decayed to Reform the Church when corrupted and to Protect the same when Reformed This is the Supremacy which the German Princes being the first Reformers Assumed to themselves exercising their own Authority in Ordering and Setling Church-Matters within their own Dominions And because they all Protested against the Pope's Supremacy and Defended that of their own Therefore were they called Protestants In like manner King Henry the Eighth was the first Protestant Prince in England for no other Reason But because he was the first King of England since the Reformation who strenuously vindicated his Own Regal Supremacy And Protested against the Pope's Usurpation and Tyranny over Kings and their Subjects For which the Pope of Rome Excommunicated King Henry the Eighth and Branded him with the Name of Heretick and Protestant And notwithstanding King Henry's being a perfect and Rigid Papist in all points of Doctrine according to the Church of Rome yet because he Assumed his Own Supremacy and Abjured that of the Pope's he is Therefore styled and that very truely A Protestant And our Statute-Laws call all them who deny the King's Supremacy Recusants whether they be Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists or Quakers The Law Names all Recusants and indeed such They are and Not Protestants For as in the Church of Rome no man is counted a Papist but onely he who declares for the Pope's Supremacy So in the Church of England no man is nor ought to be reckoned a Protestant but onely he who in Thought Word and Deed is for the King's Supremacy as above stated These things being Premised We are of Opinion That the Reconciler has Mistaken his own Title for in equity and honesty he should have Entitled Himself and his Book The Recusant and not the Protestant Reconciler For we know no Protestants in England that need any Reconciliation unless it be the Beaufronts alias Fair-faced Protestants Who have God and the King in their Mouths but the Devil in their Hearts Who Speak their Prince fair to his face but will Wound his Reputation and cut his Throat behind his Back Who will take and swallow all Oaths particularly those of Supremacy and Allegiance And yet will enter into a Scotch-Covenant or into a Shaftsburian-ASSOCIATION and Plot Treason and Rebellion against their King and his Government Who will cry-up the Church of England and yet cry-down the Bishops Who will on a Sunday-Morning go to Divine-Service in the Parish-Church and receive the Sacrament Kneeling and yet in the Afternoon Contrary to their Oath of Allegiance will go to a Seditious Conventicle These are the Tares among the Wheat the very Pests of the Nation And indeed They want a Reconciliation that is Of their ungodly Principles and Practices to Piety Of their Knavery to Honesty Of their Perjury and Hypocrisie to Truth Of their Faction to Loyalty Except these dissembling Beaufronts we know no Protestants that need any Reconciliation for in England there are no Protestants except the Beaufronts but onely the true-hearted and Loyal Episcopal men who in Heart and Conscience Own and Protest for according to our Churches Articles 34 36 37. 1. The King's Supremacy 2. The Churches Authority in Ordering Rites and Ceremonies 3. The Episcopal Government as now established Asserting the Distinct Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons 4. Who give due Obedience to the Churches Orders and Constitutions These are the onely Protestants in England As for all others the Laws of the Realm Notifie them by the Name of Recusants So then it is a most Certain Truth though a Paradox to the Vulgar That although there be Myriads of Men in England who pass for Protestants and call themselves Protestants yet in truth and reality they are Recusants They all Combining and Siding with the Papists against the King's Supremacy do by so doing declare themselves to be No Protestants And the onely way to Reconcile these Recusants unto our Church is in the first place to persuade them to become Protestants that is to say to persuade them to Own and Protest for the King's Supremacy in Ecclesiastick Matters and to become Obedient to his Laws Civil and Ecclesiastick for till this be done as was said before They are No Protestants And of this Nature and Character are all the Dissenters in England to wit Recusants and not Protestants For they all deny the King's Supremacy which is the Essence and Foundation of Protestantism in Opposition to Popery And whoever pleads for them to be Reconciled to the Church of