the Eastern Southern and Northern Christians be under the Government of Patriarchs or any other Common Government I answer wee and they are under the same Common Government which the Primitive Church was under from the Dayes of the Apostles long before there were any Generall Councells that was the Government of Bishops under Primates or Patriarchs For as I have said formerly a Protarch and a Patriarch in the Language of the Primitive Church are both one We have as much Opportunity to Convocate Synods as they had then before there were Christian Emperours and more yet by such Councells as they could Congregate though they were not Generall they governed the Church If there be not that free Communication of one Church with another that was then either by reason of the great distance or our mutuall misunderstanding one of another for want of the old Canonicall Epistles or Literae Formatae the more is the Pity We are sorry for it and ready to contribute our uttermost endeavours to the Remedy of it With these western Churches which have shaken of the Roman Yâ—ke we have much more Communion by Synods by Letters by Publishing our Confessions aÌ„d we might justly hope for a much nearer union yet both in doctrine and Discipline if God would be graciously pleased to restore an happy Peace That we have it not already in so large a measure as we might is their onely Faults who would not give way to an Vniform Reformation Sometimes they accuse us for having too much Communion with them at other times they will not grant us to have any at all Concerning the rest of the Western Churches which submit to the Papacy we have the same Rules both of Doctrine and Discipline which they had We have the same that they have saving their Additionall Errours We have broken no Bonds of Unity either in Faith or Discipline we have renounced no just Authority either Divine or Humane we adhere to the Apostles Creed as the ancient and true Rule of Faith into which alone all ChristiaÌ„s that ever were have been baptised and we renounce the upstart additionall Articles of Pius the fourth We are willing for peace sake to give the Pope the same Primacy of Order which St. Peter had above his Fellow Apostles but the Supremacy of power was not in St. Peter but in the Apostolicall College neither is now in the Bishop of Rome but in a Councell of Bishops He saith we maintein a larger Brotherhood then they but never goe about to shew any visible Tye of Government We shew them the same Badge or Cognisance of our Christianity that is the same Creed and the same Discipline or Government that is the same Colours derived down from the Apostles by an uninterrupted Succession The same Doctrine and the same Discipline is Tye enough To take an exact View it is necessary the Organ should be perfect the Medium fit and the Distance convenient if any one of these were Defective in Mr. Rosses View he might well mistake but I may not doe him that wrong to trust your Testimony without citing his words He urgeth If Christ have left any Vnity of Government in his Church and Commanded it to be kept and we have taken a Course to leave no such Vnity then we have rebelled against Christ and his Church and falsly pretend to have him our Spirituall head I admit this now let him Assume But you Protestants have taken a Course to leave no Vnity of Government in the Church which Christ left and Commanded to be kept I deny his Assumtion altogether and he saith not one word to prove it This is his Enthymematicall manner of Arguing He procedeth That to have a Generall Councell for an Ecclesiasticall Head is to confesse that there is no Ordinary Vnity of Government in Gods Church but extraordinary onely when a Councell sits I deny this Proposition altogether and the reason is Evident because besides a Generall Councell which sitteth but rarely neither is it needfull that it should sit often Nisi dignus Vindice nodus inciderit there are particular Councells which in lesser Exigents serve the turn as well as Generall There are Patriarchs and Bishops which are Ordinary and perpetuall In an Aristocracy it is not necessary that the Governours should be evermore actually Assembled In the first three hundred yeares there were no Generall Councells held there was lesse hope of ever holding them then then now yet there was an Ordinary Vnity of Government in Gods Châ—rch in those dayes for which they were not indebted at all to any visible Monarch Bâ—t when a Generall Councell doth sit the Supreme Ecclesiasticall power rests in it He wonders why I should make the King onely a Politicall Head Contrary to our Common Assertion It seemeth that though he hath been bred among us yet he hath not been much versed in our Authors No man that ever understood himself made him otherwise Yet this Politicall Head hath a great Influence upon Ecclesiasticall Causes and persons in the Externall Regiment of the Church He demandeth is there any Orderly Common Tye of Government obliging this Head to Correspond with the other head If not where is the Vnity I answer yes the direction of his Spirituall Guides that is his Bishops and Synods If this Method be so great a Rarity with him it is his own fault He had said more properly to Correspond with the other Heads then Head He saith It is false to say that they have sometimes two or three heads since there can be but one true or rightly chosen Pope True but the Election may be uncertain that no man living can know the true Pope so whether there be three Popes or one Pope and two pretenders yet if the right Pope cannot be made appeare it is all one relatively to the Church If the Trumpet give an uncertain sound who shall prepare himself to the Battell He telleth us further that when the See of Rome is vacant the Headship is
