Against the Revolt to A Foreign Jurisdiction Which would be to England its PERJURY CHVRCH-RVINE and SLAVERY In Two Parts I. The History of Mens Endeavors to introduce it II. The Confutation of all Pretences for it Fully stating the Controversie and Proving That there is no Soveraign Power of Legislation Judgment and Execution over the whole Church on Earth Aristocratical or Monarchical but only Christ Especially against the Aristocratists who place it in a Council or College By RICHARD BAXTER an Earnest Desirer of the Churches Concord and therefore an Enemy to all false Terms and Dividing Engines and Self-exalting Sects and a Defender of Christ's own assigned Terms which take in all the true Christians in the World and are Injurious or Cruel to none To be offered to the next Convocation beseeching them to own the Doctrine of Foreign Communion but to note with Renunciation the Doctrine of Foreign Jurisdiction and to Vindicate the Reformed Church of England from the Guilt and Suspition which the French and Innovators injuriously seek to fasten on them Luk. 22.24 25 26. And there was a strife among them which of them should be accounted the Greatest And he said to them The Kings of the Gentiles exercise Lordship over them and they that exercise Authority upon them are called Benefactors But ye shall not be so but he that is greatest among you let him be as the Younger and he that is chief as he that doth serve 1 Thess. 5.12 We beseech you Brethren to know them which labour among you and are over you in the Lord and admonish you 13. And to esteem them very highly in love for their work sake and be at Peace among your selves London Printed for Tho. Parkhurst at the Bible and 〈◊〉 Crowâ—â— at the lower end of Cheapfiâ—â— near Mercers Chapel 1691. To the Reverend and deservedly Honoured Dr. JOHN TILLOTSON Dean of St. Paul's Church Reverend Sir THE Message on which this Epistle cometh to you is to intreat you to Present this Treatise to the next Convocation and to endeavour their publick renunciation of Foreign Jurisdiction and their censure of the Books that are written here for it The Reasons of my request are I. The Canons condemn them that deny the Convocation to be the Church of England Representative And they that have written for and promoted this Doctrine and Design have not only been Chief Men in the Church but have laboured to fasten their Doctrine on the Church which yet before the time of Bishop Laud the Church disclaimed and openly condemned and took Foreign Bishops and Councils for Brethren and a laudable means of Communion while they did their proper work but not by Jurisdiction to be the Governours of us and all Christian Kings and Kingdoms as their Subjects And who can be Ignorant that when at the present the Papist Bishops are very Many to One Protestant Bishop they will accordingly carry it by their Votes in Councils And if the Major Vote be the Collegium Pastorum that have the Chief Government in the Interval of Councils we are now Subjects to the Bishops and Church of Rome And if 〈◊〉 Roman Petrus Primus must call the next Council or there must be none till all Christian Kings agree to call it the present College is like to be long the Universal Aristocracy The Representative Church of England is so nearly concerned in this great Matter both for the moment of it and the imputation of this Design unto it that we cannot think they will lightly pass it by without their censure Which will be the more expected because of the Owning of Dr. Beveridge's Sermon to them which I have here examined Dr. Whitby's Reconciler of Protestants escaped not the Oxford censure and we hope the Representative Church of England will not be more favourable to Subjection which is more than Reconciling to the Foreign Papists Lest they cherish the Suspicion that the desire of so much Concord with France in Church Constitution and Government will intimate a preparation to another Relation to them which England cannot bear with ease And we are loth to be disabled to confute the Separatists that will never be reconciled to the Church of England if they can say that it is revolted to a Subjection to the Papists But why should we doubt whether the Convocation will renounce that which both themselves and all the Church and Kingdom are Sworn against even all Ecclesiastical Foreign Jurisdiction II. The Reasons why I presume to desire you to be the Man that shall present this Book and Motion to them Are 1. Because it is said that Custom maketh the Dean of Pauls usually to be chosen the Prolocutor to the Lower House I speak but by hearsay having never been one of them For the Clergy of London choosing Mr. Calamy and Me for their Clerks of that Convocation that made the Materials of the late differencing Impositions Bishop Sheldon by Prerogative excluded us to our great Ease and so the City of London consented not by their Clerks to any of those Acts. 2. And you are the Man that Published that Excellent Book of Dr. Isaac Barrow which unanswerably against Mr. Thorndike and such others confuted the Pretences to a Foreign Jurisdiction 3. And you are known to be so firm a Friend to Love Concord and Peace like your Father in Law Bishop Wilkins who once by appointment treated and agreed with us in a Vniting Form of Concord that I may confidently expect your best Assistance If any should be so adverse to this Necessary Work as to turn it off by diverting to Accusation against me or the Nonconformists I pray tell them how impertinent that is to the present Business And if it be needful shew them my Treatise for National Churches and that of Episcopacy and my English Nonconformity stated and argued And whereas I am said to have refused a Bishoprick because I was against Episâ—opacy be it known that in 1661 â—he Pacificators never offered any â—hing lower than Archbishop Vsher's Model of the Primitive Episcopacy â—nd when the King's Declaration â—anted us less we Published a â—hankful Acceptance And I gave 〈◊〉 Writing the Reasons of my Refusal to the Lord Chancellor Hyde That If that Declaration were Confirmed by a Law I would be no Bishop because I would not disable my self to perswade as many as I could to Conformity by drawing them to say that I did it for my own Ends. Which Answer satisfied the Lord Chancellor I think every Bishoprick in England hath Buried many of its Bishops since my refusal who am now near Dying in the 76th Year of a Painful Life and intreat you though I be Dead to do this Office for the Endangered Church of England and for your truly honouring Brother Ri. Baxter TO THE READER THis Book being Written at several times most of it many Years ago and some lately and answering many Persons who use the same Arguments it hath one blemish which I am ashamed of in
the review that is The too oft repeating the same things especially in my four Letters to Bishop Guning occasioned by our oft repeating them in Conference The thing is usual in long Disputations as in the Schoolmen in Dr. Twisse Vind. Grat. and such others the Adversary making it needful But I am far from justifying it Had I intended it as one orderly Treatise at first and not written the Parts on several Occasions or had I yet Time and Strength to have cast it into a more regular shape it might have been partly amended But I had rather it came out thus than not at all Whoever is displeased at it by guilt or different judgment I will please my Conscience whose Peace I find possible and quietting while such Mens hath been neither hitherto to me I know that Age and Natural Weakness hath been part of the Cause of my forgetting oft that I had written the same before But while I confess this Infirmity I will tell the Reader two Stories for his use of it I read in a great Man that oft repeating in the Pulpit the same thing was a sign to the Hearers that their Teacher spake not crudely and rashly that he had never digested or well studied nor light things that he valued not but that which he thought necessary and had long considered I heard of a Preacher that would needs have his Servant tell him what Men said of his Preaching And being urged but loth he said They say Sir that you very often repeat the same things And to tell you the truth I think it is too true For the last Day you repeated that which you had said divers Days before Saith his Master Tell me what it was He Paused a while and said I remember not the words now Saith his Master Didst thou so understand them as to tell me the Matter and meaning of them But he could tell neither Nay then saith his Master I will repeat them yet again for thy sake and such as thou art Till they are understood and remembred I have not said them oft enough God be merciful to us Sinners THE CONTENTS Of the First Part. AN Historical Preface Chap. I. The Protestant Church of England is against all Humane Vniversal Soveraignty Monarchical and Aristocratical and against all Foreign Jurisdiction Chap. II. This whole Kingdom and Church is sworâ— against all Foreign Jurisdiction and against all Endeavours to alter the Government and must not be Perjured Chap. III. What Endeavours were used by Papists to bring England under a Foreign Jurisdiction in King James's time The Bishop of Ambrun and others wrong him Chap. IV. Of the Papists Endeavours in K. Charles time and the great Injury they did him especially the Irish. Maimburgh Declaration of the Dutchess of York Chap. V. The Foreign Leaders of the English Conciliators who are for a Foreign Jurisdiction Gerson for the sufficiency of Christ's Law to rule the Church Chap. VI. Grotius's Judgment in his own words Chap. VII The several sorts of Peace-makers about Popish Controversies Chap. VIII The Doctrine of Archbishop Bromhall defending Grotius Chap. IX The Judgment of Archbishop Laud as delivered 1. By Dr. Heylin 2. By himself Chap. X. Dr. Peter Heylin's own Judgment Chap. XI The Judgment of Mr. Herbert Thorndike Chap. XII The Judgment of Dr. Sparrow Bishop of Norwich and divers others Chap. XIII Bishop Sam. Parker's Judgment Chap. XIV Dr. Saywell's Arguments for a Foreign Jurisdiction considered Chap. XV XVI XVII XVIII Four Letters to Bishop Guning about a Foreign Jurisdiction Chap. XIX Mr. H. Dodwell's Leviathan again Anatomized and his Second Part considered called A Discourse for One Altar and One Priesthood Chap. XX. Of Dean Th. Pierce and Dr. Hamâ—nd cited by him Chap. XXI That this sort of Prelatists who have been for a Coalition with the French or Roman Church have been the great Agents of all the Diâ—iding Silencing Persecuting Laws which have brought and kept us these 27 Years in our lacerate staâ—e Chap. XXII How they have been stopt and what Danger there is yet of them Chap. XXIII Postscript against Dr. Beveridge's Convocation Sermon An Historical Prologue as a Key to understand our English Differences § I. IT is a dreadful Instance of the sottish deceivableness of Mankind that one of the most happy Kingdoms on Earth should be almost consumed by their own hands in Divisions infamous through the World and that to this very day the Cause and Matter of them is not known except by the contrivers among our selves by such who madly continue the Divisions Nor is it known who is in the fault but they strive on accusing one another And it 's one of the saddest notices in this World that studious Learned Pastors that are grown old in Studies and profess all to be devoted to Truth and Love are so far from having skill and will to heal us that they are the men that cause the wound and keep â—t open and are greater hinderers of our Concord and Peace than Princes Lords or any Seculars And what one judgeth the certain Cause of the Worlds Divisions another as confidently judgeth the only way to heal them And both sides confess while they lay it on each other that it is the Clergy that are the deadliest Enemies of Peace § II. It is not the noise of Drums and Trumpets which tells an Army the causes of the War The Masters of the War can chuse their own Trumpeters and talk loudest of that which they would have divert men from the true cause Episcopacy and Liturgy and Ceremonies and Conformity are the things that make the greatest noise But Jewel Bilson Hooker c. differed not about these nor Sir Edwin Sandys the Author of Europae Speculum Nor the English Clergy and Parliaments in Bishop Abbots days who were of their mind when the Differences began to rise and threaten us § III. It 's certain that the fundamental universal Quarrel through the World is between the followers of Cain and Abel the Serpents and the Womans Seed or the Servants of Satan and of Christ For the carnal mind is enmity to God and neither is nor can be subject to his Law Selfishness is the sum of wickedness and Holiness of Moral good Uniting in one God is possible and safe But to the selfish there are as many Religions and Ways as sandy self-interest requireth Good men will do good and bad men will do evil under every Form of Government Because Great-Good men are so rare to keep Bad men from doing hurt is not the smallest use of Laws Good men of different Opinions can live in Love and Peace I never knew any called Puritanes who did not love and honour such Conformists as Bishop Jewel A. Bishop Grindal A. Bishop Abbot A. Bishop Vsher Bishop Davenant and many such and such as Mr. Bolton Dr. Sibbs Dr. Preston Mr. Whateley and all such other yea while they wrote against some of them as Bishop Morton Hall Downame
