move and have our being The first and last part of the Discourse are Unison and both practical and of more general use the midle Historical and Polemical and of no less use to several in these unsetled times to have the evidences of their Faith and Church as their Writings for their Lands to lye by them and their Children against any question that shall arise about the title Where known passages of History were necessarily to be rehears'd all possible conciseness is us'd which makes that part of the stile more obscure without a deliberate reading which yet is remedied by the Citations in the bottome of the Page referring to the Authors themselves And sometimes indignation against inclination rais'd the stile where the adverse objections or practice seem'd highly unreasonable or greatly pernicious having no enmity or disrespect to any person or party high or low but to their sin or ill example for their Recollection to prevent God's wrath and out of fidelity to the common Lord and judge of both The word Protestant is us'd as now it notes the Scriptural Apostolical Faith in opposition to Rome's corrupt Innovations and humane Inventions and in the sense explain'd page 488. Else it were very improper to stile our Brittish Faith Protestant which flourished here 1500 years before Luther was born The great and memorable Archbishop Vsâ—er whose memory ought ever to be especially dear to Brittains is often cited in His Book de Britannicarum Ecclesiarum Primordiis which after once naming is not repeated Which he writ at the command of King James as a Collection on purpose for such an use with great pains and judgment and truth and helpes several wayes and partilarly from the late chief Antiquary of Wales Mr. Rob. Vaughan of Hâ—â—-gwâ—â— with whom he corresponded It is not to be said that all is new or old either which is here deliver'd and intended for a compact systeme of satisfactions on this point under one view which before lay more dispers'd and undiscern'd and as some account also of innocence and patience in their defence which have not escap'd the censure of Improvidence and harder speeches and passages there being a Scaffold Priviledge ever due to Sufferers but this may be safely said that though the Notes were old and standing and ought so to be yet the Tune and management is wholly new and sincerely endeavour'd and design'd for the peace and concord of our Church and the stength and glory of our Nation and in all humility submitted to the candid eare and judgment of all Right Fathers and Sons of our Brittish Church of England Farewel A General Table of the Contents PART I. A Sermon touching Christs immediate Soveraignty over the heart and the usefulness of the Christian Doctrine to Societies being the occasion and foundation of the ensuing Argument SECT I. p. 43. The Controversie reduc'd to one single point in General of obedience to the right Soveraign of the heart and Protestancy found Loyal and Popery the contrary in its Principles and Practice SECT II. p. 68. Of the true Mother-Church to all Christians in respest of their In-side and of Rome'sVsurpations SECT III. p. 78. Of the true Mother Church to every Christian in respect of the Out-side and Rome'sVsurpations SECT IV. p. 123 Rome no mother-Mother-Church to Brittain in respect of extraction or first Plantation of the Christian Faith but much Junior to it and more probably its Daughter SECT V. p. 134. The faith never fail'd in Brittain from the Resurrection to this present SECT VI. p. 143. Brittain had not the faith from Pope Eleutherius SECT VII p. 151. The description of the Old Brittish Church in its Doctrine and Discipline and Government and Traditions when Augustine the Monk made his Impression here SECT VIII p. 194. The face of the Roman Church about the same time and of Augustine's qualification and method for his pretended Propagation of the Gospel amongst the English And that the Nation are under no obligation to Rome for his work here but bound by their Christianity to abhor and detest it SECT IX p. 231. That the Gospel was planted among the English throughout their Counties by Brittish Ministry And that Augustine's Roman Plantation here came to nothing and no Bishop left in all this Land of Rome's Ordination but one and he a Simonaick and that the body of the Nation are old Brittains and our Princes especially and therefore by honour and nature bound to maintain the Rights of our Brittish Church against Forreign Enchroachments SECT X. p. 295. That all or most of the Kingdoms and Churches in this part of Europe received their first faith from Brittain yet Brittain pretends to no Supremacy over them upon that account and the Romanists â—loes de se in that kind of Plea SECT XI p. 346. Of the indirect methods of Rome in subjugating this and other Churches under it SECT XII p. 363. The change in Henry 8th rather a Restoration than Reformation and how commencing in Henry 7th and of the Inauspiciousntss of Popery to the Brittish Crown and the success and blessing of Protestant Counsels to this Nation SECT XIII p. 392. That the Primacy of the See of Canterbury as it is settled by our own Kings and Laws is Canonicall and Regular SECT XIV p. 436. That the Primacy of Canterbury as by the Pope and Monk Augustine is Schismatical and against the Canons of the Vniversal Church And of the several Nullities of the Church of Rome in England And how all their Clergy intruding â—here stand depriv'd of their Orders by the Canons of all the Ancient General Councils and their Laity that abet them of their Christian Communion by the same Authority SECT XV. p. 475. A short disquisition into the Cause and Character of the Roman Apostacy in its Leaders and Followers from History and Prophecy and Practice SECT XVI p 503. What the Roman Catholicks truly mean by the term Heretick they so liberally bestow on others and that none are greater Hereticks in Truth and reality than themselves and of their title Roman-Catholick which they so well like And old Rome and Brittain both Heathen and Christians compar'd with the Modern and that the yoak of Rome is not better to us than our present condition SECT XVII p. 562. Where the place of the undoubted true Church is out of whose Pale there is no Salvation And how to be of the Church in Heaven while we are on Earth Page 23. l. 24. read outside p. 177. l. 18 dele as p. 184. ult r. source of p. 204. l. 18. â— the p. 21 â—… l. 29. r. out of p. 237. l. 18. r. after aâ—lin 1â— d. a p. 29â— l. 10. r. of his p. â—08 l. 5. d. say p. 315. l. 18. r. at p. 319 l. 30 r. of Bede p. 358. l. 13. r. of a God p. 379 l. 21. r. soon began p. 392 l. â— r. like to p. 420. l. 10. r. and from p. 468. l. 2. r. where p. 482.
Apostolical Rule in my Text in your own hands to measure and Judge as Solomon once did between two Mothers the true and the pretended For a Private Person with God to guide him may judge Infallibly which Church most agrees with God for a wavering eye and a trembling hand having a streight and a stable rule and line to guide it partakes of the stability and streightness that directs it the guide and guided being one and the same person by fiction and agreement And the Roman Catholick themselves as they love to be called cannot be denied to be every Mothers Son as Infallible as the Judge himself or their Church is to whom they give themselves entirely over to be guided by them take therefore in Gods name Gods clear mind and measure and judge impartially with the heart and soul and in the strength of him that guides you Your Holy Mother the Church of England hath nourished you up in a Sound and Orthodox Religion and Worship which you and your Prosterity can understand and therefore say Amen to it from your hearts because you understand it The great pretender of Rome starves her Children at Nurse and all their life time in their own Territories by Politick Ignorance and binds and enslaves their stoutest Champions in chains of darkness and of implicit faith and blind obedience the better to keep them under in Captivity and slavery to serve her unworthy and unnatural designs and to fight against the Truth as the Turk breeds up deluded Janizaries to War and subdue their own Fathers and Mothers and people which absolute and blind subjection of the heart to any man on Earth is Idolatry in the giver and the taker Is it not lamentable to consider how prophane and perfidious the guides of the Church of Rome are towards God and their people committed to their charge and in deceiving the one and mocking the other with a worship in an unknown tongue without the heart and understanding which is therefore a meer nullity by the Divine Doctrine of my Text and by common sense and therefore no worship at all but Idleness and â—â—â—â—ccation approaching to Idolatry Religion without the mind is not Religion or Worship but a shew or Stage-Play or a Counterfeit of Religion as the Scene is of Truth and History where an Actor or a Mimick stands for a Prince as here the shadow for the substance or crossing of the body for the contrition of the soul and all are able to know and understand very well the whole management in both to be a meer divertisement of the fancy only more sufferable on the Stage than in the Church in Gods presence where more sobriety and seriousness of mind is required and nothing else in point of Truth and reality because the Original Persons and parties are absent and wanting there the true Hero and here the Truth of the heart A sincere Protestant is grieved and troubled at every straggling thought and the least deviation of his heart at Prayer in Gods presence as a great and griveous affront and contempt of the Divine Majesty like turning our backs to a Prince while we are speaking to him But our confident Bigots of Rome by their Publick and common pactice maintain and defend that God is best worshipped when he is so affronted and despised and that the total absence of the heart and understanding so there be an outward Opus operatum with lip and breath is no sin at all but right Catholick Devotion most agreeing with the Deity If mumbling Pater Nosters and Ave Maries whether at Church or Closet or at Cards or Plays as Witches do Charms without knowledge or Attention or meaning make good and current Roman-Catholick Devotion then Parrots and Magpyes and Apes may commence Catholick Disciples of the Roman-Catholick Salvation And upon this score perhaps it was that one of the great and Sainted Patriarchs of an order amongst them began to bestow his pains and zeal in Preaching to Birds When men in contrariety to the Apostle in my Text judge it fanatical Innovation to Worship God as Protestants do with the heart and understanding They that so exclude the heart in the first place as needless will they not exclude the Lord likewise in the second place for these two are Correlates take away the one and take away the other also where the heart and the Lord are shut out in the first and second place will not the fear of the Lord be excluded likewise though the beginning of wisdom in the third place And where the fear of the Lord is once banisht from Religion is there any sin or Villany in Soul or Body that such Religious Atheists will boggle at to act and prepetrate at opportunity or temptation when it may with safety be committed and with impunity from the Laws of man It s well that Church exceeds all others in Pardons and Absolutions if such seives hold water for their Principles cut out work enough for Pardons and if their own allowed and best Historians are to be believed the practices of their chiefest Popes come not short of their Principles How deplorable and sad is the condition of such a Church to which no further degree of disorder and misery can be added or imagin'd Nor the Devil drive this nail further to the head than that they should strongly believe themselves to be the sole and only Catholicks salvable and infallible in such gross and damnable Errours And yet upon such holy guides such infallible Rocks the Roman-Catholick Church is built For all with them are bound to believe as the Church that is the Pope believes whom they believe to be infallible For though their lives are often frail and vicious yet their Doctrines or Testimonies for God say they are ever firm and true As if a Vicious life were not an effectual quenching and renouncing of the whole Faith of such a person during such impenitence or as if a Debauch'd person or Atheist were a fit witness for the Christian Faith much less the Judge thereof He that will be Infallible for another ought first to be Infallible for himself and his own Salvation And every man is bound upon his everlasting Peril to be as Infallible as he can for himself and his Brethren But as a Creature no man is or can be Infallible nec vox hominem Sonat but more or less he may be Infallible by help from without according as he is guided wholly or in part by God who is alone Infallible And the issue and whole state of the cause and difference between Protestants and Papists lyes in the right choice and election of their Infallible guide and judge Who this is being the great Question There is no judge under God and Christ the sole judge of quick and dead but the invict Supream Powers himself hath appointed in all Kingdoms and Churches and private breasts Invict Conscience in every private man in all Private and all Eternal concerns Invict
Christians for another surname as is the stile of all Roman-Catholicks And 2 likewise for no m 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 ordinary voluntary Austerity of life which is most of the Religion of the best of them Col. 2.23 And 3. n 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Epiphan in Audianis for separating from the communion of their betters which was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the most grievious and dreadful miscarriage of all So that Brittain the Mother Church to Europe was made like in several parts both for sufferings and relief to Sion the Mother Church of the whole World as small circles have the genius and similitude of the greater for as the opposition and greate Combate of the one was from the Sword of the Heathen World resolving to destroy it from without and the leaven of Nicholaitans and other Hereticks combineing from within to defile and shame it which was the greater molestation and Indignity so in like manner was the Case of the other for the Primitive Brittish was permitted to be kill'd all the day long by Pagan Saxons on the one hand and hindred and pestered all along in all its good works with Roman-Catholick Gnosticism on the other which was the greater and the unworthyer Nusance yet both prevailing through their oppression The death of Brittain bringing life and Salvation to English and Germans as the seed grows by dying or as the Jews rejection was the Gentile's reconcilation in some likeness of Christ himself their first Pattern who became the life of all the World by his death and as the one had its Constantine after some time and Theodosii to vindicate and take its part so had the other it s Arthurs and Charlemagne and Henry the eight in some like proportion aâ—d Christ himself in the end to make it alike partaker in glory with him as it was in sufferings and in the mean while to live in them for whom it dyed as he doth in his Church and as Fathers live in their posterity that take their place Neither is it hence Inferrible according to Roman Logick and Sophistry that Europe therefore ought to pay such obedience for ever to Brittain upon this spiritual score as the Roman expects from other Churches which were against the Law of Nations and the Rights of Kings in their several Dominions whose respective subjects are to own and regard no other Superiour but their own Prince and as much against the Laws and Canons of the Catholick Church and the Immunities of Bishops and Metropolitans within their several Provinces by them and as much against the Law of nature likewise and the express ordinance of God himself who hath placed the woman in subjection under the man and yet by the strength and consequence of this Argument that order must be Inverted And where women have had the first hand in the Conversion of Kings and Kingdoms to the Faith there they ought by this Roman Topick to be Supreme in spirituals if they have impartial right and justice done them as they must of necessity be in England in several respects either in the right of Queen Bertha who first disposed her Husband Ethelbert to the Faith whereby Monk Augustine and Popery had their first entrance Or of Eanfled Oswi's Queen by whose zeal and diligence Theodore and Popery had its re-entrance and more durable establishment after it had been once banisht and extinct Or Anne Fulleâ—gne to whom according to the Romanists is owing its mortal wound and total overthrow and the setting up of Protestancy instead Or in France to Queen Clotildis who brought Clodoveus their first Christian King to embrace the Faith or to Mâ—esâ—o's Queen who did the like in Poland c. Or over the whole Christian World in the right of Mary Magdalen who brought the first tydings of the Resurrection to the Apostles themselves which would be a great relief to the fame of Pope Joan and the credit of her History so unjustly question'd No the English who are nearer home were they now a distinct People from the Ancient Brittains as it hath been proved they are not ow not such a debt or Tribute to the Posterity of the Ancient Brittains by whose Ancestors we have likewise prov'd they were undoubtedly fiâ—st Converted For such kind of Preaching of the Gospel on the side of the Brittains and such believing and complying with the grace of God for Salvation on the side of the English or Saxon were the personal duties and merits of both Progenitours for which both have had their full reward and payment from God long ago in rest and glory and both posterities mutually acquitted and released and remitted to seek after the like glory by the like means for indeed the just retribution and compensation for the unvaluable benefit of Gospel and Salvation belongs to God alone both to discharge and to receive instead of the one and the other party because two great a debt and obligation for a Creature to undergo or the hearer to requiâ—e or the â—reaâ—â—er to demaund and insist on besides the mâ—â—dâ—â— and telling another of our good turns towaâ—ds him Cancels Courtesies especially those between Souls because it bankrupts and annihilates by fiction him whose requital we expect For the giver representing God the receiver a Creature unless Gods proxy absent and hide his glory by a fiction of forgetfulness the Creatures proxy will appear to be nothing and consequently insolvent so near his rayes as the Sun must set that Stars may shine for while too near the presence and comparison of the greater obscures and destroys the weaker light If therefore the Generous posterity of the Saxons on the one hand believe kindness to be due to the posterity of the Brittains on the score of first Faith the Brittains on the other dare not own any such debt to be due unto them lest they wrong the merits and duties of their Progenitors but what honour or favour is forced upon them they will acknowledge it free guift without any previous merit calling for a requital and return with due increase and multiplied proportion where there is power and where that is wanting for a constant acknowledgement and rememberance and repayments in the heart through the aid of God by prayers and blessings And this were as much the duty of the Roman Church towards the English were it true that their Ancestors had received their Faith from Rome and that Faith had been pure and sound and right according to that of our Saviour freely ye have received freely give Math. 19.8 If they intend to act as men and Christians and Gentlemen of education and breeding and not as those 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that had their hearts or their minds and consciences putrified and corrupted 1 Tim 6.5 as too many of their principles and practices afford apparent Symptons of such a malady For in the matter and commerce of Courtesies that forgetfulness should be the part of the Giver and remembrance of the Receiver
worldly design and private ends shall be most Uncatholick and so the Catholicism of their Church is more like to fall and vanish likewise But if they call themselves Catholicks for distinction from Protestants who pass with them but for Hereticks they are again very grossly mistaken in their Criticism For Orthodox b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Phot. tit 12. c. ◠is contrary to Heretick and Catholick to Jew which was the first and Original sense of this word upon the Gentiles being taken into the Church as well as Jews And Protestants are no more Jews than themselves as is not doubted Nor perhaps so much for they are liker to the Jews in confining Gods Church within the Roman Pale as the other did within their Palestine But we Protestants Catholickly extend and enlarge it to all Nations according to the promises made to Abraham the Catholic◠Fathe◠of many Nations as the name God gave him imports as well as the particular Father of the Jews Therefore the Title Catholick more belongs in Truth and reason to Protestants than to our Romanists who are so restrain'd and Vncatholick and Jewish-like in the bounds of their Church which they so confine to Rome And by their waving the Title Orthodoxe which had been more proper for their distinguishing design they fatally allow Protestants for such and disallow themselves They therefore are in Truth neither Orthodox nor Catholick but only New Roman or a private Earthly Church below or a modern Italian Jerusalem that is in exile and bondage with her Children Not favouring either of the Apostolical purity of the right Christian or the Orthodoxy of the Ancient Roman or the Heavenliness and Spirituality of Jerusalem which is above the Mother of all true Christians who are in Heaven by Faith They are therefore in Truth but New Roman-Catholicks as who should say an Old-New a Particular-universal a Spiritual-carnal a Heavenly-earthly Church made up of Contradiction and Hypocrisy and Earth Whose chief end and Interest is the Advancement and glory of Rome not of Christ high like Kites in their soring pretences to eye Dunghills for prey the better making silly Souls to believe the only way to be saved is to become their Spiritual Slaves and Tributaries and to go to Rome and Heaven to be all one Which with an answerable personal Holiness of life without which none can see God might well be true of the old Apostolical Rome and any other Church agreeing with it in the like sound Rule and Doctrine but it is far from true as to the Modern Apostatical for it is a great and a gross mistake to take or imagine the Church of Rome Ancient and present to be one and the same because of the same Sirname and patch'd Succession for it is not name-sake or Succession which yet goes far with superficial judgments unlike to God that by their principles neglect and lay by the heart but the same soundness of Life and Doctrine or hearts in the same Heaven not feet in the same house or Countrey that make Churches to be the same and true the want whereof or any notorious corruption in Faith or Manners by the rules of Christianity cuts off and debars the Communion of Christians Members much more the Succession of Christian Governours For how can any succeed to be Heads where by the Apostolical Law they are out of capacity to be members of a Christian Church 1 Cor. 5.11 The old Roman Church for the first 400 years before Rome was burnt and several times sack'd and brought to the dust as before did disapprove the wayes and Doctrines of the Modern and consequently its Communion as much as we Protestants for she did not Worship Saints or Images nor slight and suppress the Scriptures under colour of respect nor curtayle Sacraments and Divine Institutions Nor usurp'd upon Christ nor Crowns nor Churches nor Consciences nor upon the liberties of our Brittish Church in particular as they cannot Instance in one Pall or appeal in any Age or History Pope Gregorie's account upon diligent search above 1000 years agoe to omit other Arguments is abundant proof and certainty there was none nor endur'd to carry God about in a Cage and to create as many Christs and Saviours as there be Wafers in Churches and Cities and Altars and every one of equal Deity and Worship to our Saviour in Heaven God blessed for ever which amongst them cannot otherwise fall out as we have shewed but that a Wafer should be Christ and Christ but a Wafer by their Hypothesis which excludes the heart whereby Christ by consequence is excluded and a gross Capernaitical sense of such Spiritual Mysteries as necessarily introduc'd nor made the Authority of man more than that of Scripture the Rule of Faith and Heresie nor burnt fellow Christians for their Errours much less for the same Truths which themselves maintain'd as Protestants are or are in danger dayly to be serv'd by the present nominal Church of Rome with other innumerable Superstitions and Unchristian cruelties and loathsome Fraud and Legends and Infernal Dispensations for sins and duties But was Orthodox in her Faith and Regular and sober and Christian like in all her Church-Rites and Practices and well approved of and acccorded with by this and all Christian Churches by all brotherly love and Communion as the distance of places did permit yea with some preference of honour before many other lesser and obscurer Churches for its Imperial situation and numerous Martyrs yet without any danger of being caught in any Noose by such respect or honourable Appellations which no doubt were return'd to every Church though lesser with the like or greater humility and respect than they were given In which Christ-like victories and contests between Brethren and Churches the Christian ambition did heretofore consist but the present Church of Rome abuses and converts the Christian honour of her equals into aliment and fuel for her Pride not exalting others for their humility as God doth but concluding against them from it through the barbarous forgetfulness of her own mutual Divine and Christian part and no Eulogy shall occur in History but must bespeak Supremacy to her alone and Slavery and Subjection to the rest of Christendom like the Wolf going to School who could discern nothing but Agnus in every word and Syllable and letter pronounced unto him No this Church of Rome is no more the old than a Cock is a French-man because both are Gallus in Latine than there City or their People or their Language is the same being all of a new and a different Situation and dialect and descent The Race of Old Romans are sooner to be met and found in Venice and else-where than in Gothick Rome where more inclination not only after Roman civility but also after Ancient Roman or Protestant Orthodoxy doth appear as some of their wisest Clerks and later Historians have given a tast And the parties in this Bill and Plea for this Roman Supremacy
dyed in their hope and trust for us for whose sake he 'l continue his goodness to their seed but though his wrath ebb'd 800 years his Grace and mercy wherein he delights to abound and exceed hath not stowed yet full 200 years or is he unable to perfect what he hath begun He that can work a Resurrection from the dead cannot he accomplish a Restoration to a living and surviving People yea and great confusion to all opposers of it No good man ought to envy or hinder the longed for mercies of God to a Nation no great man can and if having his descent alike from the same People how can such be deem'd either good or great but rather miserably unnaturall and deservedly unfortunate and improsperous Earthly Potentates may not give stop to God's tides King Edgar tryed but fail'd their timely retreat will be their greatest safety and Wisdom how many mistaken Politicians have been drowned and Shipwrack'd in such clandestine contrary Councils No Emperour on Earth can command it to be night after the Sun is risen where God is for us we need not fear any seduc'd Dust and Ashes that may appear against us It is likewise most impossible in reason unless in case of Gods great desertion and extraordinary curse The radical difference between Protestants and Papists as was Stated from the beginning and Instanc'd in all along lyes herein that the one take Christ the other the Pope or his pretended Vicar for their Messia or the Lord of their Hearts and Judgements The Protestants who live by faith as all true Christians do and ever did hold firm their Allegiance to their invisible Soveraign in Heaven The Papists who love to live more by sence and show through dis-regard to Faith and the Heart change their Heavenly Soveraign for a visible Christ on Earth which Rebellion can never succeed nor be done no not when it is done already Should not be in the holy Language is shall not be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which thing shall not be done say the Sons of Jacob touching the Ravishment of their Sister Dina already committed Gen. 34.7 The Soveraignty of Christ and the Allegiance of the soul to God and the Truth are Divine Eternal Establishments not to be alter'd by human pleasure they can no more be changed by the corruption of men or the combination and Clandestine Counsels of Conclaves and Politicians and seduced Grandees than the Constitution of Kingdoms or the Laws of Nations be repealed and changed by Conventicles of Pismires some rash attempt may be made while mens souls are besides themselves or drunk and intoxicated with Idols and vitious Customs but to no more effect than casting caps against the Moon which can never reach it or spitting against the wind which returns into the face or defiance of the Laws and Government by a strong Knot of High-way-men whose end in all likely-hood must be Repentance or Hell and Tyburn Which is further confirm'd by good Authorities the King of Prophets within the Church Psal 2. Why do the Heathens or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eph. 2.12 rage and the People Imagine a vain thing The Kings of the Earth set themselves and the Rulers take Counsel together against the Lord and against his anointed or Messia saying Let us break their bands asunder and cast away their cords from us away with these invisible fanatick Lords and Laws of Souls and Consciences Let none in Heaven or Earth be obeyed in matters of Religion or Conscience but a Pope in Temporal matters but a Prince He that sitteth in Heaven shall laugh the Lord shall have them in derision to shew the Pittiful ridiculousnes and vanity of such void attempts And the Prince of Philosophers without the Church in his Golden Book of vertue and vice perceiv'd and affirm'd this Truth that the one is in it self 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 commendable and lovely and the other 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Eternally deformed and censurable let men or Laws conspire what they can to the contrary And the unanimous consent and suffrage of all mens Souls and Counsciences to this particular points at the true cause hereof an indelible immediate Allegiance in every heart to God and the truth alone and a deafness to all other Forreign power whatsoever against him Yea and an accuser of it self under any such delinquency For Children and Clownes shall discern and condemn such disloyal deviations in their Prince whom they reverence and the Prince in himself being above all but not above the Soveraign of his heart Men of Honour or Reverence arriveing or supporting their Grandeur by the means and countenance of Vice upon the like Loyalty shall be despis'd by every mouth in the Streets and the Consciences of troubled silent Servants at home that dare not and of their own that dare and will reprove This loyalty and disloyalty against Heaven is such an eternal unalterable measure of mens Misery and bliss that Chast rags will not envy the condition of unclean Silks and Sattin but those shall often wish for the peace and pure content of these The Soul till drown'd in Lusts or gagg'd by Antichristian Tyranny never skrinks from its Heavenly Loyalty while it is a Soul it is for Christ It never deserts this Soveraign till it morally ceases to be a Soul Which is the reason a priori that Popery or the seduction of men from their Loyalty to Christ to slavery to a Mortal can never be well promoted without Debauchery which must first precede to extinguish the Soul Its obedience afterwards shall be blind implicit and servile like that of beasts that have no understanding nothing shall be its Conscience and Religion more but its Carnal Interest and gain and pleasures and complyance with its new false Christ for a false Salvation for human Nature cannot dispense to be without all Religion and Superstition too Its state and condition therefore is a state of enmity and rebellion against God whose Laws it neither is nor can b◠subject to Rom. 8.7 And therefore all its Actions and designes are null and void and damn'd in Law and also in Fact when Gods patience is out either by its timely or eternal Recantation either by Repentance here or durance hereafter for all cross and Irregular wills must at last come up to Christs will the judge of quick and dead either with or against their wills and know their true Soveraign at last either by life or death Rom. 8.6 13. Whereby the true ground appears for our Reduction of this Controversy from the beginning to one single point of obedience or disobedience to the right Soveraign of the heart For so doth the wisest of Kings reduce all Divine and human concern and wisdom into one Principle of Loyalty to God The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom Prov. 1.7 And not only the beginning but complement and perfection For he is the wisest and soberest Christian who hath not the Pope but Christ most