cited the words of St. Bernard to prove that the Pope was not Lord or Maister of other Bishops and the Roman Church a Mother of other Churches not a Lady or Mistresse He distinguisheth between Dominam and Magistram an Imperious proud Lady Mistrisse and a Schoole-Mistresse or Teacheresse Adding that they use the word Magistram in the latter sense So they say no more then we we do acknowledge the Church of Rome to be a Teacheresse and the Pope a Teacher as it is an Apostolicall Church and he an Apostolicall Bishop but all the Question is of the other word Dominum which the Pope taketh to him self as well as Magistrum as we have seen in the Oath of Allegiance which he makes all Bishops to sweare Neither doth St. Bernard oppose proud Imperious Dominion to Gentle Dominion but he contradistinguisheth Dominion to no Dominion and thy self not a Lord of other Bishops but one of them Not a Lord of other Bishops saith St. Bernard A Lord of other Bishops saith the Oath of Fidelity I will be faithfull to our Lord Pope Alexander He urgeth that the Bishop hath brought a Testimony which asserts the Church of Rome to be the Mother of other Churches and so of the Church of England too St. Bernard asserted the Church of Rome to be the Mother of other Churches so did the Bishop but not to be the Mother of all other Churches no more did the Bishop particularly not of the Church of Britain which was ancienter then the Church of Rome and so could not be her daughter Let them prove their right that they are our Mother and we are ready to doe our filiall Duty saving alwayes that Higher duty which we owe to our Mother Paramount the Vniversall Church But neither can they prove their right that they are our Mother neither is that Subjection which they Demand the Subjection due to a particular Mother but to an Vniversall Lord. But Schisme involves in its Notion disobedieÌ„ce c. And so the Bishop concludes the Mother Schismaticall because she is disobedient to her Daughter His first errour is to make the Church of Rome to be our Mother The second to thinke that a Mother may challenge what Obedience she listeth of her Daughter The third that Schisme consisteth altogether in the Disobedience of Subjects Causall Schisme may and doth Ordinarily consist in the unlawfuli Injunctions of Superiours My second reason to convince them as guilty of Schisme was the new Creed set out by Pius the fourth This he calleth a Calumny He cannot speake lower then Calumnies Absurdities Contradictions Falsifications c. A high Calumny to slander them with a matter of truth It is such a Calumny as they will never be able to shake of He referreth the Reader to what he hath said in the first Section and I to my Answer there He saith it is known that each point in that profession of Faith that is the twelve new Articles was held of Faith by the former Church How held of Faith as an Essentiall of Faith And this known to whom to the man in the Moone But here is the maddest Contradiction that ever was and might well have become his Merry Stationer It is a Contradiction to pretend that he Pius the 4. made a new Creed till it be shewn that any of these points was not formerly of Faith and be proved satisfactorily that the Apostles Creed conteined all necessary points of Faith A Contradiction I see many men talke of Robin Hood who never shot in his Bowe talke of Contradictions who know not what they are Observe the equity of these men They Visibly insert 12 new Articles into the Creed and then would put us to prove that they were not of Faith before and that all necessary points of Faith are contained in the Apostles Creed He is resolved to keep two strings to his Bowe and knoweth not which of them to trust to Heare you Sr. If they be Articles of Faith now as you have made them then they were alwayes Articles of Faith and all those were damned which did not believe them but that you dare not say My third Charge of Schisme was because they mainteine the Pope in his Rebellion against Generall Councells Here he distinguisheth between a Schooleman and a Controvertist to no manner of purpose for it is altogether impertinent There is no man who inveigheth so much against wording aÌ„d Quibling as himself and yet the world hath not a greater Worder or Quibler then he is Wherefore to prevent the Readers trouble and mine own and his shifting and flinching and to tye him within his Compasse perforce I made bold to reduce my Argument to a Syllogisticall Forme They who subject a Generall Councell which is the Highest Tribunall of Christians to the Pope are guilty of Schisme But the Pope and Court of Rome with all their