true as it is not which you say How shall all Christians know it to be true When such as I with all our searching cannot know it yea are past doubt that it is false It 's like you 'll say It is our obstinacy And so all shall be Schismaticks and condemned with you whom you are pleased to call obstinate for escaping that Ignorance which would better serve your Ends. § 7. Dr. S. But Mr. B. objecteth That the Nestorians Jacobites Abassines c. renounce some of the six Councils yes three of the six They had a personal Veneration for the Persons of Nestorius and Dioscorus and did believe them when they said that the Councils were mistaken in Matter of Fact and Condemned them for Opinions which they did not own and thereupon did reject those Councils But they did not then nor do not at this day reject the Catholick Faith and the Rules of Christian Unity which are contained in the six General Councils So that in effect they own them For the principal thing required is to profess the true Faith and hold the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness which those Churches do in that they own the Nicene and C. P. Councils and deny not the Doctrine of the other four Answ. Do you think that none of your Readers will see how much you here overthrow or give up your Cause 1. If holding the Unity of the Spirit in the bond of Peace and Righteousness will serve while they renounce the Councils as erroneous and tyrannical and holding the same Faith and Doctrine will serve what have you been Pleading for we are for all this as well as you 2. And if the Council may erre in Matter of Fact which may be known by common sence and reason how much more may they erre in matter of right and supernatural Revelation as the Articles of the Church of England say they have done 3. You confess here that Men may reject three or four of your six Councils and yet be no Schismaticks but hold Faith Unity and Peace And are the other two more necessary than all the rest You say They hold the two first Answ. They hold not the Infallibility of Councils nor that they may not be rejected when they erre nor that we may not be discerning Judges when they erre For all this is renounced in their renouncing all save two or three 4. You say They reject not the Rules of Christian Vnity Answ. Therefore they judged not the Decrees of Councils to be that necessary Rule Else the Decrees of those renounced by them would be as necessary as the rest 5. It 's apparent by this that they held the same with those Councils not because of the Authority of those Councils but on other Grounds For it is not possible that they who renounced the Councils should believe the Christian Faith on their Authority They believed it as a Divine Revelation fide Divina and so do we 6. And dare you say that a Man that believeth the same things because they are revealed by God in his Word shall be damned unless he believe them fide humana because a General Council decreed them 7. Did your other Councils add any Decrees to the first If not what need of believing any thing as theirs If yea then receiving the Decrees of the two first is not a receiving the Decrees of the later 8. And on whose Authority did Christians believe the first 300 years before there was any General Council § 8. Dr. S. P. 346. Obj. Did the Catholick Church die or cease after the sixth General Council Answ. The Essence of the Catholick Church doth not consist in the being of a Council Their meeting is but an external means for better declaring the Catholick Faith and holding mutual Correspondence between the several Churches Ans. 1. Still you are constrained to destroy your own Cause You confess then that Councils are no constitutive Governing part of the Church as a Governed Society And if so it hath some other Humane constitutive Regent part or none If none we are so far agreed This is it that we contend for If any other you must come to your Lords College of the diffused Pastors who never made Law never heard a Cause or judged out of Council to this day nor possibly can do 2. What is this that you call an external means of Correspondence Is it a necessary Supream Legislative and Judicial Power or not If it be it must be a constitutive Essential part of the Church as Political For every Politick Society is informed by such And you argued before that Nations must be under such as well as Dioceses under Diocesans If not habetur quaesitum 3. And because your former words assert an Vniversal Soveraignty I wonder how any of common reason can think this necessary to the whole Christian World during the few Years that those two or six first Councils sate and never before nor after Are dead Men our Governors VVill a Power of Governing never exercised serve for a Thousand Years last and 300 before and not for the other 300 Or hath the Church had one Form of Government for 200 or 300 Years and another for all the other 1300 And when you tell us that Kingdoms must be judged as well as single Persons did those first Councils judge all the sinning Kingdoms since If you own no Councils since the first Six all Kingdoms that have sinned these 1000 Years had no such Judges And what Councils or other Church Power save the Popes judged the many Southern and Eastern Countries that revolted Or the Western Nations in their various Changes and Crimes Must we have such an Uuniversal Judge now who never judged any these 1000 Years 4. Your Lord saith at last that they are Mutable Laws which Councils make If so why must we needs obey the six Councils that were 1000 Years ago under another Prince May not 1000 Years time and another King's Government make a Change in the Matter and Reason of the Law If you say it stands till another General Council change it I answer 1. VVhat Council abrogated the 20th Nicene Canon against Kneeling on the Lord's Day in adoration and many such other 2. Then if ever there was a General Council it's Decrees are immutable and so you contradict your selves For it 's certain there never will be a General Council to abrogate what is done till all the VVorld be under one Christian Monarch 5. The Laws of England bind us not now as the Laws of the Kings and Parliaments that are dead that is not by Virtue of their Authority though made by them But as the Laws of the present Legislative Powers who own them and rule by them and can abrogate them when they will And when the Canon-makers are dead 1000 Years ago where now is the Ruling Power whose Laws those are There is no General Council to own them nor ever will be A thousand Years sure
our Concord it comes all to one in point of Obligation Ans. 1. If it come all to one in the effect why do you contend for so much more in the Cause 2. God bindeth Princes and States as much to Concord and yet their voluntary Treaties and Dyets and a Supreme Government over them do not come all to one 3. God doth not bind all Churches or Christians to agree in more than he himself hath commanded them And therefore hath given power to none on Earth to determine what more all shall agree in 4. The Greater the Councils are caeteris paribus the more all Protestants reverence them because they signifie the Concord of many But 1. We know that there are none of them Universal as to the World nor ever are like to be 2. We know that the Greater part are usually the worst and that at this day the far greater number of Christians on Earth Papists Greeks Armenians Nestorians Jacobites c. are lamentably degenerate ignorant and corrupt 3. And we know that as God hath not made the greater number the Governors of the lesser so neither doth he bind or allow the less to consent to them to their hurt 4. And when Councils for meer Agreement will degenerate and Usurp a Regiment over Dissenters they change their Species and bind us not to obey them but oppose them as Usurpers XI The last deceit that I shall here name is Their pretence of the mischief of letting Sinful or Heretical Kingdoms go unpunished when singular Persons must not escape Therefore there must be a Supreme Power on Earth to correct or punish National Churches or Kingdoms You may find the Argument in Dr. Sawell Bishop Guning's Chaplain and Master of a College in Cambridge and many others This is so plain dealing that one would think all Kings and Kingdoms should easily understand it But I answer it 1. Why will this pretended necessity of correcting Kings and Kingdoms infer One Universal Church Soveraign any more than one King or Senate over all the Earth Perhaps you 'le say The Church is one but Kingdoms are many I answer The whole World on Earth is One Kingdom of God but particular Churches are many 2. Kings and whole Kingdoms shall be punished as well as singular Persons But only by God the Universal King or by permitted Enemies but not by any Humane Superior Governors Kings are under the Laws of God and they shall be judged by those Laws If you lived in the due expectation of Death and Judgment you would not think them insignificant words that the Just Universal Judge is as at the Door who only can Judge Kings 3. The Ministers of Christ who know them and live under them have sufficient Authority to admonish Kings and Kingdoms and exercise Pastoral Care of their Souls by Preaching and Applying the Word of God as their own Physicians are fittest to take care of their Health without sending to Rome or over all the Earth for a Council of Physicians What work these Universal Rulers have made by Excommunicating Kings and Interdicting Kingdoms History acquainteth us It hath not been such as should make any Man long for an Universal Church Governour of Kings and Kingdoms 4. Those Foreigners that think Kings and Kingdoms Heretical and prove it may renounce Communion with them without pretending to be their Governors I have thought meet here briefly to repeat our Controversie with the Reasons and Deceits of the Usurpers our own Judgment is for true Catholicism even one Catholick Head Jesus Christ one Catholick Church having no other Head or Soveraign One Spirit One Faith One Baptism One Hope of Glory and One God and Father of all And that all Christians should live in Love to others as themselves and in their several Churches under the just conduct of their several Pastors keep the Vnity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Eph. 4.3 That they should all know those that labour among them and are over them in the Lord and highly esteem them in love for their work sake and be at peace among themselves 1 Thes. 5.12 13. That the Kingdom of God is not Meat and Drink but Righteousness and Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost And he that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men who judge as God would have them judge Rom. 14.17 But if God be forsaking the West as far as he hath done the East and dementation prognosticate