constantly present in his heart and mind As he is ever the vainest that hath him least This presence of Christ in the Soul being its chief life and sobriety or preservation of the mind as the Greek imports and begetting that syberwid wherein the Brittish Ethicks did and doth consist And our Laws which are the wisdom of the Nation Endite none but Rebells against God who for not setting his fear alwayes before their eyes become injurious to their Brethren The great Apostle of the Gentiles comprizes the Disease of the Heathen world in one like word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Rom. 1.28 their averseness to eye God ever in their minds and the health of the Christian World to be in this when the Grace of our Lord Jesus was alwayes with them which was ever his last wish and prayer And the Cure of the Antichristian to be herein for when he had forwarn'd of the Pest that was to overspread the Christian Church in future Ages for their want of love to the Truth 2 Thess 2.9 10 11 12. he there names the best Amulet and Antidote against it again and again 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 cap. 3.16.18 The Lord of Peace give you peace The Lord be with you all The Grace of our Lord Jesus be with you all Amen For they alone should escheat to Antichrist who cast off Christ and Christ them and those fall into the pit of the one whore and the other that in the Proverbs and the other in the Revelation who are abhorr'd of the Lord Prov. 22.14 And so much shall suffice by way of Exhortation to all Loyal Christians true to Christ their King and Countrey to adhere to our own good Mother-Church of Brittain in opposition to the pretences and inveiglements of the Modern Roman whom we leave as we found as Epaminondas is said to leave a sleeping Centinel whom he run through without a heart and Soul and Life through their taking man and not Christ who is the truth and the life for the Lord and Soveraign of their hearts and judgment SECTION XVII Where the place of the undoubted true Church is out of whose Pale there is no Salvation And how to be of the Church in Heaven while we are on Earth THe Brittish Church of England is a good and a true Church and so are many others but before men the Church of Christ that is in Heaven by true Faith is the true Church before God and the heart And certain Salvation is annext to the Church of Hearts and Faith For according to St. Paul every true Christian who is a Mystical Jew or Israelite is to be tryed by this Rule For he is not a Jew saith he which is one outwardly neither is that Circumcision which is outward in the flesh but he is a Jew which is one inwardly and Circumcision is that of the Heart in the Spirit and not in the letter whose praise is not of men but of God Rom. 2.28 29. An unblamable outward profession constitutes us Sons of this or that Church before men but the sincerity of the heart to God sets us in the true Church before God for as he were not a right Son of this Church that should only observe Rubricks and Ceremonies and Consormity and neglect Temperance and Charity and Truth and Honesty which are greater so where both these are outwardly observ'd and kept as the Laws of God and the Customes of the place are the measures of all wise and sober men yet not from sincere love and obedience in the heart to Christ but for impunity from human Laws or vain-glory or some other secret end and purpose of the mind it is that end we thereby serve and not the Lord and by our out-side and the charitable estimation of men who are deceiveable we may be true Sons of the Church of England but our Inside or our souls which truly are our selves will be found out of the Church of Christ in Gods account who Judges by the heart and cannot be deceived And this Church of Christ is in Heaven where Christ is at Gods right hand and men become of it by saith and the sincerity of the heart which alone can reach it while in the body they remain on Earth This is the true Catholick Church whose Silver Rome borrows to cover its Brass with out of whose pale there can be no Salvation nor Condemnation ever to any that are found within it Rom. 8.1 There is no Condemnation to them that are in Christ Jesus If a man were Excommunicated by Rome and England and be of this Church he were safe being Christianus in occulto as St. Augustine stiles such a one in his Book de verá Religione cap. 6. and miss of Salvation though in the bosom of both Churches if he be not in his heart of this A Christian who is inwardly by his heart in Heaven with Christ Christ and Heaven are present to his heart by Consequence and such a one is as it were Christ Incarnate as every one who is out of Christ in his heart and wedded to other ends or Idols is a Devil incarnate more or less And this new Celestial person which he puts on becomes the standard of his Interest and the Rule of his deportment whatsoever he doth agreable to Christ thus in him is his honour and newself-preservation and peace and whatsoever unbecoming the contrary For Cicero would allow that the person we sustain by nature or by calling and by Grace by Consequence becomes the Rule and measure of men's duties and obligations so that there is a vast and an infinite difference between one in Christ and out of Christ between a Christian and no Christian as much as between Heaven and Earth Flesh and the Spirit God and a Creature And St. Paul reduces the whole to this point They only that are in Christ can be Justified and Sanctified and Saved and no other and their Natures are chang'd and exalted by this conjunction and consequently all their Actions and affections which answer to the nature they arise from as the fruit to the tree And they that are out of Christ are out of all hopes and possibility of Justification or Sanctification or Salvation and the old man or Nature continues in them and the mortal inclinations and deeds thereof by Consequence And this change of mens state in respect of dignity as well as safety to be freed from wrath and made as second Sons to God is not from any human merit or power but only from the Infinite and free grace of Christ By whom we have access by Faith into this grace wherein we stand and rejoyce in hope of the Glory of God Rom. 5.2 Our Justification and happiness by this new state is attributed by the Scriptures to Christ and to Faith and to his Resurrection to Christ without us as to the Purchaser and Founder and Finisher To Faith within us as to the Counterpart Instrument of our acceptance and the
men as well lay as Clergy are bound to know upon their duty and Allegiance to God and their Country and Justice and Civility to their Neighbours least they be betrayed by willful Ignorance to aid an Usurper against the Right Heir wherein no more learning or Logick is required to master and understand the point but so much temper and Judgement as serves to hear an evidence and discern between soul and body or God and Creature or Christianity and Heathenism or Loyalty and Treason and to lay hand upon heart and to follow either the Laws of God and man whereby all men are Rul'd or fate and Providence whereby they are Over-ruled But whether in Gods mercy or Judgement we are to be freed or continued under our fears and anxieties to the fixed and resolved in faith it signifies no more than putting on a Winter or a Summer habit either the militant Garb of Patience to our great reward and comfort and your great account which alone can abate it or the Triumphant of thanksgiving to the mutual solace and bliss of both But as for the weaker flock whereof Paternal Princely bowels and pastoral charge are ever the most tender with what security and content will they lye down beside the still waters in green Pastures when they shall have such a Shepheard to be their guard and back and a terrour much less a harbour to the Roman Wolves that would devoure them How will the Mountains skip like Rams and our little Hills like Lambs Great and unparallel'd was our joy for your R. Brothers Restoration and your own together to your Ancient Rights and Dignities over us that the whole Nation seem'd like unto men that dream'd but so great is the sence and fear of Spiritual Slavery upon them and their children more insupportable than any Temporal which it also may draw along with it that the joy of that day is like to be but a dream indeed compared to those exultations and full content and streins of hearty Triumphs if heart-strings can hold that shall break out in every street and corner of the whole Nation with Bon-fires and Feasts and praises reaching up to Heaven and thence to earth again in the responses of Angels to our Anthems at the day of your return from the danger of errour to our Church and our blessing and the truth That your R.H. will be more glorious in the end than in the beginning after your Victories over temptations and deceitful guides like the Sun after an Eclipse which is the present trust or shall ever be as it ought the daily prayer and study and Patience of Your Royal Highness most humble most dutyful and faithful Servant T. JONES TO THE READER THe first part of this discourse being deliver'd before a worâ—… City Company and for reasons conceived just to be published comes forth with the addition of what was omitted out of regard to the limits of the time and the order of their feast and with a large corroboration of the chief exhortation therein against Popery Which Controversie is here reduced to one point whereon all the rest depend The Soveraign Authority arrogated by the Bishop of Rome and yielded to by many either more grossly over men's hearts and Judgments whereby many Surrender their reasons to him or to that Church by implicit Faith to Act many things out of Roman-Catholick obedience which the Laws of God and man and Truth and Honour and Conscience and natural affection directly forbid where therefore the dispute will lye between Christ and his high pretended Vicar which of them is God and the chief Sovereign and Legislator of the heart and the measure of good and evil and Judge of quick and dead an Argument of our Romanists being under a manifest curse and blindness to doubt or deny his Soveraignty either by word or deed whom all Christians in their Creeds do and are to recognize for their Lord upon the Peril of Eternal Damnation Or more plausibly claim'd upon some colourable pretences in reference to this Island where the Controversie then must lye between the Forreign claim and yoak of the Triple Crown who had nothing to do here Originally more than any other Bishop and the native rights and Immunities of our Brittish Crown and Mitre which all Inferiours are bound to defend and maintain not out of Conscience or Allegiance only but for fear or upon the Peril of Damnation Temporal and our Superiours also upon their honour and trust and account to God being no less a tye and their own self-preservation likewise it being their essential Prerogative to have none here before them which no chief Superiour can quit without a contradiction and dangerous diminution of his Soveraignty And the first of these pretences is Antiquity whereby some Illiterate amongst our Ancient Brittains are led to believe and stile the Modern Roman Religion the old Faith as if Ancienter than their own true which is 600 years Senior to Apostatical Rome which prevailâ—d here for 700 or 800 years and not a few years elder to Rome Orthodox and Apostolical if not its first Mother and planter before the real Arrival of St. Paul or the doubtful of St Peter amongst them The second is a belief or inconsideration of some few of our Learned English that the English Nation receiv'd their first Faith from Rome by Augustine the Monk and others intruding here whereby Rome can be conceiv'd by such no less than a Mother-Church to England by consequence the third a consequent stumbling block hereupon that our Reformation was Schismatical or the Daughter Correcting of her Mother which were inconvenient for Generous Princes to countenance least they give an example thereby of like disobedience and Insurrection against their own Authority All which pretences being false and groundless in themselves are herein revers'd and pluck'd up by the roots And the true Original Arch-Schismatick and sire of the brood and example is fully detected and unkennell'd the peculiar game and Sport of our Brittish Princes of most Renown and spirit and success Cadwalhan ap Cadvan Henry 8th Q. Elizabeth And not only the Right and Title of our Brittish Church in each respect asserted but the truth of Christian and natural Religion in General is also resolv'd into first and proper Principles of fact or Faith or Reason a Method well agreeing with the Soul and understanding which in all men are stamp'd with the same Divine broad Seal and natural Allegiance to God and Truth The chief principles made use of if heeded being two the difference between the Soul and Body and between God and Creature or between Creatures themselves in their several parts and Characters personating the Rule of the one or the subjection of the other which are ingredients that pervade all duties as 24 Letters all Words and Syllables or 7 Notes all variety of Musick or Black and White all Colours and are themselves resolv'd into their first Authour and Founder in whom alone we live
sight and hearing when the Christian Soul comes upon the Stage to Act its part before its God alone like a Nightingale in a still calm it being below the Soul to sing her part to any other ear neither can the heart own any competent spectator of its Actions but Him alone who can search and judge it And what is more agreable as with this text so with the great care of our Saviour also in the right ordering of our Religious Actions our Alms and Fasting and Prayer that we do all to Gods eye alone and not to be seen of men Math. 6.1 2 3. For if we do the same for men we have our reward that is they must pay us who set us on work or for whom we chuse to work but if for God in secret then God who seeth in secret shall reward us openly If we pray in our Closets it must be to God alone intirely being more seen and heard by him alone than if we prayed in the sight and hearing of the whole world If we pray in the Church where we are seen of men we are not so to pray that men may praise our devotions but that God may approve our hearts we are to Pray in private between God and our heart in the midst of the congregation as in a desert In duties of the Pulpit Bench or Shop our chief aim must not be lucre or vain glory the fear or the favour of any but the approving of our hearts and consciences to Christ which will make us just and bold and sober and tender We are not to be dejected or cast down for any loss but the loss of Christs favour by our sins which sorrow is its own cure we are not to esteem our selves better than others in any thing but where we can out-go them in conformity to our meek and humble Saviour which kind of humility is true and Divine Grandeur nor to count our selves at ease amidst our ease and plenty till we find it to go well with Christ and his Church which is our zeal and Loyalty The Christian that Acts all in Christ and through Christ and for Christ super-induces Christ upon himself and upon every other person he hath to do with as the colour of the glass shall colour all the objects the eye sees through it even as envy and malice on the contrary sees the Devil in every Brother and finds him in it self His hope of life and Salvation ebbs and flows according as he finds himself in or out of Christ Rom 8.1 and he finds himself in or out of Christ according as his thoughts words or actions agree or disagree with the person of Christ which as a Christian he hath put on for his rule and measure Gal. 3 27.-5.24 He dares not approach his Neighbours bed because he earries Christ in him and upon him wheresoever he moves shall I take a member of Christ to make it a member of an Harlot God forbid 1 Cor. 6.15 He preferrs every Brother or Sister in humility before himself against his pride because Christ to his Faith is in every Brother or Sister Rom. 12.10 1 Cor. 8.12 He is faithfull and diligent in his Masters business against his sloath and temptations considering with himself he serves not man but Christ as in my Text. In a relation of husband or wife Christ and his Church are to be acted betwen them the one is to love his wife for all her frailties as Christ loved his Church the other is to honour her Husband against her discontents as the Church honours Christ Eph. 5.22 25. He obeys his Superiors in all lawfull injunctions against his scruples because Christ in his Faith rules in them who is worthy to be submitted to Prov. 8.15 Rev. 1.5 He forgives his enemies against his stomach because Christs will is now his will and not his own Math. 5.44 He is liberal to the poor against his avarice because Christ to his Faith is in the poor as really saith St. Chrysostome as in the Sacrament Math. 25.40 He neither wrongs nor imposes on nor scandalizes any man with his good will that to his Faith were to wrong or impose upon or scandalize Christ himself 1 Cor. 8.12 as much as in him lyes which he abhorrs and trembles at Neither is he weary of praying or doing good as his flesh would suggest because to his Faith it s the same to him as being in Heaven with Christ all the while 1 Cor. 15.58 Heb. 11.1 he startles at the first step or motion to any sin because to his Faith which makes the threats of Christ ever present to him as well as his rewards it signifies here to him the same with departing from Christs presence into everlasting flames with the Devil and his Angels Mat. 25.41 Good God! what an Heaven upon Earth it were to live among Christians if all that were Christians by name were Christians indeed and in truth And none can be truly saved but those alone who are truly Christians in heart to Christ and not in appearance to men only And so much for the Quomodo how we must do all from the heart to Christ and not to men Next follows the Quare or the two reasons why we are so to act the first implyed in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and the other in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the 1. Soul and 2. the Lord. 1. The first is from the fundamental nature and fabrick of our Souls which bear a connatural imbred allegiance and subjection to God and no other to whom they are as Unisons or Correlates as the eye was made to answer the Light or the herb Heliotropium to move at the motion of the Sun or as your common Daisies that as it were with mourning and joy shut and open according as they lose or enjoy the Sun Our Souls are not sui juris independant unaccountable beings that were for a Creature to be the same as God is but are subject and responsible for all their most inward designs and actions and that to God alone and no other All Earthly powers and their threats and bonds they flight and defie as Sampson did his Wit hs and Cords or Leviathan doth Iron and Brass to him but as straw and stubble But God or Christ they will own as their Leige who governs them by a Vice-Roy I mean Conscience which is the same with the heart in my Text which seems to be no other than the Soul it self made an Officer or Register both for and against it self to view and record and report all passages impartially against the great Tribunal being a manifest demonstration of the immense power of that Almighty Soveraign who thus controlls and rules this potent and lofty spirit the Soul of man and all for its good Rather than to be without a God to Worship by way of virtue and Religion the Soul will chuse an Idol to serve by way of Vice and Idolatry There are two experiments to
be remarked in the worst of sinners that irrefragably prove a God The first is their infinite insatiable appetite after their peculiar Lusts which is that true 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Avarice which Scripture stiles Idolatry Col. 3.5 The second is that forlorn guilt and anguish that the Conscience ever meets with criminibus peractis as the Poet said as soon as the Commission of the sin is over which no Creature for the present can allay or still without either Gods pardon upon Repentance and amendment or the help of time at least to forget it whereby the heart like the skin grows more hard and senseless by its wounds ill Cur'd These two effects very evidently prove it was a Divine and an Infinite Bliss and Happiness the Soul did aim at and forfeit in all its wicked fruitions and disappointments such an unbounded manner of Pursuing and Ruing being as clear an argument as ten thousand miracles to prove the existence and nearness of the deity to mens Actions but that Vicious Souls by the habit and Custom of vice become Callous and Bedlam-like insensible and so wholly brutal and un-attentive after God as the very beasts that perish in whom we commonly observe several shadows and resemblances of our own Reason in some degree but not the least sense or footstep or inclination after Religion or Altars or Sacraments This being the peculiar imploy and prerogative of Immortal Spirits Seeing therefore our Souls cannot be without either God or Idol to serve and fear and cannot serve both or neither it is not only our duty but necessity to chuse to do all we do rightly from the heart to the true God alone to our unspeakable comfort and reward than erroneously to Worldly and private ends or Idols to our everlasting misery and ruine This is the first reason from the fundamental constitution and Genius of our Souls which were made from the beginning as Adam in Paradice to walk and converse only with God and the good lives of the best Patriarchs are remarkably compriz'd in Scripture in a phrase to the same effect That they walked with God And our own Law resolves all Crimes in her Indictments into one Cause The want of the fear of God before mens eyes And why is it that peace of Conscience can defie the frowns of the whole World and all the favour and affluence of the World cannot quiet a disturb'd mind but that the entire concern and interest of man is found by all experience to be solely and immediatly in God The second reason is implyed in the word Lord who is Christ For Christ became Lord of Christians by purchase and merit by dying for them as the Apostle Argues 2 Cor. 5.15 In whose Death and Cross this present World hath its end and period by Faith as the Old World in the deluge by Gods judgments And the Christian Church is a New raised people a new Creature springing out of the Grave of the second Adam as Eve the type of the Church from the first Adam fallen asleep and following Christ in heart and faith to the right hand of God where now he is For the Church of Christ is supposed and laid according to the Scriptures in Heaven above More fully shewed in another Discourse on Phil. 3.20 Col. 3.1 Heb. 12.22 23. and not in any Corner or City or Chair on Earth here below as some Modern Donatists or Romanists strongly fancy for their gain deceiving and being deceived And this present World with its pomps and concerns which used to allure and detain the Soul from God to be withdrawn and vanished and dead and gone Col. 3.3 1 Cor. 7.31 And all the Cob-webs of Worldly ends and lusts and transitory designes which used to bind Carnal hearts like strong Cords swept and removed out of the way and none left but Christ and the Soul alone upon the pit None for it to love or converse or set its heart upon but Christ alone Christ Personal or Christ Mystical Christ in himself or Christ in his living Images in being or to be that is his Church So like is our Restoration by Christ as Christians to our Creation at first by God as men by both we were made to converse with God alone all other things being set below us under our feet by subjection or by death By subjection by the law of the Creation and by death by the designe and fiction of the Regeneration So true is that of the Apple 1 Joh. 1.3 Truly our fellowship is with the Father and with his Son Jesus Christ for as the Soul could not stir out of God so neither hath the Christian any life or motion or being out of Christ Whatsoever he doth he must do it according to that general Rule of St. Paul 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 only in the Lord 1 Cor. 7.39 Christ hath the heart of a Christian in the first place next those that are likest in their lives and places to him He joynes in Communion with this or that Church as far as they keep Communion with Christ and no further He 'l joyn in Communion with St. Peter that Christ is the Son of the living God he 'll separate from St. Peter himself in his Abnegation and return again to his Communion upon his Repentance with bitter tears for that his Abnegation being still constant to Christ though Peter not constant to himself And no other Inferiour Pope or Church on Earth can claime Communion with or submission from us upon any other terms than as our Prime and Eternal Allegiance to Christ will give leave and permit without the guilt of Treasonable Idolatry against Heaven in our selves to give and yield it in them to take or arrogate it For whether we serve a Master or obey a Governour or chuse or approve a Church or Marry or live single or eat or drink or celebrate a Festival or whatsoever else we are to do we are to do all from the heart as unto the Lord and not unto men And so much of the Doctrinal part of my Text. Which in the first place is of infinite use and influence to the right ordering and prosperity of Societies and Communities whether those Majorum Gentium of the greater size and sort that of Church and Common-wealth or mankind in General or other particular Fraternities of a lesser compass formed after the mould and imitation of those greater For nothing ever was given more useful to the World to sodder and strengthen Societies and Corporations than Christian Charity or Love from the heart towards one another for Christs sake which adopts and Incorporates all both small and great to its Heavenly community all the members of any Company all the Companies of any City and all the Cities and States and Kingdoms of the world into an unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace Men are weak and comfortless and of a narrow sphere while alone but grow strong and goodly and formidable and
perpetuam rei memoriam that no man is happy or unfortunate but he alone that hath Christ the judge of Quick and Dead to be his Friend or Enemy his Friend by loving Christ his Enemy by wounding Christ in any Brother Act. 9.4 Math. 25.39 and bless ye his Holy name and serve him from the heart for ever who doth so espouse each your concerns and Protection as to count your Friends his Friends your Enemies his Enemies yea your selves his Friends or Enemies according as your selves either love or hate your Brethren and love or hate Christ by consequence in them And as for the false Brother of his Society I am loath to rip him up before you though contraries serve to Illustrate one another for fear of offence to any of your sences though he be yet above ground yet seeing many of you perhaps have been well innur'd to such hardships for the benefit of the living I 'le dissect and open his breast only to convince you manifestly that his disease lies where the others health and soundness lay in the heart I mean a rotten heart base and Hypocriticall and false and stuffed with nothing else but sordid self-love and private ends that engrossed all his concern and care either for his Brethren or Superiours or Country inverting and confounding the order and course of nature in him setting the toe above the head the Subject above Soveraign the weal of one member above the weal of the other or the safety of the whole or principal though the decay of the one involves in it of necessity the decay of the other likewise and his folly returns upon himself being served by others as he served them all caring as little for him as he cared for them and his self-love at long running found to be self-loss and to devour it self as well as its neighbours for want of a right rule to guide it For this self-monarch loves neither part nor whole neither his equal nor Superiour with the love of charity or equality and honour according to the Rules and Laws and rewards of Christ and Conscience but as a Gentleman loves a good Horse or a Hector his Mistress in reference only to his Saddle or his Lust his Courtesies are but his chaffe to cover his Nets wherewith he is invegling He studies to bring all about him and the whole community to serve his ends that is in plain terms to become his servants for a Servant is he who is gratiâ— alterius to serve the ends and purpose of another and not his own in plainer terms his study is how to swallow and devour their persons for he that is a Servant in Law and reason is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Civilians say without a Poll of his own being swallowed up in fiction in the person of his Master he barbarously makes all about him though as free as himself to enter into his service without their consent or any fair contract how much will you take per annum to be daily led by me by the Nose and abused every hour to serve my turn He makes them his Slaves and Captives before Declaration of War which is against the Law of Nations This man is not a right man but a Wolf in Sheeps cloathing whom our Saviour bids beware of not a Brother but a Rebel to his Society in the shape of a Brother He is a Pike in a Pond a Moral Cannibal that eates up his Neighbours alive without cracking of their bones and Spirits them into slavery before they know it A Faux with a dark Lantern lighting none but himself blowing up the Community whereof he is out of zeal to his holy Catholick self There is nothing that stands in its way or makes for its turn but this devouring lust of self-love would swallow against all tyes and principles It will sell Father and Friend Society and City Conscience and Christ Cant Religion Pimp his Prince betray its Countrey and Laws and Church and all private and publick Trust and Honour and pawn God and Oaths and Salvation to bring about its little ends This Immanent intransitive self-love that corrupts and stagnates at home and never runs out in any clear stream of Charity or Conscience or Honour or Compassion towards God or man its Fellows or Inferiours or Superiours either is that which infects and depraves all orders and degrees of men breeds a Thief in a Servant a Dog in a Master a Cut-throat in a Friend a Rebel in a State an Heretick in a Church a Knave upon the Bench a Tyrant in a Throne an Antichrist in a See And yet for all this this Alchymist proves a Beggar in the end And he that was no mans friend but his own fails to be his own being left by all as he left them and having none to help or comfort him becoming the scorn of his Neighbours the shame of his Society the scandal of his Church a burden to the Earth and Fuell for Hell-fire For it may well be affirmed that nothing is punished in Hell but Philauty nothing in Heaven rewarded and refreshed but Charity or transitive love towards God and man more than himself the end and fruit of Faith This worm therefore of self-love in the heart of our false brother that prays and devours all before it and at last it self is not his health but his disease not his policy or cunning as he thinks but his unconscionable Atheism and madness The poor man is manifestly out of order and beside himself because besides his right self and out of capacity to love another as himself because he loves not himself as he ought For it is perfect madness to love ones self above all like minding to save ones Cabin more than the Ship or Cicero's Piscinarii that believed their Fish-ponds could escape when the Ocean overflowed the Land A member to his Society is as a Cabin to the whole Ship and any one Society to its City and any City to the whole Community or to the Prince that represents it and the Countrey it self to the law of nature or the universe and God its Sâ—veraign who are not to be violated or offended to preserve a Nation for the law and will of God is Solus publica the weal publik of the World as the will of Christ of his Church and the Standard and measure of self-preservation to all Creatures whom they are to observe and tender in the first and chiefest place and their own affairs and concerns and lives but in the next For whosoever loves not God and the publick above himself in the first place neither understands nor loves himself or any other in the next For if his immortal Soul and the God that made him and the Saviour that redeemed him and the good land wherein he was born and Holy Church wherein he was re-born if these cannot deserve his first love I would forever despair to win his second It directs in the second place to make all 1. good