mainteiners that is much the Greater part of of their writers doe subject a Generall Councell to the Pope Therefore the Pope and Court of Rome with all their Mainteiners that is the much greater part of their Writers are Guilty of Schisme Here he should have answered Punctually to the Proposition or Assumtion either by denying granting or distinguishing but for all his calling for a Rigorous Demonstrative way he liketh it not because he cannot make such impertinent extravagant excursions as he useth to doe which are the onely help he hath at a dead lift All the Answer he giveth is this He the Bishop is accused of a Contradiction and Nonsense and to cleare himself he telles us he will now lay aside the one part of the Contradiction and endeavour to make good sense of the other To what Proposition to what â—erme doth he apply this answer I see no Contradiction I see no Nonsense in my discourse nor any body living but himself I said no such thing as he pretendeth What doth the man meane by these waves of brainlesse butterd fish by these heterogeneous incoherent Fopperies and Chimaeraes which have no existence but in his own pate If he meane to answer let him doe it clearly like a Schollar since I have found this way to tye him to his matter and restraine his torrent of words I shall put it in practice oftner Yet if I meet with any such thing as is substantiall among his vapouring expressions which hath but the least resemblance of an answer though it be not reduced into Forme I will gleane it out and examine the weight of it Such is this which followeth Was it for this Opinion of the Pope above the Councell c. How were they guilty of Schisme for this unlesse they had denyed you Communion for holding the Contrary or prest upon you an unconscientious approbation of it which you know they did not Foole not your Readers my Lord It was not for this Tenet which you impute to the Court of Rome but for that of the Popes Headship or Spirituall Iurisdiction over all Gods Church held
His Friend Possivine calls him a Virulent Adversary and if ever Mr. Serjeant read him throughly it is ten to one he will change his note Thus much for my Communion with the Eastern Churches it is the same with the Southern and Northern Churches all which doe plead better Tradition then himself Whereas he saith that my Assertion that the Creed conteined all points necessary to be believed is grounded onely upon my falsifying of the Councell of Ephesus he bewrayeth his ignorance both in the Fathers and in his own Authours The Scripture is none of those particular Articles which are necessary to Salvation to be believed but it is the Evidence whereby those Articles are revealed and wherein they are comprehended The Creed was composed before the Canon of Scripture was perfected They have not onely changed from their Ancestours in Opinions but they have changed their own Opinions into necessary Articles of Faith which is worse I denied that the Councell of Trent was a Generall Councell as wanting the requisite Conditions of a Generall Councell which they themselves judge to be necessary The summons ought to have been generall but it was not The great Patriarchs ought to have been present but they were not neither the Patriarchs of Constantinople Alexandria Antioch and Hierusalem nor any of them nor yet the Patriarchs of Armenia Abissina Mosco Mussall c. nor any of them He answereth they had no right to be summoned thither unlesse to be called to the Barre as Delinquents nor to sit there nor are to be accounted Christians It had need to be a large Barre indeed to hold them all Was it ever heard before that a fifth part of a Councell did call foure parts to the Barre Their Ancestours had right to be summoned to a Generall Councell and to sit and vote there as well as the best how have their posterity lost this right Had they been heard and condemned in a Generall Councell No. But he urgeth what need hearing when themselves in the Face of the whole world publickly confessed and maintaine their imputed fault How what needed hearing O Iust Iudge He that giveth a right Sentence yet if he give it without hearing is an unrighteous Iudge They confessed their imputed Fault but did they confesse it to be a Fault No I warrant you he can not say it for shame Or how should they confesse it in the Face of the whole Christian world They are the Christian world themselves and your Roman world is but a Microcosme in comparison of them The case is so evident and notorious that no man can doubt of it The Continent hath not left St. Peters Boat but St. Peters Boat hath left the Continent The Innovation or swerving from Apostolicall Tradition was not in the Christian world but in the Court of Rome who would have advanced their Aristocraticall power to a Soveraign Monarchicall power but the Christian world would not give way to it if this were an errour in them all their Ancestours were guilty of it as well as they But the Court of Rome being conscious to themselves that they were the Innovators to free themselves from feare of being censured by the Christian World adventured to give the first blow by censuring the whole Christian world it self This was a Bolder