England without an open Recantation of their Popish Principles as does the Reconciler is guilty of a Praemunire and smells more of a Papist than of a Protestant This then being the proper Notion of a Protestant We once more petition the Reconciler That he would be pleased to inform us who are the Protestants for whom he so earnestly pleads and unto whom he so passionately craves a Condescension may be granted by the King and the Governours If he says They be the Dissenting-Brethren as he has it in his Title Page then he grosly mistakes himself For the Dissenters are No Protestants Because they all deny The King's Supremacy Which is the onely Badge and Characteristical Note of a Protestant Now that All the Dissenters do so is easily proved by their own Avowed and Declared Principles and Practices The Dissenters in England although they be very numerous yet they may be reduced unto four Ranks and Sects which will comprehend them all at least all those which are of any Bulk and Note among us Such as the Presbyterians Independents Anabaptists Quakers All which Sects we shall in order prove to be No Protestants CHAP. II. The Presbyterians No Protestants THe Presbyterians are no Protestants in as much as They Deny The King's Supremacy And in Opposition thereunto They Set up their own Ecclesiastick Consistory above the King and his Power For by their Consistorian Power They pretend they may and actually they have censured and deposed their own Natural Prince raised War by Oath and Covenant against Him when he would not yield himself a slave to their Demands and Consistorian Tyranny This is too well known in Scotland and England and needs no farther proof And although they do declare with the French Presbyterians French Disci Eccles c. 5. of the Consistory That a Magistrate may be called and employed in the charge of an Elder in the Consistory yet it is with such a Restraint and Limitation as that the Execution of one of the Functions must not hinder the other and bring no prejudice to the Church that is to their Consistorian Power which is to over-rule and controll the Magistrate in matters Ecclesiastick It is to be Noted That the first Presbyterian Consistory erected in Opposition to Monarchy and Episcopacy that ever we heard of was first in Geneva Setled by Calvin and Beza And the First Presbyterian Confistory Setled in Scotland was by John Knox who came from Geneva and brought from thence the Platform
Clarke a Noted Presbyterian writes of Knox. How that in Queen Maryes days Clark's Martyrol p. 293. Mr. Knox fled into Germany where at Frankfort an English Congregation was setled who served God after the English Rubrick published by King Edward the Sixth But Mr. Knox coming thither disturbed the aforesaid Congregation and made a Schism among them for Knox cryed down the English Service-Book And drew up a Liturgy which was says Clark the very same with that used at Geneva which Calvin had composed But Dr. Cox a Prelatical Man stood up stoutly in Defence of the English Service Book And he complained to the Magistrates That Mr. Knox his Doctrine and Discipline was inconsistent with the safety of Monarchical Government And that he had Preached and Published Seditious Doctrine against the Emperour All which being proved Mr. Knox fled to Basil And there he set up the Genevian-Anti-Monarchical Discipline Afterwards upon the Death of Queen Mary the said Mr. Knox went into Scotland And infected that Nation with his Presbyterian Doctrine Preaching That Kings are to give an Account of their evil Government not onely unto God but also unto the People who entrusted them with the Magistratical Power And that Vngodly Princes such as are all Popish Princes are no less enemies to Christ than was Nero c. And there in Scotland the said Knox set up his Scotch-Kirk and Presbyterian Consistory which assumed to its self a Power over Kings to that Degree as that King James the Sixth of Scotland and First of England who knew them too well to trust them said He would never admit of the Presbyterian Government in England G. G. Ch. Hist of Gr. Brit. p. 268. lest every Jack and Tom in the Consistory should Censure Him and his Council as they had done in Scotland And as thus Calvin in Geneva and Knox in Scotland setled Presbyterian Consistories in Opposition to Monarchy Episcopacy and all Regal Supremacy So did Whittingham Cartwright and Travers who every one of them had been New-principled at Geneva come over from beyond Sea and endeavoured to settle the Like here in England To