Soveraigns have reduced the one the other and be first at peace till either the Pope conform to the will of Christ which we expect which would beget an unity of Spirit and Truth between us in the bond of peace or Christ to the mind and will of the Pope and have no Scriptures that shall signifie any thing contrary to his sense but that the Popes will shall be taken to be Christs Will where they interfere which is their aim in their engrossing the right of interpreting the Scriptures to their Church alone that is their Pope which would produce peace and union its true but such a carnall peace and slavish union as were worse than any War or Captivity or desolation whatsoever Purgatory indulgencies image worship Transubstantiation blind obedience Universal Monarchy over the whole Church c. let them be never so false or unreasonable or scandalous or absurd not only with all learned and sober men but with many of themselves in their secret thoughts and retirements yet because they support the Kitchin and adorn the Hall and carnal state and esteem of their Apostolick see they shall and must be owned and defended forever as Infallible Doctrines De fide more unalterable than the Laws of Medes and Persians by all her Catholick Sons as they tender their continuance within her Pale out of which with them there can be no Salvation and our worship and Liturgie shall be condemned as Impious and prophane till upon obedience and Submission to their Chair as was offered in Queen Elizabeths days they shall permit it to be Orthodox and Holy and to be used in our Churches without any alteration or further trouble and all our Protestant Doctrines which are the same in effect with Gods Holy Scriptures out of which they are drawn and built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner stone yet because they comport not with their carnal designs and greatness shall be condemned to be abjur'd as false and Heretical though the Authors of them Christ and his Apostles and his purest Church be involved with us in the same sentence and themselves in Gods wo and curse in the Prophet upon those that call good evil evil good light darkness and darkness light Esa 15.20 What Law of Nature or Nations or Conscience or Honour or Humanity or Civility or Faith or Plain-dealing which are indelible imbred instincts in Vulgar and Heathen Breasts much more in Christian and Generous will not the guides of that Church direct their charge to break and violate with assured hopes of Salvation and Immortal Glory for the feat so it tend to promote and advance their Holy Catholick cause which is with them as it were Gods last will and Testament which Abrogates and annuls all precedent wills the Eternal Laws of God and conscience being but obsolete or Corporation orders when they clash against the Infallible Bulls and paramount Oracles of his Holiness yea the contradiction shall be salved and heal'd and Christ by Interpretation which belongs to them is brought to say and sign their draught to be his own Will and meaning and their Atheime shall be fac'd with his Authority as Hypocrites do their Villanies with the cover of Religion as King Philip of Macedon is said to have made the Oracles to Phillipize and Prophesie for him What Civil War and combustion must this make in English and honest hearts who though they have a respect for Rome think fit nevertheless to reserve due Loyalty towards God and their Redeemer and their Country to be thus necessitated to offend against God and man to save their souls who in compliance with that Church and obedience to its commands and dictates upon perill of damnation must shocke the wise and settled Laws of their Nation and disturb publick peace and Union and bring fear and consternation upon their fellow Subjects that desire to live in quietness and slight and disparage the learned and Religious Clergy of this land and our unparallel'd Vniversities and disobey glorious and Paternal Counsels seal'd in bloud for Gracious Kings are Fathers to all their Subjects next to their own begotten and shame the cause of friends and fellow-sufferers loyally and sincerely defended to the last gasp in bloud and ruine and to give just cause of boast and triumph to others for early and wise fears and jealousies and fore-sight and at last reconcile the Nation by a secret judgment against themselves and profess the true Religion before men believed in the heart to be false by humane Patent and dispensation against Conscience And conceal a false Religion believed in the heart to be true And act to the prejudice of the professed before declaring for the intended like giving Hostile broadsides without an Hostile Flag against the Law of Nations and continue or forbear vitious living according to humane Indulgence and tedder above the fear of God Such twisted Arts and servile postures of the Soul set by God above humane reach and power such chymical sublimated hypocrisie and doubling to which all the Swords and Artillery of the World pointed and planted against a single breast ought not to be able to force a Coward to all Politicians and Head-pieces and Whisperers to gull and seduce a fool to though they may go down with more ease with French and Italian tempers innur'd by ill fate to absolute governments and cringes and Slavery how loathsome and repugnant and against the grain must they prove to any honest and generous and freeborne English spirit And whence can this Civil War and distraction arise but from some failer and breach and division of the allegiance of the heart in admitting some up-start usurper or Impostor to be co-ordinate and equal if not Superiour to Christ its natural Liege Lord and Soveraign which the Loyal part of the Soul will never be flattered or frighted to agree or yield to Thus the heart through its own folly suffers it self to be ever disturbed and racked between two contrary Potentates within its bowells God and Old Conscience command and approve of natural affection and truth and peace and love to Countrey and obedience to Parents and Kings and Mercy and Civility to all in Misery and Anxiety The Anti-god or New Conscience commands the contrary as a piece of Catholick zeal and Glorious hazard and self-denyal under pain of displeasure of the Holy See and St. Peter and St. Paul and exclusion out of the Pale of the Church and the like usual forms Plain therefore and evident it is that the whole Controversy between us and Papists is reduceable to one point touching the Right and Soveraignty of the heart and Conscience whose it is and ought to be whether the Lord Christ in my Text as we hold with St. Paul or the Pope and Successor to St. Peter as they maintain at Random If the Pope be God and Lord of the Soul and not Christ then we Protestants are much to blame in
denying our implicit obedience and submission to him But if Christ be God than we are safe and have the truth of our side and their errours are the more dangerous And both these Masters especially of contrary wills as it evidently appears cannot be obeyed together for there cannot be two Kings in the same Kingdom nor two Suns in the same Firmament nor two immortal Souls in the same man But it will be alledged as a Salve 1. That Gods commands in Scripture or Conscience bind not Christians but through the Pope who is to interpret them for us least we mistake and where they seem to cross his will to explain them otherwise to us or to dispense with our obedience in that Case which is an usual practice at Rome though it makes but one Master out of two and the Pope to be chief alone and Christ to stand but for a Cypher or as a Minor whose will is involv'd in his Guardian Viccar hereby the Sun is measured by the Dyal and not the Dial by the Sun It makes Conscience and Scriptures the greatest gifts of Heaven useless to Christians unless the Pope stand by in every place of the World to be consulted with by every Soul which is Christs mind in all cases and scruples And sets up man instead of Christ and confesses the Idolatry and gives up the Cause This contrivance of assuming power to interpret the mind and word of God against the plain sense thereof being the first known invention of Satan in Paradice who was the Father of Antichrist for which our Romanists ought to suspect themselves in the Imitation least they discover themselves too much 2. The second Salve will be that out of obedience to Christ who is in Heaven afar off they yield this obedience to the Pope as his Viccar on Earth as a more near and visible officer under him over them supposing not granting this feigned trust and Deputation It 's against the nature of any trust for him that is trusted to act contrary to the Interest of him that trusted him and to be followed against his Principal St. Paul would be followed by others as far as he followed Christ and no further 1 Cor. 11.1 The Radical cause of Popery lyes in the exclusion of the heart and Judgment and taking the outside to be the man and the measure of all concerns and values which by consequence must be Earthly and Carnal and answering only to the outward man But where the heart which is the man is the chief measure and faith in the heart the only evidence to judge by Christ in Heaven in his Majesty is more near and visible to such a Soul than his Holiness on Earth can be to any Roman Catholick doing Reverence to his Toe for the private end or principle that suggests this respect is nearer to his Soul than his person is to whom it is performed For our Conceptions within are nearer to us than the objects without and our actions proceed immediatly from our conceptions Princes respects and dread would be scant and inexpedient if their persons were no greater in our reasons and conceptions than they are to the eye and sense And were it true and certain that if such a Vicar were set by Christ over his whole Church which can never be proved yet out of obedience to the Soveraign we ought not to obey but shake off such an Officer that should lead us to Rebellion against him that is over him and us The Souldiers under command ought not to obey that General that went about to depose his Prince But if it could be supposed that a Prince did or could intrust any Officer with such absolute power as to interpret all commands and orders directed to him in his own sense against their plain and common meaning and to over-rule all his subjects against all the parts of their Allegiance at his pleasure to act against the known will of his Soveraign and neither to be accountable for such Treasons then the case were much altered for such a King had resigned his Crown in effect to such an Officer who were now to be absolutely obeyed without reservation of Allegiance to another And in such manner the Pope becomes Soveraign to such instead of Christ who believe he is to be obeyed against the Laws of God and men And St. Paul was mistaken in his Doctrine that Christ alone was that Lord and Soveraign and no other man but not mistaken however in his early praediction and warning that the time should come when there should be a falling away and a man of sin revealed who should exalt himself above all that is called God and as God sit in the Temple of God whereof every Christian Soul wherein Christ dwells by his Holy Spirit is so much the more for that the body of a Christian is Gods Temple 1 Cor. 6.19 and more yet the Christian Church which comprizes both And he manifestly St. Pauls Antichrist who sits and Lords it in such a Temple To trample under feet the Glories of this present World to despise the frowns and favours of Princes to adhere to God and Truth all must allow and confess to be highly pious and praise worthy and superlatively Heroick but to hazard all upon a Religion that is a manifest Irreligion and to make Conscience to act against Conscience and Truth to jar with Truth and God to be contrary to himself This were to fall into the like detestable abominations with them of old in St. Paul Who did evil that good might come of it whose damnation is just saith he Rom. 3.8 A fearful sentence from so mild a mouth or of some late zealots in our days who subverted our Laws and Government to exalt Christs Kingdom This were not courage or magnanimity but inconsiderate ignominious rashness condemnable in Shops and Markets This were not Catholick zeal or good Conscience but liker the strong Delusion of Antichrist 2 Thes 2.11 An Omen and fore-runner of further wrath and destruction to be inflicted by the jealousie and indignation of Heaven upon such as forget their Allegiance to their Redeemer preferring a deceiver before him who ought not to have been compared to the Son of God at all or the first mention of his blasphemous pretences to the Perogatives of Christ and his Soveraignty in mens hearts ought to have been attended rather with renting of cloaths and a suddain horrour and indignation and-a-God-forbid but that the needs of deluded souls which himself Redeemed with his precious bloud required the matter to be laid open and enlarged for their rescue and undeceiving but that daily experience teacheth as well as Antient memories that any lust or Avarice or Ambition or revenge or self end or the Sun and Moon or stocks and stones without keeping due watch and ward upon our hearts may and have often invaded and domineer'd in Christ Throne in the soul when deserted by God as much as this Romish perkin Warbeck whose
Impostures are less tolerable than the open Treason of a Cromwell or the Tyranny of the Turk because men may easier endure to be robbed than to be cheated and deprived of their purses or Estates against their will than of their Honour and understanding with consent And as it hath been largely proved that Popery consists in evident disobedience and Rebellion against the Right Heir and Soveraign of the heart And Papists in a greater concern to jump exactly with the old Sexton whose Clock went truer than the Sun so positively also further to clear and evince the Truth to be on the Protestant side in this main point and Issue which is the hinge of the Controversie between us I shall also instance how we Protestants Loyally adhere to our Right guide and Judge and how the heart in all our principles relies on God and none else and on Christ who is the sole foundation of the Church 1 Cor. 3 3 11. and the Rock whereon it is built against which the gates of Hell can never prevail Math. 16.18 We build our Faith upon the Holy Scriptures which are Gods word for hearts to rest on whose Divine Authority themselves dare not deny without being the most convicted Hereticks that ever disturbed Gods Church in any age however they Blaspheme and traduce them before the Vulgar We come to know the Scriptures to be Gods word being not present our selves at passages by the Testimony and tradition of others such a Testimony as is also Divine or nearest to Divine to be relied on by the heart Not upon the Testimony of the Church of Rome by any means who hath so much cracked her credit by legending forgeing expurgating c. for it were a great fault as well as folly in us who profess our Devotion to God and the Truth to confide in the Father of lies or such his followers but upon our own honest Christian Ancestors with other Churches especially the Primitive when most pure and Holy and therefore likest to God and to be believed by consequence from the heart and the rather when seconded with the Testimony of the Holy Spirit to Holy Livers who is God We believe our sences in their own Sphere in many points against the whole world because we believe God in them with our hearts who made our sences and speaks through them Prov. 20.12 We believe beyond sence and can see things absent as if they were present to us when we have Gods word to assure the same to our Faith and consequently to our hearts and can discern Christ present in the blessed Sacrament and the Bread to be present nevertheless in different respects and be assured of both in our hearts through the evidence and strength of God in whom our Faith and sences act and move But in a Religion without the heart as is the Roman It is hard if not impossible to conceive or imagine how any Sacrament of Bread can be at all amongst them without Transubstantiation in the Elements who will not and cannot admit of any other change by the heart and Faith which are not much in use in that Church in this or any other part of worship which shews the root and occasion of that monstrous errour in that carnal Catholick Church which cannot distinguish between the objects of sence and Faith and is observ'd to Apostatize herein from their own Antient Mass which doth We believe plain and manifest Truths of Scripture without need of guides against the Glosses or Sophistry or Authority of the whole world to the contrary for we believe God himself in them with our hearts who requires and deserves to be so believed because God himself leads us by the hand as it were yea with both hands in plain Texts of Holy writ on the one side and his manifest Instincts of good and evil on the other in such manifest duties And when God himself doth speak all the world must hold the tongue while the Sun is above the Horizon Stars and Candles which answer to guides and supplies abscond and give way Hawks and all other Birds quit the Air where the Eagle Towres what Stupidity were it in a man of years and knowledge of the City to ask the way from Charing-Cross to Temple-bar out of Reverence to his guide and distrust of himself in things obscure and Controversiall wherein neither we nor others can clearly and assuredly discern Gods mind and will for the heart to acquiesce in here we make use of Candles and guides and especially our lawful Superiours who are Gods deputies to direct us and all others that resemble God in their gifts or years or places or Major vote For the next to God is as God unto us when God himself cannot be heard and our hearts can rest on them but not with equal assurance as on plain and manifest duties as their importance also is not equal for there is a greater respect of the two due to the Principal than to his deputy In like manner in all Indifferent matters which are the proper Province of the Magistrate for where Scriptures end there humane Laws begin where God withdraws there his Deputies step in we submit to the determinations and publick orders of our lawful Governours as to Gods voice and Authority out of the obedience of our hearts to Christ present in our Superiours to our Faith and regard to the Churches peace which is his image and darling And they that refuse to submit and conform do it in adherence to their conscience as they pretend now conscience without a Rule is an Atheist as is the heart without the Lord and of no use like a Sun-diall in the dark It is not conscience but the Quakers dark-light within and the Rule is Christs Will or to come nearest to his Will which is the utmost satisfaction of the heart now whether we keep nearest to Christ in adhearing stiffly to private fancy or submitting modestly to publick Authority and Major vote is the Question which St. Paul puts of question 1 Cor. 14.33 For Christ is where peace and humility and order is and not where pride and strife and division are and are ever like to be while each prefer themselves not only before their equals which is pride but their Superiours likewise which is disobedience and contempt of Christ in his Magistrates added to it which all true Christian hearts will avoid more than death as being not from God as Papists truly object And so we Protestants hold no Principle or Opinion but what agrees with the mind of God and Christ which was the Rule and measure that was to be agreed upon by both to arrive at Truth and endeavour always to approve our hearts to Christ who alone is their Judge and Soveraign and no mortal man whatsoever believing and considering that as there can be no sin or vertue where there is no Law so a Law were to no effect or purpose without a Judge to reward and punish the observers
or transgressors of that Law and Law-giver there is but one who can save and destroy James 4.12 The blessed Lord Jesus Judge of quick and dead at the last day whose deputies on Earth in the Interim are consciences in Private souls and Magistrates and Governours in publick bodies who are as the souls of such bodies whether Temporall in Externall or Ecclesiastical in more Internall matters and concerns who are all both Private and publick conscience Subject and accountable unto him who alone is Judge and Soveraign And therefore we can do nothing against Christ upon any mans Authority whatsoever and being found faithful to him the sole and Supreme Judge and Soveraign of our souls we trust to be found Gods Catholicks though we are but Hereticks to the Pope who is not our Judge rejoycing in mans aspersion while we have Gods Absolution to wipe it off for not he who commendeth himself is approved but whom the Lord commendeth 2 Cor. 10.8 SECTION II. Of the true Mother Church in particular to all Christians in respest of their In-side and RomesVsurpation HAving shewed that no Christian Churches or persons are subject to the Pope while himself is not subject to Christ the right Superiour and Soveraign over all nor bound to offend against Christ to please his pretended Vicar all being bound to withdraw their Communion from him who shakes off the undoubted Soveraign over all I will further shew that though the Church of Rome were sound and un-corrupt in its Doctrines and Loyalty which it is very far from yet it neither is nor was ever any mother Church to our British Church nor can have any right or title to its subjection or obedience It never had any Original motherhood or superiority over us of right nor in fact at any time but by the Concession of our Princes imposed upon by its arts which they may justly recal and take away at their pleasure as hath been done So it appears it's themselves that necessitate us to desert their Communion out of Christian Loyalty to our Saviour by them first deserted and deposed in a treasonable manner and his glorious Majesty chang'd into the similitude of a Calf or a Mortal Creature that perisheth which is the first spring and root of the rest of their desperate and monstrous Errours which bear the manifest spots and tokens of Antichristianism in the strength and infallibility of their Delusions Though we can and ought to bewail and compassionate their condition and slavery yet to return to their bosome as to a Mother Church we understand not how it is our duty or sober obedience were it sound or healthy yet we doubt not but she hath angl'd several sincere and ignorant and unwary Sons of this Church with that bait We confess we have been pin'd and stary'd under her for hundreds of years as under a hard and cruel Stepmother while harbour'd by the Fathers of our Countrey imposed upon by her inchantments whose issue by her as by a second venter upon her divorce became appurtenant to the Father and are incorporated with the first stock and Family but sure we are she never teemed of our Brittish Churches who never were the Daughters of her womb nor sucked our first milk from her breasts For whether their inside or their outside or extraction be consider'd they appear to have no descent from Rome Neither can they instance or insist upon any other point or manner of Pedegree and derivation of one Church from another For as it is with every private man if his inside and Soul and Spirit be examined whence it came it came from above from the Father of our Spirits Heb. 12.9 and to return in peace to him that gave it is its utmost aim and bliss Eccles 12.7 If the outside or his body it came from the Earth whence it was first taken and whither it must return If his intermediate descent he springs and proceeds from Fathers and progenitors of the Flesh and owns their superiority and Discipline and honours their names and memories So it is with all Churches and Christian Societies By our inside we are not from below or from beyond the Sea but from Heaven Jerusalem above being our mother and Jesus our King the King and Lord of Souls By our outside we are under our own Kings and Governours on Earth as our Nursing Fathers and Mothers according to the Holy Prophecy As to our descent Old Christian Britannia is our Mother to whom the Antient Church of Rome is Junior in the Faith and much more any of her Perking Daughters or Clergy which shall be further proved in every particular And first as to the inside of all Christian Churches and of the Church of Rome it self if she will be a Church of Christ and of thousands in her that have not bowed the heart to any but to Christ known to God There is no Mother-Church to be accounted of but one only the Spouse of Christ expressed by name in Scripture Heb. 12.22 Not the City of Rome who rather is under ill report in them but the City of the living God The Heavenly Jerusalem which Gal. 3.26 is by the Apostle Stil'd the Mother of us all and which is free and answering unto Sarah whereas Jerusalem on Earth answers Hagar in her servitude and yet Jerusalem below is more a Mother of all Christian Churches than Rome it self or any other here below for Rome her self had her extraction thence her St. Peter and his Chair and the Gospel and Christ himself she and all must derive originally from Sion And if the Mother be not free much less her Daughters for no Soul or Church can be said to be free in her exile and servitude whiles she serves any other but her own natural Prince who is Christ alone the High Priest and Bishop of our Souls who is at the right hand of God in that Heavenly City and Assembly of the Faithful For Christ is the sole Monarch and Legislator in this Spiritual Kingdom and none are free Subjects here but those who obey him alone and no other Controller His will alone is the Law and measure of good and evil and duty and transgression He enacts and repeals and dispenses and absolves he alone can search and reward and punish Souls The everlasting concerns of Eternity and the secrets of mens hearts transcend all humane authority and cognizance and reach No secular Powers are to tread within this Temple but are to stand without in the Court though Christians and in the further Court of the Gentiles if Heathen or Antichristian Christs Deputies and delegates in this Heavenly work and Province are all Bishops and Curates who by their life and Doctrine set forth his true and lively word and rightly and duely Administer his Holy Sacraments who yet have no power or property or Authority but from him Neither is the word they preach 2 Thes 2.13 nor the Sacraments they administer 1 Cor. 4.1 nor the Absolution they
or quicken either or like Pipes in an Organ Dead and Dumb as of themselves yet sounding out aloud the high praises of their God in his Church when they are filled with his Breath and Holy word and spirit However when these inward conceptions of mens spirits bud and break out in Births James 1.15 and land in another World in the Territories of Earthly Soveraigns who like God are both Omniscient and Omnipotent in their own Dominions and precincts Here the case is far otherwise Here Earthly Magistrates have their free Liberty and Authority to arrest and take as in the out-side and purliews of the soul whether they be Christian or Heathen as well the one as the other in their several capacities and Characters Heathen Kings being Gods Deacons Rom 13.4 or his Ministers in the State to preserve the peace of God and man by frowning upon all vice and sin and wicked lewdness Act. 18.14 which is spiritual Idolatry and War against God in the heart provoking his vengaence and judgement against a land and to Protect and praise them in every good work and vertue which is the amicable and loyall deportment and worship of righteous souls towards God whereby he is won to be favourable in his blessings and protections not only to them and their seed but to the whole land though less deserving for their sakes Gen. 18.32 And Christian Kings being the Fathers and Bishops of the Church and Christs undoubted Viccars on Earth in all the outward affairs of that Holy Polity to preserve its beauty and order and the holiness of its Communion against blemishes and scandals according to the Rules of Christ Christian Kings I say cannot be denyed to be the Fathers of the Church according to Gods own mind in Esa 49.23 Prophecies like to Faith being the evidence of things not seen given their right stiles and Titles to persons and degrees as yet not in being as if they were And as they are Fathers so they are Bishops and Overseers of Christs Flock the Church in things without as other Holy Bishops are in things within as it was declar'd by our Constantine the first Christian Emperour in the first and great general of Counsel of Nice of 318. Primitive and the best tried Bishops the Church ever had Nemine contradicente not one dissenting or disliking the expression either then or since but our Romish Popes of late after the Church began to slumber and degenerate And Viccars on Earth they all are severally in their own Kingdoms by the Popes own confession for so Eleutherius early declares in his Epistle to our Lucius the first Christian King in the world about the year 170. if it were the Act of Eleutherius or about the year 110. if the Act of Evaristus according to a. Usher de Britan. Eccles Primordiis p. 34. Ninius or sooner according to b. Usher de Britan. Eccles Primordiis p. 34. Paulus Jovius which though it be not Authentick in all its parts and purposes yet because some of our Kings might send to some of the Popes of Rome then Famous in the world for their uprightness to be Brotherly advised about some points of their Government unless our difference from them about Easter as well as the East might interrupt such correspondence or Communion and the Epistle passes for true and Authentick amongst many of our Romanists therefore the Testimony and citation in it touching Kings being Gods Vicars in their Territories is firm however and binding against them to the full And St. Paul doth no less in the Principles he layes down in my Text by which every master is Christs Vicar to his own Servant and by consequent proportion every King is Christs Vicar to his own Subjects for the Apostle would have tied obedience upon Subjects toward Christians Kings if they had been in his time in being in the same from and tenour as upon Christian Servants here towards their Christian Masters as is observed by a right learned Person towards whom they are to do all from the heart 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as unto Christ himself this 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as implies 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 so as the master is is over the Servant in his Civil capacity his Civil Lord and Master so is he over him in his Christian capacity a Christian Servant as Christ is over Christians and Subjects Masters and Kings by consequence being Christs Image or similiude or Lievtenants or Viccars as the particle 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 implies The same Apostle exhorting every soul to be subject to the higher Powers Rom. 13.1 amongst whom are comprehended Ecclesiastical persons as well as lay saith St. Chrysostom If those Powers become Christian as they are now with us they become the Vicars of Christ by consequence to all their Christian Subjects of the Clergy as well as Laity and were his Holiness a liege Subject of this Kingdom our King would be inevitably Christs Vicar on Earth unto him as he is undoubtedly to all English or Brittish Roman Catholicks who yet suffer themselves to be seduced by him who is no Viccar of Christ to them as such to withdraw their Christian obedience from him who truly is and Unchristianly and disloyally to disown his Supremacy over them who is as truly Christs Vicar over them in this world as he is their Christian King or they his Christian Subject Which is also agreeable to right reason as well as Scripture for there is a great difference between the Inside and the Outside of any Church or particular Christian which are in two several Kingdoms under two distinct Governments the one Heavenly and Eternal as is the soul the other Earthly or Temporal as is the body of which two they are severally made For such actions of the Soul as are concrete to the body and of use and moment in this present world only and not contrariant to Divine Institution and are circumstantiated with time and place whereby they become visible facts preceptible by mens senses and open to the view and cognizance of humane Authority though they be concerning matters Christian or deportments and behaviours and wears to be used within the Church and in time of service the same are not properly Spiritual as they are vulgarly call'd especially with them at Rome whose whole Religion is about the outside or Heavenly or Eternal and Invisible and belonging to Salvation which is equivalent but they carry a Temporal or Secular or Carnal nature in them and belong therefore to Temporal Jurisdiction to each Crown they are under and by no pretence to Rome but where Rome hath a temporal Authority to order them in her own Subjects but with us they belong to our Brittish Thrones and Tribunals and to Ecclesiastical Courts where they concern Christian and Temporal where they concern Civil Society and to the Kings Subjects as witnesses and Juries upon the place and not to any Forraign Chair or Rota or Pack of strangers to make