Act then that of Pope Victor which Irenaeus misliked so much He will never leave his Socraticall manner of disputing by Questions what certain Rule have we to know what Sects are of she Church Although I needed not yet I have answered this demand formerly All those are of the Church who weare the Badge and Cognisance of Christians that is the Apostles Creed as it is explicated by the foure first Generall Councells as all those Churches doe and have not been cast out of the Church by the Sentence of a Generall Councell as none of these Churches have no nor yet by the Sentence of the Roman Church it self if we may trust the Bishop of Chalcedons Survey cap. 8. Neither doth the Roman Church excommunicate all the Christians of Affrick Asia Greece and Russia but onely such as doe vincibly or sinfully erre He addeth that there are innumerable who are not formall Hereticks but onely Hereticis Credentes These continue good Christians still and are Churches still and ought not to be excluded froÌ„ Generall Councells though supposed to be materially in an errour much lesse being innocent and in no Heresy or Schisme either formall or Materiall I pleaded that though it were true that all the other Patriarchs were such Materiall Hereticks yet of all others they ought especially to have been summoned The reason is evident because they that are sick have more need of the Physitian then they that are in health Hence he inferreth that it is more necessary that Hereticks be called to a Generall Councell then Orthodox Fathers Not so both are necessary the one to Cure the other to be cured but the especiall Consideration or end of a Councell is for those that erre that they may be reduced I said the Pope hath not that Authority over a Generall Councell that the King hath over a Parliament He answereth that he is so plaine a man that he understandeth not what the Authority of King or Parliament signifies I will help him The King may dissolve a Parliament when he pleaseth so may not the Pope a Generall Councell against their wills If the King dye by whose writ it was called the Parliament is dissolved so is not a Generall Councell by death of the Pope The King hath a Negative voice in Parliament so hath not the Pope in a Generall Councell I urged that the Protoâ—patriarchs are not known or condemned Rebells He answereth first this is onely said againe not proved He is alwaies stumbling upon the same Block It doth not belong to me to prove they were not condemned but to himself who accuseth them to shew when and where they where condemned Secondly he answereth that their Errours have been condemned by Councells and for the most part some of their own party being present But the condemning of their errours is no sufficient warrant for the excluding of their persons out of Generall Councells Neither were these Councells Generall Councells or such as had any Iurisdiction over the Protopatriarchs Moreover they condemne Papall Errours as well as he condemneth their Errours whether is more Credit to begiven to the Pope in his own cause charging all the Patriarchs in the world or to all the other Patriarchs in the world unanimously condemning his Vsurpations in the name of the Catholick Church He demands whether there might not be a Parliament of England without having the fifth part of the Members found in that Councell and yet be a lawfull Parliament I think there might if the absence of all the rest proceeded from their own neglect but not if it proceeded from want of Summons as the absence of the Protopatriarchs did He bids me rub up my memory he believes
I will find an English Law that sixty Members is a sufficient number to make a lawfull Parliament I have done his Commands and I know no such law nor he neither and then he must be a very confident man to cite such a Law Perhaps he hath heard of some Ordinance of the House of Commons how many members at the least must be present at doing of some inferiour Acts but neither is this Ordinance an English Law â—or that House an English Parliament He saith I excepted against the superproportioned multitude of Members out of one Province which never lawfull Parliament had Superproportioned indeed where there were double the Number of Italian Bishops to all the other Bishops of the Christian world this is no equall representative and these assembled thither not to dispute as he fancieth vainly but meerly to overvote the Tramontanes A few Bishops had sufficed to relate the Beliefe or Tradition of Italy as well as the rest of the world but that had not sufficed to doe the Popes worke that was to overswey the rest of the Christian world with his Superproportioned multitude of Italian Bishops He saith perhaps I will pretend that had the Catholick Bishops out of their Provinces been there they would have voted against their Fellow Catholicks in behalf of Luther and Calvin which were a wise answer I heed not much what he calleth wise or foolish I doe not onely pretend but I see clearly that If the Bishops of other Countries had been proportioned to those of Italy they had carried the Debate about Residence and the Divine right of Episcopacy and that had done the bâ—sinesse of the Western Church