Master of a Colledge in Cambridge whom I take for his Mouth being himself present hath published what he would have the World to believe of our Discourse in a Book against me for Universal Jurisdiction And therefore he hath put some necessity on me to publish the Truth which I am confident will not be to the Readers loss of time who will peruse it When I had sent him my Book of Concord he sent me Dr. Saywell's first by Dr. Crowther of which I wrote to him my sence On this he desired me to come speak with him which having done three several days I thought it meet at Night to Recollect our Discourse and send him the Sum of all in Letters that neither he might forget it or any Man misrepresent it These four Letters I have therefore here annexed and with them an answer to Dr. Saywell's Reasons for a Forreign Jurisdiction XXIV I am so far from charging the Church of England with the guilt of this Doctrine or Design that I prove that the Church of England is utterly against it But then by that Church I do not mean any Men that can get heighth and confidence enough to call themselves the Church of England but those that adhere to the Articles of Religion the Doctrine Worship and Government by Law Established XXV And I am so far from uncharitable Censures of the Men whom I thus confute that I profess that I believe Mr. Thorndike Bishop Guning Mr. Dodwell c. to be Men that do what they do in an Erroneous Zeal for Unity and Government and are Men of great Labour Learning and Temperance and Religious in their way And I have the same Charity and Honour for many French Papists yea for such Papal Flatterers as Baronius who joyned with Philip Nerius in his first Oratorian Exercises and Conventicles Yea I cannot think that they that burn and torment Men for Religion could live in quietness if they did not confidently think that it is an acceptable Service to God And I fear not still to profess that were it in my power I would have no hurt done to any Papist which is not necessary to our own defence But I must say that I much more honour such as Gerson Ferus Espencaeus Monlucius Erasmus Vives Cassander Hospitalius Thuanus c. who among Papists drew nearer the Reformers than such among us as having better Company and Helps draw fromward them and nearer to the Deformers XVI And as to you Reverend Brethren Conformists who are true to the True Church of England I humbly crave of you but three things I. That you will by hard study and Ministerial diligence and holiness of life keep up to your power the common Interest of Christianity of Faith and serious Piety and Charity II. That you will heartily promote the Concord of all godly Protestants and therein follow such measures as Christ himself hath given us and as you would have others use towards you III. That you will openly and faithfully disown the dangerous Errour of Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty and bringing the King and Church and Kingdom under any Forreign Jurisdiction Monarchical Aristocratical or Mixt and never stigmatize the Church of England and your sacred Order with the odious brand of Persidiousness after so many Imposed and Received Subscriptions Professions and Oaths against all Endeavours to alter the Government of Church or State XVII And as to the Nations fears of future Popish Soveraignty for my part I meddle no further than 1. To do the work of my own Office and Day 2. And to pray hard for the Nations Preservation 3. And to trust God and hope that he will perfect his wonders in such a deliverance as shall confirm our belief of his special care and providence for his Church But I must tell you that such Reasons as Bishop Gunings Chaplains should not be thought strong enough to make you so secure as to abate the fervour of your prayers His words are these more congruous far to him than to you and me page 282 283. The only means that is left to preserve our Nation from destruction and to secure us from the danger of Popery is to suppress all Conventicles c. Being by this method provided against having our People seduced by the Papists which as yet they are in great danger of the next thing is to consider how to prevent violence that those be not murdered and undone that cannot be perswaded to submit Now to secure this His Majestes gracious promises to conform any Bills that were thought necessary to preserve the Established Religion that did not intrench on the Succession of the Crown do make the way very easie if our People were united among themselves and in the Religion of the Church of England For matters may be so ordered that all Officers Ecclesiastical Civil and Military and all that are employed in Power and Authority of any kind be persons both of known Loyalty to the Crown and yet faithful Sons of the Church and firm to the Established Religion And the Laws that they act by may be so explained in favour of those that Conform to the Publick Worship and the discouragement of all Dissenters that we must reasonably be secure from any violence that the Papists can offer to force our submission For when All our Bishops and Clergy are under strict Obligations and Oaths and the People are guided by them and all Officers Civil and Military are firm to the same Interest and under severe penalties if they act any thing to the contrary Then what probable danger can there be of any violence or disturbance to force us out of our Religion when all things are thus secured and the Power of External Execution is generally in the hands of men of our own Perswasion Nay moreover the Prince himself will by his Coronation Oath be obliged to maintain the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom so Established I am not of a Calling fit to debate the Reasons of these Reverend Fathers some will read them with a Plaudite some with a Ridete some with a Cavete and I with an Orate And he that will abate the fervour of his prayers by such securing words is one whose Prayers England is not much beholden to The words with all their designs are edifying as Diagnostick and Prognostick I only say Seeing we receive a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 29. March 28. 1682. Chap. I. The Protestant Church of England is against all Humane Vniversal Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical and so against all Forreign Church Jurisdiction I Prove this I. From the Oath of Supremacy which saith thus I do utterly testifie and declare in my Conscience That the King's Highness is the only Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countreys as well in all
Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal And that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have ANY JURISDICTION Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forreign Jurisdiction Priviledges Preheminence and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Successors or united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Here all the Kingdom swears That none have or ought to have any Jurisdiction here who is Forreign Yet some Papists have been encouraged to take this Oath by this Evasion Obj. No Jurisdiction is here disclaimed of Forreigners but what belongs to the King But Spiritual Jurisdiction called the Power of the Keys belongs not to the King Ergo. Ans. For securing the King's Jurisdiction All Forreign Jurisdiction is renounced signifying that there is no such thing as a Jurisdiction over this Realm but the King 's and his Officers The Power of the Keys or Spiritual Power is not properly a Jurisdiction as that word includeth Legislation but only a Preaching of Christ's Laws and administring his Sacraments and judging of mens capacity for Communion according to those Laws of Christ And this under the Coercive Government of the King Much like that of a Tutor in a Colledge or a Physician in his Hospital What can be more expresly said than this here that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate have or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm Is that of Pope or Councils neither Ecclesiastical nor Spiritual Is not the word Prelate purposely put in to exclude that Power hence which Prelates claim Though the King claim not the Power of the Keys he knew that by the claim of that Power the Pope and Councils of Forreigners had been the disturbers of his Government And therefore all theirs here is excluded as a necessary means to secure his own 1. Popes and Councils have claimed a Legislative Power over us and all the Church But the Laws of this Land know no such but in Christ over all and in King and Parliament under him over this Land And therefore the Oath excludeth the Power claimed by Popes and Councils 2. As to Judicial Power these Forreigners claim a Power of Judging who in England shall be taken for a true Bishop and Minister who shall have Tythes Church-Lands and Temples whether the Kings Lords and all Subjects shall be judged capable of Church-Communion or be Excommunicate And our Laws declaring that all this Forreign Claim is Usurpation fully proveth that it was the sense of the Oath to exclude them They claim also a Power of Judging who shall pass here for Orthodox and who for Hereticks And in their Laws the consequence is who shall be burned for a Heretick or be exterminated or after Excommunication deposed from their Dominions and their Subjects absolved from their Allegiance But certainly the Oath excludeth them from all this The most of the Papists claim no Power directly due to their Pope but that which they call Ecclesiastical or Spiritual the rest is but by consequence and in ordine ad Spiritualia But if this be not excluded in the Oath then they intended not to exclude the Papacy And then what was the Oath made for or what sense hath it or what use And who can believe this If the meaning of the Oath be not to exclude the Pope's Ecclesiastical Power then they that take it may yet hold that the Pope is Head of all the Churches on Earth and hath the Authority to call and dissolve and approve or reprobate General Councils and may Ordain Bishops for England and his Ordinations and his Missionaries be here received and Appeals made to him and Obedience sworn to him his Excommunications Indulgences imposed Penances Silencings Absolutions Prohibitions here received All which our Statutes Articles Canons c. shew notoriously to be false It is evident therefore that this Oath renounceth all Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction II. The second proof is from many Acts of Parliament Those which prohibit all that receive Orders beyond Sea from the Pope or any Papists to come into England on pain of death Those that forbid the Doctrine Worship and Discipline both of Popes and Councils The words of 25 H. 8. c. 21. are these Whereas this Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but the King hath been and is free from Subjection to any man's Laws but only such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the wealth thereof or to such other as the People of this Realm have taken at their free liberty by their own consent to be used among them and have bound themselves by long use and custom to the observance of the same not to the observance of the Laws of any Forreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the accustomed and antient Laws of this Realm originally Established as Laws of the same by the said sufferance consent and custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural equity and good reason c. that they may abrogate them c. Moreover the Laws of England determine that no Canons are here obligatory or are Laws unless made such by King and Parliament And if it be true which Heylin and some others say that the Pope's Canon-Laws are all here in force still except those that are contrary to some Laws of the Realm that is but as the Roman Civil Law is in force not as a Law of the Pope or old Romans but as made Laws to us by King and Parliament The Roman Senate and Emperor give us the Matter of the Civil Law and the Pope and Councils of the Canon-Law but the Soveraign Power here giveth them the Form of a Law as the King coineth Forreign Silver III. The Articles of Religion prove the same 1. The twenty first Article saith General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not governed by the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometime have erred even in things pertaining to God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the Holy Scriptures Here note 1. That General Councils so called in the Empire had no power to meet much less to Rule without the Commandment of Princes And so those called by the Emperor had no power over the Subjects of other Princes 2. And true Universal Councils will never be Lawfully called till either all the Earth have One Humane Monarch or all the Heathen Infidel Mahometan Papist Heretical and Protestant Princes agree to call them For one hath not Power over the Dominions of all the rest And so the Aristocratical Party put the