peculiar Ministers and Levites set a part by Gods Institution on purpose who were and are the Clergy of his Clergy and Heritage and the Priests to those in speciall that were and are his peculiar people and Priest-hood Exod. 19.6 Revel 1.6 The Church it self being Laick and common compar'd to these as was the World to the Church For no less is implied in the reason of those expressions where both the Christian and Jewish Church are said to be a Kingdom of Priests as in Exodus or Kings and Priests to God as in the Revelation they being in special manner Kings and Priests and Clergy from whom the name and title is deriv'd to others for some likeness and comparison for what the Copy is that is the Original much more And if Christs mission was not from Secular but Divine Authority so neither is the Institution of the Evangelical Priesthood from man but from God being sent from Christ as he was sent from God Joh. 20.21 Bishops and Presbyters being equally from Christs own Ordination and appointment though not of equal order and degree between themselves but in several respects the one Superiour and which may seem strange inferiour likewise to the other For the better understanding whereof the distinction between Spiritual and Temporal is to be remembered and considered in its Primitive and Apostolical acception and not the modern Roman sense who confound Heaven and Earth in their notions as they do in their values and affections the one referring to the present visible world the object of sense the other to the Church or Invisible world to come wherein Christians live here by Faith the Church being more excellent than this world as eternity is more than time and yet this world more excellent than the Church which is dead unto it in the estimation of sense as is the living more excellent than the dead Eccles 9.5 whereby is discoverable the several Superiorities between Episcopacy and Presbytery in the same person in whom both are co-incident as they are in every Bishop and those Elders in Timothy who for Ruling well and labouring also in the word and Doctrine were counted worthy of double honour 1 Tim. 5.17 where in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have a clavis to decide this difference for the habitude and Character of a Bishop is that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ruler or Prince as the Brittains term their Arcsh-Bishop of Carleon to Monk Agustine but that of a Priest or Presbyter is the form and quality of a Subject or Servant or Labourer which two notions greatly differ like God and Creature But then their several allotments or respective worlds are to be considered wherein the one and the other are said to labour or bear Rule And clear first it is that the Presbyters labour as a Servant under Christ in his word and Sacraments is within the Vineyard of the Church and therefore belonging to Eternity as the Church it self doth and that the Rule of the Bishop in the second place is Temporal by consequence and about order in this present world and the better preservation of the Temporal out-side of the Church for to affirm it to be a Spiritual Rule over the Church in its in-side which is Eternal and Christs own Peculiar Jurisdiction were very inconvenient and unsound And this Temporal Superiority over the Temporal part of an Ecclesiastical Community as to all Causes and persons that be within it for any Society whether Sacred or Civil can no more subsist or fare well without a Governour or a Chief than a body without a head continues in Bishops by Christs establishment till the rising of the Sun that is till the Civil Magistrate of that Province become Christian whose defect they before supplied as Guardians and then it doth set or cease but Heliacally as the Stars set in the morning in deference to a greater lustre that is better able to do their work continuing still in the same firmament and Sanhedrin under his Rayes and bound nevertheless by their office and duty to be ready to shine again without him as before in case of darkness or Eclipse as was said before And it well appears how the Christian Temporal Magistrates and the Church have understood one another in reference to their several bounds and limits by those parcels of Ecclesiastical Authority the one hath resum'd as his right and the other willingly quitted and yeilded thereunto as just upon his arrivall to Supremacy in Church as well as state For we never find him offering to touch any part of the Priestly office or the Power of the Keys nor to preach or Baptize or absolve or consecrate which acts and Authorities belong to another Spiritual Kingdom farr enough out of his Temporal Dominion and Jurisdiction But several parts of Episcopal Rule and Government have been rightly assum'd and yielded to him in Generall Counsels and in our Church of England in particular wherein he is declared supreme in all Causes and over all persons Ecclesiastical which was the Original Right of Metropolitans but since held by them as was fit not as Soveraigns any more but as subordinate to their Christian Magistrates And by this Hypothesis is resolvable whether Bishops ordain Priests as they are Priests or as they are Rulers which would make for the strength and re-allyance of the Protestant Interest For Bishops cannot Ordain of themselves without Priests to assist much less can Priests Ordain without a Bishop to preside where he may be had and Christian Kings offer not to resume as their temporal right any part of the Ordination or Consecration of either sort but only nominate our Bishops in the right of Patrons or Founders or as representers of the whole Community by whom they were in the Primitive Church elected as likewise in the Brittish Therefore the Priest who is but a Labourer is Inferiour and subordinate in this World to the Bishop who is a Ruler by Divine Order and designation not to be violated by any without the guilt and scandal of being Rebells against Superiours And the Bishop in his Chair as a Ruler is Inferiour to himself in his Pulpit as Christs Labourer and Preacher in reference to the other World For it is a higher excellency to be the least in Eternity than the greatest in time to subdue sin than to subdue the World Psal 84.11 Which yet is so as to Faith and reason and the Consciences of all sober men with their own yet not as to sense or the Law and course of this present life and general Practice whereby through humane infirmity very few yet not wanting in our times have been observed to be as ambitious of the labour of Converting Souls as of the honour and command of a Rich Bishoprick though the worst and Welsey himself at their dying hour have yielded to this Truth Whereby no Inferiour Minister that is diligent in his work and calling can have
with the first in its adversity and contempt For every Religion expresses what honour it hath for the Deity it worships by the respect and honour it enjoyns to be paid to its Ministers and Attendants And amongst all degrees of Christians from the lowest to the highest neither Christ nor his Ministers can be said to be either lov'd or honour'd where both are not lov'd and honour'd equally if not above themselves And no man can despise the Ministers of his Religion without despising his Religion nor despise his Religion without despising himself for where is a man's self more than in his God or Idol If Christ and his Religion be to be honoured it is to be invited to sit equal with us in our Feasts if not above wherein no Church is more proportionable than this of England which hath its Minâ—stry so adequate and comporting with the several degrees and conditions of its Laity like Arteries with the veins along the body from the toe to the head But now far otherwise is it amongst Christians Teachers and Disciples when the world hath possessed their hearts And Christ dwells but at their tongues only many there are besides Quakers it is to be feared that would be well contented to be without any Gospel at all on condition to be Tith-free and judge no sort of men better to be spared or retrenched in this Commonwealth than Christs Ministers And if they had Power enough in their hands would judge an 100 l. per annum to be revenew enough or two much for any Bishop to support himself and Family and to keep Hospitality and relieve the poor and strangers and to defend the Church against its Enemies and not 10000 l. per annum too much for themselves to spend upon their lusts and Vanity And in some Nations the Lay sort Raign and Rule and the Clergy hold the stirrup or serve under revocable pay like other workmen and trained thereby to be as observant of the state as of God neither hath the degenerate Clergy been behind in over-reaching to the degenerate Laity in grudging and subducting especially in the Roman Church who conceived she never had enough untill she had all not only their Lands but their Liberties and all became her Tenants or Vassals or tributaries from the Plow to the Throne Now how would these two contrary lusts tear and destroy one another if God had not raised Kings to preserve the peace between them How would Religion and good literature all fall to the ground and Atheism and Barbarism or equivalent Ignorance and superstition come again in their place if Kings were not Nursing Fathers to secure their Rights and Defenders of the Faith to maintain their Priviledges and quietness to correct on the one hand the Idolatrous Avarice of some hard hearts who would starve the Lord Christ to cherish their Lord Mammon And to check the Hypocrisie and worldliness of others on the other hand who Christopher-like carry Christ upon their backs to begg mens hearts who make use of Purgatory and the world to come to gull men out of this present who call all men to be their Paymasters for the unvaluable unrequitable mysteries of the Gospel which they at best but counterfeit and make them Vassals for ever afterward upon the score of that Tribute and acknowledgement who claim a Supremacy over Princes not upon the score of the Pulpit and the Eternal obligations thereof which they quit but upon the score of their Chairs which was borrowed from the Throne and intended it should return to its subordination thereunto Though Spiritual Graces wherewith they are ill stock'd are above all Temporal reward as much as Salvation is above an Earthly Crown yet it doth not follow that the Instruments and conveyers of Grace are Superiours here in in this world to all that receive it by their Ministry The message and Author is but not the messenger Kings hear Gods word as Subjects to Christs whole word it is but not as Subjects to those that Preach it but their Masters rather It is an ill and Un-evangelical Inference and too much savouring of Antichrist from Spiritual Doctrines to raise Secular Superiority and to make wordly Rule and Ambition the chief end of the everlasting Gospel Ego Rex meus was a perfidious Traiterous crime in Wolsey to transfer his Masters honour and Soveraignty upon himself which is their great Disease at Rome and constant Boldness upon Christ A Pursiveant though sent from a King to Arrest a Peer is not Superiour in quality thereby to the Peer although his Authority and errand be we may as well conclude all Centinels to be Generals of the Field or every Chaplain declaring Christ will in a Sermon before the King to be Primate of the Church and every Christian who Conquers the world by his Faith to be Emperour of this world as Popes to be Supremes in Christian Kingdoms and Churches over mens souls and bodies because they are the Servants and Officers of Christ who is When St. Ambrose boldly durst suspend his Soveraign and Theodosius meekely yielded to the censure of his Subject there was no Superiority either lost or got by this in either both doing their parts of Servants herein the Bishop of fidelity about his Master's mysteries the Emperour of Submission to his Saviours Steward All orders and degrees in the Church are every one in the Postures of Servants to Christ and Servants to another for Christ his sake 1 Cor. 3.22 and he alone the only Master and Soveraign Math. 23.8 In this world it 's true it 's otherwise where some are Servants others are Masters some Rulers and others Ruled all to be regarded as unto Christ in their several Superiorities by Christians who are to serve and obey them all from the heart upon Christs account in addition to their Civil obligation which is correlative to their Civil Superiority for as we are Christians we serve none but Christ and those that Rule and Govern if Christians do it as his Servants and Pious Kings have justly esteemed it to be a greater Dignity to be Servants of Christ than Soveraignes of this world Whosoever therefore misguides or mis-governs his Inferiour or wrongs or deceives his Neighbour or disobeys or dishonours his Superiour Christian violates his Faith and duty first to his Heavenly Soveraign in his heart before he wrongs any other on Earth by his outward Act. And it is our concern and honour as to detect and shun all such as are Traytors and Faithless to our Saviour so dearly to embrace and love them from our hearts that are true But though Kings meddle not with the Substantialls of Religion or the rights of Christ yet with the out-side or Circumstantials that fall within their charge and cognizance they well may and must whatsoever in Church matters is of Temporal not of Eternal moment neither determined by Christ nor necessary to Salvation but conducing only to Order and Peace and Decency and good
ordinary prudence exactly gratifying the Italian sagacity by such useful Hostilities And contriving on the other hand to cut down all fences and securities of this Church and repeal its penal Laws out of generous Charity and for more free commerce with Ingenuous Roman Catholicks Whereby their numerous and Industrious Emissaries may over-run the Land and disturb and seduce our people with greater safety Where a Protestant may be discern'd at the Elbow of the Jesuite and a Jesuite at the Elbow of the Protestant in every page both contriving to assist one another against a Sun-shine or a Rainy day by betraying this Church for clear it is that the Italian out-wits the Jew in his part and the lurch befalls the English side For though the Protestant Vulgar think their cause well defended yet the more discerning Conclave finds its designs more Effectually promoted by such Arts. How do such deserve to be admir'd and noted for their Wit that can serve two contrary Masters with success and bid fair to be uppermost let what party that will prevail and be rewarded by both as the open Champions of the one and the secret Factors of the other Neither do they yet less deserve to be scorn'd and detested by all wise and true hearted English-men and Protestants for such scandalous wiles and abominable doubling and betraying their Mother Church with a kiss Others of duller studies and Epicurean Inclinations judge no method better than that of Balaam at Baal Peor Numb 24.15 2 Pet. 2.15 Whose stratagem according to the Chaldee Paraphrast was thus laid with Balak That the people of Israel could not be curs'd or weakned but by dividing them from their God That this was to be best effected by bringing the fairest Daughters of Moab into the field instead of an Army to allure them to their Embraces which soon took effect For the People began to commit Whoredom with the Daughters of Moab And the Anger of the Lord was kindled against Israel Till the zeal of Phineas put a stay unto it Numb 25.1 2 8.11 To the like kind of Prophets and Romish suggestions and connivance we owe the present deluge of Debauchery amongst our Gentry and Superiours whereby men are fitted by Spiritual wounds and servitudes for Romish Plaisters and our Church and its guides disgraced and a greater deluge of judgment and destruction is hanging over us unless God grant us Grace timely to repent out of love and commiseration to our selves and Countrey as well as duty to God whom we have so unthankfully provoked And least Kings themselves who can have no ends but God and the publick should bring too great an happiness upon a Nation by taking the charge thereof themselves They suggest the management of the Reins of Government to be difficult and toilsom for Princes to tire their Arms or Brains with and that others may be better trusted with such fatigues and Princes to take their pleasure and if trusted than trusted for good and all by all means for to trust and suspect were disingenious and contradictory whereby the Prince shall be divested and depos'd from most of his Authority and a Juncto of petty Tyrants raised and multiplied to act under the shelter of the Government against its Interest and honour like unskilful Mountebanks that take liberty to kill under the colour of a License Whereas in truth nothing is more easie and plain especially in some Nations than the Rulers work and office For what more easie than to know good from evil which a Child will soon arrive to in difficult and knotty points they have Counsels and Tribunals to assist as Moses had his Exod. 18. And what more Divine than to be an encourager of the one and a Terrour to the other Or can be more their Interest and strength and blessing and Acclamation and praise from God and men Provided that they take a Text or two for their direction as my present Text to do all from the heart as to the Lord For none are able to Act Christ to the full both in the temper of his first and second coming as Princes may by Meekness in the first place towards such as are tractable by Resolution and severity in the next towards such as prove Incorrigible And that other Text Rom. 12.8 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He that ruleth let him do it with diligence not consuming his time and thoughts upon mean and and common Recreations much less on scandalous and sinful pleasures but to make his Government his entertainment and pastime For what can be more the sport and health of a Prince than the prosperity of his people And what Musick more delighting in a Generous Eare than the Te Deums of Orphans and Widows and the Oppressed for their rescue and Protection Any Squire or lusty Clown can equal a Prince in skill and content at Hunting of a Fox or Deer But to detect and hunt Wolves in Sheeps cloathing out of the Church or the wild Bore out of Christs Vinyard and Foxes from Publick Tribunals and Sees and noisom Vermin that prey upon their innocent Neighbours out of every corner of the Land This is Game for a Prince wherein no Subject can be his Rival or share or partake in his Delight and Glory And what a glorious happiness doth it ever prove to a Nation when Kings inspect their own Affairs and trust not too far to others and are led by the heart more than by the ear by God more than by Man by Conscience and Christ its rule which can never deceive them than by Man who is a lyar which can and often doth deceive and betray them into manifold unworthiness and inconvenience The Proverb saith the eye of the Master feeds the Horse But it is far more true that the eye of the King will beatifie a Nation According to that of Solomon The King sitting in his Throne of Judgment scattereth away all Iniquity with his eye Prov 20.8 The Sun it self cannot be more useful to the world by its Beams and Influence nor less be spared than a diligent and wakeful Prince to his People for he is more than a Sun being as God and Christ amongst them not in Title only but in Efficacy and Benefit when by Precept and Example he acts all in conjunction with him and subservience to him and Christ is ever where he is and He is ever where Christ is What an eye-sore would this prove but to none other but to Flatterers Hypocrites Pimps Oppressors Atheists Epicures but to Satan and his Pope who envy every Kingdom the Divine and Fatherly care and inspection of its respective Kings and is ever incroaching for a share in every Crown by the pretence of his Chair though he hath no more right or authority to meddle here than the Lord Mayor of DVBLIN to Govern the City of LONDON or our British Church to rule and controll the See of ROME and not so much because junior in the Faith to Us as
well as Apostatical from its right Guide and Rule as hath been shewed And the Elder and the Healthy hath some pretence to Govern the Younger but the Younger and Sickly no manner of colour to Govern his Sound and Elder Brother which brings me to the Third and Last Point to prove That the Church of Rome hath no Superiority or Mother-hood over our British Church in respect of its Extraction or first Plantation of the Gospel SECTION IV. Rome no mother Church to Brittain in respect of Extraction or Plantation of the Christian Faith but much Junior to it WHich it never had from Rome nor by its means but without it altogether and for a good space of time before it had any Chair to boast of Our Brittish Islands by remarkable Providence being exempt and distinct from all the world as to subjection though not to Communion (a) Ms. Bernesii Doctoris Pontificii apud Spelman Concil p. 28. not only in respect of its seperate scituation and the Supremacy of its Crown but the Antiquity and Independancy of its Sees But rather than to be dumb and confess and yield the cause the Romish Advocates will stand up and pretend some out of Simeon Metaphrastes that St. Peter himself made a long abode in Brittain and converted many and ordained Bishops Priests and Deacons amongst us and at the founding of Westminster his apparition and Ghost appeared to direct the Builders which Legend is not worth an answer not only for its suspected Author but for its ill conduct against its own Interest and forgetting its cause making Brittain no more Inferiour but equall and co-ordinate to Rome and Sisters from the same Spirituall Father St. Peter But others with more colour will object did not Augustine the Monk sent from Rome about the year 600 convert this land and especially the English to the Christian Faith Had they not quiet possession of their plantation for about a thousand years till they were wrongfully justled out by King Henry the Eighth in a Rebellious manner Is not the Chair of Canterbury which derives its descent from Rome and Austine Superiour by publick allowance to all the Chairs of Brittain besides to ascend higher to stop the mouths of the Ancient Brittains that plead more Antiquity in this Island than the English or Saxon can or do whose first landing here was not till about the year 449 Did not the Pope Eleutherius through Faganus and Dwywanus he sent hither with others Christen their King Lucius about the year 170 and convert and Baptize the rest of the Nation and settle Bishops and Arch-Bishops amongst them where Flamins and Arch Flamins were before as appears by their own Histories And is not this a sufficient Title that is 1500 years standing to prove the Church of Rome the fountain and Mother Church to Brittain and if a Mother where is the honour and Obedience that is due unto her But if it shall more fairly and truly appear 1 That the Church of Brittain was planted by the Immediate followers of our Saviour either Apostles or Apostolical men shortly after his Resurrection and before St. Peters Arrival at Rome whether that tradition be true or false and the same seed though sometimes in some parts of the Nation mixt with tars in other parts more purified from them continued among us without failer especially in the Northern and Western Parts of this Island from that day to this 2 If the whole passage by consequence between Eleutherius and King Lucius cannot be allowed for true which Savours of the latter Arts of Rome to compass Sveraignty contrary to the express words and tenor of Eleutherius his Epistle and answer to the King and the subsequent Practice of the Bishops of Rome for some hundreds of years after him while they continued good 3 If Augustine the Monks arrival here was a manifest Intrusion upon anothers Province without Invitation or consent of the Christians of the place to Invade and subjugate and destroy the Brittish Church by the help and means of Pagan Enemies then making War upon them as Jackcals and Vulturs follow Camps for Prey whereby he and all his Clergy stood depos'd and degraded of their Orders and all his party of Christian communion by the concurrent suffrages and Canons of all the Generall Counsels of the whole Catholick Church that went before him 4 If the Controversie between the Church of Brittain and Rome in those Early times was the same that is now maintained against it by the Protestant Church of England at this day touching its Superstitions and Arrogated Supemacy with this difference that there was no roome nor place then for those Sophismes now us'd where was your Church before Luther or Henry the Eighth but both still agreeing in their manner and temper of Proceeding now as then and then as it is now on the one side great learning and Truth and piety on the other as great Ignorance and Arrogance with lying wonders and Massacres 5 If the Gospel was Providentially planted amongst the English or Saxons by Brittish Ministry and not by Romish and the Church of Rome by its bewitching Power and Grandeur in degenerare times over all this part of the world did but invade and disturb both the English and Brittish Church and ravish their Sees and disorder their Consecrations and successions and Vnchurch it self thereby and attempt to enslave our Crown as well as Mitre 6 if Henry the Eights relief of both Crown and Church was just and Providentiall and also Brittish and not the unsettling of a Right Possessor but the lawful ejection of an old Intruder And the peace and Interest and Glory of this Nation is fairly pointed out by Providence to consist in pursuing this design 7 If the Primacy of the See of Canterbury be from the Grace and pleasure of our Kings and Laws who can alter it as they think fit and not from any Ecclesiastical Right of the Pope according to the Laws and Canons of the Universal Church but rather in contrariety unto them And Christian Subjects ought to submit to the supreme Magistrates Right and pleasure in ordering such external matters about the Church as clash not with Salvation If these seven points shall appear as clear from proof and evidence as they are in the model and supposition will it not inevitably follow that no English much less Brittish Christian subject of what perswasion soever can with any conscience or thankfulness to God renounce his Mother of Brittain to own a Forraign Church for his Mother or desert his Colours to list himself under the Conduct and Supremacy of Rome to Act against his own Church and Country without being apparently convict before God and the world as well as his conscience of being a Renegade to his Church and false unnatural to his Country and as our wise Laws upon good grounds declare and define a Perfidious Traitor against his Soveraign First then it may be affirmed what cannot and is not
denied by our Adversaries themselves that the Christian Faith was first introduced to our Brittain by Joseph of Arimathea who buried our Saviour in his own new Tomb Math. 27.60 who landed here with other followers of our Saviour shortly after his Resurrection and Diu ante-long before Eleutherius his time saith (a) Baron T. 2. An. 183. p. 240. Polyd. Virgil lib 2. p. 37. Barronius fixing it to the 35 year of Christ where after he had preach'd the Gospel in this Country he ended here his days and quotes an English M.S. in the Vatican Library for one of his Authors and Sanders and Cressy and Pitseus and the rest of the Roman Catholick writers upon this Subject allow this story so that habemus confitentes reos we have such a testimony for the proof of our first point as in wordly Tribunals is counted fatall and conclusive the confession of the Adverse party And it is to be wondred of such men that they should be so ill advised as to yield such a Truth so easily to such a prejudice to their Cause but what then should become of the credit of so many holy Monks Relations and Revelations touching the Monastry of Glastenbury and not only the devout visits of Faganus and Dwywanus and Austine and Paulinus sent hither from the Pope to preach the Gospel which proves Christian Religion as well as that Old Church to have been here in their belief and perswation long before their Arrival hither but the many Divine Revelations from Angels and the Virgin Mary and Christ himself about the building and dedicating that Ancient Church It 's safer therefore with our Romish Authors and a less inconvenience of the two to confess this fact and yield the cause than question the credit of so many Miracles and Supernaturall Revelations enough to spoil and overthrow their Church whose errours are chiefly supported and confirmed by such devices and extol the wisdom of Protestants that rely on no Divine Visions but those recorded in Scripture But others are swayed much more by other Evidences so many Charters of Kings as well Brittish as Saxon and Norman several extant to this day given to this Monastery upon the account and acknowldgement of its undoubted Antiquity and priority to all other Churches in this Land or in this part of the world The Charter of King (e) Usher de Primordiis p 122. Henry the Second in the year 1185. where it is affirm'd of it Fons Origo totius Religionis Angliae pro certo habetur And recites the Charters of former Kings touching the place of William the 1. and 2. and Henry his Grandfather and those Ancienter of Edgar and Edmond and Edward and Alfred and Bringwalch Kentwin Baldred Ina Inclyti Arthuri the famous Arthur Cudred and many other Christian Kings all diligently perus'd and read before him and the Charter of Edward the third in the third year of his Reign to the like effect both perus'd by the Renowned Vsher The first Church in the Kingdom of Brittain saith King Ina counted the Principal in this Kingdom ab Antiquo from Ancient time saith Edgar built by the Disciples of Christ where in all agree And (g) Monasticon Anglican the Tombs of so many Abbots and Saints and Bishops and Kings counting it Honour to be there Interr'd and King (h) Usher p. 117. Arthur in particular whose Tomb and inscription after the burning of the Abby was there found about the year 1200. say the best Historians of (f) Idem p. 124. those times But the bringing of this Tradition to publick test and examination in several (i) Usher p. 23. 175. General Synods of Europe gives it much great reputation where the Embassadors of England in the Controversie about the Dignity and Precedency of England with France who derive their first conversion from Dionysius the Areopagite converted by St. Paul at Athens Act. 17.34 and with Spain or Castile who ascend higher for their founder to James the Brother of John kill'd by Herod Act. 12. yet claim'd Priority to England before either of them from Joseph of Arimathea's landing and preaching here statim post i Usher p. 23. 175. Passionem Christi immediately after the Passion of our Saviour and the weakness of the exceptions of the Advocates of the adverse part may be seen in the great Vsher with answers to them where requisite which Controversie was first set on foot in the Council of Pisa in the year 1409. next in the Council of Constance in 1417. between the Embassadors of France and England in the Council of Sena 1424. before Pope Martyn the fift between us and French and Spaniards together 1434. between the Embassadors of England and Castile again which passages have so prevail'd with Cressy that he hath no scruple left but one and that not against the Fact and body of the story but against the time and earliness thereof k Cressy Eccles Histor he can not hastily believe that Joseph arrived here so soon wherein yet he is to be commended by that party for his watchfulness for the Honour and Prerogative of the Church of Rome in apparent danger of being overthrown by this Church if the date and time as well as the substance of the story be once granted and evinced For if Joseph arrived here in the 35 year of Christ as Baronius guesses or the 36. as others for where some differr it to 63. m Spelman Concil p. 12. Sir H. Spelman conceives the figures displaced 63 for 36 and our Saviour suffered in the 34 of his age it follows that Joseph repaired hither immediately after the Resurrection in the 21 or 22. that is to say the last or last year saving one of Tiberius his Reign Christ being Crucified in his 20 th n Helvic Chron. whom Caligula succeeded Regning three years and ten Months And â— Claudius after him thirteen years and eight months And n Helvic Chron. Nero after Claudius another thirteen years and eight months And St. Peter's arrival at Rome is not so much as pretended by them of Rome to be before the second year of Claudius which yet Protestants can never grant finding him in those years to be in Palestine and Papists can never prove but that he came to Rome about the 12 or 13 year of Nero they have tradition more favourable for them and more reconcilable to his other abodes and Martyrdom It is consequent here upon that the Christian Faith was in Brittain before St. Peter ever came to Rome for as many years as are between the latter end of Tiberius and the second of Claudius in their own account that is for about seven years and in the account of all others for as much time as Intervenes between the end of Tiberius and the 12 or 13 year of Nero that is that the Church of Brittain is manifestly Senior and Ancienter in the Faith than the Church of Rome by thirty years complete
Conversion of the Isle of Man to the Brittish Culdees Usher 642. Man together in a miraculous manner which was his Christian retaliation to his enemies Whose reward is great with God and the greater by this that he hath the less of praise from men his very Adorers since his plantation was long obscur'd by a Romish Fog that still lasts upon it never ceasing to defame and traduce his Divine work with Superstitious descriptions and unworthy Legends though intended perhaps for Honour In 451. †Usher p. 978. Gildas Albanius born at Arcluit in Beda's time called Alcluid that is a Town upon the River Cluid now Dunbritton Inhabited then by the Brittains preach'd to and converted the North parts of Scotland beyond the Hills whether Ninias before had not reach'd And after him in 565. St. Columba of Irish Birth and Brittish Doctrine and Institution assisted by u Idem 540. Constantine Duke of Cornwall repenting of his Adulteries and Murthers upon the reproofs of Gildas Badonicus and taking orders perfected the Conversion of the Picts Serfus one of the Culdees and consequently of Brittish either Birth or Principle promoting the same work as far as the Orcades About the Year 560. St. Kentigerne y p. 686. Nephew to King Arthur and Founder of St. Asaph returned to his Bishoprick of Glasco and preached first the Gospel to the English though enemies permitted upon (f) Histor Brit. lib. 8. C. 9. M. Westm 489. submission and fealty under Octa and Ebusa Sons of Hengist newly conquer'd by Aurelius Ambrosius to live in that Brittish Territory between the Friths and the Wall where they suffer'd the Brittains before being worsted by them to reside upon like submission About 596 what by divisions among themselves what by great invasions by Gormond from Ireland as well as by the Saxons in their bowels what by a great and Epidemical Plague and Jaundize and the entrance of Monk Austin the greatest Plague of all two of their Candlesticks were removed Thadiock Arch-Bishop of the See of York and Theon of London being forc'd from their Sees and charge with the Clergy and Gentry from their Estates and Homes to retire for their safety into the parts of Wales and Cornwall and Ireland very probably none staying behind but the Peasantry at the Terms and for the conveniencies and interest of the conquerour York faring best of the two Sees for the Cambrian (m) Usher p. 1005. Kingdom or Cumberland called Valentia with Scotland or old Albany which formerly had been parcels of the See of York stood yet entire and safe under the Protection of their own Kings and Princes who were able to defend their Religion and Territories both from Pagan and Romish Encroachments about this time infesting them But in the See of London and the body of Lhoegr as the Brittains still call England the Inhabitants that remain'd behind Tributaries to the Saxon Conquerour were to retain their Faith between the heart and God after their Clergy were expell'd by the procurement of Rome as is to be suspected unless some lurked behind in cognitò as is usual for their comfort and assistance or the Pagan Conquerours as we shall see anon gave them toleration of Religion either by Grace or Articles as did Irmericus in Kent and Penda in Mercia and Kerdic in West Saxony c. whereof Bede takes little notice though he could not and doth not wholly conceale the passages But then as the loss of one sense adds strength to the other and the shutting of one eye enlarges the others Candle Ireland grew rich and famous upon this dispersion and accession of learned men into its Teritories for refuge whereby it became about this time the University as it were of these Western parts of Europe for the Christian Orthodox Religion and term'd Insula Sanctorum the Island of Saints whither recourse was made for Spiritual knowledge from all parts and Kingdoms and Wales and its Sees and Abbies was no less stock'd with choice of Able-men and particularly the famous Monastery of Bangor-is-y coed where we find about this time above two thousand learned Monks living together in a holy Fraternity all Subject to the Metropolitical See of St. David whither the Chair was removed from Caerleon by the Authority of King Arthur and a Synod about the year 521 These in 602 gave Augustine the Monk a meeting about Worcester where the pretended Supremacy of the Church of Rome with its superstitious Innovations were Synodically disclaimed and rejected Augustines design being to seize our Brittish Churches as it were by occupancy and to subject them to Rome under colour of Conversion For that their Sees were made too hot to hold Thadiock and Theon at the arrival of Augustine or not long before is some Argument that the Pagan fury was made to burn the fiercer with Roman-Catholick bellows and that the believing Brittains who needed not their Conversion must veil their Ancient Metropolitan Chair of St. David or Caerleon likewise to an upstart See of Romes erection as Austine expected this manifestly proves and discovers it was their Temporal Dominion and superiority which by them is call'd the Catholick Faith that was the chief aim of Rome by all Inhumane and Unchristian Arts to propagate here in Brittain And if we were constrained to submit in part and for a time to their yoke and superstition when the Crown in our Kings for a time was miss-led by their influence and were freed from the same yoke in H. 8. when the Crown was better rectified by Providence we stand as we were holding fast our Liberty with a better conscience than they could usurp it from us being now under no Tye or obligation to Rome either for our Faith or errours not for our first Faith which we never had from them nor for some latter superstitions which we restor'd back unto them continuing a right Church from first to last because when we were at the worst we were as Orthodox as themselves who corrupted us and recovering our clearness again from their forc'd mud and mixture we continue as well English as Brittains now mutually Incorporated to profess the same Faith which was planted here above sixteen hundred and odd years ago not only before Lutâ—er was born but before Rome it self had its Christian being SECTION VI. Brittain had not the Faith from Pope Eleutherius THe first point being thus clear'd It becomes as clear we had not our Faith from Pope Eleutherius by King Lucius and were the Epistle and the Persons contemporary it makes more against them than for them whereof the sum is this You desired of us to send you the Roman Laws which you would use in the Kingdom of Brittain we can never disallow Gods Laws but may Caesars You have lately by Divine mercy received the Law and Faith of Christ you have with you in the Kingdom both the New and Old Testament whence by the advice of your Peers and the Council of