which purpose One of them broached his Anti-Monarchical Principles at Cambridge being there made a Professour and slily poysoned That Fountain with the putrid waters of Geneva's Lake for which he was Deposed Another of them did the like in the Temple at London being chosen Lecturer thereof And there he infected the other sort of Gown Men even the Lawyers for which he was Silenced They i. e. the Presbyterians thus having got as they thought both Law and Divinity on their side proceeded so high as to fix their Consistories in several places of this our Land In all which Consistories they Declared against Subscription to the English Rubrick and against the Queens Supremacy and the Orders of Bishops Priests and Deacons and against the Ceremonies of the Church And thus they would have run on to an higher rate even to the unsetling the Established Government both in Church and State Had not Queen Elizabeth interposed her Authority and by her care and prudence soon put a stop to their carreir The like did King James in Scotland soon after by the advice of Bishop Bancroft who before Queen Elizabeths Death kept correspondence with King James and discovered to him the Inconsistency of the Presbyterian Principles and Consistories with Monarchy in that they Deny'd The King's Supremacy And King James was so far convinced of the truth of what he Asserted Heyl. Life of Arch-Bishop Laud p. 62.63 as that when he came to the Crown of England he caused several eminent Scotch-Divines to be Consecrated Bishops according to our English Rubrick And sent them hence back into their own Country and placed them in several Diocesses in Scotland And by their Prudence and Assistence King James restored His own Supremacy and the Protestant Episcopacy again in that Kingdom which ever since has had a Being there though not a Well-Being by reason of the late Bloudy-Rebellions made against the King by the Presbyterians who all were and still are under an Oath and Covenant to maintain their Consistorian Power against the King's Supremacy and the Churches Episcopacy which verifies King James his Proverb No BISHOP No KING And what the Presbyterians have been in Scotland the very same have they been and still are here in England For they All are still if not by Oath yet by Principle against The King's Supremacy And therefore we may safely conclude them to be No PROTESTANTS CHAP. III. The Independents no Protestants THis Sect and Generation of People are as Dangerous to the State and Church as the Presbyterians and in some respect worse Because they are against a National Church which the Presbyterians acknowledge They make every Individual Gathered Congregation An absolute Church Independent on all other Congregational Churches And therefore are they called Independents So that Every Individual Independent Congregation is invested with a Supremacy of their own And challenge to themselves a Power to Censure Condemn and to Excommunicate any man whether Magistrate Prince or Peasant And that which excells Popery it self The Independent individual Church will allow of no Appeal from their Sentence whether right or wrong unto any other Power And the Reason for it is this scil Because They own no Power on Earth to be above them They being a perfect Church of themselves have the Supremacy absolutely within themselves Hence it is that Dr. Owen the greatest Independent in England says and that very consistently with his own Independent Principles That all Church Power is Originally in the People Owen's Vindica p. 37. who have the casting Vote in their Congregational Church And this is the Professed Doctrine of the Independent Churches in New-England Whose Supreme Magistrates are all chosen Annually by the People of God that is * This is one of their Fundamental Laws Vid. New-England Statutes And if our King should par pari referre in Old England then none should be chosen or Chuse Parliament-Men but onely Protestants i. e. Onely such who are for the King's Supremacy and the Churches Episcopacy by the Members of the Independent Congregations and by no other For in New-England Let a Man be never so vertuous and sober so rich and wealthy yet if he be not a Member of some of their particular Independent Congregations He is not capable of giving a Vote for a Governour nor of being chosen a Governour among them And as all Governours in New-England are chosen by the People so all their Governours and Magistrates if they err and transgress in Government or become wicked and vitious in manners they are all subject to the censure of the People and the Church for in New England none is to be a Governour or Magistrate but he who is endued with Grace and is Godly in their Sense Their great State Maxim being this scil Dominium Fundatur in Gratia That All Dominion and Government