perdition the Kingdom above shall never be forsaken And we look for a new Heaven and a new Earth wherein dwelleth Righteousness And seeing all these things shall be dissolved what manner of Persons ought we to be in all holy Conversation and Godliness looking for and hasting to the Coming of the day of God 2 Pet. 3.11 12. Chap. V. What a Foreign Jurisdiction by Councils or the College of Bishops is the Mask being taken off MEthinks Princes and States and Churches should not be cheated into a state of Subjection without ever considering or examining what it is And methinks no honest Bishops should be unwilling that it be truely understood I. Consider what an Universal Legislative Power includeth It plainly implyeth the insufficiency of Gods Words and Laws to those Ends for which this power is pretended Whereas this is the very point of the Protestant Cause as differenced from Popery that God being the only Ruler of the whole World none else can make Laws for the whole but only such By Laws for their particular Provinces as Corporations do under the King for undetermined Circumstances in which Kingdoms and Churches may freely differ II. By this the Peace of the Christian World will be laid on these variable Circumstances As if all the World were bound to wear such Garments as France or England wear c. III. By this the Legislative Power of every Kingdom is taken away in all matters of Religion which are our greatest things For it is the summa potestas only that hath the Legislative Power At least no Inferior hath any but from and under the Supreme nor may contradict them VVhereas even the Decrees of our National Clergy are no Laws with us till the King shall make them Laws IV. By this no Man can tell what degree of Power these Foreigners will assume As the Popes Ecclesiastical Power is now extended to Testaments Matrimony Adulteries Church Lands c. Among Christians to whom all things are sanctified they may challenge almost all And when it becomes a Controversie who shall judge Certainly the Supreme Power is the Supreme Judge of their own Rights V. I think it will oblige Kings Lords and all when Summoned to Travel out of their own Kingdoms as Malefactors to answer what accusations are brought against them For certainly a Supreme Judicature must have its Forum where men must be heard before they are Judged and where all that are Summoned must answer Or else Kings and Kingdoms must become poor Subjects to any
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
the King to be a Heretick But Protestants deny that any Council hath a Judicial Power so to judge him though all Men have a Discerning Power to judge with whom they should hold Communion But if our Defenders of a Forreign Power say true then the Universal Judge Pope or Prelates may Judge and Excommunicate Kings who they think deserve it And if so not only Justice but Humanity requireth that such Kings be first heard speak for themselves and answer their Accusers Face to Face And this can seldom be well done by proxy as the Prelates will not Excommunicate the Proxies or Advocates only And must all Emperors and Kings travel no Man knows whither or how far to answer every such accusation and that at the Bar of a Priest that 's Subject to another Prince perhaps his Enemy And if it be at an Universal Council the King of England may be Summoned to America or Constantinople at nearest if they must be indifferently called together XVIII The Church of England is not for Popery but against it But the Doctrine of an Universal Church Soveraign under Christ is Popery by the Confession of Protestants and Papists I. Protestants ordinarily rank the Papists into these sorts differing from each other 1. Those that place the Universal Supream Power in the Pope alone which are most of the Italians that dwell near him 2. Those that place it in a Pope and General Council agreeing which are the greatest number 3. Those that place it in a General Council as above the Pope especially if they disagree 4. Those that place it in the Universal Church real or diffusive See Dr. Challoner in his Crede Ecclesiam Catholicam describing these four sorts of Papists II. And the Papists themselves number all the same differences as you may see in Bellarmine at large Of the first Opinion is Valentia in Thom. To. 3. Disp. 1. p. 7. § 45. and divers others both Jesuits Friars and Seculars And Albert. Pighius hath written an unanswerable Book against the Supremacy of Councils But Bellarmine himself saith of this way Vsque ad hanc diem quaestio superest etiam inter Catholicos Lib. 2. de Concil c. 13. And they that have different Soveraigns have different Churches Of the second Opinion are the greatest number of their Doctors Of the third Opinion for a Councils Supremacy above and against the Pope in case of disagreement were the Councils of Constance and Basil And saith Bellarmine Joh. Gerson Petr. de Alliaco Card. Cameracensis Jacobus Almanius Card. Nicol Cusanus Card. Florentinus Panormitanus Toslatus Abulensis and multitudes more with Oviedo Okam c. and the Parisians and French Church And the Pope and Jesuits will not say that all these are Protestants or none of the Roman Church And the Church of England never took them for any other than Papists XIX The small Book called Deus Rex which is approved by the Church of England may give the Reader satisfaction herein XX. The common strain of the most approved Doctors of the Church in their Licensed Books against the Papists disclaimeth all Forreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Prelates 1. Bishop Jewel I before cited 2. Bishop Bilson is too large to be recited Of Christian Subj p. 229. To Councils saith he such as the Church of Christ was wont by the help of her Religious Princes to call we owe Communion and brotherly Concord so long as they make no breach in Faith and Christian Charity Subjection and Servitude we owe them none See more p. 270 271 272 273 c. of the Errours and Contradictions of General Councils and how the major Vote obligeth us not to follow them And pag. 233. The Title and Authority of A. Bishops and Patriarchs was not ordained by the Commandment of Christ or his Apostles but the Bishops long after when the Church began to be troubled with Dissentions were contented to link themselves together in every Province to suffer one to assemble the rest Pag. 261. The Bishops speaking the Word of God Princes as well as others must yield Obedience But if Bishops pass their Commission and speak beside the Word of God what they list both Prince and People may despise them 3. Dr. Fulke on Eph. 1. § 5. sheweth that the Church hath no Head but Christ and no man can be so much as a Ministerial Head 4. Dr. Reynolds against Hart proveth that none but Christ can be the Head of Government any more than the Head of Influence 5. Dr. Whitaker against Stapleton de sacra Script pag. 128. He sheweth his Ignorance as worthy to sit among the Catechumens that instead of Believing that there is a Catholick Church puts believing what the Catholick saith and believeth sic tu ut novam tuam fidem defendas nâ—vos articulos condis etiam non haeresis sed perfidiae Magisteres I believe that there is a holy Catholick Church but that I must believe all that it believeth and teacheth I believe not Augustine appealed from the Nicene Council to the Scripture We receive not the Baptism of Infants from the Authority of the Church but from the Scripture And pag. 103. he sheweth that Councils have erred and corrected one another and are more uncertain than the Scripture And pag. 50. The Peace of the Church is better secured by referring all to the Scripture than to the Church Pag. 501. The Catholick Church in the Creed is invisible and known only by Faith 6. See Bishop Hall's No Peace with Rome and his Letter to Laud. It is tedious to cite all in Willet Slater Prideaux Abbot Marton Crakenthorp Challoner White and the rest to this purpose It is most notorious that the Church of England was against all Forreign Jurisdiction of Pope or Prelates as over this Land To cite a multitude of such Testimonies would but needlesly swell the Book and weary the Reader Chap. II. The whole Kingdom and Church is sworn against all Forreign Jurisdiction and all alteration of Government in Church and State And ought not to be stigmatized with PERJURY § 1. THat the whole Church and Kingdom is under such Oaths is visible I. The Oath of Supremacy before cited against All Forreign Jurisdiction is put upon all the Land II. The Oath called Et caetera 1640. is against Change of Government and was taken by many III. The Act of Uniformity obligeth the whole Ministry to subscribe against all endeavours to alter the Government IV. The Oxford Act of Confinement sweareth all Nonconformists and more never to endeavour any Alteration of Government in Church or State V. The Vestry Act sweareth all the Parish Vestries to the same VI. The Corporation Act sweareth all the Cities and Corporations of England to the same that is All in Power and Trust as to Government VII The Militia Act sweareth all the Souldiers of the Land to the same So that it is undeniable that all the Kingdom is sworn never to endeavour any Alteration of Government in Church or