whole Church under an impossible and non-existent unifying and governing Power 3. That which may be proved a Duty out of God's Word was such before any Pope or Council made Laws for it So that if their Commands herein are any more than declarative and subservient to God's Laws as the Crying of a Proclamation or as a Justices Warrant God hath forestalled them by his Laws and theirs come too late And if all the Power that Councils or Bishops have as to Legislation be to make Laws unnecessary to Salvation it were to be wished they had never made those that are hinderances to Salvation and set the Churches together by the Ears and have divided them these 1200 Years and more Surely our English Canons 5 6 7 8 which Excommunicate so many faithful Christians do much hinder Salvation if they be not necessary to it But it 's apparent that they take their Laws to be necessary to Salvation 1. Who say All are Schismaticks that obey them not and that such Schismaticks are Mortal Sinners in a state of Damnation They that make their Canonical Obedience necessary to avoid Schism and that necessary to Salvation make the said Canonical Obedience necessary to Salvation But c. 2. And one would think that they that torment and burn Men and silence Ministers for not obeying their Canons made them necessary to Salvation The 34th Article saith That every Particular or National Church hath Authority to Ordain Change or Abolish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained only by Man's Authority so that all things be done to edifying And if so they that may abolish the Rites ordained by General Councils or Popes are not their Subjects nor is this Power of making and abolishing Rites reserved to them nor can they deprive any National or Particular Church of this their own Power The 36th Article saith That The Book of Consecration of Arch-Bishops Bishops and Ordaining of Priests c. doth Contain all things necessary thereto But nothing in that Book doth make it necessary that English Bishops or Priests receive their Power or Office from any Foreigners Pope Council or Bishops which yet must be necessary if they be their Subjects The 37th Article saith That Though the Queen hath not the Power of administring the Word and Sacraments yet she is not nor ought not to be subject to any foreign Jurisdiction And that the Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England And if so then he hath no Patriarchal Jurisdiction here nor have foreign Councils any IV. King Edw. 6. Injunctions say That No manner of Obedience or Subjection is due to the Bishop of Rome within this Realm Therefore not as to a Patriarch President or Principium Vnitatis V. Queen Elizabeth's Injunctions say No manner of Obedience or Subjection is due to any such foreign Power And Admonit No other foreign Power shall or ought to have any Authority over them VI. The Reformatio Legum Ecclesiast c. 9 10 11.14 15. are full proof There the Reformers professing reverence to the 4 first General Councils as holding sound Doctrine add Quibus tamen non aliter fidem nostram obligandam esse censemus nisi quateâ—us ex S. Scripturis confirmari possint Nam concilia nonnulla interdum errasse contraria inter se desinivisse partim in actionibus juris partim etiam in fide manifestum est Itaque legantur Concilia quidem cum honore Christiana reverentia sed interim ad Scripturarum piam certam rectamque regulam examinentur C. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta ut tamen ex eorum Sententia de Sacris Literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Doctrinae Christianae regulae esse judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum honoris sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit Et de Haeres c. 1. Illorum intolerabilis est error qui totius Christiani orbis universam Ecclesiam solius Episcopi Romani principatu contineri volunt Nos enim eam quae cerni potest Ecclesiam sic definimus ut omnium coetus sit fidelium hominum in quo S. Scriptura sincerè docetur Sacramenta saltem his eorum partibus quae necessaria sunt juxta Christi praescriptum administrnetur Et de Judic Cont. Haeres c. 1. Appellatio reo conceditur ab Episcopo ad Archiepiscopum ab Archiepiscopo aâ— Regiam personam but no further Vid. de Eccles. c. 10. de Episc. Potestate Et pag. 190. Rex tam in Archiepiscopos Episcopos Clericos alias Ministros quà m in Laicos intra sua regna dominia plenissimam jurisdictionem tam civilem quà m Ecclesiasticam habet exercere potest Cum omnis Jurisdictio tum Ecclesiastica tum secularis ab eo tanquam ex uno eodem fonte derivantur Et de Appell c. 11. There 's no Appeal to any above or beyond the King judging by a Provinâ—ial Council or Select Bishops Though the King died before these were made Laws they tell us the Church of England's since VII To save transcribing I desire the Reader â—o peruse that notable Letter of King Henry the â—th to the Archbishop of York It is the first in the second Part of the Caballa of Letters well worth the reading to our purpose VIII The Liturgy for Nov. 1. called the Pope Antichrist And the Homilies to the same since And the Convocation in Ireland Art 8. 1615. So doth the Parliament of England in the Act â—or the Subsidy 3 Jacobi of the Clergy And â—ure they that took him for Antichrist thought 〈◊〉 not that as Pope or Patriarch he had any ruling â—ower here IX The Apology of the Church of England â—n Jewel's Works ordered to be kept in all the â—arish Churches saith Pag. 708. Of a truth even those greatest Councils and where most Assemblies of People ever were whereof these Men use to make such exceeding reckoning compare them with all the Churches which throughout the World acknowledge and profess the Name of Christ and what else I pray you can they seem to be but certain Private Councils of Bishops and Provincial Synods For admit peradventure Italy France Spain England Germany Denmark Scotland met together If there want Asia Greece Armenia Persia Media Mesopotamia Egypt Ethiopia India Mauritania in all which Places there be both many Christians and many Bishops how can any Man being in his right Mind think such a Council to be a General Council Pag. 629. It 's proved that Councils have been so factious and tyrannical that good Men have justly refused to come at them Pag. 593. But the Gospel hath been carried on without and against Councils and Councils been against the Truth And Jewel Pag. 486.
sheweth that Councils have been against Councils and the Arrian Hereticks had more Councils than the Christians and sheweth their uncertainty Pag. 19. As to the Authority of Councils Augustine saith Ipsa plenaria Concilia saepe Priora ◠posterioribus emandantur And of the Succession and Ordination of Bishops he saith Pag. 131. If there were not one of them that turned from Popery or of us left alive yet would not therefore the whole Church of England fly to Lovaine Tertullian saith Nonne Laici sacerdotes sumus Ubi Ecclesiastici Ordinis non est Consessus offert tingit sacerdos qui est solus Sed ubi tres sunt Ecclesia est licet Laici And frequently he saith The Church is found among few as well as among many And he was for Lay Mens Baptizing X. The first Canon commandeth Preachers Four times a Year to declare That All usurped foreign Power forasmuch as the same hath no Establishment nor Ground by the Law of God is for most just Causes taken away and abolished And that therefore No manner of Obedience or Subjection within His Majesties Realms and Dominions is due to any such foreign Power The 12th Canon Excommunicateth ipso facto any that shall affirm That it is lawful for any 〈◊〉 of Ministers to joyn together and make 〈◊〉 Orders or Constitutions in Causes Ecclesiastical without the King's Authority and shall submit themselves to be ruled and governed by them Therefore none may go beyond Sea to Councils without his Authority And the Canons of Foreigners are not to be made a Rule without his Authority And is not other Princes Authority as necessary in their Dominions The Canon which bids Prayer 55th describeth Christ's holy Catholick Church to be the whole Congregation of Christian People dispersed throughout the whole World But such a Church hath no Legislative or Judicial Power XI The Controversie is about an Article of Faith I believe the holy Catholick Church The Humanists say It is an universal Political Society Governed by one humane Supream Monarch Aristocracy or mixt under Christ. Protestants say It hath no universal supream Ruler but Christ. Now the Generality of Protestant English and transmarine who write on the Creed expound this Article accordingly in the Protestant sence as he that will peruse their Books may find which sheweth what is the sence of the Church of England XII Though King Edw. VI. was but a Youth when he wrote his sharp Book against Popery lately printed It sheweth what his Tutors and the Clergy of his time who were called the Church then thought of these Matters XIII If the Parliaments of England all the days of Queen Elizabeth King James and King Charles I. and II. knew what was the Doctrine of the Church of England about a Forreign Jurisdiction it is easie to gather it in their Votes and Acts. Let him that would know whether they were for a Coalition with the French on such terms read Sir Simon Dewes Journals Rushworths Collections or Prins Introduction ad annum 1621. or any other true Historian and he will see how far they were from owning any Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction But the contrary minded would make the World believe that all these Parliaments were of some Sect differing from the Church of England But what call they the Church of England but that part of the Clergy who conform to the Laws And did not the Law-makers understand the Laws Or if they more regard the sence of the Clergy let them read A. Bishop Abbot's very plain and bold Letter to the King in Prin's Introduct pag. 39 40. and Dr. Hackwell's c. and they may know what was then the sence of the Clergy With whom concurred the Bishops of Ireland Insomuch that Bishop Downame expressing his sense of the Papists there and his contrary desires presumed to add And let all the people say Amen at which the Church rang with the Amen And though he was questioned in England for it he came safe off His Neighbour Bishops also declaring Popery to be Idolatry and the Pope Antichrist XIV The Bishops and chief Writers of England have taken the Pope to be the Antichrist Cranmer Whitguift Parker Grindall Abbot all A. Bishops of Canterbury Vsher Downame Jewel Andrews Bilson Latimer Hooper Farrar Ridley Robert Abbot Hall Allig and abundance more Bishops The Martyrs Sutcliffe Fulke Sharp Whittaker Willet Crakenthorp and most of our Writers against Popery Sure then they were for none of his Jurisdiction here XV. The Prayers have been and are to this day added in the end both to our Bibles and Common Prayer Books which shew how far the Church of England was from desiring a Coalition with the Papists by submitting to any