Ministers of the Episcopal Protestant Church of England Vide p. 33. are Idolaters But pray Mr. Reconciler be pleased to tell us Wherein the Papists are Idolaters I presume you will answer if any thing to the purpose That The Papists are Idolaters Either because they worship the Hoast Or because they Bow down to and Worship Images and Crucifixes Very Good If they do Worship the Hoast Crucifixes or Images we then are of your Opinion and do believe that they are Idolaters and our Church of England concludes the same of them whilst they worship the Hoast as God which indeed is no God for otherwise were the Hoast as all Papists believe Transubstantiated into the very Body and Bloud of Christ God-Man then it would be no Idolatry to Worship the Hoast But Sir As to Crucifixes and Images If a Religious bowing down to and praying before an Image or Crucifix with the Eye directed towards it and cast upon it Be Idolatry Then we must tell you that Mr. Richard Baxter your admired Authour and your Great Dissenter is a Notorious Idolater For if Mr. Baxter himself in his Christian Directory or if Doctour Edw. Stilling-fleet in his Vnreasonableness of Separation may be credited The said Mr. Baxter Writes That it is Lawfull to fall down and Pray before a Crucifix and that it is Lawfull to Direct our Eye towards the said Image or Crucifix for the better Stirring up of our Devotions and therefore Mr. Baxter calls a Crucifix Medium Excitans not Medium Terminans of our Devotion And no more say the Papists for themselves when they Bow to or Pray before a Crucifix or Image And now to argue a little with you If Mr. Baxter a Presbyterian-Idolater may be indulged and admitted into our Church-Communion Then pray Why may not another Man who is a Popish-Idolater in like manner be indulged and admitted too Verily you must grant the Demand and Indulge them Both or else discover the partiality of your Conscience and Affections But pray Sir What is it that weighs down the Balance of your affections more towards the Dissenters than towards the Papists seeing neither of them are Protestants The one party as well as the other are your Native Country-men and therefore upon that account they both equally challenge your love And Christ died for Papists as well as for Dissenters and Beaufronts and therefore according to your Own Argument you ought to be as solicitous for their Salvation as for the others 2. But you will again Object That the Papists are Superstitious And so are the Dissenters as also the Beaufronts It being a great Superstition for any Man to oblige himself and his Party to serve God onely in such and such a particular way Jos Glanvill Essay 4. p. 13. Displeasing to his Lawfull Prince and contrary to his Royal Commands when at the same time he might as well have served God in the way commanded which was and is as pleasing unto God and much more pleasing unto his Prince This is the great Superstition All the Dissenters and Beaufronts are Guilty of And farther it is †The Plain Man's Way Sect. 19. p. 40. as great a Breach of and as great a Restraint put upon Christian Liberty for any man to oblige himself not to Doe a Thing indifferent as to be Obliged by his Prince to doe it For every man in that case is more his King's and Sovereign's Man than his Own And therefore All those Persons who oblige themselves and their Followers Not to observe the Orders and Ceremaonies of our Church which are acknowledged to be things indifferent and which are commanded by the King All such Persons whether Beaufronts or Dissenters are not onely Disloyal and Schismatical but also Self-willed and highly Superstitious as well as the Papists 3. But you will plead farther That the Papists are so wedded to their Principles as that neither Scripture Reason nor Antiquity can divert them And pray Are not all the Dissenters wedded as strongly to theirs if they be men of any setled Principles and Humours indeed as for the Beaufronts they will not wait for either Scripture or Reason But like the Weather-Cock will turn with every wind 4. But say you The Papists have Vowed Obedience to the Pope of Rome And I pray Have not the Presbyterians Vowed Obedience to their Consistory And have not the Independents Vowed and Promised the like to their Congregational-Church 5. But the Papists do all Deny the King's Supremacy And have we not proved That all the Dissenters Deny the Same and that therefore they are No Protestants 6. But the Papists are Bloudy-minded Men and hold with Bellarmin * Papam habere plenitudinem potestat is super omnes Reges Principes Christianos Posse eos Regnis privare in temporalibus prorsus eximere plebem Christianam ab eorum obedientia subjectione c. Bellarmin de potestate summi Pontif. in Reb. Temporal c. 13. p. 149. Edit Colon. Agrip. 