natural Allegiance of his consciâ—nce towards Christ and the Truth and his outward duty to his Governours and Fathers at home violating the fift commandment with a Pharisaical corban saying to their peculiar Fathers it 's given to Rome whatsoever you might be profited by us following uncertain traditions before Gods express Law and teaching for Doctrines the commandments of men as our Saviour himself hath timely detected and forwarn'd against this Holy fraud Math. 15.5 for by the same reason that every good wife is to know her own Husband from another and every good Subject his own King from a Forreigner or Usurper and every Souldier his own Commander and Colours by the same duty and conscience every English Christian is to follow his own Church in Christ before another for obedience misplac'd is but Godly transgression or Traiterous Loyalty to the disturbance of the publick besides its own shame and prejudice And by submission to Governours and Synods they were heal'd of the Pelagian Heresie which most annoyed this Church next to Romish Inroades that trode down the whole field and sowed their tares and superstitions from year to year among our best corn this made also our Church to under go several variations about the observation of Easter as times required As for the Arian Heresie and venome which began to Breath a little in these parts upon h Usher p 197. Gratians toleration of divers opinions in Religion it found not the air to agree with it neither did Pelagius or Morgan though born in Brittain and as it is said i idem p. 207. the same day St. Augustine was born in Africk suck k idem p. 215. 224. Pelagii Epist ad Demetr or Propagate his Heresie here but fell into it at Rome by finding Christians to come short of Heathens and abusing Grace to Libertinisme and Wantonness for otherwise he was in great esteem and veneration for his learning and Sanctity with the chief l Usher 221.214 Fathers of the East and West St. Augustine and St. Chrysostom and in the East m Usher p. 215. ended his days having never return'd to his own Country but his Heresie came to be spread here nevertheless in those parts especially that were reduc'd by the Saxon Conquerour by the means of n Bed lib 1. c 17. Agricola a French man the Son of Severianus a Pelagian Bishop and in the rooting of it out amongst the Brittains left behind in Lhoegr Germanus and Lupus French-men likewise did good service as by Neutrality they were better fitted as for instance their first and main success in disputation was about o M. Westm p. 446. St. Albans where Gildas and such as he durst not approach for the Enemy as his complaint is taken notice of by p Camden in St. Albans Camden there being their chiefest Champions sent hither from the Gallican at the request of the Brittish Church signifying her distemper and troubles quaâ—primum fidei Catholicae debere succurri that the Catholick Faith should be assisted as soon as might be such was the loving Communion then between this and that Church and still might be especially with the soundest and learned'st part thereof under frown for Orthodoxy if he who now letteth were once taken fully out of the way 2 Thess 2. But it recover'd it self again after Germanus his time till St. David newly ordained Bishop by the Patriarch of Jerusalem in a publick Synod whereto he was invited held in Wales against it gave it q Usher p. 474. its final overthrow and was made Arch-Bishop of St. David in the same Synod thereupon For the Easter Controversie which was the only materiall point Augustine had to object for the other about Baptism was meer Ceremony and since lost in oblivion it consisted of two parts Doctrinal and Astronomical Doctrinal as in the early Controversie between the Churches of East and West wherein it is most probable the Brittains followed the East before the Synod of q Concil Arelat Can. 1. Arles and Nice determined otherwise and Astronomical between Augustine and the Brittains at this time being much the same difference between stylo veteri stylo novo in our days which the Ignorance of Augustine made to be a Catholick tradition derived from St. Peter and the chief ground and pretence of quarrel to disturb our Churches St. Paul dehorts Christians from observing dayes and Months and times and years Gal. 4 10 very agreeably to the Christian Hypothesis whereby this present world or the old Creation hath its end and period in the death of Christ Sacramentally to our Faith and r 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Chrys T. 5. Edit Savil. Hom. 53. p. 357. time its Concomitant twinne hath the like end and period with it by consequence Wherefore if ye be dead with Christ from the rudiments of the world why as though living in the world are ye Subject to Ordinances for properly a Christian as a Christian lives not in this world but in Eternity or to use the Apostles expression his 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 his Conversation and Scene of living is not on Earth but in Heaven with Christ at the right hand of God Phil. 3 20. Col. 3.1 Which Doctrine highly Suits with the nature and genius of the immortal Soul all whose Acts of vice or virtue though as born in the body within the virge of time and place they are Temporal and transitory yet as they are the free-born off-springs of the Soul they carry the features and signatures of Eternity upon them being Eternal as their Parent in the memory of their guilt or merit Not as if the old Creation wherein we still live in the flesh 2 Cor. 10.3 were wholly consumed and transubstantiated in the sight of our rational faculties which a moral Philosopher would justly deride as madness in those that should maintain it but that the whole sublunary and moral nature of all its parts is to be elevated and consecrated to Heavenly uses in this state of Grace and nearer access to God wherein the Church as a new Creature by faith now stands Rom. 5.21 2 Cor. 5.17 Therefore old things are passed away behold all things are become new We Christians eate and drink and obey and rule and mourn and rejoyce and observe dayes and times and feasts as well as the Jews or Heathens did but in another World by faith between the heart and the Lord in whom times persons and degrees and differences of persons meet in one as the whole Hemisphere in the candle of the eye or Diameters in their Center In the World men are Greeks or Barbarians bond or free Male or Female but in the Church Christ is all and in all For as in a degenerate Church or false Christian the present World or his Interest and profit is all in all and Holy Church and Religion and God and Christ and Faith and Sacraments are all Hypocritically and profanely named and used in
order and subserviency thereunto and no further so in the true Christian Religion Christ is all in all and all things besides of this World are dead things to a Christian that cannot help him forward towards Christ and the other life as the other World and Religion is an insipid story to a false Christian where they are useless to serve his ends in this Any Christian may and ought to observe and regard time as well as other things of life or death but to Christ who died and rose again that he might be the Lord both of the dead and living Rom. 14.6 8. much more may he observe time when commanded by Christian Governours to whom he is subject in the Lord more yet a time of Apostolical Institution to whom he and his Christian Governours are subject to obey such is that singular Lords-day mentioned in St. John Rev. 1.10 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the day of our Lords Resurrection or Easter which Christ himself by his own example hath recommended to his Church for perpetual observation as the lasting practice proves the first direction For on that day Christ rose from the dead founding his new Creation in one day as God did the old in a week and instructed Mary Magdalen touching the Communion and participation of Christians in his Resurrection and Adoption by it which constitutes the Christian Church and the substance of its Catechisme Say to my Brethren I ascend to my Father and your Father and to my God and your God Joh. 20.17 On the Octaves of the same day carefully noted v. 19. he appeared to his Disciples met together and Instituted the Governours of his Church with a Consecration Sermon ad clerum touching their Authority and duty As my Father hath sent me even so send I you and breathing on them said receive ye the Holy Ghost whosoever sins ye remit they are remitted unto them and whosoever sins ye retain they are retain'd v. 21 22. And after eight dayes again or a Disdiapason or the third day from the Resurrection he met his Disciples again and preach'd a Sermon ad populum containing the chief fundamental principle of Christianity and the blessedness of those that have not seen and yet shall believe mildly reproving the foreseen Curiosity and Infidelity of Christians in the person of St. Thomas v. 29. Expressing hereby his leading will and example for the observing of Sunday forever as a Holy day for Worship and Instruction upon the score of the Resurrection or as 51 Octaves of Easter day as the subsequent Apostolical practice of the Church hath prov'd this first Institution Act. 20.7 1 Cor. 16.2 The Jewish Sabbath being dissolved with the old Creation by Faith and the Christian Sabbath erected in its stead the new Creation requring its Sabbath as well as old because a Creation And the Church or Spiritual Israel bound by the decalogue to the observation of it in remembrance of its deliverance from Spiritual Aegypt and bondage as the Jews or Carnal Israel to the other in remembrance of such deliverance in the letter Besides the Law of Constantine and other godly Kings of New Israel for observing of the same And not against but according to our Saviours Intimation Mat. 9.15 That the Disciples should fast when the Bridegroom was taken away Wednesday and Friday preceding his passion and from thence all the Wednesdays and Fridays throughout the year saving the time of Pentecost when the Bridegroom returned to his Spouse in the Comforter have been observed by the Ancient Catholick Church as a Fast in reference to his Cross as Easter and thence all the Sundays in the year as a Feast in reference to his Resurrection both the one and the other being regarded to the Lord The Church particularly training it self to the conformity of Christs death to to this World in the one as of his life in the Heavenly joyes of the other Christ in his Cross and Christ in his Resurrection being the whole lesson and both side of the leaf to the Christian Church 1 Cor. 2.2 Philip. 3.10 The Charter of Easter and its weekly repetitions or Sundays which some prefer in honour before Easter it self the Copy before the Original being so clear in Scripture in its first Institution of so great importance is Charity and condescention to the frailties of our Christian Brethren that the great Lords-day or Easter as well as the Sabbath was by Christs mind to give place unto it in some places and for some time Accordingly we find the Eastern Churches adioyning to Jerusalem to observe Easter out of its time the same day as the Jews did their Passover what day of the Week soever it fell on whether Sunday or not and also to observe Saturday as a Holy-day as well as Sunday throughout the year in complyance with the Jews But the Western would by no means yield or approve thereof but thunder'd against it with the same zeal as St. Paul the Apostle of the Gentiles did against the introduceing of Circumcision amongst the Gentiles Gal. 25.5.2 Phil. 3.2 which yet was tolerated in the Christian Jewish Church Act 21.20 21 25. And therefore St. Peter the Apostle of the Jews Gal. 2.7 is more complyant with the weak Jews in their Ceremonies whom he fear'd to offend than St. Paul who did as much fear to scandalize his weak Gentiles and reproved St. Peter to his face upon that score Gal. 2.11 and yet both the one and the other in their zeal and moderation were acted by a diversified charity but the same inspir'd directions Gal. 2.8 And the true Reason in all probability of the Roman Fast on Saturday so contrary to the Apostolical Tradition of the rest of the Christian Church what other plaister soever many may invent for this notorious Non-conformisty was the zeal of St. Paul's successors after his example and steps Gal. 2.5 strictly to assert the Christian liberty of the believing Gentiles in the West from the yoak of the Law and all seeming Judaical observation of the weekly Saturday with equal respect to the weekly Lords-day As they would by no means before veile their Annual Easter to the Annual Passover upon the like score wherein St. Peter and all Christians of the Circumcision would not have been so precise and strict as it is well known they were not to keep such exact distance from the Synagogue nor needed they at Rome to have been after the limited time of toleration to the weaker Jews was expir'd as it was no less than Schisme and disobedience in them to continue in this their needless singularity though originally generous after the Catholick Church in General Councils had declared its dislike against it Now if the first Popes of Rome as Victor with others had believed themselves to be the Successors of St. Peter they would not have raised such a bitter quarrel against the Eastern Church about the time of observing Easter for this had been to have made St. Peter fight
the great esteem and contempt that Syberwid and Ansyberwid was and is in still amongst them that have kept their Language and Ancient Customs most free from Forreign mixtures for with such no man can fall under a worse or better character them of Syberw or Ansyberw no greater commendation have they for any man or woman than gwr or gwraig Syberw no greater note of Infamy and unworthyness than Ansyberw which they pronounce as Suber and Ansuber though writ with y which words whatever is their Etymology in their common acception carry a comprehensive signification of several good and evil qualities as ingredients And 1 it is manifest Syberw in the first surface denotes liberality as Ansyberw niggardness but then further it points at the cause and reason of both for 2 such a man is to be allowed Syberw that doth by all men as he would be done by and the contrary is Ansyberw so is he that takes greater measure to himself than he will afford to others so are all that can endure to fare richly while their Neighbours starve by them and Syberw is he that is watchful and resolute against all avaritious inequality and overreaching or unconcernedness for others that be in want and misery so that Syberw is just and mercyful as well as Liberal and Ansyberw unjust and merciless 3 It implies some inequality when a man strives to be kinder ro another than to himself and pinches himself in back and belly to be kind and liberall to many as I have known vety good Women who went habited scare above beggars and of proportionable abstinence in their diet who if they had worn all their large almes upon their backs from year to year which they valued above all gayety and good fare might have appear'd and far'd as splendid as any of their rank and know by this time they made a better choice and herein is the essence and formality of Syberwid and such an engrafted traditional honour and esteem there is for such amongst the Brittains that their names are mentioned with great and cordial dearness as if this were to be a Saint for faith and all vertues are presumed to be in that man or woman where this temper is found and though it may seem unreasonable or at least a work of Superogation to love another above himself yet they judge nothing to be a greater duty and content and blessing as indeed what is more Divine and Honourable and the source all noble actions and rewards exposeing life for Country c. and in their common bargains and measures they abhorr and dread precise and exact equality without some addition or voluntary overplus of kindness to another they deal with above the strict contract and they had rather abate of the price agteed than be disabled to give the said addition as their free guift over and above their bargain which they proverbially call rhád-duw or Gods Grace and Blessing And the giver is as Willing or rather more to give his Rhad-duw into the bargain than the other to receive it 4 It takes in conscience and the heart above all they 'l hardly receive it if it comes not from the heart and from no ends but as a free guift and he that is Ansyberw is therefore hateful with them because esteemed to have no conscience and he that is Syberw from the heart is call'd glan ei galon or clear spirited which is the loveliest Character they judge any man can deserve or receive and probably Syberw comes from Sobrius and Sobrius from 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in the Etymology of it whereby it signifies the preservation of the mind and heart which is done they conceive by nothing more than Syberwid as the mind and soul is destroyed and corrupted by nothing more than Ansyberwid which is the same with Philauâ— or self love as appears by the premises so hateful with St. Paul and our Brittans and with all good men so that by this their imbred tradition received amongst all undegenerate Brittains both high and low they judge honesty and mercy and love to others above themselves as in the case of humility to be their self-preservation and chiefest Interest and surest method to prosper And no wonder they preferr'd this hearty Syberwid before all other vertues it being nothing else but that love which is the fulfilling of the Law or that charity from a pure heart which is the end of the commandment and the total of all Religion for what excellency or degeneracy is there in human or Christian nature that is not contain'd in Syberw and avoided in Ansyberw What is honour in Nobles honestum with Romans 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with Greeks humility and charity with Christians is all comprehended in Syberw And this Brittish Principle and Custom is so undoubtedly Apostolical and Primitive that nothing more is the root and cause of the Arrogance and troublesomness of Popery or of that hollowness and Hippocrisie that hath too much prevail'd in Modern Protestancy and Puritanism it self than the manifest want thereof Some of our degenerate Gentry ought to compare their ignoble and sinful constant healthing and swilling while they can hardly spare a glass of Water to Christ in their poor Neighbour with this sober and salvifical principle of their Progenitours who it is to be believed never met to r Gyrald Cambrens descript Camb. c. 9. drink but in relation to Cymmortha and these are so much Brittains they say in their servile imitations of forreign vitious Customs that the health of an Ansyberw or niggaâ—dly selfish person was never known to go round amongst them but only of the Syberw and generous This character of our Brittish Church in her Doctrines and Rites is exactly the same with that which Å¿ Epiphanius lib 3. in sine Epiphanius gives of the Primitive Catholick which the Church of England this day professes to follow and to retrive which is the same Church with the Ancient Brittish Church the Brittains and the English being the same People not only in Faith and worship but in Laws and bloud and greater alliance in Doctrine and Consanginity to be found between them than between Alexander and Clement modern Italians and Linus and Anacletus their predecessors Ancient Romans as may further appear The Brittish Church therefore appearing from undoubted evidence and their adversaries exceptions to be so sound and Ancient in the substance of her Orthodox Faith to impute schism to it for her distance or departure from the Roman her Junior or to ask where was your Church before Luther is a cavil not only ignorantly groundless but inpudently ridiculous if they pretend to be in their Sences that urge it They may with as much colour of reason object a separation in us from Prester-John or the Church of the Abyssines well known perhaps to our Fore-Fathers when they met at Jerusalem whither both resorted with whom as with all other Churches of Christendom and as many as are allowed
in that Church for sincere and true members of Christ by the searcher of their hearts and ours we trust by mutual offices of Prayer and Charity we hold Communion in the General And a particular rent or schism cannot be conceived without some particular Vnion or Subjection preceeding and it sufficiently appears â—ow little there was of old between Rome and Brittain for how can an Arm be out of joynt from that part with whom it was never In. They themselves who accuse first are Schismaticks unavoidably especially our deluded English and Brittish and Irish Roman-Catholicks born under the same Allegiance believing in the same Christ that refuse to joyn in communion and worship with their own Mother Church much more Ancient and pure than that of Rome which were it less corrupt than it is they unworthily prefer before her against proverb and practice for home is homely be it never so homely and you shall not meet a child of that folly that will prefer a pompous Countess before his poor Mother But so truly Catholick and Apostolick and free from all foul and loathsome Idolatries and Superstitions are the Sacraments of our own Church that if they once tasted with us the milk of their own chast Mother they would never covet Forreign breasts that have an ill name any more nor be so earnest with us to prefer manifest poison before it And the cause of their delusion that should nevertheless be so zealous to persevere in such unnatural ignoble obstinacy and disobedience so destructive to themselves must needs be more than humane 2 Thess 2.11 But our Communions and separations are not in our own power but we are to take and leave as God directs and God directs to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Eph. 4.3 The unity of the Spirit and not the unity of the Flesh that is to select such for our Christian Brethren to associate with them in dear fellowship who express by their Conversation that they are dead to this present World and self ends by their Faith and conformity to the cross of Christ and live in Heaven by their holy conformity to his Ascention which is a state of the Spirit and Grace and the right Catholick Church But to avoid and separate as much as may be in this World from such as are Earthly carnal sensual selfish scandalous and especially if such by their Doctrine policy profession designe and principle for such are enemies to the cross of Christ and a state of confederacy with the flesh wholly asymbolical and contrary to the nature of such a Church a Christian is to hold Communion with so St. Paul explains and expressly decides this case Phil. 3.17 18 19. shewing that such whose God is their belly whose Glory is their shame who mind Earthly things are not to be followed but shunned be their brags never so Christian and Catholick and why are they to be shunn'd because they are enemies to the Cross of Christ which they abuse and profane to compass Worldly ends and grandeur and Christs subjects ought not to correspond with his enemies not only upon the score of Loyalty but Interest and safety for the end of both will be destruction v. 19. And the reason why he and such as walk'd as he did were to be followed and embrac'd is because he followed Christ in his Cross as is implyed by the contrary Antithesis v. 17 18. because he also followed him in his Resurrection and Heavenly life as it is expressed in these words v. 20. For our Conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour This is the Catholick Church where all that will joyn with it shall be sure to find Salvation by it And in like manner he directs the Romans 16 17 18. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the heart of the simple A prophetical Description of the Roman Church Apostatizing into Roman Catholick and preferring Titles befere Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good words presignifiing their meek and holy and publick pretensions and title of servant of servants Fathers Confessors Apostolick See c. and their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faire speeches or rather blessings their easie Absolutions and innumerable Indulgences Ceremonious crossings of all things and persons The like rule is given to Timothy and to all Bishops and every Christian in him If thou observe any make a Trade and Merchandize of the Gospel Supposing gain to be godliness from such withdraw thy self 1 Tim. 6.5 Which markes and characters of true or false Christians though they are less heeded and regarded by the guides of the Church of Rome and their credulous Disciples than by their more observing neighbouring Churches who know that Simon Magus the Father of the old Gnosticks pointed at by the Apostle v. 20. was more certainly at Rome and left his successors behind him than Simon Peter The wonder is the less because gifts and lusts more blind the eyes of the receivers and Actors than the standers by Neither do these Apostolical warnings alone but the woful experiences that back them deterr us from their communion above any other We held communion heretofore with the Eastern Church and that of Jerusalem without spiritual hurt or damage to our selves and our communion with the Ancient Gallican Church in the West added strength and comfort to us The Churches of Scotland and Ireland though by Civil Governments they were under different Kings and them not often friends yet by the Christian faith they were one piece with our Brittish Church defending our cause against Rome and Augustine with equal concern But when we began to acquaint our selves with Rome when it was better than now it is we gain'd nought but wounds and defilements and misfortunes by it There Pelagius with Celestius had his fall and ruine when with like good intentions as some other learned men in after Ages he went about to alter Divinity into a moral Philosophy to fit the needs of Christians there who lived short of men and were but hardned the more in their sins by the Evangelical Doctrines of free grace an evident symptom of their ripeness for Divine vengeance as appeared by the dismal sacking of Rome shortly after Anno 410 †Inter Augustinianas Epist 142. Hieronymianas which he elegantly describes in his Epistle to Demetriades There Wilfrid imbib'd the principles of avarice and ambition wherewith he corrupted his Brittish Institution and brought troubles upon himself as well as others and more disturb'd than promoted the plantation of the Gospel amongst the Saxons carried on then by Brittish industry There St. Patrick and Palladius Sons of the Brittish Church and of contrary Doctrines and Customes to Rome as appeared in their plantations yet
had the name and imputation of being Missionaries of Rome for the Conversion of Ireland and Scotland say their Legends for Politicians love ever to have holy and good men for their tooles and instruments and pretences for so St. Peter and St. Paul their 's name are as often us'd and applyed in the Courts of Rome to countenance their carnal policies and designes as John Doe and Richard Roe in ours to vouch suites and though they make the cross of Christ their Antipodes and re-exalt the World with its pomp into its old zenith and meridian yet no where is the material cross adored and worship'd with that excess of Reverence as by these enemies of the Spiritual What gain'd our Saxon and Norman Kings by their generous respects towards them bearing then the name of a Church in chief but the exhausting of their Subjects and the clipping of their own Prerogatives and Supremacies and to be made their Engineers and Executioners to suppress and destroy the Ancâ—â—â—â— Church of Brittain its Metropolitan Sees of York and London by the means of the first and St. David of the last Neither will it suffice to plead the whole English Brittish Church was once under the yoak and Jurisdiction of Rome for a long space of a time and that it was Schisme therefore and rebellious disobedience in them to shake off their Government For this yoak and imposition was early protested against by the Brittains as unchristian and unjust and kept off with their utmost power as long as they could and the Nation made often entries in so many Statutes of provisors and premunire's against it and the endeavours of Wickleff and Lollards who could expect no other than ill names for it and they were fully evicted out of it at last in Henry 8. of Brittish descent by wonderful providence Was it a Schism against the Cromwellian party who pretended to as much holiness as Rome it self and more for our Soveveraign to return to his own Throne from whence he and his Father were so wrongfully kept out and so long If they know not Gods usual method to give his own people over into the hands of their enemies for their sins and to redeem them from them upon their repentance by miraculous deliverance they erre not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22.29 nor the power and Discipline of God nor the patience and priviledges of his servants Their own Church of Rome lay in captivity under the Exarchs or the Constantinopolitan Emperours Vice-Royes residing at Ravenna from the year 568. to 743. and some of their Popes for their refractoriness have been coursely us'd by them in the Streets of Constantinople yet they held it no Schism to recover their Ancient liberty though by very ill means by dividing the Empire and hazarding Christendom and strengthning the Turk as the poor Greeks to this day complain And may not we without Schism enjoy our Ancient rights and freedom recovered by lawful means and in Gods time without wrong to any and with and not against the rights and wills of our Soveraigns as they by the contrary in all respects yet it was more excusable in them to gratifie the Turk and subvert Christendom to preserve their own Chair then joyn with Pagans to invade the Chaires of other Churches as a thief that steals for his necessity is more to be pardoned than an Adulterer that wrongs his neighbour for his lust but the Romish Popes shewed themselves devoid of all conscience and honour and fear of God in that they combin'd to deprive us of our liberty then about 596. when themselves lay groaning for the loss of their own being worse than robbers under the Gallowes or the thief that reviled our Saviour being himself under the same condemnation which together with the violation of the Canons is the reason the Brittains in Bede esteemed these Roman-catholicks and their Disciples no better than Pagans usque hodie moris est Britonum fidem Anglorum pro nihilo habere nec in aliquo communicare quam cum Paganis lib. 2. c. 20. Yea they were more reconcilable to the Pagan Saxons that rob'd them of their Countrey as appears by their leagues and friendships and intermarriages reproved as afore by Lupus and Germanus than with Inhuman Christians that us'd Pagan assistance to rob them of their Faith and tread down their Church for they valued Truth above their Territory And they would not admit any of the Romish into their Brittish communion Å¿ Usher Rell of the Ancient Irish c. 10. under 40 dayes pennance as the Romanists to serve their designes denyed the validity of the Brittish Ordinations as they do still that of our English so that the Church of England now as the old Brittish Church heretofore stand upon the same points of difference from Rome those of Mission and Superstition and Supremacy upon which three most of the rest depend which leads to give a more particular character and description of Augustine and his Roman Faith as it then stood in opposition that the state of the Controversy and the merit of both Churches and Causes may the more fully appear SECTION VIII The face of the Roman Church about the same time and of Augustin's Qualification and method for his pretended propagation of the Gospel amongst the English and that the Nation are under no Obligation to Rome for his work here but bound by their Christianity to abhorre and detest it TO this end I shall only briefly recount some passages out of Bede 1. Touching his qualification for the pretended Conversion of the Saxons 2. His method of propagating his Roman Faith amongst them That several of the English Nation as well Learned as Unlearned and Romanists as well as Protestants may review and consider how this Augustine can be ever own'd for an Apostle of the English without wrong and disparagement to Gods Church and the Truth and themselves 1. Touching his Qualification in respect of Learning and principles And his elocution and means of conveyance of the other to his Disciples It appears he was no great Clerk wherein yet he may far better be born with because of the rude Age he lived in not only by his insisting upon the Alexandrine Calender as afore not above an hundred years standing before his time as a Tradition of St. Peter so necessary to the right being of a Church that by Divine Revelation he prognosticated the destruction of the Brittish Doctors by hostile Arms for their dissent therein and the other two points about Baptism and preaching to the Saxons but also from his Questions and Scruples sent to his Pope Gregory much about the same size for parts though above for dignity Whose common character is that he was the worst that went before him and the best Pope of all that came after him His a Bede lib. 1. c. 28. eight interrogation and scruple is si praegnans mulier debet baptizari If a woman being with child might lawfully be baptized