Forreign Jurisdiction They say to God Confound Satan and Antichrist with all Hirelings whom thou hast already cast off into a reprobate sense that they may not by Sects Schisms Heresies and Errors disquiet thy little Flock And because O Lord we be fallen into the latter days and dangerous times wherein Ignorance hath got the upper hand and Satan by his Ministers seeketh by all means to quench the light of thy Gospel we beseech thee to maintain thy Cause against those ravening Wolves and strengthen all thy Servants whom they keep in Prison and Bondage Let not thy long-suffering be an occasion either to increase their tyranny or to discourage thy Children c. Though A. Bishop Laud put out all these Prayers from the Scots new Liturgy we had never had them still bound with ours to this day if the Church of England had not at first approved them There is also a Confession of Faith found with them describing the Catholick Church as we do XVI The Oath called Et Caetera of 1640. saith that The Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England containeth all things necessary to Salvation Therefore Obedience to any Forreign Jurisdiction is not necessary to Salvation And therefore not necessary to the avoiding of Schism or any Damning Sin XVII The Church of England holdeth that no Forreigners Pope or Prelates have Judicial Power to pronounce the King of England a Heretick Or Excommunicate though as Bishop Andrews saith in Tortura Torti even a Deacon may refuse to deliver him the Sacrament if uncapable much more that Pastor whom he chuseth to deliver it him For it 's known by sad experience how dismal the Consequences are exposing the lives of the Excommunicate to danger among them that believe the Pope and his Councils and rendering them dishonoured and contemned by their Subjects We know how many Emperors have been deposed as Excommunicate and what Queen Elizabeth's Excommunication tended to And if our Laws make it Treason to publish such an Excommunication sure the Law-makers believed not that either Pope or Prelates had a Judicial Power to do it In Prin's Introduct p. 121. the Papists that were unwilling to be the Executioners had no better plea than That no Council had yet judged
not too distant may for mutual help and Concord meet in Councils And none should needlesly break their just Agreements because of the general Command of Concord But 1. They hold that these Councils be no representers of all the Christian World 2. Nor have any Universal Jurisdiction 3. Nor any true Governing Power at all over the absent or dissenters but an Agreeing Power 4. And if they pretend any such Power they turn Usurpers 5. And if on pretence of Concord they make Snares or Decree things that are against the Churches Edification Peace or Order or against the Word of God none are bound to stand to such Agreements These being the Judgment of Protestants what do these Men but abuse their words of Reverence to Councils and Submission to their Contracts as if they were for their Universal Soveraign Jurisdiction § 13. And next he saith Whereas Mr. B. doth usher in his Discourse with an intimation that this was only a Doctrine of the Gallican Church he cannot but know that this was the sence of the Church of England in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign Answ. 1. I honour the Gallican Papists above the Italian but I am satisfied that both do erre 2. There is a double untruth in Matter of Fact in your words 1. That I cannot but know that which I cannot know or believe 2. That yours was the sence of the Church of England which I have disproved But what is your proof D. S. For the 20th Article saith The Church hath Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith and the next Article doth suppose this Authority in General Councils Answ. The Church of England supposeth that Kingdoms should be Christian and the Magistrates and Pastors Power so twisted as that their Conjunction may best make Religion national as it was with the Jews But it never owned a foreign Jurisdiction or the Governing Power of the Subjects of one Kingdom over the Princes and People of another It followeth not that because the Church in England may Decree some Rites here that therefore foreign Churches may command us to use their Rites Our own Church Teachers no doubt have Authority in Controversies of Faith that is to teach us what is the truth and to keep Peace among Disputers but not to bind us to believe any thing against God's Word and therefore not meerly because it 's their Decree Therefore the Article cautelously calls the Church only a Witness and Keeper of holy Writ which we deny not And that besides Scripture they ought not to enforce any thing to be believed for Necessity to Salvation But you would have us believe the Soveraign Universal Jurisdiction of Councils yea and the lawfulness of all your Oaths and Impositions as necessary to escape damning Schism and is not that as necessary to Salvation 2. And one would think there needed no more than the next Articles to confute you which you cite as for you They knew that there had been Imperial General Councils which being gathered and authorized by the Emperors had the same Power in the Empire that National Councils have with us or in other Nations But there 's not a syllable of any Jurisdiction that they have out of the Empire Yea contrary it 's said 1. That they may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And therefore cannot Govern them without their Will nor have any Conciliar Power being no Council And one King cannot command the Subjects of another Indeed if Princes will make themselves Subjects to a Council or Pope who can hinder them 2. They are here declared to be Men not all governed by the Spirit and Word of God and such as may erre and have erred in things pertaining to God Therefore their meer Contracts and Advice are no further to be obeyed than they are governed by the Spirit and Word of God which we are discerning Judges of And it is concluded that things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture So that even their Expositions of the Articles of Faith which you make their chief Work hath no further Authority than it 's declared to be taken out of the Scripture it self nor yet their decision of the sence of controverted Texts And such proof must be received from a single Man § 14. Such another proof he fetcheth from the Statute 1 Eliz. c. 1. Forbidding to judge any thing Heresie but what hath been so judged by Authority of Canonical Scripture or the first four General Councils or any of them or any other General Councils Answ. As if forbidding private Heretication were the same with the Universal Soveraignty of Councils we are of the same Religion with all true Christians in the World and we are for as much Concord with all as we can attain But is Concord and Subjection all one or Contract and Government § 15. The like Inference he raiseth from a Canon 1571. forbidding any new Doctrine not agreeable to the Scripture and such as the Ancient Fathers and Bishops thence gathered Answ. And what 's this to an Universal Church Soveraignty § 16. The Church of England's Sence is better expounded Reform Leg. Eccles. c. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta Ut tamen ex eorum sententia de sacris literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Christianae doctrinae Regulae esse Judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes Lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit § 17. D. S. P. 358. Mr. B. saith The doubt is whom you will take for good Christians into your Communion But this can be no doubt when I except only the Jesuited part of the Roman and other Churches Answ. So you take in the Church of Rome which you cannot do without taking in the pretended Soveraignty Essential to it Was not that Church Papal before there were any Jesuites But hold Dr. It 's France that you are first Uniting with and they say that the Jesuites are there the Predominant part And are you against them there § 18. P. 360. He takes it ill that I suppose him to separate from the Church of England I have fully given him here my proof The Church of England took not it self for a part of an Universal humane Political Church But his Church doth and is thereby of another Political Species as a City differeth from a Kingdom I will not tire the Reader with following him any further Vain Contenders necessitate us to be over tedious § 19. I am loth here to answer the rest of his Book against our Nonconformity 1. Because I would not follow them that
and then I said May it Please Your Majesty This reverend Dr. Guning just now accused us as if we would let in Socinians and Papists We suppose that this is not intended as our deed The King answered There be many Laws against the Papists I replyed We understand this to be for a dispensation with those Laws There was no more said and that was the Conclusion of the day III. In 1662. came out a Declaration for Liberty of Religion naming the Papists to have their part in it but not a Toleration I was desired to get the City Ministers to Subscribe a Thanksgiving for it I told them that it was the King's Work and not to be done by us But I knew it was the Bishops design to cast the Odium of a Toleration of Popery on the Nonconformists while they would gratifie the King by forcing us to Consent But they should never do it They should do it themselves or it should not be done And it presently died IV. The Lord Bridgman called Dr. Wilkins and his Chaplain Dr. Hez Burton and Dr. Manton and me and Dr. Bates after as by the King's Order to attempt an Agreement for a Comprehension to the Presbyterians and a Toleration for the Independents We agreed of the Comprehension in terminis and Judge Hale drew it up into the form of an Act But when we came to the other part the form proposed was for a Toleration of all not excepting the Papists I told the Lord Keeper that we could not meddle in measuring out all other mens Liberty but only to declare what we desired our selves Others must be consulted about their own concerns we were not for severity against any But it was the King's Work and we unmeet to be his Counsellors in it And so all was cast off by the Parliament by that means and the Act forbidden to be offered § 8. At last the King himself broke the Ice and Published a Declaration for Licensing a Toleration The Cruelty of the Prosecution of the Nonconformists being still the seeming Necessity for all But the Parliament broke it and it did the Papists much more harm than good for the Nonconformists continued to Preach though Persecuted § 9. The Clergy now would lay all the Severities on the Parliament and wash their own hands as guiltless of all But 1. It was they even their chief Bishops and Drs. that when the King Commissioned them to Agree on such Alterations as were necessary to tender Consciences after all importunity concluded that no Alteration was so necessary 2. And it was the Bishops and Convocation that altered the Book for the worse and put in new matter harder than before 3. And the Bishops in Parliament were the Chief Agents in all the Laws by which we are undone 4. And it is known that it was the Interest of the Bishops and their Church way that engaged the Long Parliament in all their terrible Acts against us Viz. The Act of Uniformity the Acts for Banishment the Five mile Act the Corporation Act the Militia Act the Vestry Act and others 5. And who knoweth not that it is they and their Disciples that make the great stir against our Healing in jealousie of their Interests which nothing but their own over-doing is like to overthrow 6. And when did they ever once Petition any Parliament to reverse the dividing wicked Laws or to restore the Silenced Ministers or to free them from dying with Rogues in Jails or to prefer the Ministers of Jesus before Barabbas or to request that the Eminent Ministers of Christ might have no greater Punishment for Preaching Christ than debaucht Whoremongers Drunkards Swearers and Blasphemers usually have in England 7. Yea if a Godly Conformist do but write against their Cruelty to the Nonconformists such as are Mr. Pierce Mr. Jones Mr. Bold they have for it Persecuted him as if he were a Nonconformist himself And that you may know that it is not the old Church-men nor yet a few single Persons when Dr. Whitby Prebend of Salisbury who had wrote against Popery did write an excellent Treatise for Peace