1511. Vid. Stephen Colledges Tryall and other Jesuites such as Joan. Driedo That Christian Kings if Hereticks may and ought to be Deposed and put to Death And pray Do not all the Dissenters hold the same Bloudy Opinions For Because I know you love Repetition pray Who but the Dissenters and the Beaufronts raised the late Bloudy War and Rebellion upon no other account as was pretended but that of tender Conscience and Religion Who but they Deposed and Murthered the late King of which you take not the least notice as I remember in all your Book Who but they entered into a New Association against the King to seize on his Person at Oxford and to Depose Old Rowland as they most Opprobriously Nick-named Our and Their own Dread Sovereign the King in case he should not yield to their Demands Was it not they who Beheaded Arch-Bishop Laud in England for being true to the King and the Church And was it not they the Dissenters who the other day in Scotland Assassinated and most barbarously Butchered and Murthered in the King's High-way the most pious and eminently vertuous Protestant-Arch-Bishop of St. Andrews and that for no other Reason as their own Party confessed on the Gallows but because the said Arch-Bishop was a true Liege's-Man and a true Church-Man And now Sir Will you not grant that the Dissenters and Beaufronts are Bloudy-minded Men as well as the Papists And if they be so pray tell the World what 's the Reason you so passionately Love them and so bitterly hate the Papists In truth Sir If you would not Rail and say as some Dissenters and Beaufronts already have done and said that I am a Papist the which I bless God I am not and hope never to be But if I must confess I am and through God's Assistence I resolve to be and to die what I ever professed my self to be an hearty Episcopal Protestant of the Church of England But were it not for such a Calumny
of Presbytery And the First Presbyterian Consistory Bishop Bancrost English Scotizing l. 3. c. 1. Full. Hist l. 9. p. 103. that ever was in England was held at Wandsworth in Surrey Anno Dom. 1572. And most of the Chief Men of this Presbyterian Consistory which was the First-Born of all Presbytery in England came from Geneva especially Mr. Tho. Cartwright and Walter Travers who both meeting with discontents in Trinity College in Cambridge travelled to Geneva and there were Catechised in the Presbyterian Doctrine and Discipline And Mr. Travers G. G. Ch. Hist p. 237. after he had left Geneva went to Antwerp and there having received Ordination of the Presbyterians upon his return he in England bitterly exclaimed against the Episcopal Government of our Church as then established in Queen Elizabeths Reign Thus Geneva and Antwerp gave the first Breath to Presbytery in England and Scotland And that all these Presbyterian Consistories in their very first Foundation and Erection were against Monarchy and Regal Supremacy is evident from John Calvin the Primo-Pater of them all who has openly in Print Declared his Judgment in Two Remarkable Points concerning Kingly Government 1. That Aristocracy or Democracy is to be preferred before Monarchy 2. That if Kings prove Heretical Vngodly or Tyrannical Then they may and ought to be Deposed by the Tribunes or Primes of the people As to the first Point Calvin delivers himself in these words scil Equidem si in se considerentur tres illoe quas ponunt Philosophi Calvin Instit l. 4. c. 20. §. 