is time enough to prove the death of a Power never since exercised were there a Seminal Virtue of Universal Regiment in the diffused Church a Thousand Years Sleep in reason must pass for a Death 6. Yea the diffusive Church hath since disowned the Universal Obligation of those same Councils and doth disown them to this day For it is not near half the Christian VVorld that own them yea none but Papists that I could ever be certified of do receive any such Councils at all as Legislators and Judges to all the Christian World but only as Reverenced Rules of Concord made by Contract And if Constantine Theodosius Martian c. called their Subjects to Councils 1000 Years ago why is our King and Kingdom now any more subject to the Subjects of those Emperors than to them But if you were content to endure us to unite in Christ and take his Laws for our Rule and bond of Peace and stay till the next General Council be against us we desire no more § 9. P. 347. Mr. B. saith It is a doleful thing to think on what account all these Men expect that all Christians Consciences can be satisfied c. D. S. answereth It is a doleful thing indeed to think how they should be satisfied that set up a Pope in every Congregation and follow him in opposition to the Catholick Church and General Councils Mr. B. knows he does this and deludes the poor People c. Answ. 1. If I know it methinks I should know that I know it Which if I do it 's I that am the Impudent Liar If not Somebody is mistaken Qu. Whether a Council of such Bishops be infallible or can make us a better Rule than the Scripture 2. Readers here you see that it is no wonder that these Reverend Fathers renounce Popery You see what a Pope is in their account It is a Minister of a single Church who taketh not their Lordships or Councils to be Law-givers and Judges over all the Earth We poor Protestants took him for a Pope that claimed such an Universal Rule alone or as the President of Councils But these Men take him for a Pope that denieth Popery and pretendeth to no Government beyond his Parish Yea not only so but in our Parishes we oblige none to take up any of their Religion Faith or Duty to God on our commanding Authority but to learn by the Evidence which caused our own Faith to believe by a Faith Divine 3. I have oft said that the Catholick Church is such by Faith and Subjection to Christ which I own and daily Preach But that there never was a General Council of the Christian World nor is there any such thing as a Catholick Church in the Popish sence that is having one Political humane Soveraignty And how did the Man make himself believe that I knowingly opposed that which my whole Writing labours to prove never had a being Reader Lament the Case of the Church on Earth when the most studious Leaders are so dark and rash and bad as either I or these Reverend Fathers are setting the World into ruinating Divisions by words of such a Dialect as is harsh to name § 10. P. 348. Dr. S. pretendeth to some Scripture Proofs viz 1 Cor. 14.32 33. The Spirit of the Prophets are subject to the Prophets For God is not the Author of Confusion but of Peace as in all the Churches of the Saints Answ. Reader Do you think this proveth that the whole Church on Earth is under one humane Soveraignty that hath a Legislative and Judging Power 1. This Text speaketh only of the avoiding Disorder in particular Assemblies by the means which they had present there among them To keep them from speaking two at once and such like Disorders As the Archi-Synagogoi were used to do in the Jews Synagogue And must a Council from all the Earth be gathered to that Assembly to rebuke such Disorder If it must be but to make a General Law to forbid it that 's done already in Scripture and in Nature And must the World meet to do it again 2. Their Dr. Hamond saith that this Text speaketh of the Spirit in each Prophet being subject to himself that is to his own reason and that the Spirit moveth them not to speak irregularly and confusedly And what 's this to the Power of Councils 3. If it were spoken of the other present Prophets what 's this to Men that are no Prophets and that are dead 1000 Years ago Are not present Pastors fitter Moderators of their Assembly than a General Council of dead Men § 11. Next he that so condemneth me as an Opposite citeth my words as granting his Cause yet this reconcileth him not I am not so idle as to write him a Commentary of my own words for I can devise no plainer Only I may tell him that he too quickly forgot that God is not the Author of Confusion and therefore it is not lovely A Law should not be confounded with a Contract or amicable Agreement nor a Soveraign Government with a Peace-making Assembly of Equals nor a possible Council of those within reach with an impossible Council out of all the World Neither the King of France or of England were Subjects to the Assembly at Nimeguen § 12. P. 351. He saith he could give numberless Quotations of Protestants Melanchthon Bucer Calvin Bishop Andrews K. James Spalatensis Casaubon Bishop White Bishop Mountague Archbishop Dr. Hamond Dailee c. Answ. I cannot answer what you can do but what you do But the Reader may know how far to believe you that will but search these few 1. Read what I have cited out of Melanchthon to Bishop Guning or rather his own Epistle of the Conference at Ratisbone and that to King Henry the 8th 2. Read Bucer de Regno Dei and the rest of his Opera Angl. and judge as you see cause 3. I am ashamed to cite any words of Calvin to confute our Drs. intimation 4. Whether Spalatensis was a Protestant I dispute not but read his own words cited by me in my Treatise of Episcopacy and then read him of Councils and judge 5. Bishop Vsher as I have oft said told me himself That Councils are not for Government of the absent or the particular Bishops but for Concord What Mind Dr. Hamond was of I determine not But of the rest you may judge by these The Matter is All Protestants hold that we must Serve God in as much Concord as we can And that the Meeting of Pastors is a means of Concord And that it was the true Christian Faith which the Councils which he nameth owned and we are of the same Faith and therefore they reverence these Councils And they hold that still Concord being much of the Strength and Beauty of the Churches when there is any special reason for it as several Princes assemble by themselves or Messengers at Munster Ratisbone Francfort Nimeguen so Pastors even of several Kingdoms
prove a more probable Succession than the Roman whose frequent interruptions hath been oft proved 47. If we must imitate the Jewish High Priesthood not every City must have one but every Nation and so England hath none or else all the World 48. Judea being a small Country all the People at their great Anniversaries might go up to Jerusalem which in great Kingdoms and Empires is impossible 49. It is false that we are united to Christ only by the Sacrifice of the Eucharist Baptism which is no Sacrifice first uniteth us to him publickly as Faith and the Spirit do before secretly 50. It is a frivolous thing of Mr. D. to write a Book for one chief Altar and Bishop when the Question is of what Church that one must be I have proved that Ignatius appropriated them to Churches no bigger than our Parishes and Mr. Clerkson hath proved more and the Man confuteth none of this proof 51. Seeing he disowneth one Universal High Priest and would have one in every City or Nation at most who knoweth not that the City Bishops of the World are now and have been 1200 Years in so great dissention disowning each others Communion that it 's hard to know Catholicism by his way of Communion 52. And who shall Govern these several Bishops if each one be a Supreme Have they not as much need of Government as Presbyters 53. The Eucharist is no otherwise a Sacrifice than as it is an instituted Symbolical Commemoration of Christ's Sacrifice 54. The validity of the Sacrament depends not on the uninterrupted Succession of the Priest nor his Subjection to the Bishop 55. There are many Cases in which it is a Duty to be ordained and officiate without the Bishops consent As in all the Popish Countries where they will admit none without consent to Sin 56. To make Bishops and all their Curates the absolute disposers of Heaven and Hell is to set up the highest Papal Tyranny over Kings and Kingdoms by vile Presumption 57. His words that the People can better judge of their visible Union with the High Priest and Christ than of any invisible one is a pernicious intimation that this visible Church Union will save them that have not the invisible Grace of sound Faith Repentance and the Spirit of Love and Holiness I intended to have proceeded to a distinct Answer to Mr. Dodwell's whole Book because I take him to be the most injurious and gross Adversary to the true Unity of the Church on pretence of Pleading for Unity of any that calls himself a Protestant and find him not only extreamly self-conceited loquacious and magisterial in a lowly Garb but grosly unsincere intimating his denial of that in Print which he often owned to me in Private Conference viz. for the Nullity of the Protestant Churches that have not his false Character for the verity of the French Church and for the uninterrupted Succession of the Papal Seat when I undertook to prove it he told me It was not for the interest of Christianity to say so And yet it is for the interest of Christianity for him to Unchurch more Churches I think than the Papists ordinarily do But when I had gone thus far I was stopt by the Persecutions of his Church-Rulers and then by Sickness and after by near two Years Imprisonment for my Paraphrase on the New Testament by a Judicature as admirably agreeing to his Principles as if he had been his Disciple Chancellor Jeffreys lately Dead and such others Therefore not to tire the Reader with more words to so wordy a Man I again and again though I suppose in vain provoke him and his dividing Brethren to answer my Treatise of Episcopacy my first Plea for Peace my Sacrilegious desertion of the Ministry rebuked my Apology for the Nonconformists Preaching my English Nonconformity and Mr. David Clerkson's Posthumous Book for the Primitive Episcopacy against his Fiction of the present Diocesane Episcopacy as having no Bishops under them But fraudulent Disputers will dissemble and silently pass by that which they cannot answer But will that be Peace to Conscience in the End Having said as much as I think needful to satisfie intelligent impartial Readers against his Schismatical Writings in my Book of Church-Concord and here before I take my self discharged from any Obligation further to detect or confute his Fallacies The rather because he can say and unsay as he finds his Interest lead him And his Leviathan Church Vicegod which he feigns to be God's Proxy to us from whom there is no appeal to Scripture or to God will to Men that believe in Christ I think by his own Description appear as frightful as Hob's his Leviathan Some of this I wrote long after the most of the Book Chap. XX. Dr. Thomas Pierce now Dean of Salisbury's Judgment and Dr. Hamonds § 1. I Think Dean Pierce is the only Man surviving who was Commissioned by King Ch. 2. to Treat with us for Concord as being of the Bishops part in 1661 And who hath lived to see by near 30 years Experience whether his Zeal against the terms of Concord which we as humble Supplicants offered hath done more Good and prevented more Evil than a Concord on those offered terms would have done What it hath done on him I know not but with others Experience hath had as little Success as Reason and Petitioning had § 2. He hath written against me more Book 's than one which no Man hath excelled in insulting and in command of words His work is to prove Grotius to have been no Papist Few Men living think highlier of Grotius than I as to what he wrote before his change Especially his Book De Satisfactione Christi and that De Imperio Sum. Pot. de Jure Belli and his Annot. on the Evangelists Valesius and Petavius took him to be of their Religion and Church as did Vincentius and Saravius But 1. It is not the Name Papist that I regard but the Thing 2. Therefore the doubt between Dr. Pierce and me is What is Popery He thinks that it is not a proof that he is a Papist to be for an Universal Church Jurisdiction the Church of Rome being taken for the Mistris of all Churches and the Pope as Primate and Patriarch of the West governing according to the Canons of Councils and not Arbitrarily And taking the Articles of Pope Pius his Creed and Oath added at Trent which contain the Body of that which Protestants call Popery to be such as may be Sworn and bear a fair sense Though Dr. P. himself cannot subscribe them This with all the rest cited by me out of Grotius he taketh to be no proof of a Papist Let him call it how he please The French Church Government or the Protestant or the Catholick it is the Thing a Foreign Jurisdiction and specially an Universal that I deny § 3. And this he himself owneth for the proof of which I refer the Reader to his Books particularly his