and Reconciliation the Oxford University Decreed the Publick burning of it together with my Holy Common-wealth The Lord Convert and Pardon them that they prove not the burned fewel when Reconciliation and a Holy Common-wealth are prosperous c. God shall judge at last § 10. All this time from Laud till now it is a hard Controversie which of the two Parties is to be called The Church of England Both Parties pretend to it and some call both of them the same Church But the Infamous Roger L'Estrange set the Name of Trimmers on the old and reconciling Party pretending that the other were the Genuine Members of the Church And was imployed by his Genius and the Court and the Papists and the New Clergy-men to do a work so truly Diabolical as I never read of the like in History even for many Years together to Write and Publish twice a Week a Dialogue called Observations mainly levelled against Love Peace and Piety to perswade all men to hate their Brethren and to provoke men to destroy them whom he Nick-named Whigs and to render odious all save the Wolves whom he called Tories as if he owned the Irish Robbers so that a Trimmer with him was the same as a Peace-maker Blessed by Christ and Cursed by L'Estrange § 11. But whether the New Clergy or the Old be the Church of England and whether both be of one Church remaineth still doubtful But whoever hath the Name that one Name is equivocal when applied to Parties contrary and inconsistent 1. That Church which owneth a Foreign Government and Jurisdiction cannot be one and the same with that Church which renounceth and abhorreth it and owneth only Christ's Universal Government and a Foreign Concord and Communion But this is the difference between the Old Reformed Church of England and the New that call themselves the Church Two Kings make two Kingdoms For the Form denominateth And the Relative Vnion of the pars Imperans and Subdita is the Form That Church which hath a Human Head above National must have a Form and Name above National that is Above a Church of England which makes them all talk so much of The Universal Church in this false humane Form An Universal Church hath an Universal Soveraign Power which is only Christ. If the Pope be Antichrist it is his claim of this that maketh him so because it is Christ's Prerogative which no mortal Man or Council or College is capable of And if so is it not a Papal or Antichristian Church that these Foreign Subjects own and are of whether it be of the French or Italian Form if one be Antichristian both are so when the Claim of Universal Jurisdiction is the Cause I have voluminously detected the mistake of these deceived Men who are deluded by the Name Oecumenical Catholick and Universal which they find in the Councils and Fathers and
to be the authoriser of the Majority for Government For they will think that they have more of the Holy Ghost than you and therefore must Govern you I would all Rulers had the Holy Ghost but it 's somewhat else that must give them Authority XV. Your instance of the Easter Controversie is against you The difference undecided for 300 Years and Apostolical Tradition urged on both sides tells us that it was no Apostolick Law And Socrates and Sozomen tell us that in that and many such like things 〈◊〉 Churches had freely differed in Peace 〈◊〉 you seem to intimate contrary to them and to Irenâ—â—us that the Asians were Schismaticks till they Conformed And why name you Asia alone Were our Brittish Churches and the Scottish no Churches Or do you also Condemn them as Schismaticks for about 300 Years after the Nicene Council What could the Papists say more against them XVI How impossible a thing do you make Church Union to be while the Essentials or great Integrals of Religion are made insufficient to it and so many Ceremonies and Church Laws are feigned necessary which no man ever comes to the true knowledge of that he hath the right ones and all XVII If the Patriarchs must be the Soveraign College I beseech you give us some proof in a Case so weighty 1. How many there must be 2. Where seated 3. Who must choose and make them 4. And quo jure 5. And whether we have now such a College or is there no Church XVIII What Place will you give the Pope in the College I suppose with your Brethren you will call him 1. Principium Vnitatis But that 's a Name of Comparative Order what is his work as such a Principium How is he the Principium if he have no more Power than the rest Must not he call the Councils Though our Articles say General Councils may not be gathered without the Will of Princes Shall he not choose the Place and Time Tell us then who shall Must he not be President Must he not be Patriarch of the West And so Govern England as our Patriarch and Principium unitatis Vniversalis also XIX I pray tell us whether the French be Papists And how their Church-Government as Described from themselves by Mr. Jurieu differeth from that which you are for Tell me not of their Mass and other Corruptions It is Government that is the Form of Popery And they will abate you many other things And must we be Frenchified If the French restore those that we called Papists will disowning the Name and calling them the Church of England chosen by Papist Princes make us sound and safe And when we find Arch-Bishop Laud Arch-Bishop Bromhall Bishop Guning Bishop Sparrow Dr. Saywell Dr. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Bishop S. Parker and many more were for a Foreign Jurisdiction can we think if the French bring in the late Governours that such Churchmen would not embrace the French Church Government and call it the Church of England when since Lauds days they have endeavoured a Coalition If they be Defeated we may thank King James who could not bear delays and would have all or none when Grotius way would have been a surer Game XX. You tell us of Penalties made by Church Laws Deposing Ministers and Anathematizing the Laity But while the Clergy hath no power of the Sword who will feel such Penalties When Rome Excommunicates the Greeks the Greeks will Excommunicate them again What Penalty is it to Protestants to be Excommunicated by the Pope or his Council How commonly did they that were for and against the Chalcedon Council Excommunicate each other And those that were for and against Images And for Photius and for Ignatius Cheat not Magistrates to be your Lictors and Cursing will go round as Scolding at Billingsgate Who is hurt by a causeless curse but the Curser I confess that Dr. Saywell sayeth well If single persons must be punished shall not Nations also Yes But by whom By God the Universal King and not by an Universal Human Soveraign whether a King or Pope or a Senate of Foreign Subjects XXI We are promised by a trifling Pamphleteer that some of you are answering Mr. Clerksons two Books about the Primitive Episcopacy and Liturgies I pray you procure them also to answer my Treatise of Episcopacy and my English Non-conformity and not with the Impudent Railing Lyars to say it is answered already while we can hear of no such thing And see that they prove that all these things following are Traditions of the Vniversal Church received from the Apostles and used ab omnibus ubique semper 1. That most particular Churches for two Hundred or three Hundred years and so down consisted of many Congregations that had no personal presential Communion 2. That Churches infimi ordinis were Diocesan having many Hundred or Score Parishes under them 3. That these Diocesans undertook the sole Pastoral Care of all these Parishes as to Confirmation Censure Absolution and the rest 4. That all these Parishes were no true Churches as having no Bishops but the Diocesans and were but Chappels or parts of a Church 5. That the Incumbents were no true Pastors or Bishops but one Bishops Curates And that there were not then besides Diocesan Arch-Bishops in each single Church Episcopi Gregis and Episcopi praesides 6. That Bishops Names were used by Lay-men that had the Decretive Power of Excommunication and Absolution 7. That such Secular Judicatories far from the Parishes rather than the particular Pastors Tryed and Judged the unknown people 8. That Parish Ministers Swear Obedience to the Diocesans and they to Metropolitans 9. That all People that would have Licenses to keep Ale-houses or Taverns or that would not lye in Jail were Commanded to receive the Sacrament as a Sealed Pardon of their Sins 10. That from the beginning all Churches were forced to use the same form of Liturgy and not every Church or Bishop to choose as he saw Cause 11. That Kings chose Bishops and Deans without the Consent of the Clergy and People 12. That all Ministers were to be Ejected and forbidden to Preach the Gospel that durst not Subscribe that there is nothing contrary to Gods Word in such as our three imposed Books 13. That all Lords Magistrates Priests and People that affirm the contrary be ipso facto Excommunicate 14. That Lay-Patrons that are but Rich enough to buy an Advowson how Vicious soever did choose all the Incumbent Ministers to whom the People must commit the Ministerial Care of their Souls 15. That they that dare not trust such Pastors as are chosen by Kings though Papists and such Patrons and dare not Conform to every imposition like ours must live like Atheists in forbearance of all publick Worship and Church Communion 16. That all may Swear that an Oath or Vow of Lawful and Necessary things bindeth not our selves or any others if it be but unlawfully imposed and taken and had any unlawful part
of the Matter 17. That the Church ever held it unlawful for a whole Kingdom to defend it self against a Prince that would deliver up half the Government to a Foreiner and force them to a Religion which requireth them to be Damned or to Dye When the Clergy and Church at Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome c. did so oft by force and Blood resist even Christian Emperors such as Theodosius II. Zeno Anastasius and many others 18. That all the Churches held it lawful to Swear and Covenant never to endeavour any Amendment or Alteration of any such as the forementioned Church Government If all these things be contrary to the constant judgment or practice of the Church Quaere whether Dr. Beveridge and his Approvers pronounce not the Church of England Schismatical as so far separated from the Church Universal But again I conclude O! What must the Christian World suffer even by Learned and I hope pious Doctors I. Because they will not distinguish National or Imperial Vniversality of Church and Councils from those of the whole World II. Nor Communion from Regiment nor Contracts from Laws nor a Regent Excommunication from a Renunciation of Communion by Equals III. Nor Divine Obligations to Concord and human demands of obeying Usurpers or the hurtful Agreements of an injurious Majority of equal Votes IV. And by their Deposing Christian Kings and Magistrates from their Sacred Power over Bishops in Church-Government and for Mens Souls as if they were made only for the base things of the World and Flesh and Priests only were trusted with Religion and Souls And Kings were not Heads of National Churches V. And their shameless calling them Adversaries to Episcopacy that would have one Hundred Bishops for one and are for the old three sorts Episcopi Gregis Episcopi praesides and Arch-Bishops and calling those the Episcopal part that put down all the Bishops in a Diocess save one As for your self I profess to be so far from Censuring any thing of you save these Mistakes that as I have long so I do still Love and Honour you as a Man fearing God and of a good and blameless Conversation as far as ever I Credibly heard And I thought the like of Bishop Guning though as it is with many Religious Papists his Opinions more prevailed against his Charity for that Mischievous hurtfulness in which he served the Subtilty of Sheldon and the fierceness of Morley and the Designs of Papal Courtiers But I hear that your Piety and Charity prevaileth against the evil tendency of your mistaken Doctrine Though Mr. Thorndike threaten England unless they Reform the Oath of Supremacy I confess I wish it restored and am Displeased with those Scots that have causelesly quarrelled with it and so helpt to open a Door to a Foreign Jurisdiction which the Kingdom is Sworn against Since the writing of all beforegoing I first read your two great Volumes of Canons and your Answer to Dallaeus In the Prolegomena of the first to my Grief I