furnish'd for Outward Appearance a true type of his Roman Church to this day gay without to the eye but naked and bare walls within to reason as appears from the Inventory of his furniture and Utensils c Bed lib. 1. c. 29. vasa sacra vestimenta altarium Ornamenta quoque Eeclesiarum Sacerdâ—talia Clericalia indumenta Sanctorum Apostolorum martyrum reliquias nec non codices plurimos in the last place and almost forgot and without the Epithite sacros to assure us they were Bibles Outward and decent Ornaments and Ceremonies in the worship and service of God cannot be justly tax'd or censured unless the whole stress and substance of Religion be placed therein and not in the heart which is much the humour of that Church and was so much the Principle and composition of our Augustine that though the Churches of Christ in Brittain were never so confessedly Ancient and Catholick as to all the Articles of their Faith or unblameable in their Discipline or eminent in their Clergy yet because they differed from Rome about Easter in the manner as before or in not using spittle or the like nasty Ceremony in Baptism perhaps as they do or had not their locks order'd after the like bald-pate manner for the pretence of not Preaching to the Saxons was but a meer artifice and colour nothing would serve the turn or allay his zeal and wrath but their total subversion and dissolution by the help of Pagan Arms and Gods name brought in to abett and countenance this Barbarâ— design and malice by Hypocritical Prophesies anâ— counterfeit Revelations If one using the name of the King of Spain should make an Embassy from that Crown to this now at peace with one another that if the English conform not forthwith to the Spanish mode not only in their habit but the cut of their Hair and the form of their mustachioes they must expect nothing less than the utter destruction of their Church and state from God and man though such a message might justly be look'd upon as the frensy of a mad-man would they be free from censure if they neglected their own security however if it was well known by experience that the like threats had been by dark means executed before their own doors within remembrance of their own History But the Learning and Doctrine of this Pretended Apostle was not more Weak and Rotten in the heart than the right means of propagating it with the mouth was proportionably defective and wanting and had it been sound and Christian if Faith comes by hearing how could he preach to English ears when neither understood the other no more than Duck-Chickens their Hen-dam recalling them from their connatural Element Neither is there any Sermon or Homily of his on record that might worthily entitle him to our conversion as is urg'd by the d Antiquitates Ecclesiast p. 35. learned and judicious in both particulars The guift of tongues and power of miracles here fail'd him where it was most requisite and necessary though else-where where they were frivolous and needless he abounded with them in so much that his careful Pope writes an Epistle to him on purpose not to be e Bed lib 1. c. 31. transported above measure with the many miracles he wrought which yet might be of the same nature with his own Divine Revelation f M. Westm An. 605. and Gods answer in a dream to his Prayer for Trajan to rescue him out of Hell which God had granted with this proviso that he should trouble him no more with his Prayers of that nature for Heathens and who were like to be his Interpreters whilst the Neighbouring Ministers of France were back-ward g Spelman Concil p. 77. in this work as Pope Gregory himself complains judging them unworthy of Christian Communion in the posture they stood to the Brittains that had hir'd them for Auxiliaries as is conjectur'd g Antique Eccles p. 35. by another the terms of repentance and restitution being like to be as much insisted by the one as rejected by the other therefore some French Merchants skill'd in the English through their commerce and Ignorant of the Canons or some mean Minister that might be won to Act for Gaine and Interest against the Rules of the Church and the Principles of his more conscientious Brethren must be the Interpreters and immediate Ghostly Fathers in the English conversion according to this state till in its proper place it shall be proved that the Brittains themselves who best could forgive their own injuries and the Disciples of their Institution were by a reconciling Providence Gods Instruments in this conversion and not our Augustine though it must needs have gone somewhat against the grain with their Chiefs to hold the Brittain's lands from them by the Sword and Heaven by their courtesie which the Intelligence and Avarice of Rome soon found out and is the true reason and not the Jingling Legend of the fair English Slaves sold at Rome in the market that some of the Haughty Saxon â—eptarchs when it was a shame to stand out while most of their subjects were converted and no less an Inconvenience to be introduc'd by the Brittains whom they forc'd from their Inheritances were first set on to send their desires to Rome to have it done by the Pope as appears by h Spelman Concil p. 77. Pope Gregory's Epistle to the King and Queen of France which he readily complied with aspiring to be Universal Bishop about this time by the help of i M. Westm A. 609. 605. Wheeloc in Bed lib. 2. c. 8. Tyrant Phocas and therefore sent Augustine in all hast hither both bethinking of the Worldly purchase of Supremacy and dominion that was to be gain'd right or wrong thereby according to the eternal principles and bent of that degenerate Church carnal ends requiring carnal means as suitable to promote them which is the second point to be cleared in this state 2. By what means our Augustine propagated his equivocal Gospel so far as it was propagated amongst the English It was not by the light of Gods word and the power and demonstration of the spirit approving it self to every ones Conscience which out of its eternal Allegiance to God admits of no Truth without it produce a Divine Ticket along with it which carnal Evangelists and selfish Apostles find too difficult exactly to coin and counfeit Neither was it with the enticeing words of human wisdom and eloquence whereof there was now little cause of fear from our Augustine the one being a Human the other the right Christian method of preaching the Gospel which St. k 1 Cor. 2.4 compared with 2 Cor. 4.2 Paul preferred But his method had several effects to prove it was rather Satanical and Antichristian being carried on with carnal Arts and Craft and Pride and Lying wonders and Blasphemies and Sacriledge and Robbery and Massacre and Murder which cannot be
from God and they that take this Augustine to be the Father of their Faith had need beware whom they take for Grandfather The names of his fellow workmen that were more eminent than the rest but Inferiour in parts in all probability to him their leader were Mellitus Justus Paulinus and whereas ignorance usually is as harmless as it is dull and flegmatick theirs was high and pernicious active and politick and Harpy-like inferiour to none in the dextrous suiting of their temptations to the several inclinations of the party who was to be brought about to serve their turnes His insolent swelling pride as Mr. l Perambulation of Kent p. 79 Lambard taxes it appeared towards the Brittish Bishops who intended him a respectful meeting beyond what he could merit for his honesty going about to erect a new Bishoprick in a Diocess that did not belong unto him as an Altar against Altar and upon another Altar against all Laws and Canons Being sure of one Archbishorick by the Conversion of Ethelbert King of Kent carrying a great stroak in it who was as good as preconverted by others m Polyd. Virg. lib. 4. p. 63. ministry before he sent for Augustine though Bede conceal that matter The next mark was another Archbishoprick for Paulinus that of the York where Elthelfred and Edwin the one elder the other younger are to be won to serve their Church by different Lures Old Ethelfred is toll'd out by his ambition and zealous enmity against Christianity to seise and destroy the borders of the Brittains in the first place and himself in the next Young Edwin is brought over to the Christian Faith by carnal attraction and a n Bed lib. 2. c. 9. marriage with King Ethelbert's Daughter and the addition of pre-acquaintance in dreams between him and Paulinus to dispose him to Christianity not unlike those between o Ibid. Paul and Ananias Act. 9. but in their Truth for Edwin could be no stranger to the Christian Faith being brought up from the Cradle to ripe years as p Histor Britt Galfr. the Brittish History relates Bede not disagreeing l. 2. c. 12. with Prince Cadwalhan of the same Age whom Bede calls Carduella or Cedwalla furious enemies afterwards to one another thanks to Augustine to the loss of many thousand lives sometimes the one and sometimes the other prevailing and killing and burning all before them Edwin in the end going by the worst and Paulinus q lib. 2. c. 20. forc'd to quit his new Archbishoprick and return with young Edwin's Queen to Canterbury q lib. 2. c. 20. Carduella non pepercit religioni eorum exortae jam c. Cadwalhan not sparing to root up his new plantation Northward for the reason before cited out of Bede And yet this old part of their Ministry in match-making and bestowing mens Kingdoms from them upon others to the disturbance of Nations and sometimes of themselves the Church of Rome is not out of love with to this day And had it not been for a subtile r Bed l. 2. c. 2. Miracle of Laurentius the whole plantation of these Italian adventurers had gone presently to wrack For London soon expell'd these Forreign propagators with Mellitus their new Bishop who never durst return any more Bede smothers the true reason of this usage and sayes in one place that Seberts Children then the Princes of London did it because Mellitus denyed them being unbaptiz'd the pure white ſ Idem c. 5. bread of the Eucharist which their eye long'd for to tast as if they had been inur'd but to brown-bread before In †Idem c. 6. another place Londonienses excludunt Mellitum Idololatris pontificibus servire gaudentes The Londoners sent him away preferring Heathenish Idolatry before the Roman Religion As if the Saxon Pagans of London had not the like noble disposition for the Truth as the Kentish but those had more Grace than these But takes no notice of the Majority of the people of London being Ancient Brittains reduc'd by treaty and Christians therefore by consequence which was a reason they had a Brittish Archbishop and Clergy residing amongst them from the beginning of Christianity and after the Saxon Invasion for an Age or two till they were †M. Westmin 586. expell'd to make room for Monk Augustine Who did not welcome Augustine himself though coming with his Pall from the Pope to be an Archbishop amongst them which is the reason Malmsbury intimates of his setling at Canterbury u G. Malmesb. de Gestis Pontif lib. 1. where he was better welcome and very probably was the fear and jealousy that mov'd him to make Laurentius his successor at Canterbury in his life time against the Canons to secure the succession least the Primacy after his death should devolve where it was before and who but London could raise this fear because of old Right Much less therefore would they welcome Mellitus as a bare Bishop over them or contribute to their own degradation as well as the Sacriledge and Schisme Bede therefore is right as to the fact though not the cause that the Londoners sent him on going which is confirmed by Malmesburie's x Idem Epis◠Lond. lib. 2. Penu◠ria Potestatis that Ealbald had not power enough to keep him there which cannot be understood of the opposition of the Sebarets who were his Cousins y Ibid. and at his Devotion but more probably of the body of the City as Christians better principled But then Eadbald who succeeded Ethelbert apostatizing from his Fathers Faith had like to have blasted the remaining part of his Nursery left at Canterbury had not Laurentius I say step'd in with a miracle being sorely z Bed l. 2. c. 6. scourg'd all over black and blew by St. Peter as he lay in Church the whole night before for having some thoughts himself to follow Mellitus and Justus Bishop of Rochester his Companions who in despair of doing any good here were resolv'd to go for France The sight and story whereof made a new alteration and a present compassion in the well meaning King and Justus and Mellitus to return to England shortly after but all to little purpose Edilred King of Mercia not many years after viz. Anno 676. coming upon them Maligno a Idem lib. 4. c. 12. exercitu with a Malignant Army for Mercia had now and before received the Christian Faith from Brittish Teachers laid all Kent wast saith Bede and demolish'd b Idem Ibid. all their Churches and Monasteries to the ground with the like irreverence to their Italian Religion as Carduella or Cadwalhan had in the North and the City of Rochester was destroyed in the same common ruine and calamity b Idem Ibid. Putta its Bishop retiring and ending his dayes with Sexwulf Bishop of Mercia His Church being destroyed and plunder'd of all it had Feigned Miracles like hot waters with the intemperate may a little
recover the spirits but they shorten life Da Kelwidh tra' coelir Od eir ymhelh gwelh iw'r gwîr saith the Brittish Proverb A Lye may do while it is believed but at long running Truth is better But this whipping story was not well feigned and designed to be believed for true by wiser posterity however it might for the present delude an ignorant Heathen For we seldom or never read that separated souls but only Christ or Gods Angels appear'd to men to direct them at a stand saving in one case where it is hard to determine what appear'd to Saul whether the Ghost of Samuel or the Devil in his shape withall this action more fitted a Town Beadle than a glorified Apostle or if St. Peter must be so severe and Butcher-like it might rather be not for his departing but his staying behind the rest of his Companions to disturb good Christians and corrupt poor Infidels with a false and bloudy Religion or if there were any reality in it beyond Melancholly or Art it might rather be the wrath of a tormenting spirit for deserting his cause or if done upon himself with his own hands we have presidents of Crafty criples b Cooke's Inst part 1. p. 127. endicted for the like stratagem to move compassion before some of our sage Judges But Mellitus his rushing c Bed lib. 2.7 into the midst of flames to quench a great fire in Canterbury with his Prayers looked more like a true wonder especially in one of his race and Principles who if not belyed are better skill'd in burning Cities than saving and blowing up States and Kingdoms as is too well known What Religion can that be or what obligations can it tye of obedience and gratitude upon Intelligent minds and consciences that 's supported and Propagated by Divine lies and Impostures so hateful to God and conscience and honour every lye as Cicero could observe carrying d Cicer. off l. 3. Perjury and Atheism in it in its defyance and slight of God and conscience which it sees and knows to contradict it and the lye that quotes God for its Author being the most abominable and worst of lyes No less were the converting Miracles of Augustine himself the chief Thaumaturgus which imposed upon the belief of venerable Bede and much more upon the less descerning multitude not only in restoring sight to the e Bed lib. 2. c. 2. blind Saxon he brought Punteus-like with him for to have tryed it upon an honest Brittain if there had been any at the disputation might have prov'd as difficult if not as impossible as his more necessary guift of tongues and that not about any point of Salvation or the extraordinary Glory of God but after miracles had long ceas'd in the Church designed only for the unbelieving about a trifle about some scruples or minutes of the Calendar in a Gamster-like wager and imitation of Elias the main juggle and drift being to discredit and subvert an Ancient Church in their well built Faith and Customs with Legerdemain But more especially and most abominably in his Enthusiastical Prophecy of f idem War and ruin to the Brittish Doctors and their People by the Arms of their Enemies for not joyning their assistance with him to Preach the Gospel to the English Quibus vir Domini Augustinus fertur minitans praedixisse c. to whom Augustine the man of God is reported to Prophecy by way of threat that if they refus'd Peace from Brethren they should receive War from Enemies and suffer a revenge of death by the hands of the English to whom they refused to Preach the word life Wherein he entitles God himself to all the lyes and mischiefs and spoils and murders and massacres that were contriv'd to attend this prediction which he grounded upon three false Assertions First that the Brittains envyed the Gospel to the English 2 That he good man came hither from Rome for no other end but to Preach it to them 3. That because they refused to joyn in that Ministry with him for the Salvation of their Souls therefore God had reveal'd unto him a Mene tekel or a suddain destruction to come upon them by their Enemies 1. And the first is the strongest exception or Quo Warranto to overthrow the Christianity of the Churches of Brittain to the just forfeiture of their Sees to rhe greater zeal and diligence of Rome that we hitherto met that against the chief precept and example of their Saviour to love their Enemies the badge of true Christians they should have that living sence of the loss of this present world to which they were dead by their Faith and Baptism as out of Satanical discontent to let go their hold of the other likewise and suffer themseves to be beaten out of their charity and duty as well as their Country and to revenge to Eternity a wrong of time But that experience daily imforms that doing of a wrong more dissolves all charity in the soul than suffering it and that men usually hate where they hurt though they be forgiven and secur'd by a Christian temper against the suspition of revenge and repercussion for he that wrongs another fights and assaults the Almighty in whose hands and Laws all mens persons and beings and consequently all mens rights are preserv'd and kept Act 17. and every conscience upon its reflection and sence of such a War is either presently smitten into Infinite repentance and restitution or becomes harden'd diabolically in its Rebellion and cannot rest till it finish its hatred and destruction of the Innocent without cause as it first began but it is not so in suffering wrong especially with Patience and forgiveness wherein we become liker to Christ and every loss in this is gain in the other world and a manifest token according to St. Paul Thess 1.5 6 c. of just fear and hope of damnation or Salvation respectively to the one or to the other and the Brittish Apothegme Duw a ro Imi fymhenid yn y bid yma God grant me all my pain and Penance in this world will well agree with the Apostolical Triumph we glory in Tribulations wherein we are more than Conquerours and beholding through him that loved us to them that hate us Rom. 5 3.-8.37 So that it is more in reason to be suspected and fear'd the Saxons were more averse to hear the Gospel from them as Hector Boethius well observed h Invisae Gentis magis quam Disciplinae de quâ multa atque praeclara frequentius Audiverant odio permoti lib. 9.171 § 10. than the Brittains to Preach it to them who brought it to their doors as Bede covertly and loathly intimates and maintained their Cross and Church at Canterbury in the Metropolis and Capitol of their Enemies where they were disabled to keep their Colours and when through pride of Victory some af the Saxons Heptarchs scorn'd Salvation from the hands of their Masters whom they had made their Vassals
A. 586. Math. Westminster being 10 years before Augustin's setting out according to Bede and him in 596. whereby it is clear the Brittish Archbishops of London as also of York notwithstanding all Pagan stormes and Invasions kept their Sees nevertheless from the entrance of the Saxons till Rome's entrance after them for about 150 ſ Idem A. 596. years which implyes they had a Lay-charge still left to govern And though Bede disingenuously conceals Who they were least Monk Augustine should appear guilty of too much Schisme and violence and Sacriledge yet it is easie to conjecture who they were as well because the Kentish Brittish Christians were not forc'd to quit their Countrey which was amicably surrendred as also because of their Intermarriadges with the Saxons which brought many of them to the Faith of their own accord which in King Arthur's time they were all necessitated to embrace or profess or quit the Land and when that necessity and force was over and all was in the power of the Saxon Pagan Kings again King Jurminricus Father to King t Hector Boethius Hist lib. 9. p. 166. § 20. Bed lib. 2. ◠5. Ethelbert Monk Augustines convert Christi doctrinam haud vetuit inter Anglos propalare saith t Hector Boethius Hist lib. 9. p. 166. § 20. Bed lib. 2. ◠5. Hector Boethius out of Turgottus and who was then to propagate it amongst them but the Brittains whereby Bedes faith appears and false charge against the Brittains Who were the men that assembled and kept up this Church till Augustine came And that Rome through Augustine did more michief in one year toward the subverting the Christian Churches and Sees of Brittain than the Saxon Pagan cruelty had done in 150 years before And that the Saxon Communalty were tractable and willing to receive the Faith from the Brittains and it was only their Kings and chiefs that through their pride were averse thereunto and not all of them but some gave leave however and toleration to their people and Subjects to become Christians through the Ministry of the Brittains It is I say to be considered that Kent was reduc'd not by conquest but by grant and courtesie in consideration u M. Westm A. 486. to Hengist for his Daughter Rowenna to be King Vortigerns second unlawful wife whereby the people continued in their habitations and rights and the Christian Faith in the Countrey with them though the King yielded his Royalties to strangers as himself to stranger lusts And their tenures of Gavel-kind in that County is a further pregnant proof which some derive from give all Kyn or give all Kind others with more reason and colour from a Brittish Etymology from Gevelh twinne because of the equal division of Lands between the Children of that Tenure or from Gavel which signifies a hold or Tenure forming the word Gavel-kind therefrom by a mixt composition of English and Brittish answerable to that of the people who are half English half Brittains or Gavel-kenedl the Tenure by Families and Kindreds as others more probably or which may seem the most probable of all because furthest from any streine and agreeing as well with the nature of this Tenure as the first occasion for the phrase Gavelcynt the Tenure heretofore in Syntaxis and right Brittish structure Gavel-gynt by turning c into g which kind of Shibboleth or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and change of Initial letters the English that live together and speak the Brittish are seldom known to Master whereby the people newly reduc'd under Forreign Government and Customes did notifie and plead their former Rights and Tenures when any wrong or Cam was offer'd them as they use this x Rich. Hooker Sermon of Pride p. 517. Brittish word amongst them to this day Which kind of Tenure is known to have been the same which was in common usage amongst the Brittains y Cambrensis Itinerarium p. 564. of old in Wales whereby they weakned their houses by this equality to make good their natural affection and justice And though after the death of young Vortimer the Hopes of Brittain poison'd by his Mother-in-Law Rowenna who had beaten the Saxons in several Battells out of the Land into the Isle of Thanet and their Ships they returned again and finding access to Vortigern through his Heathen Mistress that bewitch'd him they obtain'd a meeting for a Treaty and watching their time and z Usher 415. Stabbing about 300 or 400 Brittish Nobles with long Knives they forc'd the King for his Ransome and Liberty a M. West 462. Usher 1114. to quit Essex Sussex and Midldesex as he had done Kent before through easiness it is not probable they did or could use the whole City of London with those neighbouring Countries as they did the soft King and his unwary Nobles but that they had their Terms as well as Kent and preferred the profession and Tenure of their Christian Faith before any other right or liberty which is the cause their Archbishops were able to continue their several Sees till Augustines arrival as before whose chief aime was for their dignities and as one said the Bees must first be destroyed to come at their Honey which is also the reason of the continuance of the Brittish Church in Canterbury which Bede slubbers over resorted to by the Brittish Christians of Kent co-habiting with the Saxon Pagans to whom this is an Argument that they envyed not the Gospel because they envyed not their Daughters in b Histor Brit. lib 6. c. 13 Marriage and their own flesh and bloud unto them as they did c Idem lib. 4. c. 17. to the Picts and to several of them while unconverted Vt b Histor Brit. lib 6. c. 13 nesciretur quis Christianus quis Paganus ob mixturam Matrimoniorum multudinem Saxonum it was hard to distinguish Christians from Pagans which was one of the greatest sins and chiefest provocation in all probability of the Ancient Brittains because as is usual found to be the Instrumental as well as the meritorious cause of their ruin and destruction as in the Instance of Rowenna into which they fell partly by the ill example of their Prince and partly perhaps by regard to outward shapes and lineaments which no less prevail in the weak and infirm World that chuses sence before Faith and the Presidents of frail Superiours before the Eternal Laws of Christ and conscience for its Rule and guide But as Queen Bertha on the one hand shewed her self rightly instructed in the Principles of Christianity and communion of Saints while she chose rather to Assemble her self with fellow Christians in affliction than to perform her worship with less envy perhaps in the private Closet of her Palace So nothing appears more then the contrary in the Actions of our Augustine sufficiently Vnchristian in their present and much more pernicious in the design'd perpetuity of their Irregularity for to joyn in designs with
nor to expunge and alter all that made against them as this p Spelman Conc. p. 110. 111. Wheloc Annot. in Bede l. 2. c. 8. passage of Augustine against all circumstances and the opinions of the most Candid Antiquaries doing their works of darkness in the light or according to the Brittish saying ymgudhio ar gefn y gist hiding themselves upon the back of chest Not contented with so small a slaughter of Innocents they march on triumphantly to destroy the rest with their famous Monastery of Bangor not above 10 Miles off where they were overtaken by by the Princes of North and South-wales and Cornwall c Hist Britt lib. 11. c. 13. who kill'd ten thousand sixty and six upon upon the place Edelfred himself wounded and beaten by Cadvan Prince of Northwales chosen for their Monarch as far as Humber Not to mention the cruel Wars that followed between Cadwalhan or according to Bede Cedwalla the Son of Cadvan and Edwin King of Northumberland upon whose overthrow England was shortly after cleared of all the Remainder of our Augustin's plantation in the North and in Kent also as was said Providence making room by the bloud of Martyrs for the plantation of the Gospel amongst the English in our Brittain upon a Brittish score and not a Roman It being more for the English Honour and Vnion and Innocence to have received the Faith from Gods Apostles through Brittish hands than from Rome and Augustine who during the short reign of him and his Italian successors were able by their principles and endowments to sow nothing here but Ignorance and Superstition and Schisme and Rapine and Sacriledge and Murders and Massacres all fathered upon God by Miracles and Revelations as is the usual method with Hypocrites For no Idol set up in any heart instead of Christ as is the World with the chief Governours and the Pope by the governed in the Church of Rome by their Doctrines and practice and every lust or sordid private end in any mans heart whatsoever in Christs throne by negligence and sensuality which is Spiritual servitude and Idolatry but this new Lord of the heart will have new Laws new Religion and and Customes and this new fundamental rule and precept that there must be no other Gods before it But out of zeal to it every thing though of God that shall stand in its way to cross and hinder must down and veile whether it be the voice of Conscience or the lives of the Innocent or the Rights of men and Churches and Nations and Kings or the honour and glory of Almighty God himself For as Christ in the heart mortifies all sin and vice therein so any Idol in the heart mortifies and extirpates all honesty and good Conscience and Christ himself in and out of it This being the great distemper and dangerous captivity of the Souls of men which God in all habitudes and Incarnations is so careful to prevent and preserve as a Hen her young ones from the Invasions of the Aire by careful Parents and sober Governours by Conscience within by the faithful advice of Friends without as a second Conscience by the examples and different ends of men good and evil by Scripture by his Son by his holy Spirit by Pulpits by Tribunals and Executions by Judgments and Plagues Famine Sword Fire and Captivity and Hell fire at last forever to consume it when his care and patience is too much abus'd and his soveraignity despis'd and disown'd and all other means have fail'd Their natural descent and extraction which is not in mens power were it in the modern English from the old Saxons and not from the Brittains in more than â—00 to one than from the other as is far more probable is no disgrace or imputation upon posterity all others having sometimes been equal to them herein in their Heathenish Original at least from Adam who by departure from God began all Idolatry and Heathenism which is the Scripture phrase for Atheisme throughout the World but to derive the Original of their Faith which is more in their choice and election from Hypocrites and Lyars and Murderers such whose present Communion ought to be abhorr'd and detested by all good Christians and by consequence any ancient and past Society or derivation from them the Eternal Soul being unconfined from space and time in its Election and Refusals No English Learned or Unlearned can or ought to involve themselves in such a guilt and participation of Crimes and Errours upon the colour of the first Conversion of their Ancestours by this ignorant and ungodly Monk from Rome because the colour and pretence it self is remov'd out of the way by good Providence and Gods regard to innocent bloud for it shall be made further to appear that this pretended Plantation of our Augustine whatever it was was totally rooted out and extinguish'd here and himself to be no better than a Schismatic or a Pagan for his Intrusion in the account of the Canons of the universal Church as well as of our Injur'd Brittains and the Saxons or English to have had the Gospel rightly preached amongst them in every County by an Orthodox Brittish Ministry of different Principles from the Degenerate Church of Rome which is our fourth point to be cleared in order SECTION IX That the Gospel was planted among the English throughout their Counties by Brittish Ministry And that Augustin's Roman plantation here came to nothing and no Bishop lest in all this land of Rome's Ordination but one and he a Simonaick and that the body of the Nation are Old Brittains and our Princes especially and therefore by honour and nature bound to maintain the Rights of our Brittish Church against Forreign encroachments THat the Gospel by good Providence was planted amongst the Saxons or English throughout the Counties they had reduc'd by Brittish Preachers and Doctors and not by Roman for in the rest of Brittain the old Original Apostolical Faith continued which shall be largely proved by particular Instances of fact after two previous suppositions sent before to prevent and remove the Rubbish of vulgar errours and mistakes 1. And first it is to be remember'd and repeated that the Gospel from its first planting by the Apostles was never extinguish'd or eradicated from among the Brittains as it soon far'd with our Augustin's adventures upon the English but that they persevere to praise God to this day in the same Religion and Language with their forefathers these 1600 years and upwards as they trust to continue till Christ's second coming Being the same Religion that was alike preserv'd amongst the Cornish and several West-Saxons Counties and in the a Usher p. 1005. Cambrian or Cumbrian Kingdom of the Brittains in the North reaching from a Edenburgh Britt Dîn-eden id est Castrum Alatum Aden Britt Ala Din Castrum dinas Civitas Unskieth Insula Angusta ynis Britt Insula Caeth Arcta Lieth i. e. Lhaith Madida Pen-Vael caput valli