Faith one Baptismal-Covenant with Christ one Spirit one Hope of Grace and Glory and must keep the Unity of the Spirit in the Bond of Peace And that all Subjects must obey their Rulers and Pastors in all lawful things belonging to their Office to command and teach And that as Particular Churches must be held for the Personal Communion of Saints so all these Churches must by Messengers Letters and Synods hold such correspondency as the common good of the Universal Church and their own strength and edification by the means of mutual COVNSEL and CONCORD do require II. Accordingly we make not Regent Senates or Courts of such Councils to make Laws for the Christian World But they are like the Assemblies of pious Christian Princes who study the Peace of the whole Christian World Princes are bound so to do as well as Pastors That they do not proveth not that they ought not Their Kingdoms are but parts of the Kingdom of Christ. If they should hold an Assembly in Europe for the suppressing of such a Heresie as threatneth the whole or such a Tyrant as the Pope or such an Enemy as the Turk it were well done and had the same reasons and power as a Council of Bishops Bishops may not undertake Jurisdiction in other mens Bishopricks nor Kings in other mens Kingdoms Bishops are bound to prefer the universal good and so are Kings III. And therefore the measure of such Communion by Consultation by Messengers Letters or Councils is 1. The publick good 2. And the capacity of the Communicants We have Communion with all Christians in Abassia Armenia and all the Earth in Faith Hope Love and all the Essentials of Christianity But if John or Joan here commit Adultery and be excommunicated as impenitent we are not bound to send Messengers to the Antipodes or all the World to tell them of it no nor if a Bishop or his Chaplain turn Heretick Nor are they bound to send hither to enquire or examine it And if the Excommunicate come to Armenia and desire Communion they are justifiable for receiving him and being ignorant of our Excommunication But Neighbour Christians and Churches live so near that they are capable of converse And therefore Synods and Communicatory Letters are there of great use And so far as an Excommunicate man is like to intrude into the Communion of other Churches it is meet that his Excommunication be published and that other Churches receive him not without just satisfaction And so Councils are useful as far as propinquity maketh men capable of visible Communion Especially to Pastors and Churches in one Kingdom where the Unity of the Civil Government giveth them more capacity and necessity of such Correspondency than with Foreigners And therefore the Councils in the same Roman Empire had great reason for their Decrees to avoid those Excommunicate by each other And yet many Councils even under the Papacy decreed that he that is unjustly Excommunicate by one Bishop may be received by another But that supposeth his tryal and proof of the Injury Therefore we come not so near the Universal Soveraignty of Councils as Dr. Stillingfleet in the Defence of A. Bishop Laud tells us Laud whom he defended doth Who will have the old Councils confessed truly General notwithstanding the absence of the Extra-Imperial Bishops 2. And will have such Councils to have been received the Four first by all the Christian World when it 's known how many rejected that at Chalcedon 3. And will have such Councils to be externally obeyed by patient submission when they notoriously err by all Christians till another Council as General and Free reverse their Decrees 4. And will have them have such Obedience as all other Courts For meer Councils of Bishops of several Kingdoms are no Courts and have no proper Jurisdiction Chap. II. Why Parliaments and Archbishop Abbot and the Church of England Antecedent to A. Bishop Laud were against the Design of Coalition with Rome § 1. IT was not because they were Enemies to Christian Concord or did not desire it on lawful possible terms with Papists and all others Nor was it because they were maliciously bent to be cruel to the Papists by denying them the common Love which is due to Mankind or any Benefits or Peace which was consistent with the Nations Peace and Safety But it was on such Reasons as these following § 2. I. They took the design to be a real restoring of Popery under the Name of Reconciliation and Peace And they had an excuseable Opinion that if Popery were set up it was not laying by the Name and calling it Reformation or the Church of England that would deliver us from the Sin or Suffering They were not of the new Opinion that none are Papists but those that would have the Pope Absolute above General Councils and Govern Arbitrarily against the Canons They took the foundation of Popery to be the Heresie that the whole Church on Earth must have one Soveraign or Supream Government with Universal Legislative and Judicial and Executive Power under Christ in which it must be Vnited or made One Church This they took to be Antichristian the intolerable Treasonable Usurpation of an Impossible thing tending to the Confusion of Mankind But whether this Traiterous Soveraignty should be Monarchical or Aristocratical in Pope or Councils feigned to be General or in both Conjunct and when Conjunct whether the Pope should be above the Council or the Council above the Pope or each have a Negative Voice or he have but the Calling and Presiding Power They took these to be but several sorts of Popery or differences among the Papists themselves And they took it for a ridiculous absurdity that a Council of men dead an Hundred or a Thousand Years ago and that only of men of one Empire called by their own Prince should be taken for the Vnifying Constitutive Soveraign Power of the Universal Church which now existeth and that the Body can live many Hundred Years after the Head is dead and yet be a Church of the same Species And for them that say the Bishops of all the Earth have a Jus Conveniendi and are a Virtual Council It is but to say could they prove it that they are a Virtual Head and not an Actual and so that we have no Actual Universal Church but a Virtual And as for the new Dream that they are Actually the Supreme Unifying Power and Actually Govern the whole Christian World per literas format as it 's a sad case with Christians when such deliration needs a confutation and sadder if such a Land or Clergy as ours must remedilesly Perish by believing or following such a Dream Shall all the Bishops of Asia Africa Europe and America out of the Dominions of the Turks Persians Tartarians Indians Papists Protestants Abassines c. meet in despite of their involuntary forbidding Princes How and by whose Call and where and when in how long time and who shall bear their
be by an undeniable Miraclâ— And hath God promised to Govern his Church by constant Miracles yea as many Miracles as there be ignorant and wicked Bishops and that through all Generations Q. 33. Doth it not require great Knowledge of History to be sure what Councils there have been and which were Orthodox and which Heretical which valid and which invalid and what they did and which side had the Major Vote And is all this Historical Knowledge necessary to Salvation in Learned and Unlearned Q. 34. Yea Is there one Priest of many that hath such certainty of such History of Councils when Writers so much disagree Q. 35. Seeing Historians are but like other men and all men are lyars or untrusty and it 's notorious that Ignorance Faction Temerity and Partiality if not Malignity hath filled the World with so much false History that except in Matters of Publick uncontradicted Evidence no man well knoweth what to believe How shall all Christians lay their Salvation on so great knowledge of History as is necessary to certainty herein Q. 36. If the belief of Councils or the College of Bishops as wide as the World be fundamentally necessary to Duty Unity or Salvation Is it not necessary that all know what are their Decrees and Laws And how can they know this when Councils and Decrees are so Voluminous and few Priests know them and when the World is yet disagreed what Canons or Laws are obligatory and what not But they contradict and condemn each others Laws Q. 37. If a Lay-man should know but one part of the Councils Decrees about Faith or Obedience will such a defective half Faith and Obedience save him or must he know all Q. 38. If you say that all this Historical Knowledge is not necessary to the Laity but they must believe herein the Priests or Bishop that is over them 1. How is this then a belief of Councils 2. What shall the poor People do that one of many hundred of them never see their Bishop much less ever spake with him 3. And are their Priests infallible herein or not Q. 39. Doth not this by the deceitful noise of the Catholick Church and Councils and a College of Bishops make every Parish Priest's word the very Foundation into which all mens Faith must be resolved And he that saith I believe the Scripture because the Church and Councils propose it or attest it and I believe that the Church and Council say it because the Priest saith it Doth he not say as much as I believe the Scripture Church and Councils upon the bare word of the Priest Q. 40. Is it not hard for the People that know their Priests to be sottish ignorant prophane drunken malicious men to lay all their Salvation on a supposed certainty that these Priests say true Q. 41. If the Parishioners know also that their Priests never read the Councils and confess that he is ignorant of them and know him also to be a common lyar Can they certainly believe the Scripture and the Councils and the Matters of Faith and duty contained in both upon the word of such a Priest Q. 42. Can they that are unlearned and never see a Bishop tell whether the Parish Priest and the Bishop say the same Or whether their Bishop be of the same Mind with the other Bishops and whether the Bishops e. g. of England be of the same Mind with the Bishops of France Spain Italy Germany Denmark Sweden c. and they of the same Mind with the Greeks c. Q. 