find you more express for an Universal Legislative Power and Foreign Jurisdiction than in your Sermon And yet not at all telling us where to have access to this Universal Soveraignty for Judicature out of the times of General Councils nor how to know but by believing your bare word what Councils are our Universal obliging Laws when you confess the vast difference of the Eastern and Western numbers nor how to know what our Religion is while we know not what be our Laws Nor how to know whether the Church be extinct when it hath no human Head by the Cessation of such Councils nor who must call them nor whence nor what is their Constitutive Matter only you say they must be called out of all the Christian World But need not all be there And will a Call make a General Council if the Men come not And can they come from all the Dominions of the Abassines Armenians Turks Persians Muscovites c. And who hath right to call them hath the Pope Or our Emperors or Kings what power hath he over all other Princes Subjects You confess they were called out of the Imperial Provinces And how few if any other Names are Subscribed But I am sorry that you still so contrary to all Evidence take National or Imperial Universality for Terrestrial Universality of Church and Councils I beseech you if we must be Papists let us be of the more reasonable sort that know where to find a Papal Monarch or Vice-Christ and not sent to seek a Church-Parliament Universal or Universal Aristocratical College that is no where extant in the World nor can be especially now the five Patriarchs are what and where they are How much more Rational to be Governed by the Pope as Patriarch of the West only till we can find out the Aristocratical Head But since the Empire was turned into many Kingdoms who can prove that those many must have all one Human Head But I am yet more sorry that you joyn with Hildebrand in making Princes to be but for the Body and Civil Peace and Bishops and Priests to be the Church and for the Soul Which God willing as I have oft done I shall fullier Confute in a Treatise for true National Churches proving that Christ hath made no Higher Visible Humane Church Power or Form And that Christian Kings are as Sacred Persons and Ministers of Christ as Bishops and Superior Heads of National Churches though the Power of the Keys belong only to the Clergy And that a true National Church is but a Christian Kingdom as such the King being the Head and Confederate Pastors and Churches the Subject Body The Second Part. The Stating of the Controversie and full Confutation of the Pretences for a Foreign Jurisdiction The CONTENTS CHap. I. The clear stating of the Controversie and Confutation of the Pretenders In 60 Propositions proving it a perjurious alteration of Government c. Ch. II. Why Parliaments and the Church of England before Bishop Laud were so much against such a Coalition with the Papal Church Ch. III. The said Coalition is not the way to Catholick Union Ch. IV. The Deceits that are pleaded for an Universal Humane Soveraignty Ch. V. A Foreign Jurisdiction by College or Counsels unmaskt Ch. VI. The Grand Consequential Case Whether it be lawful for Presbyters to Swear or Profess Obedience to those Bishops who profess Subjection to a Foreign Jurisdiction or for the people to own them Ch. VII Of the second part of the design to bring the Papists to our Churches as in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's days Ch. VIII Why it will not serve for a Coalition for the Papists to abate their last 400 years corruptions as Archbishop Bromhall maintaineth Ch. IX Whether the instance of the Apostles Church Government prove an Universal Soveraignty in man Ch. X. Many Questions about Councils to be resolved before we can take them for an Universal Aristocracy Ch. XI A Breviate of both the Aristocratical
unlimited Monarch we will speak according to common use and let them speak as their Interest dictates to them but remember that the Controversie is but about the Name and not the Thing We take the French Church for Papists If they will call them Protestants they are free But if we are agreed what a Pope is the case is plain as followeth I. Mr. Dodwell their most Learned defender if number of words or greatest self-conceit be the chief strength tells you that if the Council be not lawfully called it obligeth you rather to bring them to Punishment as a Rout or Rebels than to obey them And that none but the President hath Power to call them And remember yet that this good Man is no Papist And indeed who else but the Pope should call Universal Councils The King in Scotland may call a Scotch General Assembly and in England a Convocation and Parliaâ—ent And 1. The Emperor of Rome or Constantinople might call such Councils in the Empire as were then called General and did so But who now shall call one out of France Spain Portugal Italy Germany Britain Denmark Sweden Poland Moscovie the Turkish Empire Armenia Georgia Mengrelia Tartary Abassia Mexico Peru China c. We are awake and therefore cannot Dream of Princes doing it by Agreement We are yet out of Bedlam and cannot conclude that all the Bishops in the World will come together by common consent or as the Atomists say the World was made by a fortuitous concourse of Atomes 2. How shall lawful Councils be known from unlawful if none have Authority to call approve and difference them If only ex factis by their good or bad Deeds half the World will Judge as they have done and do one Council to be spurious which another obeyeth 3. What order shall be kept among them if none have Authority to appoint the Place the Time to Preside and Moderate and to dissolve them and who pretends to this but the Pope 4. When Councils Contradict Condemn and Curse each other who shall tell us which of them to receive believe and obey II. And if we must have a visible Supreme Power we must have one that successively existeth that the Church be not dissolved And none pretendeth to this but the Pope III. And if all National Patriarchal Churches be but Parts of a visible Catholick Church with a Humane Supremacy then there must be some Power still existent to give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power Mr. Dodwell saith it overthrows all Government to appeal to Scripture as a Charter or Law of Christ None hath more than the Giver intended him None can give that which he hath not to give The Inferior hath not Power to give to the Superior Who then but a Pope can give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power If for want of Authoritative Collation of Power all the Presbyterian Ordinations Sacraments and Covenant-hopes of Salvation are Nullities and Sins against the Holy Ghost as Mr. Dodwell and his Tribe say what better are all the Bishops and Archbishops for want of a Superior conferring Power which none pretendeth to but the Pope IV. And who else shall judge Patriarchs Metropolitans and National Churches when they prove Hereticks or Schismaticks Their Heresie and Schism is far more heinous and dangerous than single Persons or Congregations And Councils are not extant And we cannot send all over the Earth to gather Bishops Votes against them unheard It must be a Pope or no body on Earth that must by Governing Authority Judge them V. And who else shall be the stated Judge of new started Controversies You say such there must be shall they be undecided till the World have a true general Council VI. And who shall an injured Person appeal to from a Tyrannical Metropolitan or National Church but to the Pope Many more clear Necessities there will be of a Pope on their Principles I blamed the Author of the Divine Hierarchy for naming such without an Antidote lest it should make men Papists But I understand he is a worthy Protestant But verily there is no avoiding a Pope by any that assert an Vniversal humane Church Supremacy VII And indeed I must not suppose them so immodest as to deny it For it is but the Pope's Absolute Power above the Councils and their Laws and not Simple Popery or the Pope's limited Power that they deny 1. They confess that they hold Rome for the Mistriss Church as Grotius calls it 2. And that the Pope is Patriarch of the West and the prime Patriarch 3. And that he is Principium Vnitatis to all the Church on Earth And if so they are out of the Church which is One that deny this 4. That he is authorized to call General Councils 5. And to be their President 6. And to be the chief Governor when there are no General Councils and that is indeed always 7. And that they are all Schismaticks that do not thus far submit to him And how much more Mr. Dodwell giveth the President I have shewed you in his own words VIII As Mr. Thorndike threateneth England with God's Judgments if they do not amend the Oath of Supremacy by making it acceptable to the Papists that renounce not a foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction so others labour to prove that the meaning of it is only to renounce the Pope's Jurisdiction here in Temporals which belongs to the King and not a Papal and Foreign Jurisdiction properly Ecclesiastical by the Keys As you may see partly in Mr. Hutchinson's alias Berry's Book who on that Supposition took the Oath as many do and publickly profest himself of the Church of England IX In the Description of the Reconciliation with the Pope endeavoured by Archbishop Laud in Heylin's History of his Life Pag. 414 415 c. All that the Pope was to abate was 1. That the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity may be taken I told you in what sense 2. And that the Pope's Jurisdiction here but no where else be declared to be of Humane Right that is say ours by the Fathers in General Councils not without the Apostles by whose Church-Laws we are all bound 3. That all should be really performed to the King so far as other Catholick Princes usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be independent both from King and Pope but not from subjection to either This saith he no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him 4. Marriage permitted to Priests 5. The Communion in both kinds 6. The Liturgy in English I ask any sober man now Qu. 1. Whether the Pope did himself think that by this bargain he ceased to be Pope and all Papists to be Papists 2. Whether if the King had been thus far equalled with other Catholick Princes the Pope would not have supposed him and his Bishops and Church to be of the same Roman Catholick Church as they 3. Whether in all this here be any
England unless we right the Papists by altering the Oath of Supremacy so I conclude with another Request That seeing Dr. Heylin and many others of you honour Melanchthon you will read his Epistle to King Henry the VIII Epistolarum Vol. 1. per Pencer Edit Anno 1570. pag. 59.60 c. But especially Ep. de Ratisb act p. 188. c. de Wormat. Colloq p. 201. c. where he speaketh against Eccius and other Papists over-valuing Councils and making them Legislators and Judges to us and tying the Church to the ordinary succession of Bishops and Obedience to their Laws and imagining the Church to be like Civil Polities Pag. 191. 