Argathelia i. e. Ar-gwyahel contra Hibernum Glasco olim Glasghu Usher p. 684. p. 684. i. e. viridis dilecta aut forsan Glasgoed viridis Sylva Aher Ostium fluvii Dyglas Dylas fl sive Duglas Dû nigrum Glâs viride unde forsan nomen Familiae Illustris Ar-cluid Urbs super cluid sive Glottam nunc Dunbritton c. Edenburgh and both the Friths down to the Rivers Derwen or b Tervyn Britt Terminus Derwen Britt Quercus Tervyn or the c Ravon-glas fluvius Caerulens Morlas in Syntaxi Mor-glas mare Caerruleum Avonlas in Syntaxi Vide Gram. Cambro-brittanicas Ravonglas or further in Cumberland and over all Scotland and Ireland and the Isle of man where it is clear against all Arts and Inventions and Legends and dreams that the first planting of the faith amongst them people was by Brittish and not by any Romish Mission or Ministery from the difference Augustine met and found here between these Churches and the Roman upon his arrival not only in several Customes and observations which savour'd of the East more than Rome but in the most material characteristical distinction that can be imagin'd or conceived between Churches that pretend to hold the same Faith that of Subjection and Ordination which the Brittish Churches never acknowledged nor received from Rome but from themselves or from Jerusalem whence Rome it self must derive as from the common mother of Christendom or it is no Church of Christ Isa 2.3 2. That the Communalty of the Brittains in Lhoegr and Alban or England and Scotland Cittizens Shop-keepers Farmars Peasants and their Wives and Daughters and Servants and little Children which were a considerable part of that as they are of every Nation were not totally put to the Sword by the Conquering Party nor expell'd their Borders nor consum'd by Plague as some vulgarly dream and believe The Trunk and body of the Brittish Nation continuing still the same under the successive yoakes of Romans and Saxons and Danes and Normans whose War was ever against the Lords and Nobility for the dominion and Tribute of the Populacy These submitting successively to the most prevalent party and in their turnes producing great Spirits for their Countrey while the others circularly degenerated and strangely vanish'd and digesting and assimilating in time their Conquerours and men of War into their own substance and temper unless abundantly and constantly recruited from their first Homes There was a particular precept and exception for the Anathema or excision of all the old Inhabitants of the Land of Canaan to secure Gods Israel against Heathenish mixtures and impurities yet how many Perizzites and Jebusites and Canaanites escaped notwithstanding from being cut off But no such command from Heaven was ever given against the Brittains nor did the Interest of the Conqueror require the desolation of the Land Neither were the Pagan Saxons so zealous before for the removal of the Brittish Clergy out of Lhoegr into Wales as after the arrival of Monk Augustine upon them When the Picts from the North Scoti à Circio saith Gildas that is the Irish from the West began to Invade and overpower the naked Brittains being a little before drain'd by Maximus making for the Empire of all their Armes and Treasure and Fighting men who never return'd home but were for some space a terrour d Pont. Verunnius l. 5. p. 110. to the whole Roman Empire it was not out of Antipathy to these Nations that they made such Inroads being themselves Colonies that time had greatly incorporated into the same bloud and Language with the Brittains as appears by the names of places to this day over Ireland and especially the North-east of Scotland the Station of the Picts being very much Brittish as in Wales But out of Revenge against the Roman power here who forced the Brittains to serve under them to fight and gall them being neighbours and flesh and bloud which made some great Spirits amongst the Brittains to fly over to the Picts as did Cremus by name or Graham their Chief leader and Father they say of the Noble Montrossian Family whom the Scottish e Cremus Grym Britt Robur Buchanan Spotswood Hist Histories confess to be a Brittain And when the Saxon Auxiliaries instead of marching against the enemy turned their Armes against their Masters upon f Usher p. 410. Gildas Epistl pretence of want of pay and the opportunity of their weakness killing all before them from one end of the Land to the other as Gildas very querulously exaggerats all that stood in their way to be killed Nevertheless the Brittains soon after recovered in Numerous and Regular Armies under Heroick Princes to call their bloudy Mercenaries to a strict account for this by the care and means chiefly of g Guitelinus Archbishop of London of Irish extraction as is conjecturable from his name to whom the Brittains did owe Aurelius Ambrosius and Vther Pendragon and consequently Arthur his Son preserved from the hands of the Usurper Vortigern who had procured Constans the Elder Brother being under his tuition to be made away and hanged the Murderers for a colour of his Innocence for as soon as they had War-like Leaders they soon became Souldiers to vindicate their wrong animated with Guiteline's exhortation of the vicissitude between the Sword and the Spade So that the destruction and slaughter could not be so universal especially upon the common sort as it is render'd For it appears further by our English Histories that their Counties and Cities in North and South and East and West were generally gain'd by grant and Composition and Treaty and fair usage of those that yielded as well as by Sieges and Battles and ruine to such as stood out which cannot well consist with that weak conceit of total extirpation So h Guitelin diminitive Gwydhel sing Hybernus Gwydhelod plur Gwydhelun diminit u pronounced as y But in the Brittish M. S His name is Cyhelin which hath no affinity with Gwydhel i◠G. Malmesb. de Gestis Anglorum c. 3. Octa and Ebusa the Son and Brother of Hengist reduc'd the North profligatis qui resistendum putaverant reliquos in fidem acceptos placidae quietis gratiâ mulcebant Breaking such as made resistance the rest upon surrender they allur'd with good usage to rest quiet And Kent is well known not to have been conquer'd but bestowed as a present for Rowenna i M. Westmin A 489. 462. Usher p. 1114. as before Queens bring their portions with them but Misses are dear bought And i M. Westmin A 489. 462. Usher p. 1114. London a great and populous Emporium at that time as appears from Marcellinus and Bede and our Pope Gregory with neighbouring Counties for the Kings liberty And which was the stoutest though not the largest Kingdom and Conquer'd and swallowed the rest of the Heptarchyes and gave the first name to England the seven Counties of the West Saxons were first yielded over to
Boethius l. 9. p. 171. That because they deserted the Religion of their Fathers and violated the Worship of their Gods perinde atque Brittannis atque Scotis se hostem futurum that he would be their enemy no less than to the Brittains and the Scots And lost his life at last in his Holy War against the East-Angles having lost an eye before in Scotland and a great Army at Bangor where he was also wounded breathing out his impious Soul like Julian only better for his constancy but not inferiour for his Heathenish Cruelty Deorum Religionis Protector Christiani Nominis Hostis ut vixi morior m Ibid. p. 172. I dye as I lived the Protector of the Religion of the Gods and the enemy of Christ and all his Christians who therefore was a very fit and useful Instrument for Monk Augustine to comply with for the destruction of the true Christian Religion here in Brittain that opposed the Roman and to plant his Popery instead and accordingly made use off If therefore the English were not all converted in their Hearts under Arthur and Aurelius because of the force It may well be presumed from the contrary reason that the Heart it self did not hold out against the Divine power of the same Ministry acting in its external weakness and exinanition God by his great Providence having us'd all means both harsh and easie to soften and chafe the hard and stubborn hearts of the English to receive his Gospel and shap'd and cast the Brittish Nation for their use and the use of all Germany through them into the mould as it were of Christs first and second coming to work and make impression upon them if it were possible either of the two wayes With this difference that here Humility came after Power to to win by Intreaty what it could not compass by command and force as there Power will come after Humility to bruise with irresistable destruction what it could not prevail upon by Grace and love And when all would not do delivered them over to Popery as it were to Satan or Antichrist to be chain'd in spiritual slavery and darkness with many other Nations for about a thousand years And then visited them again in mercy with the comfortable light and Glorious Liberty of the Reformation handed also to them by their Kings when they came to be of Brittish race to try their love to truth once more before his last stroke and Eternal destruction of the Impenitent and Incorrigible But nothing of the former passages though the truth thereof hath left sufficient markes and effects behind it in Saxon Laws and Homilies extant quite dissonant to Popery in several principles as shall hereafter be mention'd how remarkable soever occurrs in Bede's Popish History not a word of n Munster Cosm p. 552. Offa the Son of Ethelfred preaching the Gospel to the Germans beyond the Rhine Anno 603. and building Offenburg and Schuttern as Munster Notes nor o Ibid. p. 580. St. Columbanus our Irish Monk of whom the same Munster saith Certò Constat We have certain knowledge of his propagating the Gospel far and wide through Germany the passages being within the time and business of his History and for the Honour of this Land only tending too much to discover that the Gospel was preached by the Brittains to the Saxons in the houses of their Fiercest Kings which Right to that Nation was against Bede's Theme and humour to acknowledge But Ethelfred and Oswald being both Princes of his Countrey and Climate he is Civil to them and endeavours to do Right to both respectively in Magnifying the Vertues of King Oswald which are undenyable to Superstition And Palliating and lessening the wickedness of Ethelfred which was as notorious to Indignity seldom doing the least Right to the Brittains the enemies of his Nation and of his Catholick Faith as he openly stiles them lib. 5. c. ult Saving sometimes out of unavoidable necessity and for other ends and Interests as where he is to commend the way and Religion of the Scots and Irish for whom he had greater kindness The Brittish Faith whence the other deriv'd and stifly kept to is inevitably extoll'd by consequence Or when he mention'd the good work of Augustine in repairing Canterbury Church whither Queen Bertha resorted he had like to have betrayed and discovered to a sagacious smell how all then stood How much the Christian Brittish Religion was received and flourished in Kent before the coming of Augustine So the West Saxon Kingdom shall be all in darkness p Bede lib. 3. c. 7. Paganissimi when Birinus comes to convert it but when Aldhelmus is to do exploits in bringing them over to the Roman Easter it shall be very q Idem lib. 5. c. 19. full again of Brittish Christians whom he is to reduce and such is his Conversion of all Mercia by Diuma and but two or three more and the like of the other Heptarchies yet no Ecclesiastical Writer is now more Classic and Authentick than Bede nor any passage of Church Antiquity to be well credited without his attestation so beneficial was his Partiality to the Roman-church to his Reputation and Authority in the World Therefore the other mixt Conversion of the English and full completion or confirmation of the former by Brittish Ministy and Doctrine but not all Brittish persons shall be clear'd out of Bede their own Author against our Romanists and irrefragably evinc'd by cross examination of his History whereby it will appear that the English under God owe their Conversion to the Brittains and others and not to Rome And that Augustine came hither to no better end than to destroy the true Religion like a messenger of Antichrist or at least miserably to corrupt it with adulterate mixtures and Superstitions And the positive proofs out of Bede of the Gospel being preached and planted among the English upon mixt account and especially Northward where the English did most abound and the Brittains were least intermixt amongst them are not so much Proofs and undenyable Instances as Divine Miracles and over-ruling Providences and the manifest Finger of God calling not only for Assent but Astonishment and Admiration That not only Augustin's plantation at York and Kent should be totally extirpated as it were by Divine Retaliation by the same means and method himself contrived and set on foot to destroy our Brittish Church But the Sons of Edelfred swho was Augustine's Executioner to Massacre the Brittish Clergy are made by Gods controlling power the chief Patrons and Propagators of the Brittish Faith over most part of England and Oswald the best of them who for his own virtues was no doubt rewarded with rest and Glory permitted by Gods severity and hatred of his Fathers Murders at Bangor to be slain and mangled and quarter'd by his enemies in view well nigh and sight of that very place And the Brittains by excess of wrong and cruelties from their enemies
Apostle of Mercia were of the same School with o Pitzeus p. 106. Aidan as likewise of the same Brittish Principles in opposition to Rome And their extraction may be conjectured at from their names For p Bede l. 3. c. 17. 25. Finan is the same with Winn or Gwin or the diminitive Winnun or Winnan which signifies white or Blessed for the Irish use f for v as also do the Brittains and win with the one is q Usher p. 954· fin with the other And Dymma as in Vsher or with Bede's addition Diuma signifying in the Brittish God is Here. Penda King of Mercia who is a Pagan with Bede is believed in r Hect. Boethius l. 9. 176. the Scottish History to be Baptiz'd by Finan But Peada ſ Bed l. 3. 21 22. 24. his Son with his Attendants are acknowledged by Bede to be Converted and Baptized in the North by the said Finan Aidans successor and Married to King Oswi's Daughter Oswald's Brother and successor as his Sister was before to Alchfrid Oswi's Son which was some Introduction to his Conversion but not the ſ Bed l. 3. 21 22. 24. ground as himself declar'd At his return from the North to Mercia Cedda Adda Betti and Diuma were sent along with him to Convert and teach the rest of the people and Diuma ſ Bed l. 3. 21 22. 24. Consecrated by Bishop Finan after Penda the Father was slain by Oswi was made Bishop alone over both people the Mercians and Midle-Angles ob paucitatem sacerdotum saith Bede because their Clergy were scarce or rather out of some aim and design that the first Ordinations should be entirely Brittish for else either Cedda or Adda or Betti being English Priests might well have serv'd to be one of the other Bishops and Colleague with Dymma as t Bede l. 3. c. 21. Trumhere and others were after this first Establishment who were of English race but of u Idem Brittish Principles and Ordination Neither could it seem less than a Miraculous concurrence of Divine assistance to their Ministry that so many Souls should be instructed and converted by so few Instruments for Pauco tempore non paucos convertit saith Bede of Diuma For Aidan in the North is known to have fresh assistance from x Idem c. 9. Scotland much therefore in all probability must be attributed to the Ancient Brittains which Bede is not forward to discover who in several Counties of this bordering Kingdom as its name imports did and do to this day retain in several parts not their Faith only but their Language also as in the Counties of Chester Salop Hereford and Gloucester and more particularly at Oswaldstre which was within the English side of Clawdh-Offa or Offa's Ditch which was the known latter bounds of Wales and Lhoegr reaching from Sea to Sea Who upon the Princes Conversion did more discover their Profession and fell in no doubt with Diumma concurring with them altogether in their Faith and Customes and contributed no mean assistance in this first Conversion For the enmity between the Saxons and the Brittains was much abated before Augustin's arrival after one or two descents For who greater Friends than Ethelfred himself and Cadvan to whom Ethelfred's y Histor Britt Galfr. Wife and Edwin's Mother according to the Brittish Story being put by by the Introduction of a Concubine made her chiefest application for Intercession with her Husband who greater than Edwin and Cadwalhan not to remind the West Saxon Leagues and Intermarriages yet mortal Enemies the one and the other pair by Monk Augustines means but after they became Christians and conformable to the Rules and Doctrines of the Brittish Church former wrongs were more forgot and obliterated and they strove to assist and defend each other and to mingle in Society and Communion z Bede l. 5. c. 24. Plurimi Brittanni se conferunt in Monasteria Northumbrorum accepta tonsura tam nobiles quam privati And if they flocked in to their Monasterys in the North in such numbers of the Noble as well as the Common sort of Brittains much more in Mercia when Cadvan and Penda so well understood one another a Powels History of Wales being Brothers b M. West 676. in Law and allies in their War neither were the Mercian Kings backward in the demonstration of their Honour and kindness towards the Brittish Christians witness that stately Monastery built by Offa King of Mercia at Verulam to the memory of St. Alban a Brittish Martyr and the Translation of the See from Canterbury to Lichfeild in his time witness the total extirpation of Monk Augustine's Roman plantation in Canterbury and Rochester as before which Malmsbury attributes to some provoking words given by the King of Canterbury to Edilred King of Mercia but it is also to be considered that Edilred was now a Christian after the Brittish form and zeal and no doubt the greatest part of his malignant Army as Bede stil'd it were either Brittains or of Brittish disposition towards Augustine's faith and plantation which had it continued with succession of teachers was but over a few English in Kent and there abouts which was all the Roman Christendom here whereas the English Conversion upon the Brittish account extended and comprehended besides the whole Province of York and the Shires before mentioned these following Counties with their Bishopricks which were known to belong to b Usher p. 395. Mercia and middle England which reached all along from Humber to Severn Gloucester Hereford Worcester Warwick Leicester Northampton Lincoln Hungtindon Bedford Buckingham Oxford Stafford Darby Salop Nottingham Huntingdon the English part of Cheshire and the North-half of Hertford making up with the Six Nothern Counties of Aidan's Conversion about three or four and twenty which are fair proofs and suffrages that the Old Church of England was Brittish and not Roman especially if we put in the third Heptarchy or Kingdom of the East Saxons into the Scale containing the Counties of East-Sex Middle Sex and London and the South part of Hertford all Converted to the Christian Faith by Brittish Ministry differing as afore from the Roman Church as is undeniably manifested and recorded by Bede himself of the Adverse side For when the Londoners had driven out Mellitus Augustines Bishop whom the Kings of Kent the chief Patrons of the Roman Nursery could never after procure to be restored the Christian Faith was planted among the English in it and the Country belonging to it through the Instance and Interest of Oswi Oswalds Brother perswading c Bede lib. 3. c. 22. 24. 25. Sigebert the King thereof to be Baptized by Finan whereupon Cedd Brother of Ceadda was ordained Bishop there d Idem ibid by Finan who e Bede l. 3. c. 22. 23. with the Clergy he ordain'd and employed for the several parts thereof finished the Brittish Conversion of the third Heptarchy wherein being three of
the most considerable Saxon Kingdoms the Church of Rome had not the least Hand or pretence in their first Conversion though some of its bold seducers will not stick to affirm the English in general had no Christian Faith before Luthers time but what they received Originally from Rome and count them no less than Hereticks for adhering to the Religion of their Fathers which they undoubtedly received through Brittish Teachers from the Apostles which to deny were either great Impudence in such as know this to be true or great Ignorance in such as know it not But it is not however much to be wondered at in them for as Christ's mind and the truth with Christians so the mind of the Pope and the Interest of the Church of Rome with Roman-Catholicks is the rule and measure of their Conscience and affection and their Affirmations and the Eternal standard of good and evil verity an falsity with them incurably while Roman-Catholicks And why the men of that perswasion may not depose any thing in Tribunals against their light and private knowledge of the Truth for the Interest of their Church or at the Catholick suggestion of their guides why not sweare or conspire to any thing in point of Fact as well as believe any thing in point of Faith out of Implicit obedience to Superiours against the dictates of their conscience and the Truth which with them is but a private Spirit not to be followed against the other without danger I cannot see any reason to the contrary but the Roman-Catholick Hypothesis may well beare the consequence and Improvement provided all be carried on with a Lacedemonian skill and wariness with whom stealing was no Crime but to those alone that were caught in the Fact Hitherto we have recounted those Counties in England about 26 or 27 in number with the great City of London touching which the Church of Rome hath nothing to object or upraid the Inhabitants in their Progenitors in the least with any derivation of their first Faith from them and consequently not the least Imputation of Ingratitude or Disobedience or Schism to fasten on them in that respect any more than on the Ancient Brittains themselves Next I will instance in those Provinces wherein they have some pretence and colour out of Bede to insist on somthing to say for themselves and their title of Superiority whether it hold good or not both in the Kingdom of the West-Saxons which was a considerable Territory and in the three other of East-Angles South-Saxons and Kent more inconsiderable in comparison that it may appear to all how that somthing is meer nothing as some of their kind and learned favourers have observ'd and in part confessed For their title over the West-Saxon-Kingdom and the Counties that did belong f Usher 394. thereunto Surrey Southampton Berks Wilts Dorset Somerset Devon Cornwall they alledge that the first Christian King thereof Kinigilsus was converted to the Faith by Roman Ministry by Birinus by name sent thither from Pope Honorius and ordain'd Bishop at Genua It is answer'd this Conversion came to nothing and were it true and Regular and with the leave and liking of the Bishops of this Province yet it ended with that King and with Birinus who left no successor g Bede lib. 3. c. 7. 27. The succeeding King Kenwalch refusing his Fathers Faith was Converted afterwards by the means of Anna King of the East-Angles whither he was driven out of his Kingdom by Penda who saith Polydor g Bede lib. 3. c. 7. 27. satis constat it s sufficiently manifest were of the same Province and Kingdom with the East-Saxons though sometimes govern'd by two several Kings and London was the Royal City and Metropolis of both Nations Kenwalch's Conversion therefore falling out in a Brittish Oswaldian See cannot be well ascribed to Rome Besides Agilbert the first Bishop he used for his Instruction is stil'd by Bede g Bede lib. 3. c. 7. 27. Pontifex ex Hibernia a Bishop out of Ireland though of French descent for there he studied several years and learn't that Divinity which he preach'd to Kenwalch which was Brittish Doctrine by consequence Where it is observable by the way how the greatest Clergy of France for Agilbert afterwards was Archbishop of Paris came over hither to our Britttish Isles to Study Divinity And Wini h polyd Virg. lib. 4 p. 71. who was afterwards made a Partner with him in his Diocess was not from Rome but from h polyd Virg. lib. 4 p. 71. France with whom the Brittish Church held fair Communion as with Ireland i Brittish Bishops and Doctors Famous in France were Apud Usher Mellon first Archbishop of Roan p. 145. Mansuetus first Bishop of Toul in Lorraign p 747. St Winocus p. 1147. St. Winwalocus p 464. St. Leonorius cum 72 discipulis p. 1012. Faustus Reiensis p. 424. Paulus Leonensis p. 558. Sampson Maglorius and Maclovius Archbishops of Dole p. 73 75. Alcumus Rabamus Maurus c. sending to as well as receiving Teachers from them Besides the passage about Birinus is suspicious and Legend-like in several Circumstances and making much against them For it doth not mention what Countrey he was of which never could be known as k W. Malmesbury lib. 2. de Episc Occiden Saxon p. 137. Malmesbury notes besides King l Bede lib. 3. c. 7. Oswald being Recorded to have been at the same time a Suiter for Kinigils Daughter and Godfather to his Faither-in Law at his Baptism It looks not as Improbable that his Conversion was brought about as of most of the Saxon Kings by the zeal and Industry of King Oswald who else was too pious to have that value for Heathen Allyanee And therefore our Birinus might well be an Erinach or a Loegrian-Brittain How else if a Forreigner could he preach and instruct the King who understood nought but English unless King Oswald was a Gospel-Interpreter between them as well in the South as he used in the North and so in effect a Royal Preacher of it to the English from one end of the Land to the other and the tale of Birinus his Italian Ordination looks like the other lusty Affirmation of Bede that makes way for his feates in that Church who in contradiction to himself as well as the truth represents the West Saxons at his arrival amongst them to be l Bede lib. 3. c. 7. Paganissimos altogether Heathenish whereas most of those Counties and some to this day were Ancient Brittish Christians who had Bishops preserv'd amongst them from the time of King Lucius and the Christian Faith from the Resurrestion and the Landing of Joseph of Arimathaea in their Territory besides that the first power of the Saxons over those Counties was through Treaty and Allyance for mutual assistance between Kerdick and Mordred as afore and not by force and Conquest and their confirmation in it by King Arthur with particular
Episc Lond. l. 2. p. 134. c. Confession of all our Historians that this Wini became a Simonaick and therefore no Bishop in Law by their own Principles A remarkable vindication of the Innocent Bloud of our Bangor Martyrs through Gods wonderful Providence who is wont to give a Victory and a new Resurrection to his Church after mortal wounds and to confound its enemies For Augustine and his Italian Successors as they never had Right so neither had they any long continuance here notwithstanding all their craft and cruelty Honorius Å¿ Idem lib. 3. c. 7. was the fift and the last of their race and number from Augustine who died Anno 653. Then the Chair began to receive most an end †Mat. Westmin A. 666. English Successors such was Deusdedit a West-Saxon d G Malmesb. de Episc Lond. l. 2. p. 134. c. whose English name was Fridona whose Ordination was void by the Canons of the Church as well as his Chair For he was not Consecrated by any Archbishop in in due manner Paulinus being dead and gone but by one single Bishop †Bede l. 3. c. 20. Ithamar Bishop of Rochester who had no more power to make an Archbishop than hath a single Presbyter to Ordain and Consecrate his Superiour Bishop Therefore all his Acts and his whole sitting for 9 years were Void and Null And Will of Malmesburie's reason e Guil. Malmesbury de Gestis Roffens for their not calling the Northern Oswaldian Bishops to their assistance is very disingenious in one that had read their Principles in Bede to be so averse against Communion with the Romish See of Canterbury Cavebant Romanorum apud Cantiam Reliquiae Ordinationes erroneorumsequi The Reliques of the Roman Church in Kent saith he were shy to admit them that err'd about Easter to have an hand in their Ordinations whereas the shyness was on the other side shunning all Communion with them as Schismaticks and Intruders upon the Brittish Church So that there was no Archbishop at all in Canterbury from the time of Honorius 653. the See continuing actually Vacant for a year and a half to Deusdedit and also Deusdedit's nine years sitting being null in Law and a while after to the time of Theodorus of Tarsus in Cilicia his coming to the Chair in 668. Of which contrivance of Rome to begin a second Usurpation over the English Brittish Church as well as their first over the Brittains more shall be observed in proper place Therefore the Church of Canterbury was manifestly extinct for those 15 years between Honorius the last Italian and Theodorus the first and last Graecian Archbishop there And we have heard before of the extinction of the See of Rochester under Putta and Willelm besides the Archbishops that succeeded Theodore seem Brittish by their Countrey and Institution Birthwaldus his next successor Anno 692. was Brothers Son to Ethelfred King of Mercia x Antiquitates Eccles p. 55. where their Faith was right Brittish Tatwin after him in 731. was likewise of y Usher p. â—055 Ex Will. Malmesbury Mercia And three of his Bishops that ordain'd him Ingwald of London Aldwin of Lichfield Daniel of Winton were not of Roman but of Brittish Sees And the last ordain'd by Birthwald z Antiquit. Eccles p. 58. Nothelmus after Tatwin 736. had been Bishop of London where he was born Cuthbert after Nothelm came from the Chair of Hereford an Ancient Brittish See belonging to the Archbishoprick of Caerleon in Wales And not to mention Bregwin a Nobleman of Saxony who succeeded Cuthbert Lambert the thirteenth Archbishop was wholly depriv'd of his Primacy by the means of Offa King of Mercia who withdrew all his Revenues and Churches in Mercia from him and got the Pope to assent thereto misit nuntios donativis conferendis praemunitos b Spelman p. 302 303. Noverat enim Rex Offa desideria Romanorum for he had treated him according to his humour with great guifts And so Aldulphus Bishop of Lichfield was made Archbishop during the Reign of Offa. The Pope notwithstanding through the great darkness that was to be for several Ages in the Church restor'd the See and maintain'd his usurpation at Canterbury to the time of Henry 8. a Brittish King who putting a full end and period to all Popish powers and pretences continued here against the Laws of the Land and the Canons of the universal Church And judging fit to continue the Primacy of Canterbury upon a new and better Authority his own pleasure and the strength of the Law the Superiority of that See became lawful ever afterwards to be submitted to in Brittain according to Church Canons Which from the suppression of the old Archbishoprick of London was all along before a manifestly uncanonical and Schismatical usurpation and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c Photii Nomocanon Tit. 1. c. 20. infamous to boot in the sense of the Ancient Canons Usurpation and force and Conquest right or wrong being more comely in the field than in the Church and better to be legitimated by descent and time And this Argument of the English or Saxons receiving their first Faith from Brittain and not from Rome is further corroborated by that notable observation of the Reverend and Eloquent Archbishop Parker sometime Queen Elizabeths Latine Tutor as I am informed upon several Old d W. L'isle divers Ancient Monuments Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae p. 35 -to 47. Saxon Laws and Homilies containing several points and Articles and Suppositions in them quite contrary to those Doctrines that Augustine and his Romish successors endeavoured to sow and propagate as the Faith of Rome in England 1. Against Transubstantiation 2. For Communion under both kinds 3. And the Translations of Scripture into the Vulgar Tongue and Instances thereof before the time of Wicleff 4. Laymen to study and read the Scriptures and to learn Creed and Decalogue and Lords Prayer in the Vulgar Tongue 5. Against Invocation of Saints e Wheeloc not in c. 9. lib. 4. Bedae Antiquae Homiliae Saxonum nunquam sanctos invocant c. Worshiping of Images 6. Marriadges to be free 7. Kings to be Gods Vicars in their Kingdom 8. The Legislative Power to be in King and people Quae quidem veteris Ecclesiae Brittannicae dogmata c. Which verily saith he being the Tenets and Doctrines of the Old Brittish Church and long retain'd amongst the Ancient Saxons notwithstanding the influence and successions of their Roman Guides and Teachers to the contrary how agreeable they are both to to the word of God and our Modern Laws and Constitutions and how diametrically contrary in all respects to their way at Rome any one may with ease discern that will For as the same learned prelate again what Author did ever in his works report that Augustine did ever Preach to the English that they might come to believe by hearing that he was not capable to do it his own Pope