43. Is it a Divine Faith that is resolved thus into the meer belief of Man yea of an Ignorant Priest or Prelate or but a Humane Q. 44. If we and all men had no other certainty of the Scripture but the word of such a Priest or the Decree of a Council would it be more or less certain to us than now it is Q. 45. Have none of all those Christians a true Divine Faith who are converted by Protestant Preachers who teach them to believe the Scripture upon other Evidence than a Councils word Q. 46. By what Evidence doth a Council know the Scripture to be God's Word Is it only by the Testimony of a former Council If so How did that former Council know it and so the first Council that had none before to testifie it And what use is there for the assertion of the later Council when it 's done already by a former Q. 47. Why doth not one Council determine of all that is necessary to Salvation but leave it still undone But if it be done must new ones be called to the end of the World to say the same thing over again and do that which others had done before them Q. 48. Is not the Law the Rule of Duty and Judgment and must all Christians be Judged at last by the Bishops Canon Law And seeing Sin is a Transgression of the Law and it 's harder to obey a Thousand Laws than a few Are not they the most Mortal Enemies to Christians who make them so many Laws and make Salvation so hard a work Q. 49. Seeing Christ was above three Years teaching his Apostles before he died and after his Resurrection was seen of them fourty days and speaking of the things pertaining to the Kingdom of God and being assembled together with them commanded them not to depart from Jerusalem but wait for the Promise of the Father even the Spirit to lead them into all truth and bring all things to their remembrance and their Commission was to teach all Christians to observe whatever Christ commanded Act. 1.3 4. Math. 28.19 20. is it to be believed that yet Christ by himself and his Spirit in these Apostles did not make all the Laws that are Divine and enow for the Universal Church to observe as necessary to Salvation and Universal Concord Q. 50. Is it not enough to Salvation and Church Concord for all the Pastors of the Churches to agree 1. In preserving these Laws and Doctrines of Christ 2. And to teach the People to know and obey them 3. And to defend them against Adversaries and 4. To make them the rule of their Communion by the exercise of the Keys 5. And by their own Authority to determine of variable Circumstances of Worship such as the Place of meeting the time the translation the subject for the day c. Is there besides all this a necessity of Universal Laws for the Salvation and Concord of Believers and of a standing Soveraign Power in Priests Prelates or Patriarchs or Pope to make such Laws Q. 51. Have we not better assurance that the foresaid Apostles taught by Christ and inspired by the Holy Ghost had Authority and Infallibility for this work than we can have that Pope Patriarchs Prelates or Priests have it Q. 52. When some English Prelates and Priests tell us that he is a Schismatick that obeyeth not the Universal Church and that Schism is a damning Sin do they not
lawful parts Chap. III. What Endeavours have been used by the more Moderate Papists to bring England under a Foreign Jurisdiction in King James's time § 1. I Will not meddle now with their violent Attempts abroad and at home nor so much as name them Commonly Known It is not my design to speak or act offensively but defensively Their ways of Wit and Deceit have been many and among others pretended Motions for a Coalition hath not been the least And their injurious Pretences that our Rulers have been inclined to them as knowing how much that may do with the ignorant sequacious Multitude § 2. I. In Queen Elizabeths days they much perswaded her that to go as far from the Church of Rome as the Anti-Papists desired would cross her Interest and make the reduction of the Kingdom impossible who were all Papists but as it were the other day II. In King James's time they would fain have conquered him by the fear of Murder when he heard of the Murder of two King 's of France H. 3. and H. 4. that had greater defensive Powers than he And the Powder Plot was yet more frightful And continued threatnings more And he shewed his peaceable Disposition in promoting the Spanish and French Matches for his Son and especially if it be true that Rushworth â—nd other Historians say that He and his Son â—nd his Council took their Oaths for a Toleration â—n the words recorded by them § 3. And to make People believe that he was â—t the heart a Papist the Bishop of Ambrun boasteth of his success in a Conference with him published in French in Mr. D'ageant printed at Grenoble 1668. where in Pag. 173 174 175 176 177 178. he tells this Story It 's like the Archbishop told it to ingratiate himself with Cardinal Richlieu to whom he sent it and would not scruple aggravation Afterwards there was a good understanding between the two Crowns The King of England at the request of the K of France did often remit the ordinary severities used against the Catholicks in England He was even well-pleased with the Proposals that were secretly made to him by the King of France in order to the reducing of him into the bosom of the Church Insomuch that after several Conferences held for that Effect by the consent of his Majesty without communicating any thing of that matter to his Council for fear that the business being known should have been obstructed The Archbishop of Ambrun passed into England as if it had been without Design in the Habit and under the Name of a Counsellor of the Parliament of Grenoble whose curiosity had incited him to see England He had no sooner Landed at Dover but the Duke of Buckingham came to meet him and having saluted him thus whispered in his Ear Sir who call your self a Counsellor of Grenoble but are the Archbishop of Ambrun you are welcom into these Kingdoms You need not change your Name nor your Quality for here you shall receive nothing but Honour and especially from the King my Master who hath a most high Esteem of you Indeed the King of England used him most Kindly and granted him many Favours on behalf of the Catholicks and even permitted him in the French Embassador's Lodgings where was a great Assembly to administer the Sacrament of Confirmation to the Catholicks the Doors being open There were near Eighteen thousand Persons who received that Sacrament and yet no man said any thing to them as they went in at the Gate nor no where else Although there were many of the English always standing in the Street beholding the Ceremony During his abode he had many Conferences with that King who having come to agreement in all the controverted Points he wrote a long Letter to the Pope by a Catholick Gentleman his Subject whom he sent secretly of purpose by which Letter he acknowledged him to be the Vicar General of Jesus Christ on Earth the Universal Father of Christians and the Head of all the Catholicks assuring him that after he had made sufficient provision with respect to the things agreed on he would openâ—â— declare himself In the mean time he proâ—â—â—ed him not to suffer any more to make search in his Kingdom for the Priests which were sent over by his Holiness and the most Christian King provided they were no Jesuites whom he said he could not trust for many Reasons chiefly because he counted them to have been the Authors of the Powder Plot by which they had designed to have blown him up in his Parliament In his Letter among other things he intreated the Pope to grant that the Church Lands which had become part of the Patrimony of the principal Houses in England might not be taken from them that on the contrary they might be permitted to possess them because if it should be otherwise there might arise trouble on that account He said also that nothing hindred him from declaring himself presently but that he desired to bring the King of Denmark his Brother-in-Law with him whom he had in order to that end but under another pretence prayed to come over into England where he hoped to Convert him with himself That in so doing he should secure the Peace of his Kingdoms which otherwise he could hardly keep in Peace and that they two joyned in the same Design would draw with them almost all the North. The Duke of Buckingham and the Gentleman whom he sent to Rome were the only Persons of his Subjects to whom he had made known this design But the Death of King James which put a stop to this Negotiation put a stop to the Effect of it which was a matter of great Grief to his Holiness and the King of France Thus far Deageant At the End of his Book is a Narrative of the Archbishop of Ambrun of his Voyage into England written to Cardinal Richlieu In which he speaks much to the like purpose as done 1624. adding That the King told him with great freedom the affection he had for the Catholick Faith and was so particular as not to omit any thing insomuch that he told me that from his Childhood his Masters perceiving his inclinations thereto he had run great hazards of being assassinated The rest is That the King resolved to settle Liberty of Conscience by calling an Assembly of Trusty English and Foreign Divines at Dover or Boloigne I have recited this to shew that as they are not wanting in Art and Industry so they abuse the Name of Princes to promote their Cause Who can tell but much of this is Lies And if King James to prevent Butchery gave them a few fair words it 's like they added more of their own And if he used the Papists kindly as being against Cruelty they were the more unexcusable that would have destroyed him and could not be kept in Peace § 4. Yet do the Papists make people beyond Sea believe that they live here under constant Martyrdom Sure if