1. Humano more Constituit in Ecclesia Potestatem interpretationis propemodum ut de praetoria potestate interpretandarum Legum Jurisconsulti Loquuntur 2. Addit amplius non licere privatis non paucioribus reprehendere judicia Majoris partis seu dissentire à suffragiis plurimorum 3. Majorum Synodorum sententiis decretis parendum esse c. In Ecclesia longe alia res est In hoc coetu non potest as alligata est certis personis aut certae multitudini sed donum est aliquorum piorum Id est lumen divinum quo intelligunt sapientiam in Evangelio traditam quae est supra rationis humanae judicium Posita Pag. 195. addit Vinculum dilectionis à Paulo Vocari Obedientiam Praestandam Episcopis Ordinaria successione regnantibus eorum legibus Yet Synods and Discipline he was for by present faithful Pastors And Luther Lib. de Conciliis speaketh as was his way more sharply of Councils telling us what their Work is and is not and that one Augustine hath taught the Church more than all the Councils that ever were yea one Catechism And that before the Council of Nice Arianism was but a Jest in Comparison of what it grew to afterward though doubtless the Council did well in condemning it and he justifieth Nazianzen's Words of Councils And except the undeniable Evidence of David Derodon he saith more than I have seen in any to vindicate Nestorius as certainly holding one Person and sound Doctrine in sense but for want of Learning taking it for an improper Speech to say that God was begotten of Mary killed risen c. And that the Controversie of the Ephes. Council and him was but about Words And I think he that readeth but Derodon's Citations of the Words of Cyril will think me rather charitable than injurious for saying that though his Words were Eutychian he meant also better than he spake Ri. Baxter REader The Bishop's repetition in Conference before and with Dr. Beveridge and Dr. Saywell occasioned my over-tedious Repetitions But you may perceive they have not been wholly in vain while at the last the Bishop was forced I. To deny Canons to be Laws And then what is their Churches Legislative Power and how can we obey a Law that is no Law And why are we called to Swear Canonical Obedience or why are we called Schismaticks for not obeying them And if they might be called Laws to their proper Subjects can Usurping Foreigners therefore make us Laws II. He is put to disown the Names of Vniversal Soveraignty and Summa Potestas but only as Invidious that is as opening that which they would hide by other Names fitted to deceive And yet maintaineth the thing and calls them Rectors and Vniversal Governors As if Jus regendi in Supream Rectors were not the same thing and that which he knew we were to dispute III. When he hath oft pleaded for Obedience to the Vniversal Church and its Laws and made Law-making its work he is fain at last to reduce it almost to Sentence and Execution And in his many instances of such Judging Powers to name not one that requireth an Universal Human Judge IV. He was angry at the Argument fetcht from the incapacity of an Universal King or Civil Senate But why Only as invidious that is As detecting their Error And saith that it intimateth that they claim a Kingly forcing Power whereas he knew that I profest the contrary of them and only brought a comparing Argument But if they had claimed no forcing Power or made Princes believe that they were bound to be their Hangmen or Executioners the World had suffered less and they know that their Curses would have been despised as bruta fulmina and Protestants would have said Procul à Jove Procul à fulmine V. He could never be got to give up the least shew of a Satisfactory account where his Collegium Pastorum out of Councils was to be found or whom it consisted of They dare not go to Patriarchs whatever they think as knowing how farr and where they long have been and most against them VI. Nor could he be got to answer my instances of the incapacity of Councils nor my proof that they were not of terrestrial but only of National Imperial Universality VII Nor would he answer my proof of the utter incapacity either of one Man or one College for Universal Government of all the World VIII Nor to answer my proof that his Universal Soveraignty is the most essential Point of that which Protestants call Popery IX Nor my Reasons that a Pope's Headship is not so impossible as this same tho' both are impossible X. Nor the plain Evidence that this way must needs bring us under the Government of the Pope himself and every King and Kingdom under the Government of foreign Subjects and of those Princes whose Subject-Bishops make the greatest Number in Councils XI And we cannot be informed how their Form of Government differeth from the French and that the French are no Papists And that they that since Laud's time have studied a Coalition would not receive them to our cost XII Nor yet how the Nation and Clergy shall be saved from Perjury that are all Sworn against all Foreign Jurisdiction For it is a vain Argument that saith The Oath of Supremacy renounceth no Jurisdiction but what the King owneth But the King disowneth Ecclesiastical Spiritual Jurisdiction For 1. Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Jurisdiction are expresly named 2. The Oath renounceth it as Foreign because it is against the King to be under the Power of Foreigners The King chooseth his own Pastors and Ruleth them by the Sword as he doth his Physitians though he profess not to be a Pastor himself nor to Administer the Word Sacraments or Keys And the new Oath called the Test expresly abjureth the Foreign Jurisdiction of any Prince Prelate c. Spiritual and Ecclesiastical It 's ludicrous jesting with Oaths for any to say by Prelate is not excluded Many Prelates in a College or Council but some one If One much more many as Prince and Potentate excludeth many And all our present Clergy that are in the Parliament and Convocation have taken this Oath or Test and they call themselves the Church-representative And if after this they should be for a Foreign Jurisdiction and
Italian Papists 2. Nor with the moderate Papists that are for the Councils of Constance and Basil For he takes them for Papists with whom he hath no Communion 3. Nor with the Church of France because they have Communion with Papists Though many of them are no Papists in their Principles 4. He hath no Communion with any Protestant Churches that have not Bishops 5. Nor with any Protestants that have Bishops not Ordained by Canonical uninterrupted Succession from the Apostles at lest presumptively 6. With none of the Greek Church that have Communion with the Church of Rome or with any Schismaticks or that want such Succession or refuse the Laws of the Church which is all 7. With none of the remote Nations called Jacobites Nestorians c. Because they are judged Hereticks or Schismaticks or Communicate with such or have a notorious interruption of Succession 8. Not with the Maronites or any Sect that Communicate with Papists 9. Not with the Nonconformists of the Church of England whom he endeavoureth to prove Damnable Schismaticks 10. Not with the true and old Church of England who professed to hold Communion with those Foreign Protestants whom he calleth Schismaticks Nor with any of the present Bishops and Conformists who profess the same Communion For his Rule is that they are Schismaticks who Communicate with Schismaticks Who then hath he Communion with It seems none but those few new Men in England of his own Mind who perhaps may call themselves the Church of England 11. Nay not with those among them who profess Communion with the Church of Rome except with the Jesuited part 12. And with those of them who are for one Supreme Universal Aristocracy or Legislative College Council and Judicature over the Universal Church And now can you tell which is the Church that he is of Or is there a more notorious Separatist or Schismatick than he § 6. And now can any Man tell which is that Church which he speaketh such wonderful things of as the One Body Politick of Christ with one visible human Government Which be the Bishops and Church that have all that Leviathan-like Power of Heaven and Hell which he describeth and asserteth Is it only the uncertain relicts of all these § 7. Mr. D. hopeth justly that none or few of his friendly Readers will read what I write against him and therefore when I detect his Fraud and putid Errors he puts it off with saying I do but put many new Questions and answer nothing accurately But for the sake of them that will read I will ask him 1. Whether his little invisible Church be a Body meet for the Glorious Elogies which he giveth the Church of Christ I profess I know not one Bishop that is of his professed Principles Archbishop Laud was not that took a General Council to be a Court of Pretorian Power to be externally obeyed by all the Church Bishop Guning is not as the foresaid Evidence sheweth 2. And I would ask him whether his Church have all the Power of Heaven and Hell which he describeth over those that are without the Church or only over those within Paul saith What have we to do to judge them that are without And if so how narrow is the Power of his magnified little Church Let their own Subjects escape their Damning Power how they can it seems none of all the people on Earth whom he counteth Schismaticks or Hereticks are within their reach For these with him are all without If it be said They were within when they were Baptized I answer 1. What they were and what they are is not all one 2. But he saith that the Sacraments are but Sacrilegious Acts and Nullities that are done by such And if so they were never Baptized and so never in the Church § 8. But let us come to his new Book and Method And first I will tell him once more what our different Church Principles are that he may not accuse he knows not what 1. Christ is the only Head Prophet Priest and King to the whole Church on Earth both of Influence and Government Constitutive Specifying and Unifying and hath no Deputy or Vicar under him Aristocratical or Monarchical that hath any such Capacity Power or Obligation 2. Therefore the Church though Compaginated in all its parts is only one Politick Body of Christ and not of Man and hath no other Soveraign 3. Therefore neither Pope Council or College of Bishops have any Legislative or Judicial Power over the whole Church Collective but only the several Pastors are such to their several Churches 4. Yet are they obliged to keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace and Love and to do all in Concordant Observation of Christs Laws And all Churches and Christians to help others to their Power 5. And when they afford such Counsel or help for Concord to other Churches they do it not as Lay-men but as Pastors in the Universal Church though not as Pastors to other Mens Flocks As Physicians of several Hospitals and Judges of several Courts or Mayors of several Corporations or Kings of several Kingdoms may advise for Concord without Usurping each others Government 6. As God only by Moses made the Jewish Law and the Priests were not to make more but only to Rule by it it being a Prophetical and Mediatorial Work So Christ only by himself and his Spirit of Infallibility and Miracles in the Apostles made the Christian Universal Law and no Men are to make more such but to Rule by that so made 7. As Gerson truely told the Pope Christs own Law is sufficient for the Government of the Church Universal else Christ had not been a perfect Law-giver And they that pretend by Supplements or Emendations to add or do better are not his Ministers but Accusers 8. Therefore those Popes and Councils that have presumed to make Laws for the whole Church have Usurped Christs Prerogative and are false Prophets or Traytors against Christ. 9. Therefore none should own them as such nor is it Schism but Duty so far to disown them 10. Nor should any own these Bishops as such who own this their Usurpation As no Soldiers of the Kings Army should follow those Captains who subject themselves to and take Commissions from an Enemy Usurper or Foreign Princes 11. The Power of Bishops under Christ as to Laws is only to keep and teach Christs Laws and Rule by them and determine themselves of undetermined circumstances or accidents which vary as time and emergent occasions vary and are unfit for Universal Obligation and this Power they have only over their single Flocks though by contract they may join in such things with others for Concords sake 12. When the case of many Churches is alike and their common good requireth Concord in any such accidents all are bound to observe such Concordant Agreements by virtue of Christs command for Concord 13. But if on this pretence Pastors will turn Agreements for Concord