8. p. 306. Regiminis Formoe minimè negaverim vel Aristocratiam vel temperatum ex ipsa Politia Statum aliis Omnibus longè excellere c. That if all the Forms of Government which Philosophers and Ancient States-Men have propounded were well weighed and considered then in his judgment That of Aristocracy or a Common wealth Modelled out of it would appear to be infinitely the best Form And that because Rarissimè contingit Reges ità sibi moderari c. It rarely happens that Kings Govern either themselves or others well Wherefore says Calvin Vt libenter fateor nullum esse Gubernationis genus isto beatius sic Beatissimos censeo quibus hac conditione frui licet c. As I freely confess there is no kind of Government more happy than that of a Free Common-Wealth So I judge them most happy who are permitted to enjoy the same And Patrioe suoe Proditores c. They are all Traytours to their Country who do not use their utmost endeavours to promote and maintain the same These expressions are sufficient to shew what a bad opinion Calvin had of either Kings or Monarchy As to his Second Position That Kings may and ought to be deposed if they be wicked and ungodly and do not Govern according to God's Word Be pleased to reade his Comment on Dan. 6.22 25. where he assures his Reader That Calvin in Dan. 6.22 earthly Princes abdicant se devest themselves of all right to Power when they Rebell against God and are unworthy to be accounted in the number of Men that is as Dr. Nalson descants upon his words in plain English Nalson's Common Inter. p. 226. They do not deserve to live and men ought rather to spit in their faces than to obey them ubi sic proterviunt when they become so malepertly proud or froward as to endeavour to despoil God of his Right c. And in his Institutes (a) Si qui nunc sint populares Magistratus ad moderandam Begum libidinem constituti quales olim erant qui Lacedaemoniis Regibus oppositi erant Ephori aut Romanis Consulibus Tribuni Plebis aut Atheniensium Senatui Demarchi Et qua etiam fortè potestate ut nunc res babent funguntur in Singulis Regnis Tres Ordines quum Primarios Conventus peragunt adeo illos ferocienti Regum Licentiae pro Officio intercedere non veto ut si Regibus impotenter grassantibus humili Plebeculae insultantibus conniveant eorum dissimulationem nefariâ perfidiâ non carere affirmem quia Populi Libertatem cujus se Dei Ordinatione Tutores positos nôrunt fraudulenter produnt Calvin Institu l. 4. c. 20. §. 31. p. 311. Mr. Calvin confesses That although it be not lawfull for Private Men to rise up against their King yet Si qui nunc sint Populares Magistratus ad Moderandam Regum Libidinem constituti c. Where there are Magistrates elected out of the People or where there are Three Orders or States such as of King Lords and Commons There the People ought by their Representatives to moderate their King 's Ill Government to punish his Vice and Tyranny and to Over-Rule Him as the Ephori did the Lacedemonian Kings and as the Peoples Tribunes did the Roman Consuls whom they Deposed and turned out of Office when they thought fit These Treasonable Positions of Calvin made Adrian Seravia a Dutchman whom Learning and Piety preferred in England Heyl. Hist of Queen Eliz. hate to be called a Calvinist As Calvin so also in like manner did John Knox the other Founder of a Presbyterian Consistory in Scotland in Opposition to Episcopacy and Regal Supremacy Declare himself thus To wit Knox Hist of Refor of Scotland p. 392. That Subjects may not onely lawfully oppose themselves against their Kings whensoever they doe any thing that expresly oppugns God's Commandment but also that they may execute judgment upon them according to God's Law So that if the King be a Murtherer Adulterer or Idolater he shall Suffer according to God's Law not as a King but as an Offender And Knox is seconded in his Treason by his Countryman Buchanan whose Maxime was this Populo jus est imperium cui velit deferat That the People may alter the Government and bestow the Crown upon whom they please And the Learned Archbishop Spotswood though a friend to Knox when he heard Bishop Bancroft Preach at Hampton-Court-Conference before King James and heard his Learned Arguments against Knox for the King's Supremacy did declare That he was wonderfully pleased and satisfied with the said Arguments though as he reports in his History l. 7. p. 497◠The Scotch Ministers then present at Court Heyl. in vit Laud. p. 49. were grieved at Heart to hear their Scotch-Presbytery and Popery so often equalled in their Opposition to Sovereign Princes And this caused our English Cyprian Archbishop Laud so often to say and more particularly in his Sermon at Oxon 1614. That the Presbyterians were as bad as the Papists Because they deny'd The King's Supremacy And he Good Man found them to be so by wofull experience for it was the Factious Scotch and English Presbyterians and not the Papists that Cut off his Head Which lead them the way soon after to Act a Blacker Tragedy upon the Sacred Person of their Dread Sovereign the King Nor is it to be forgotten What Samuel