by my silence I have neglected the Duty of the place it hath pleased God to call me to and your Majesty to place me in But now I humbly crave leave I may discharge my Conscience toward God and my Duty to your Majesty And therefore I beseech you freely to give me leave to deliver my self and then let your Majesty do with me what you please Your Majesty hath propounded a Toleration of Religion I beseech you take into consideration what your Act is what the consequence may be By your Act you labour to set up the most and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon How hateful it will be to God and grievous to your good Subjects the Professors of the Gospel that your Majesty who hath often Disputed and Learnedly Written against those Hereticks should now shew your self a Patron of those wicked Doctrines which your Pen hath told the World and your Conscience tells your self are Superstitious Idolatrous and Detestable And hereunto I add what you have done in sending the Prince into Spain without the consent of your Council and Privity and Approbation of your People And though you have a Charge and Interest in the Prince as Son of your Flesh yet have the people a greater as Son of the Kingdom upon whom next after your Majesty are their Eyes fixed and their welfare depends And so tenderly is his going apprehended as believe it however his return may be safe yet the Drawers of him into this Action so dangerous to himself so desperate to the Kingdom will not pass away unquestioned unpunished Besides this Toleration which you endeavour to set up by your Proclamation cannot be done without a Parliament unless your Majesty will let your Subjects see that you will take to your self ability to throw down the Laws of your Land at your pleasure What dreadful consequents these things may draw afterward I beseech your Majesty to consider And above all lest by this Toleration discountenancing the true Profession of the Gospel wherewith God hath blessed us and this Kingdom hath so long flourished under it your Majesty do not draw upon this Kingdom in General and your self in particular Gods heavy wrath and indignation Thus in discharge of my Duty towards God and your Majesty and the place of my Calling I have taken humble leave to deliver my Conscience Now Sir do what you please with me Thus you see what difficulties the King went through to avoid all shew of Cruelty to the Roman Sect when at the same time the Canons Excommunicated Protestants that affirmed any thing to be unlawful in the Liturgy Ceremonies or Church Government and the Laws were in force against them Chap. IV. Of the Papists Endeavours in the time of King Charles the First and the great wrong they did him § 1. THE same method they still continued 1. In vain they subtilly laboured to have perverted the King 2. And then pretended their great sufferings to procure Indulgence 3. And secretly gave out that the King was for them to draw on others that they thought would be still of the Kings Religion § 2. When he was in Spain the Bishop of Couchen a Trained Veterane and Head of the Inquisition was chosen to take the charge of labouring his Conversion and Carolus Boverius wrote to him that Book for Church Monarchy which is now extant And the Pope wrote to him an insinuating Letter to which this answer as returned by the Prince is recorded by Prin as out of Mr. De Chesne the King of France his Geographer and by the Caballa of Letters and by Rushworth who saith the Latine Copy was preserved by some then in Spain at the Treaty and this following in the Caballa is but an ill Translation of it Most Holy Father I received the dispatch from your Holiness with great content and with that respect which the Piety and Care wherewith your Holiness writes doth require It was an unspeakable pleasure to me to read the generous Exploits of the Kings my Predecessors in whose Memory Posterity hath not given those Praises and Elogies of Honour as were due to them I believe that your Holiness hath set their Examples before my Eyes to the end I might imitate them in all my Actions For in truth they have often exposed their Estates and Lives for the Exaltation of the Holy Chair And the Courage wherewith they have assaulted the Enemies of the Cross of Jesus Christ hath not been less than the Care and Thought which I have to the End that the Peace and Intelligence which hath hitherto been wanting in Christendom might be bound with a true and strong Concord For as the common Enemy of Peace still watcheth to put hatred and dissention among Christian Princes so I believe that the Glory of God requires that we should endeavour to unite them And I do not esteem it a greater honour to be descended from so great Princes than to imitate them in the Zeal of their Piety In which it helps me very much to have known the mind and will of our thrice honoured Lord and Father and the Holy Intentions of his Catholick Majesty to give a happy concurrence to so laudable a Design For it grieveth him exceedingly to see the great evils that grow from the Divisions of Christian Princes which the Wisdom of your Holiness foresaw when it judged the Marriage which you pleased to design between the Infanta of Spain and my self to be necessary to procure so great a good For it is very certain I shall never be so extreamly affectionate to any thing in the World as to endeavour alliance with a Prince that hath the same apprehension of the true Religion with my self Therefore I intreat your Holiness to believe that I have been always very far from Novelties or to be a partizan of any Faction against the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion But on the contrary I have sought all occasions to take away the suspicion that might rest upon me And that I will employ my self for the time to come to have but one Religion and one Faith seeing we all believe in one Jesus Christ Having resolved in my self to spare nothing that I have in the World and to suffer all manner of discommodities even to the hazarding of my Estate and Life for a thing so well pleasing to God It rests only that I thank your Holiness for the permission you have pleased to afford me And I pray God to give you a Blessed Health and his Glory after so much pains which your Holiness takes in his Church Signed Charles Steward § 3. Read Rushworth's Copy p. 82 83. whether is most current I know not but this much shews that the Papists complaint of cruel usage here is unjust And lest any believe them that say King Charles was at the Heart a Papist let them note 1. How many and strong temptations he frustrated 2. That when he wrote this he was in their power 3. That
determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary Causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their old Patriarchal Power and Dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both Name and Thing Page 84. In the first place if the Bishop of Rome were reduced from his Universality of Sovereign Jurisdiction Jure Divino to his Principium Vnitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sence of the Councils of Constance and Basil and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we 2. If the Creed or necessary Points of Faith were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Councils according to the Decree of the third General Council admitting no additional Articles but only necessary Explications and those to be made by the Authority of a General Council or one so General as can be Convocated And lastly Supposing that some things from whence offence hath been either given or taken I say in case these three things were accorded whether Christians might not live in an Holy Communion and come in the same publick Worship of God free from all Schismatical Separation of themselves one from another c. We have no Controversie with the Church of Rome about a Primacy of Order but a Supremacy of Power I shall declare my sence in four Conclusions 1. That St. Peter had a fixed Chair at Antioch and after at Rome is a truth which no Man who giveth any credit to the Ancient Fathers and Councils can either deny or well doubt of 2. That St. Peter had a Primacy of Order among the Apostles is the unanimous voice c. 3. Some Fathers and School-men who were no Sworn Vassals to the Roman Bishops affirm that this Primacy of Order is affixed to the Chair of St. Peters Successors for ever c. Page 107. They who made the Bishop of Rome a Patriarch were the Primitive Fathers not excluding the Apostles and Christian Emperors and Oecumenical Councils What Laws they made in this case we are bound to obey for Conscience sake till they be repealed lawfully by virtue of the Law of Christ. Page 104. To my Objection that all Protestants must then pass for Schismaticks that take not the Pope for Principium Vnitatis and Patriarch c. he answereth still weaker and weaker Must a Man quit his just right because some dislike it Their dislike is scandal taken but the quitting of that which is right for their satisfaction should be the scandal given Whether is the worse 1. How are they forced to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks If they be forced any way it is by their own wilful Humours or erroneous Conscience Others force them not 2. I would have him consider which is worse and the more dangerous condition for Christians to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks or to fall into Schism it self Whosoever shall oppose the just Power of a Lawful Patriarch lawfully proceeding is a material Schismatick Reader I forbear confuting these things by the way being now but on the Historical relation of their Judgments You see how great necessity to avoid Schism they place in our subjection to a Forreign Jurisdiction The Confutation you shall have of all together Chap. IX The Judgment of Archbishop Laud as delivered by Dr. Heylin and by himself § 1. IN the Life of Archbishop Laud Pag. 414 415 416 412. Touching the Design of working a Reconciliation betwixt us and Rome I find it charged on him by another Writer Fuller Ch. Hist. lib. 11. p. 217. who holds it as unlawful to be undertaken as it was impossible to be effected Answ. If it be a Crime it 's Novum Crimen of a New stamp never coined before As to the Impossibility many Men of Eminence for Parts and Piety have thought otherwise Spalatensis and Sancta Clara are named as Reconcilers And if without prejudice to the Truth the Controversies might have been composed it is most probable that other Protestant Churches would have sued by their Agents to be included in the Peace If not the Church of England had lost nothing by it as being hated by the Calvinists and not loved by the Lutherans Admitting then that such a Reconciliation was endeavoured betwixt the Agents of both Churches Let us next see what our great Statesmen have discoursed upon that particular on what terms the Agreement was to have been made and how far they proceeded in it And first the Book entituled The Pope's Nuntio affirmed to have been written by the Venetian Embassador at his being in England doth discourse thus As to a Reconciliation saith he between the Churches of England and Rome there were made some general Propositions and Overtures by the Archbishop's Agents they assuring that his Grace was very much disposed thereto and that if it was not accomplished in his Life-time it would prove a work of more difficulty after his Death that in very truth for the last three Years the Archbishop had introduced some Innovations approaching nearer the Rites and Forms of Rome That the Bishop of Chichester a great Confident of his Grace the Lord Treasurer and Eight other Bishops of his Grace's Party did most passionately desire a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome That they did day by day recede from their ancient Tenets to accommodate with the Church of Rome That therefore the Pope on his part ought to make some Steps to meet them and the Court of Rome remit something of its rigour in Doctrine or otherwise no accord would be The Composition on both Sides in so good a forwardness before Pauzani left the Kingdom that the Archbishop and the Bishop of Chichester had often said that there were but two sorts of People like to hinder the Reconciliation the Puritans among the Protestants and the Jesuits among the Catholicks Let us see the Judgment and Relation of another Author in a Gloss or Comment on the former entituled The English Pope Printed at London the same Year 1643. And he will tell us that after Con had undertook the managing of Affairs the Matter began to grow towards some Agreement The King required saith he such a Dispensation from the Pope as his Catholick Subjects might resort to the Protestant Church and take the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity and that the Pope's Jurisdiction should be declared to be but of Human Right And so far had the Pope consented that whatsoever did concern the King should have been really performed so far as other Catholick Princes do usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be Independent both from King and Pope There was no fear of breach on the Pope's part So that upon the Point the Pope was to content himself with us in England with a Priority instead of a Superiority over other Bishops and with a Primacy instead of a