renunciation of the Popes Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in England but only of the Divine Right of it 4. Whether here be any renunciation of his claimed Universal Jurisdiction over all the Church on Earth 5. Whether such an Universal Church Monarch by Humane Right with some and Divine with others be consistent with the Protestant Doctrine and that of the Former Church of England 6. Whether such a Bargain be the way to save us from Popery 7. What to call or think of those Archbishops Bishops and Drs that are for such a Bargain and for Silencing two Thousand such Ministers as were Silenced and Ruining those that forsake them not and yet cry down Popery and accuse those whom they Silence and Ruine as befriending it Readers Did you think till Experience told you that England had had such Clergy men And do you not yet understand them LVIII The whole Christian World or all the Earth is less capable of one Ecclesiastical Monarch or Supreme Aristocracy than of one Civil Monarch This is easily proved to any that will understand what Church Government is 1. Church Government consisteth in judging of the state of Mens Souls whether they are capable of Baptism and the Communion of Saints and the Remission of Sin and whether their Professions be so sound in matter and understood by them and their practices such as shew them capable or not And an outward matter of fact with its circumstances which Magistrates judge is far easier judged of than all this in the understanding will and practice 2. It is about matters of supernatural Revelation and heavenly Mystery which is not so easily known as Natural and Civil things 3. It is a work of personal ability and perforformance like a School-masters or Physicions and can less be done by delegation 4. There is no rule or warrant in Scripture for such delegation which Magistrates may use Nor for Church-Rulers making new sorts of Officers under them to do their Journey-work which Princes may undoubtedly make 5. All that are under such a Supreme must have far greater sufficiency for their Ecclesiastical work than every Civil or Military Officer needs for his as the different works require 6 Such an Universal Monarch or Senate would be supposed still in being and so the Mundane Empire not dissolved which here cannot be supposed 7. Such a Monarch or Senate would be in some known place of the World where men might hear of them and find them But it 's not so here specially as to the Soveraign College of Bishops or Council 8. Such a Monarch or Civil Senate would be supposed to be Lords of all the World and therefore to have Wealth enough to pay Shipping Travelling Messengers Officers and discharge all Publick Expences But so hath not the Imaginary College or Council no nor the Pope and Conclave 9. Such a Monarch or Senate commanding all the World would not have most of the Kingdoms of the Earth the Enemies of them and hinderers of their work whereas the Bishops have not the leave of one Prince of many to assemble and govern 10. Such a Monarch or Senate would have no Superior on earth but God to forbid and hinder them Whereas our imaginary diffused College and Council are themselves the Subjects of abundance of Princes Orthodox Heterodox Infidels Heathens who are their Commanders and may hinder them So that our Universalists plead that on necessity to the Concord and Being of Christ's Church all the Christian World must be under the Supreme Government of thousands of the Subjects of various Princes most of them Enemies When all Church-History and Experience have told the World how much Princes can do on their subject Clergy LIX To make the Church of England a subject ☞ part of the Church Universal as Governed by a Foreign Supreme Power Pope Council or College is to make it totâ specie quite another thing from what the Protestant Church of England and the other Protestant Churches are Proved where the Supreme Government is altered or divers the Species of the Society is altered or divers No man that knows what Government is will deny this But here the Supreme Government would be altered or divers For the Protestant Churches own no Supreme Universal Governour but Christ. And that the Church of England owneth no such I will prove anon 2. A Kingdom and a part of a Kingdom a compleat Political Body and the meer Part of such a Body as a Corporation are not of the same Species But the Protestant Church of England is a compleat Society in it self and the Church of England as a meer part of a greater Society is not so As Christ's Kingdom and the Kings differ so we maintain that the Kingdom of England as such and as a meer part of Christ's Kingdom are of different Species And it would be so as to a Humane Universal Kingdom were there any such 3. A Kingdom or Church under no Laws but Gods and their own are not of the same Species with a Kingdom or Church under Foreign Laws above their own And so it 's here supposed 4. A Kingdom and Church whose Justices Judges Captains and all Officers receive their Power and Commission from a Foreign Soveraign Power is specifically divers from that which doth not And so it is here 5. A Kingdom and Church which may be punished by a Supreme Foreign Power and must be judged by them is not of the same Species with that which may not But c. 6. A Kingdom and Church whose Subjects may appeal from their own King or Church-Governours to a Foreign Power are not of the same Species with that which may not But the two Churches in question so differ Therefore they are not of the same Species And therefore Mr. Thorndike and such truly acknowledge this as their foundation that without owning One Vniversal Governing Church there is no Union nor true Consistence in the particulars The Consequence is evident That the Church which according to Dr. Heylin A. Bishop Laud would have had and which A. Bishop Bromhall and his Defender Dr. Parker and Grotius and his Defender Dr. Pierce and Bishop Guning and his Chaplain Dr. Saywell and Mr. Thorndike Mr. Dodwell Bishop Sparrow and all of that mind are for is not the Protestant Church of England nor at all a true Protestant Church But as far as I can understand their words it is the same Visible Church-Form and Government which the Councils of Constance and Basil were for and which the Papists French Church is for unless there be any worse in the French Church-form than yet I know of LX. We are further from denying or violating the Churches Unity than they are that feign an Universal Humane Soveraignty Nor doth our opposition to Popery exclude our resolution as much as in us lieth to live peaceably with Papists and with all men I. We hold as aforesaid that all Christians are united in One God one Christ the Soveraign one Body of Christ one
bounds of Civil jurisdiction The many Councils which have been for Arians Eutychians Nestorians Monothelites Adoration of Images Papal tyranny c. and the many that have contradicted and condemned them tell us that the Right of Councils must have a better proof than their own affirmation And the far greater number of Christians that have approved or received the Erroneous tell us that they need a better proof than the reception of the greater part How great a part received Greg. 7th dictates and the Councils that Hereticated Royalists as Henricians But that proved not that these things were just Pope Vrbans Letter to King Lewis 13th of France 1629. in the 2d part of the Cab. p. 213. saith Your Ancestors have ever born as much respect to the exhortations of Popes as to the Commandment of God But do these words prove that this is true No more doth it that Leo the first was Caput Ecclesiae Vniversalis because he so called himself The Grand Signiour in his Defiance of Maximilian the Emperor ibid. p. 12. calls himself God in Earth Great and High Emperor of all the World the Great Helper of God King of Kings the only Victorious and Triumphant Lord of the World and of all Circuits and Provinces thereof And more Persons are Mahometans than Christians and more Heathens than either or both and yet none of this proveth Truth and Right § 10. I have marvelled that Carol. Boverius should think it a fit Argument to move our late King Charles 2d in Spain to turn Papist that Monarchy is the best Government in the State Ergo the Papal Monarchy in the Church Did he think the King so dull that he could not distinguish Particular Kingdoms and Monarchs from Vniversal How would the King have taken it if he had said Sir an Vniversal Monarchy is the best humane Government therefore you must subject your self and Kingdom to one Vniversal Monarch But the pretence of an Universal Democracy Aristocracy or Church-Parliament is more absurd and worse as I have proved § 11. Do our Changers of Government think that it is a small matter of which King and People will take no notice but be decoyed into by degrees in the dark to make King Lords Bishops and all the Kingdom the Subjects of a Foreigner and of a Parliament of Prelates who are themselves the Subjects of a Multitude of Foreign Princes Mahometans Heathens Greeks Papists c. As the Child said My Mother ruleth my Father and I rule my Mother and my Father ruleth the City Therefore I rule the City So we may then say the King ruleth England and a Council of Foreign Prelates rule the King and Heathen Mahometan Moscovian Armenian Papist c. Princes rule most of the Bishops in Council Ergo these Princes rule the King Do they know what it is for Pope or Prelates abroad to be made Judges Ecclesiastical of all persons and causes here and to have Power to Excommunicate King and Lords and depose Bishops and silence Ministers and Hereticate Dissenters and Interdict the Kingdom c. Again and again I say that I wonder if those men that have promoted so many Oaths and Promises in the Acts of Corporations Uniformity Vestries Confinement Conventicles Militia never to endeavour any alteration of Government in Church or State can possibly blind the Nation to think it no alteration to Subject King Church and Kingdom to a Foreign pretended Universal Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction Whether it be Perjury or Treason is no debate for me but I am sure that in ordine ad Spiritualia great temporal power will follow and Excommunicating and Anathematizing Kings and People hath not hitherto been a Toothless thing But quos perdere vult Jupiter hos dementat § 12. And what if they had found Ancient Councils Excommunicate some men without the Empire What pitty is it that any where Lords yea Bishops and Clergy men should be bred up in such Ignorance as to think that all Excommunicating is an act of Government I said before any Neighbour Prince Nation or People any number of Bishops when they hear another Nation turned notorious Hereticks may renounce Communion with them and declare the reason of it because they have made themselves uncapable Governing Excommunication per judicium publicum id est per personam publicam seu Rectorem is one thing and a declared renunciation and refusal of Communion per judicium privatum that is by an equal or private person is another thing I am not bound to stay till Turk or Pope is Excommunicated by their Governours before I renounce Christian Communion with them Paul's charge 1 Cor. 5. With such a one no not to eat and Tit. 3.10 A Man that is an Heretick after the first and second admonition avoid and St. John's Bid him not good speed c. may bind equals that have but judicium privatum discretionis when no Superior Ruler Excommunicateth the Sinner Chap. X. Some Questions about General Councils to be resolved before all the World can subject Kings Kingdoms Souls and Scripture to their Government or Decrees and take them for the Vnifying Ruling-Power over the Vniversal Church NOthing can be more necessary to all Christians Learned and Unlearned than to be sure of the truth of that which must be the foundation of all our obedience and our hopes And therefore if it be the General Councils Actual or Virtual in the chief Patriarchs and Metropolitans or supposed College of Bishops which is the Unifying or Constitutive Regent part of the Universal Church and on whose credit we must take the Scripture to be God's Word and from whose Judgment we must not appeal to Scripture or to God it 's the primum necessarium that we be sure of the Authority and Infallibility or Credit of such Councils And first we are to consider the matter of their Determining Power 1. There are Things 2. Words 3. The signification of words to be judged of 2. There are Truths of Natural and of Supernatural Revelation to be judged of 3. There are the Essentials of Christianity the Integrals and the Accidents to be judged of 4. And the Judgment is 1. Witnessing 2. Teaching 3. Or judicially Deciding We must first know who are the Judges 2. What is their work 3. How certain they are Qu. 1. Did not Apostles and other Preachers singly convert men even thousands before there was any General Council and that by such evidence as the single Preacher brought Or was it by the Argument of Universal Consent that every one then was converted e. g. the Eunuch Act. 8. The Jailor and Lydia Act. 16. Cornelius and his house Act. 10. The three thousand Act. 2.37 c. Q. 2. Did none that St. Paul wrote his Epistles to believe them till they were told that all the Teachers and Bishops of the Churches gave them their Authority Were the Gospels written by Matthew Mark Luke and John received only by the Argument of the Councils or Colleges Authority Q.