and undone the Court of Rome But he quite omitteth the most materiall part of my Discourse concerning his resemblance between a Parliament and a Generall Councell That the absence of whole Provinces and the much greater part of the Provinces either of England or of Christendome for want of due Summons doth disable such a Parliament or such a Councell from being a Generall Representative of the whole He might even as well say that an Assembly of the Peers and Burgesses of Wales upon Summons without any appearance or summons of all the rest of the Kingdome of England was a lawfull Parliament of all England as say the Councell of Trent was a Generall Representative of the Christian world which was never summoned I proved that the Councell of Trent was no Generall Councell because it was not Generally received no not among the Occidentall Churches particularly by the Church of France in point of Discipline He answereth that notwithstanding They acknowledge it to be a lawfull Generall Councell and receive it in all Determinations belonging to Faith Adding that the Disciplinarian Lawes of a Generall Councell doe bind particular Countries onely in due Circumstances and according to their Conveniences But the Contrary is most apparent that Councells truly Generall being the Supreme Tribunalls of the Catholick Church doe bind particular Churches as well in point of Discipline as of Faith The Generall Councells of Constantinople and Chalcedon did set the See of Constantinople before AlexaÌ„dria and Antioch And equall it to Rome notwithstanding the Popes Opposition What OpinioÌ„ the King and Church of France had of the Councell of Trent in those Dayes appeareth by the solemne Protestation of the French Ambassadour made in the Councell in the name of his Master and the French Church that seeing all things were done at Rome rather then at Trent and the decrees there published were rather the decres of Pius the fourth then of the Councell of Trent We denounce said he and protest before you all that whatsoever things are decreed and published in this Assembly by the mere will and pleasure of Pope Pius neither the most Christian King will ever approve nor the French Church ever acknowledge to be the decrees of a Generall Councell That the Councell of Trent was not a free Councell I proved first by the Testimony of Sleidan secondly by the bitter complaint of the Fathers in the Councell of Trent that it was guided by the Spirit sent from Rome in a Male thirdly by the Popes creating â—ot onely new Bishops but new Bishopricks in the time of the Councell to make his party able to overvote their Opposers To the first he saith that Sleidan was a notorious lying Authonr of our own side Who fitter to relate the Grievances of the Protestants then a Protestant which he did not say in a Corner but published to the world in print when they might have refuted it if they could To the second he answereth that it was a jeering expression Yes it was biting as well as jeering Ridiculum acri Fortius melius magnas plerumque secat res The French Ambassador whom he thought to passe by in silence did not jeere yet he said the same thing in sad earnest To my third Argument he saith â—t is nothing to the purpose How nothing to the purpose for the Pope when his affaires were going retrograde and his party like to be overvoted to create new Bishopricks to ordaine new Bishops and pack them away presently to the Councell to assist his party and by that means to gaine a plurality of Voices Is this nothing to the purpose in his Opinion It may be he thinkes that Italy had not Bishops enough there yet they had two thirds of the Councell before or that these new Bishops did understand the Tradition and Beliefe of Italy better then all the rest If it be his mind to wave the Popes Patriarchall power I am contented otherwise his proofe will not weigh much unlesse we admit strangers who know little or nothing of our Privileges more then we know the Cyprian Privilege before the Councell of Ephesus to be competeÌ„t judges and will interpret a Western Patriarch to be the onely Patriarch of all the west The Archbishop of Yorke is Primate of EnglaÌ„d and yet all England is not subject to his Iurisdiction Forfeiture and Quitting are two distinct Charges an Office is Forfeited by abuse and quitted by assuming a new Office inconsistent with the former as I have shewed the Papacy and a Patriarchate that is a Soveraign and Subordinate power to be But a Patriarchate and a Bishoprick being both subordinate to a Generall Councell are not inconsistent and much lesse the Office of a King and Master of a Family the one being Politicall the other Oeconomicall But an Vniversall Monarchy by divine right and the Presidency of a Particular Province by Humane right are inconsistent I gave him my reasons for it and he taketh no notice of them He excepteth against my styling Patriarchall Authority a Patriarchall Aristocraticall dignity which he calleth my thrice repeated non sense It is well he did not make it a Contradiction His reason is because a Patriarchaâ—e is a Government by one an Aristocracy by many The answer is Obvious and easy a Patriarch is a Monarch in the Government