hath authorized a Vicarious Soveraign Prelacy before he can believe that there is a Christ that had any Authority himself 2. And he must be so good a Casuist as to know what maketh a true Bishop 3. And so well acquainted with all the World as to know what parts of the Earth have true Bishops and what they hold And is this the way of making Christians Perhaps you will say That Parents Tutors and Priests tell them what all the Bishops of the World hold as a Soveraign Judicature I answer 1. If they did Holden confesseth that the Certainty of Faith can be no greater than our Certainty of the Medium And the Child or Hearer that knoweth not that his Parent and Teacher therein saith true can no more know that the Creed or Scripture is true on that account 2. The generality of Protestants believe not an Universal-Governing Soveraign under Christ but deny it Therefore they never Preach any such Medium of Faith And can you prove that those that are brought to Christianity by Protestant Parents Tutors or Preachers are all yet Unchristened or have no true Faith 7. Why should we make Impossibilities necessary while surer and easier Means are obvious It is impossible to Children to the Vulgar to almost all the Priests themselves to know certainly what the Major Vote of Bishops in the whole World now think of this or that Text or Article save only consequently when we first believe the Articles of Faith we next know that he is no true Bishop that denieth them And it is impossible to know that Christ hath authorized a Soveraign Colledge before we believe Christs own Authority and Word But the Protestant Method is obvious viz. To hear Parents Tutors and Preachers as humble Learners To believe them Fide humana first while they teach us to know the Divine Evidence of Certain Credibility in the Creed and Scriptures and when they have taught us that to believe Fide Divinâ by the Light of that Divine Evidence which they have taught us What that is I have opened as aforecited and also in a small Treatise against the Papists called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery in which also I have confuted your way Besides what I have said in the Second Part of The Saints Rest and my More Reasons for the Christian Religion 8. I cannot by all your Words understand how you can have any Faith on your Grounds 1. You that renounce Popery I suppose take not the Popish Prelates for any part of the Soveraign Colledge 2. I perceive that you take not the Southern and Eastern Christians for a part who are called Nestorians Eutychians or Jacobites 3. I find that you take not the Protestant Churches that have no Bishops for any part for the Soveraignty is only in Bishops 4. I find that you take not the Lutheran Churches or any other for a part whose Bishops Succession from the Apostles hath not a Continuance uninterrupted which Rome hath not 5. And me thinks you should not think better of the Greeks than of such Protestants on many accounts which I pass by Where then is that Universal Colledge on whose Judging-Authority you are a Christian Sure you take not our little Island for the Universal Church I would I knew which you take for the Universal Church and how you prove the Inclusion and Exclusion 9. I find not that the Universal Church hath so agreed as you suppose of the Canon of Scripture and the Readings Translations c. Four or five Books were long questioned by many General Councils have not agreed of the Canon Bishop Cousins hath given us the best account of the Reception of the true Canon Provincial Councils have said most of this Even the fullest at Laodicea hath left out the Revâ—lations The Romanists take in the Apocrypha Many Churches have less or more than others What Grotius himself thought of Job and the Canticles I need not tell you Nor how Augustine and most others strove for the Septuagint against Jerome And if the Universal Judicature have decided the many Hundred Doubts about the Various Lections I would you would tell us where to find it for I know not § II. Your second Use of the Soveraign Power is to judge of the Sense of Fundamental Articles of Faith because the Words may be taken in a false Sense 1. This is very cautelously spoken Is it only Fundamentals that they are to expound by Soveraign Judgment How then shall we know the Sense of all the rest of the S. Scriptures And how will this end a Thousand Controversies 2. And why may not the same Means satisfie us about Fundamentals which satisfieth us about the Integrals of Religion Yea we have here far better help The first Christians Catechized and taught the Sense of Baptism before they were Baptized They and their Tutors and Preachers taught the same to their Children and so on Baptism and the Fundamentals have been constantly repeated in all the Churches of the World There are as many Witnesses or Teachers of these as there are Understanding Christians And yet must all needs hear from the Antipodes or know the Sense of a Humane Soveraign of the World before they receive them 3. Can this Supreme Colledge speak the Fundamentals plainlier than God hath done and than the Parish Priest can do Are they necessary to tell us that Christ died rose ascended because Scripture speaketh it not plain enough We know that no Words of Creed or Scripture falsly understood make a true Believer But is not that as true of a Councils Words as of the Creed And are there any Words that Men cannot misunderstand Why hath Filioque continued such a Distraction in the Churches and Councils yet end it not To say nothing of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and other such Have we a necessity of a Soveraign Judicature to be to all Men in stead of a Schoolmaster to tell them what is the meaning of Greek and Hebrew Words And could not one Origen or Jerom tell that better than a General Council of Men that understand not those Tongues I must confess that what understanding of the Words of Creed or Scripture I have received was more from Parents Tutors Teachers and Books than from Soveraign Councils or Colledge of Bishops though Dr. Holden say he is no true Believer and Catholick that believeth an Article of Faith because his Reason findeth it in Scripture and not rather because all the Christian World believeth it There is more skill in Cosmography Arithmetick and History necessary to such a Faith than I have attained or can attain I can tell E. g. by Lexicons and other Books what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth in the Creed better than how all the Bishops in the World interpret it by an Authoritative Sentence § III. Your third Work of this Soveraign Power is Authoritatively to declare what Government of the Church was delivered by the Apostles 1. As I said of Scripture we
Generation the Heart is first made and then some Rudiments of the Vessels for Distribution and then the Head and Eyes and then the Liver c. So Christs Humane Nature with his Spirit is as Heart and Head to the Church And then Teaching by himself first was as the Arteries for Distribution And the Apostles were first made the most Noble Organical parts to Deliver and Record his Universal Commands and by his Spirit make up the Inferior parts and the ordinary Pastors to be as the Stomach and Liver c. for the Nutrition of the whole None of these parts are the Soul or forma hominis but the Noblest parts are necessary in that Contexture which is forma Corporis to make it materiae disposita receptive of the Soul which is the Form as to its full Operation though the Semen to make an Embrio before received it Much like is it in our present Case XXIII Our Controversie then is not whether it be necessary to the being of the Church in facto esse that it have Apostles and Pastors and Teachers to make it the Organized Body of Christ for this we all acknowledge Nor yet whether these should be all Christians of one Body Spirit Faith Baptism Hope united to one Head and God in him Nor whether the Unity of the Spirit for that 's the Unity should be kept in the Bond of Peace no more than whether the dissimilar parts of the Body should all be of one Matter and live by one nutriment united to the same Head and Heart Contiguous and made for the Good of the whole actuated by the same Spirits and Animated by the same Soul XXIV But our Controversie with the Papists is Whether the Church on Earth have any One lawful Supream Power under Christ Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical authorized to Govern the whole by Legislation and Judgment That is One Ministerial Soveraign or Vice-Christ a Constitutive specifying and Vnifying Supream over all being one Political person whether in one or many natural Persons This Protestants deny XXV It is but our second Question with the Papists Whether the Pope be this Head or Supreme Rector but our first and fundamental Controversie is Whether there be any such at all but Christ. Did we believe there were any such at all we should readily be Papists either of those that give most to the Pope as Absolute or of those that make him the President of Councils and in their Intervals the Prime Church Governor according to the Laws Of which more anon That the Protestants commonly deny all Universal Soveraignty but Christ's I should tire the Reader needlesly to prove by numerous Citations He may soon know that will read 1. All the Churches Confessions in the Corpus Confessionum 2. Our Oaths for renouncing all foreign Jurisdictions 3. Our Disputants Luther de Conciliis Zuinglius Oecolampadius Melanchthon Brentius Calvin Bullinger Zanchy Illiricus Pezelius Musculus Aretius Chamier Molinaeus Blondel Dallaeus Rivet Paraeus Sohnius Piscator Beza Sadeel Danaeus Grynaeus Spanhemius Arminius Episcopius c. Jewel Whitaker Reignolds Crakenthorpe Abbot Challoner Willet Vsher White Chillingworth Davenant Morton Carlton Bernard Barrow c. Their Disputes were not Who is this Summa Potestas Ministerial to Govern all the Christian World but whether there be any such XXVI No Protestants ever yet denied the Councils of Pisa Constance and Basil and the French allowed Clergy to be Papists because they were not of the Italian strain nor for the absolute unlimited Power of the Pope Nor did any call them Protestants XXVII That the Pope hath no right to an Universal Supremacy Headship or Government I have proved at large in the First and Second Part of my Key for Catholicks And Dr. Barrow hath better and more largely proved after many other Briefly 1. No Man is naturally capable of Governing all the World Only God and our Redeemer is capable Man cannot know hear send execute over all the Earth per se per alios it 's a kind of madness to imagine it 2. The Christian Churches are mostly under the Power of various Princes Abassines Turks Persians the Mogol Moscovites Tartarians Swedes Danes English c. that will not receive the Pope How then can he govern the Subjects under them 3. Had such a Head been of Christ's making he would have plainly made us understand it by his word Of so great importance would it be to the Churches Unity and our Salvation 4. When Heresies and Sects and Controversies arose and troubled the Church the Apostles would sure have told them this necessary means of ending all and living in Unity and Concord 5. Paul would never have chidden the Contenders for saying I am of Cephas if centering in him had been the only uniting means 6. Peter never exercised any Power over the rest of the Apostles nor over the Universal Church any more than the rest 7. If he had it had been no more to the Bishop of Rome than to the Bishop of Antioch and others 8. None can shew any Commission of Christ for such a Headship And none other can authorize them 9. The Council of Chalcedon saith expresly that it 's being the Imperial Seat caused Rome to have the Primacy by the Father's Gift 10. The whole Greek Church never believed that Christ made any Universal Soveraign For 1. Else they would never have contended for the Primacy at Constantinople nor for the second place For they knew that was no Apostolical Seat nor did they claim it as by Christs institution and they were not so impudent as to set up a Human Right before a Divine 2. And even they never claimed a Soveraignty over the Extra Imperial Christian World but only over the Churches of the Empire and those that had been the Emperor's Subjects 11. The Fathers and Primitive Church and Tradition are all against the Pope's Universal Government without the Empire as I have elsewhere proved 12. The Catholick Church is now against such a Soveraign even the far greatest part of Christians And it never acknowledged him or united in him in any Age. 13. There is less reason for one Church Monarch over all the World than for one Civil Monarch as shall be further proved which yet no Man hath the face to plead for 14. This Papal Claim hath no just pretence There is no work or use for any such Power of which more anon Let not Magistrates or Pastors be robbed of their right and there will no Governing Work be left for the Pope 15. It is an unsufferable Usurpation of the Power of all Christian Princes who are entrusted with the Exteriors and Accidentals of the Church and a wrong to them and their Kingdoms to subject them to Foreigners The Pope of old was a Subject to one Prince And for one Princes Subject to Rule all other Princes of the Earth is in effect to make that Prince the Ruler of them all 16. A humane Usurping Head maketh an human adulterous
the Universal Church And so it is not only Bishops that have every one a Charge in his Place to promote the Universal welfare but every Presbyter and every Christian in his Place Therefore that Bishops are related to the whole Church no more proveth that they have as a Senate a summa potestas or any Universal Government over it as one College than it will prove it in all other Christians who are all related to the whole Nor no more than the Members of the Body do make one natural Governing Part by Consent XXX This Communion of Christians in the Church as Catholick is essentiated by the Essentials of Christianity and Ministry for Christians as Christians with Christ the Head do constitute the Catholick Church in its first being as in fieri And Christians as Christian Ministers of Christ and private Disciples do constitute the organized Body which with Christ the Head make an organized Catholick Church XXXI The Integrals of Christianity Communion are not necessary to the Essence of the Church but to the Integrity Much less the Accidents XXXII The Christian Churches through the World have Communion in all these things following at this day 1. They are all Baptized with the same Baptism in Essence and so are all Christians Particularly they all profess to believe in God the Father one Jesus Christ our Redeemer and one Holy Ghost one in Essence with the Father and the Son They all profess the same Creed called the Apostles yea and the Nicene and the Lord's Prayer as the Rule of our Desires and the Decalogue as a summary Rule of Practice They all believe the same holy Canonical Scripture as to as many Books at least as are necessary to the being of Christianity and Salvation They all agree in the Essentials of the Sacred Ministry that such must teach the Infidels of the World and make them Disciples of Christ baptizing them and then must teach them Christ's Commands That they are under Christ's Teaching Priestly and Kingly office to be to the Churches the Peoples Teachers their Guides in Publick Worship and the Rulers of their Communion by the Power of the Keys They agree in the Essentials of the Lord's Supper save that the Papists have corrupted it by Transubstantiation and other foul Abuses The Protestants Greeks Armenians Abassines and all or near all the Parties of Christians in the World are agreed in all this and much more excepting the said Corruptions of Popery 2. Their Religion teacheth them all to Love one another as the Members of the same Body of Christ to do good to all especially to the Houshold of Faith and to Pray for one another and and relieve each other in want and to do to all as they would have others do to them In a word to Love God as God and Saints as Saints and Men as Men and all to seek one Heavenly Kingdom and all fight against the same Enemies the World the Flesh and the Devil And this is Catholick Communion XXXIII The greater Communion they have in all the Integral parts of Christian Faith Worship and Government the more strong and amiable the several Churches are and so is the whole by such Communion But it is not necessary to the Essence It is not the Papists trick of challenging us to name Fundamentals that will cheat men of understanding to confound Essentials and Integrals That which hath no Essence is nothing that whose Essentials are unknown is not knowable nor can be defined Christianity was once known by Baptism and it was once knowable who were to be Baptized and who to be received as Christians into Communion There are multitudes of Divine Truths revealed in Scripture and therefore to be believed which are not essential to a Christian or a Church And so there are Integral Parts of Worship and Discipline He that needs more proof of this is not one of those that I write for XXXIV The Accidents of Christianity and Churches are of two sorts some such as it is desireable that all Churches should agree in though it be necessary neither to their Essence or Integrity And some such in which an Universal Agreement is neither possible nor desireable As it is desireable to comeliness that all men have Hair and Nails c. but not that they all wear Cloaths of the same Stuff Shape or Price or all dwell in Houses of the same materials form or bigness nor all use the same Trade of Life nor be of one Age or Rank c. It is desireable that all the World spake one Language and were of one Judgment in all things of common concernment But it 's hopeless And he would play the hypocritical Devil that on pretence of seeking Unity would destroy or ruin all that agree not in these things so is it as to Church Communion It is desireable that all Christians understood and spake one Language and that we had but one perfect sort of Copy of the Bible without various readings or where Translations are necessary that they were all perfect and agreeable but it 's hopeless As the case is it is not desireable much less necessary that we all Worship God in one Language when all understand it not or that we all use the same Translations Liturgy or words of Prayer or Preaching or all wear the same sort of Garments and an hundred such like And to silence all that do not or reject them from Catholick Communion is the like hypocritical Diabolism and in that way the Devil and the Pope are the greatest Vniters that is Dividers and Destroyers in the World XXXV The Vniversal Church containeth many particular Churches throughout the World This none denieth As a Kingdom hath many Cities and Corporations XXXVI These particular Churches Parts of the Universal have a distinct constitutive Form That is Christ only is Soveraign of the Universal but his Officers are the particular constitutive ruling part of the particular though under Christ. King and Subjects only are Essential to a Kingdom But a Mayor Bailiff or other chief Officer and the common Citizens are Essential to a City And to call a man Chief or Head of a Family or City that is no King is no Treason but to claim the Royalty is XXXVII Therefore there is more necessary to Communion in a particular Church as a Member of it than to Catholick Communion Viz. He must consent to his Relation and Submission to the particular Pastors of that Church and to meet at the same time and place and joyn in all the necessary Parts of Publick Worship with them Else local Communion will be impossible Therefore it is injurious ignorance which maintaineth of late that he that separateth from or is justly cast out of one Church separateth from or is cast out of all For he that will not own the Pastor of that Church cannot have Communion with it as a Member of that Church who can come to School to a Schoolmaster that he consents not to