Gregorie's Epistles extant plainly shew he verily was an Apostle of Roman rites and ceremonies not of the Christian Faith or the word of God to the English Nation he taught them how to be Romans and Papists more than to be Christians or Believers And by the points in such hot and bloudy contest between him and the Brittains where there was little or nothing insisted on touching soundness of Doctrine or purity of life but all touching the domination and power of Rome and Romish rites and tonsures it plainly appears he was but a meer man of straw and f Ceremoniosus non relligiosus ceremony more than of God and Religion Where to stop the mouths of Ignorant Romanists that make a brag as if the English had received their faith from Rome he likewise shewes at large that Pope Gregory himself was no better than his Apostle Augustine for that he was not so good a man for life and pen as the Papists would pretend And g Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae p. 36. g Ibdem p. 36. again valde dolendum Anglorum conversionem in ista tempora incidisse in quibus collapsa Ecclesiae Doctrine atque disciplina c. It was a great misfortune that the English conversion fell out to be at such a time wherein the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church was quite fallen to the ground and wholly degenerated from its primitive purity and sobriety into vanity of errour and superstition and the matter it self proclaims too loud let Bede say what he please to the contrary that Augustine's chief work and business here was to instill some Roman Ceremonies amongst our Ancestors and not the Christian Faith yea Rome it self about that time and by the particular influence and endeavours of Pope Gregory was the spring and fountain of all such superstitions not only among us in England but in the rest of the World beside of which he makes a large proof with Instances Irrefragable of their superstition and ambition their Holy Water and Dreams and Legends and Divine lyes and Golden Vessells and a wooden Priesthood not that decent ceremonies that take not the heart from God are in themselves unlawful in Gods service as Christ himself hath shewed in the Institution of visible Sacraments as also of their pride and Antichristian design to enslave Kings and Churches and Nations under them and when all was done and they mounted themselves as high as they would or could the effect and product of all was no more but that ambition outed all good rule and Government Luxury good living Dreams and legends the Preaching of the word lamentable superstition Catholick Religion And that their first adventure and attempt to erect their Roman supremacy over souls and Churches was here in England and Augustine the Monk their forlorn hope that their ungodly success and Victory was about its height about the time of Charlemain about 140 years after lasting about 800 years to the the time of our Henry the eight h Antiq. Eccles p. 37. Et sane illa prima de Romanis ritibus per Augustinum excitata contentio quae non nisi clade sanguine Innocentium Britannorum poterat sedari ad nostra recentiora tempora cum simili pernicie eladeque Christanorum pervenit And verily that first and early contention and strife for rites and ceremonies begun here by Augustine which could not be exstinguished or abated but with the bloud and desolation of the Innocent Brittains is evidently carried down to our own times with fresh and daily tydings at our doors of the like destruction and Massacre of Christians for the like cause Thus that Eloquent and Judicious prelate an i Norwich Antiq. Eccl. p. 39. East-Angel by birth and a chief Father of our Church by place and merit And it is additionally remarkable that several of those Saxons Laws and Homilies bore date before the arrival of Augustine to this Land there being k M. Westm Anno 596. about 147 or 150 years from the Saxon invasion to his coming as before was said which is an invincible Argument that the Brittains as they had any opportunity Preach'd the Gospel in those dayes to the Saxons though their bloudy and perfidious Enemies to which those alliances and Intermarriages with them in their infidelity for which they stand blamed in story might by the ordering of Providence be Instrumental yet are taxed by Gildas if the passage be Authentick for neglect that they were not more vigorous and diligent in Communicating the Gospel to them whereby may be conjectured how great the Christian zeal of Gildas was and the Brittish Ministers of his stamp and Inclination as he confesses there were several who were so thirsty for the Salvation of the souls of their Enemies who thirsted for nothing more than their Lands and bloud SECTION X. That all or most of the Kingdoms and Churches in this part of Europe and Rome it self received their first Faith from Brittain yet Brittain pretends to no Supremacy over them upon that account and the Romanists Feloes de se in that kind of Plea IF the Church of Rome hath no better evidence for her propagation of the Faith and Supremacy thereby over other Churches of the world than is produc'd for Brittain it is plain and easy to discern its title is not founded in any reality or merit but a disease of the fancy only and that high-mindedness whereof she was early forwarn'd by her rejected Apostle Rom. 12.3 or a malady like that of the Athenian Merchant who imagin'd all the Ships that arrived at Harbour to be his own whose cure from this distemper had been their imaginary beggery and undoing The French Church at the Savoy or the Lutheran amongst us might far better pretend to a Primacy over York and Canterbury being more Orthodox and Learned and better understood by several that resort to them and acting with the leave of our Province and its Lawful Governours and not siding Barbarously with Pagan Enemies against Christian Brethren to destroy or adulterate the true Faith as did Monk Augustine who at least could be but Rector of Christ-Church Canterbury under his mighty Patron Ethelbert in defiance of his rightful Metropolitan Theonus which yet he could not supply himself for want of the tongue nor by any other by reason of the Schism and Irregularity Or to suppose more than can be asked or expected that Ethelbert who was King of Kent only was King also of Mercia and the East and the South and West-Saxons and compleate Lord over the whole Arch-Bishoprick of Canterbury or London which then reached from Humber to Severn and Cornwall and now further over Wales and that he in such a right had lawfully nominated and elected our Augustine for his Arch-Bishop who thereupon had been regularly Consecrated and Install'd by the Clergy of the Province according to the Canons of the Church and by the consent and voluntary Cession of Theonus his predecessor without the help of Heathen
force yet Theonus in that case could but resign his Term but not the rights of his Church forever and Augustine became thereby but a more lawful Brittish Bishop of an Intruding Roman Monk For such a settlement by the Principles of the Church of Rome and all common sence did not change the See to be Roman but constitute Augustine and his successors to be rather Brittish Bishops It 's a whole Kingdom that naturalizes one Forreigner and not one Forreigner a whole Kingdom for so at Rome let him that is Elected to that Chair be French or German or Greek or Barbarian or which were enough to stupifie and unsanctifie any head of a Church let him be a Witch or a Sodomite or an Atheist the vertue of the Roman Chair nevertheless shall naturalize and Purifie and Petrifie this strange man into a right Roman-Catholick Pope and successor of St. Peter Holy and Infallible notwithstanding those forreign disabilities Therefore by their own rule Augustine and his successors were frail Brittish Bishops at best and and hell'd all their Priviledges and Precedencies in that See in the right of their Brittish Chair and not their Roman Mission And what attempts soever they made de facto to erect and prefer that See in Roman Right before all the Ancient and standing See's of Brittain they were all Null and Void and of such Schismatical Malignity and impossibility as were the like Act of any French or Spanish Pope that should go about to raise the Chair of Paris or Toledo from whence he came above the See of Rome and Order appeals from this to those than which in their Principles nothing could be more Heretical and sinful saving perhaps the sin against the Holy Ghost If it be offer'd that the Superiority here acquir'd by Augustine was acquir'd for Rome from whence he came by the same reason the Supremacy at Rome was acquir'd for Jerusalem from whence St. Peter came and that Church to be reviv'd and Rome and all other Churches alike descending to be made subject to it and by consequence to be a Sister not a Mother to our Brittain and a younger Sister too under their common Mother of Sion But this point hath been solemnly determined by Popes themselves in the Controversy between Dole and Tours Which last from the beginning was the acknowledged Metropolis of Little-Brittain till Sampson Archbishop of York or St. David a Itinerar Cambr l. 2. c. 1. saith Cambrensis was driven thither for his refuge by the Saxons about the b Mat. Westminster 561. year 561. who being chosen Bishop of Dole rais'd that See not only to be an Archbishoprick but Superiour likewise to Tours the Original Primate whether by the Priviledge of the Ancient and Imperial See from whence he came and of the Pall he thence brought with him or as Pope Innocent judge afterwards in the Case suggests which makes this President more to fit because the Brittains having about that time erected a new King to themselves against France they took the occasion of Sampson's arrival to erect a new Archbishoprick likewise But this Vetustissima Controversia as d Hoveden Hist part 2. p. 453. Hoveden stiles it came at last to be decided before Pope Innocent the third who out his moderation first propos'd an expedient wherein we may be sure Rome was to be no looser That Dole should continue an Archbishoprick with two suffragans only and receive a Pall from Rome by the hands of Tours whose right it was to be Primate but the Dolensians refusing this offer the Pope in the second year of his Papacy Anno 1199. determin'd for the Ancient Right of the Native against 600 years prescription and above back'd with Princely Authority for the Forreigner So that if our Holy Bishops of Rome would suffer themselves to be guided either by that Golden Rule of doing as they would be done by whereby all reasonable and good men are governed or stand to their own Principles and Decisions whereby the worst and most unreasonable are concluded they would no longer own this so weak and infirm pretence for Supremacy over our Brittish Churches but suffer the Consciences of their obedient Catholicks to be undeluded from this Imposture forever But they ought to be told that the Church of Brittain hath propagated the Faith over more Kingdoms and States of Europe by her own or by Disciples of her own School and Institution than c Usher p. 530. ever Rome did yet never pretended as before was Intimated to any claim of Ecclesiastical Supremacy over other Churches much less Temporal over any Crowns in order to the other upon that account but only maintained her own Soveraignty within her own Province under her own Rightful Governours for the peace and order of her own people that she is Mother Church to Scotland and Ireland is apparent and confessed and no less to England or to the English or Saxons prevailing in Lhoegr was sufficiently proved And it is as manifest she is Mother Church to Germany both High and Low and Grand-Mother to the Churches of its Propagation by consequence What Bede affirms of e Bede l. 3. c. 4. St. Egbert and St. Willibrord f Idem l. 5. c. 10 11 12. both from our Brittish g Usher p. 398. p. 730. Bede l. 5. c. 10 Irish Schools to have first planted the Gospel over Holland and Frizeland and Low Countries acknowledged by the Historians of those parts out of their own h Ubbo Emmius lib. 4. 124. l. 3. p. 99. Usher 398. Annalls and Records For England was the Academy and Nursery of the Gospel to Holland as Vtrecht afterwards by that means to the rest of Germany For hither at there need they sent for a supply of Teachers i Idem p. 127. Quae tum saith Vbbo Emmius of England propter excitata illic Literarum studia viris doctis abundabat ob nuper rcceptum Christi cultum ceu fieri solet caeteris ferè provinciis vicinis in Pietatis zelo erat ferventior quod plurimum hanc ad rem pertinebat eadem fere cum Frisiis adhuc linguâ utebatur Which then abounded with learned men because of the several Schools of Learning there set up and encouraged and were more zealous and Industrious in propagating Piety as is usual than the other neighbouring Provinces because they had then but newly received the Christian Faith themselves and which was very Material to help on their work spoke the same Language with the Frizelanders at that time which we observ'd before to be a great bar and exception throughout against the Legend of the Conversion of the English by Monk Augustine and his Italian followers And in another l Ubbo Emmius l. 3. c. 109. place Religio nova studium literarum c. The English people who before were Barbarous and skilful only in Armes when upon their embracing the Faith they addicted themselves to the study of Learning
its destructive contrary which they rightly understood The toleration and mixture whereof within it would be confusion without a Metaphor The Christian Church whose life and being consists in Holiness can never be more destroyed and stifled than when Scandalous and Licentious lives are consistent with its Profession Nor the Roman whose summum bonum is dominion over their Brethren and Kingdoms and Churches but where Kings and Consciences and Scriptures would have their wills against the Pope And happy were it if Christians were as zealous and skilful Druids to excommunicate all vice and sin as the Papists who are firm to their Idol to excommunicate all Heretical Truths and private judgments and secular Supremacies inconsistent with their pride Whereby the Brittains by this Divine principle in the general were better fitted and prepar'd for Christianity than many others and accordingly received it before all other Nations in these parts as soon as Christ had dislodg'd their Idols they were perfect and regular Christians the former Rules and practices of their Druids serv'd presently as Church Canons to them to walk by which probably is the reason they held our intruding Romanists so close to the other express Canons of the Christian Church as to adjudge and conclude them justly to be no better than Pagans in Christian shape for their manifest violations of them as shall hereafter appear This last as well as the other instances clearly argue a great and near correspondence they had and Traditional participation of Oriental Patriarchal Mysteries and customes and the Hierogliphical meaning of the first dayes work of the Creation wherein light was separated from darkness whence Christian Communion and Excommunication had its exemplar and Idea as the Apostle intimates 2 Cor. 6 14. in which two words and parts the work and whole History of the Primitive Christian Church was compriz'd as is well known to the learned but not to digress Much less could our English Apostles receive their learning from Theodore's successors being entred a good while before upon their work and Province and the course that Rome hereafter takes that the English should be no more instructed or corrupted in their sence by their Neighbouring Brittains but by Rome alone least their Roman Replantation should be again worn out and baffled as it far'd with their first clearly proves that they conceived the Brittains to have been that way too busie I shall set down a Record out of Math. Westm. worthy the consideration of all Generous sober English men as well Roman Catholicks as Protestants that have a love for God or their Countrey whether they consider the design or the event that followed z M Westm Anno 727. Erant Doctrina Scholae Anglorum per Romanos Pontifices interdictae c. There was an interdict upon the learning and Schooles of the English by the Popes of Rome from the time of Augustine by reason of the daily Heresies which sprung up in Brittain from the first arrival of the English whilst Pagans mingled with Christians which defaced the beauty of the holy Conversation of Christianity a Ibid. Vnde Ina consensu voluntate Gregorii Papae c. which discovers near about what time this conscientious Interdict began whereupon Ina by the will and consent of Pope Gregory built an Edifice in the City of Rome which they call the School of the English to which the Kings of England and the Royal Bloud and Bishops and Priests and Clerks should repair to be Instructed in the Catholick Faith and Doctrine lest any thing should be taught awry in the Church of England or contrary to the Catholick Faith that thereby being well settled in the stable Faith they might return afterwards to their people And it was also ordained that Rome-scot or Peter Pence should thence forward be annually paid to St. Peter and the Roman Church that the English there abiding might have wherewithall to subsist A neat device to make England Tributary and that for a gross abuse and blindness brought upon the whole Nation to the end they might the easier be Governed by the Ignorance of Rome according to that Brittish Proverb Brenhin iw un-lhygeidiawg ymyfg deilliaid One eye is a King amongst the stark blind for so it proved in the event not long after as we shall have anon an account of this Paternal Roman care from King Alfred about 100 years after for Ina built this School in 727 Alfred flourished in 860 Willibrord c. Preached to the Germans in 690 in whose time there was scarce an English Clergy-man left in all the land that could understand his Latine Breviary b Spelman Concil 167. That if Pipin or Charlemain had sent hither for Wilfrids and Winfrids and Alguins to teach their Countrey such as were of Romes pure bringing up they might have been as well furnished with Apostles from among the Heathen Boors of Boetia as then from England which was not long after this Roman Reformation of our English education In so much that K. Alfred was fain to send to the Brittains for their helping hand which they and the Irish who were more Neutral were always ready to do †Bede l. 3. ◠27. for nothing though they paid dear to Rome for their Ignorance under the colour and fascination of being Orthodoxly taught which Tribute and Cittadel of shameful Ignorance and slavery the English Nation was by Catholick Arts cajoled to pay and maintain at their own proper charge for about 700 years till Henry the Eight a Brittish Prince discharged and blew it up and whipt the cheats into their own Country for which Providential Relief and Honour to our Church and Nation some drowsie stupid and Enchanted Roman-Catholicks are hardly thankful or contented to this day So it manifestly appears á priori and à posteriori that neither before or after Augustine or Theodore either the English had their learning from Rome but only from our Brittish Church But it is again objected that it is clear and evident from History that the English as also the Irish at this time of the German Propagation and before had come over from the Church of Brittain to the Church of Rome who therefore hath chief right and Title to this Plantation which was effected under its Supremacy and Government I answer It is then as clear that they were of the Church of Brittain before they went over to Rome and we in these days shall confess unto them where our Church was the worst 800 years before Luther if they will confess unto us where there Roman Church was in Brittain or Ireland the best 600 years before Augustine the Monk or Theodore For Titius taken by the Turk at 20 and kept a slave for 30 years among them and recovering his liberty in 50 is the same free man now as at first being always the same man not bound to return to slavery because it hath more years to shew then his freedom of birth hath for it
Malmsb. de Gest Angl. c. 3. beholding to Oswi for Theodore and his Roman successors entrance into it yet more to Eanfled his Queen who perverted him and brought up Wilfrid to be the principal Instrument of this Combustion early pointed out by the finger of Providence amongst the other bad Signes and Omens attending this fatal change that lay long and heavy upon our Church his Fathers house being all on flame to mens thinking and the Neighbours crying fire fire when all the fire that was was his d Idem de Episc Occident l. 3. Mother at that point of time being in labour and delivered of this Firebrand of Brittain 3. By their known useful Engine of Ignorance they have greatly establish'd their Temporal Interest in our Brittish Churches though to the great impair and ruine of mens Spiritual and the contradiction of their own first pretences by after policies For their zealous Propagation of their Catholick Faith ends in an ignorance at last worse than Heathenish or the meer state of Nature which yet shall be stil'd a Catholick state of Grace and Salvation because accommodate to their temporal rule and domination I will assign but two Instances of this their Black-Art that the difference may the better appear between the Brittish propagation of the Christian Faith and that of the Roman and then proceed to shew the Influence of their dark light to help on their Impostures and encroachments Rome was so zealous to enlighten the Saxon Infidelity that the Brittains were adjudged to Massacre and ruine for a pretended denyal of their assistance Sure then in time the Saxons became a knowing people in the Roman School it appears by King Alvred or Alfred's Testimony how Learned the English Clergy in his time were about the year 840. whereby conjecture may be made of the Adeptions of their Roman-Catholick Laity Paucissimi e Spelm. Concil p. 167. citra Humbrum fluvium c. There are very few saith he on this side the River Humber who understand their Breviary in English or can render a Latine Epistle into their vulgar Tongue There are yet fewer beyond Humber not one could I find on the South side of Thames We found out the reason of this strange Ignorance out of f M. Westm Anno 727. M. Westminster before and the benefit redounding to our Nation from the English Colledge at Rome and the Tribute of Peter Pence But it was a Goshen in the Archbishoprick of St. Davids as yet unreduc'd by Rome perhaps whither King Alfred as our most Generous Victorious Kings in England ever car'd least for Rome sent for help and Assistance an Instance of the Amicable correspondence between the West Saxons and the Brittains both to settle his University in Oxon and to translate Boethius De consolatione and other Latine Books for his use saith Malmesbury and to inform him in the right Faith we may be sure The Brittains being skill'd not only in the Latine but in the Greek and Hebrew through their Eastern Communion which caus'd neighbouring Clergy to resort to their Scripture Exposition for so the Isle Hy which was the Seminary of Religion in the North came to be named Jona from St. Columban's g Usher p. 84. p. 696. name in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both signifying a Dove so Teilaw or Teilaus St. Davids Successor was also call'd Elius or Eliud and Sampson because of his illuminating wisdom and Doctrine g Usher p. 84. p. 696. Haul in the Brittish and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signiying the same that is the Sun The other is a Modern Instance sufficiently obvious for the like example of an Irish Attendant to a Person of Honour in Wales whom visiting in his troubles for his Loyalty in the late times I desired this Irish Servant appointed to accomodate me for to compare the Irish and Brittish to say the Lords Prayer in Irish but he replyed he could not as neither the Ten Commandments nor the Creed where were you bred and born But I can say them all in Latine And repeated and pronounc'd every word as exactly as the best Critick or Professor but did not understand the meaning of scarce a word in its reference and signification This case which I fear is and hath been too general amongst the Irish Laity since they left their first Brittish Church to stick to Rome suggested to me these considerations That his Ghostly Father or Catechist whose pronunciation he so exactly imitated like a Parrot had more of exact Learning than of Fatherly natural affection or fidelity to this soul under his charge that the Irish laity are deluded out of all Religion and conscience by their Priests which is the highest Cheate and Robbery that can be imagin'd or conceived by such Latine forms and charms and their confidence in their Confessor and the Confessors Implicit obedience to his Superiour and so on to the Pope whereby the Popes will and holy lust and pleasure becomes the Soveraign Law of their hearts and consciences instead of the Law of Christ and the fear of God And no check of conscience or private judgement within must controle or withstand the Counsel or the Command of their spiritual guides whatever it be though it may be a suddain Massacre of Hereticks they prescribe No Minister that belongs to God or owns and fears a Deity would receive or put up such absolute obedience and confidence without renting his cloathes for fear of being guilty of receiving divine honour from the Ignorance of his charge and denying God his Glory No right Disciple of St. Patrick trained up in the holy Scriptures would put such a cursed trust and confidence in any Son of man whatsoever who is a Creature and not God It is as great an Idolatry provoking Gods displeasure against a Nation to change their God for a Priest or a Pope as heretofore in others for the Sun or Moon He that measures good or evil Murder or service done to God by the Doctrines of men and guides more than by the dictates of conscience with Gods Law where God is more surely present doth renounce and change his God for man and is to be renounced for it by all Christians were he our Father or our Brother for we must leave Father and Mother and our dearest friends and our greatest guides to cleave to God Yea it is our safety as well as duty to shun and renounce such Idolaters for who is sure of his life in such company and Principles who take the conclave and its ungodly designs for the rule of conscience Thus are the poor Irish blindly misled by the perfidiousness of their inconsiderate Priests to serve the lusts of men to their misery instead of Christ and his Truth to their Salvation and the Pope is made Christ of Ireland And the poor sincere People are to be pittied and bewail'd who though they be led to Idolatry and Murders by overmuch
him in the following year 634. Calwalhan is kill'd by d Idem l. 3. c. 1. Oswald or though he lived many years after according to Geoffrey and M. Westminster as before yet according to them also his Son Cadwaladr lived not beyond the year 688. whereof the last eight are supposed to be spent in Rome out of his great devotion to that place and Church and whence his bones were to be brought back when the Brittains were to recover their Ancient Rule over this whole Isle But others will have him to go to Rome sooner in the time of the great Plague whâ—ch fell out in the year 664. saith Bede and if he lived 8 years longer to die in 672. But had he lived to an 100 years of Age or more if possible to the year 731. being the year Bede e Idem l. 5. c. 24. pen'd his History yet it is not to be believed that Cadwaladr went to Rome in all that time or that he or his Countrey-men had any more respect then for the Religion of Rome than for Heathenism For Bede expresly affirms the Brittains to have continued their enmity to Rome to the time he was f Ibid. writing his History and as appears elsewhere much longer For whereas the Irish and the Picts and Monastery of Hy it self were reduced sooner Anno 716. g Usher 702. by Egbert to conform to Rome in the Controversy about Easter and other Rites by Consequence yet the Brittains saith Bede never would yield nor did in all his time who long surviv'd Cadwaladr whom for their obstinacy in refusing the Roman Tonsure and the other Rites of Rome he stiles h Bede l. 5.23 Capita sine Coronâ heads without Crownes a signe they were not Block-heads without Brains to be so imposed upon by Rome as he and others were Now to reconcile this pilgrimage of honour and devotion with that contempt and enmity that was in all our Brittains towards them of Rome who were but as Church Robbers and Murderers and Schismaticks i Idem l 2. c. 20. Conc. Sardyc can 1. 2. and Pagans in their sight the same time passes any ordinary skill without the help of a strong implicit Faith that can swallow and believe Contradictions The Brittains and all sound Christians measur'd Religion not by the Sanctity of places but the purity of the heart and mind And good lives and examples wheresoever they were met Caelum non animum mutant qui trans mare currunt change of Air doth not change the mind St. Paul best tells what will change the mind if it be set on things above and not on things below Col. 3.2 on God and not on the World which is done by Heavenliness of mind and constant hearty Prayer and sincerity to God in all our Actions This was Davids Art to lift his Soul to Heaven Psal 25.1 That was by the means of Prayer saith the Chaldee Paraphrast upon the place And Prayer without the heart is no Prayer but as a body without the Soul which is their prime devotion at Rome whereby distance from Cod is professed as it were on purpose for by the exclusion of the heart and understanding they come not near him when they pray and if they are far from God in that means which sets other men nearest how far must they be from Heaven at Rome in the rest of their Actions that are not so Divine The next Imposture on men and Churches and Princes by the help of Ignorance is not unlike the former whereby the man arrogantly passes for his Master the pretended Vicar of Christ for Christ himself or more the lusts of the Pope for the Laws of God and Material Churches and their Rights and Revenues are the same with the Spiritual Church and Temple where none are to be concern'd but the Priesthood and none are Priests but the Pope alone or those that have their Mission from him And therefore when our Princes insisted upon any Ecclesiastical Right or Investiture of Bishopricks they were scar'd with his Holiness Letters k Eadmer Hist Nov. l. 3. p. 50. minding them to know the right difference between a Pallace and a Church And no wonder their Impostures and encroachments prevail'd so much being carried on jure divino and people kept in Ignorance and not suffered to espy any difference between the will and displeasure of the Pope and the will and displeasure of God Almighty And who could withstand him that had the Authority and power of God and Christ for all he did Though he had not them in truth yet having them in the opinion or the belief and fear of the parties deceived it was equivalent And so they rob'd our English Kings of their Prerogatives and well nigh of their Crownes and made them their Instruments to wrest their Sees and Churches from the Brittains It sometimes falling out between these great Combatants the Pope and the Prince as between two Cockes in fight whereof the one having blinded the other never ceases pecking at his Crown and brains till he receive from him an unexpected fatal blow raising himself up thereto by the hold and wrong of his Adversary such were our Statutes of Premunire Mortmain and Provisors wherewith Rome had been long before stagger'd before Henry the Eight appearâ—d to clear the pit This counterfeiting and changing of Heaven and Earth and Christ and man and Scripture and Craft to compass wordly ends and designs much resembles their evil Art who counterfeit the coyns and great Seals of Princes for the like ill purposes if high Treason against man with high Treason against God might so much as be compared And so I pass to the fift general head and supposition delaying the proofs of the nullities of the Church of Rome in her orders and Communion for her Intrusion here to its proper place SECTION XII The change in Henry the Eight rather a Restoration than Reformation and how commencing in Henry the Seventh and of the Inauspiciousness of Popery to the Brittish Crown and the success and blessing of Protestant Counsels to this Nation THat King Henry the eighth his relief and redress both of Crown and Church from Popish Usurpation and Enchroachment was just and providential and likewise Brittish and that the Prosperity and glory of this Nation is remarkably pointed out by the finger of God to any that will attend to ly and consist in the pursuite of the like defence and vindication of our Brittish Church from the attempts of Rome wherein I intend not to be so large as upon the former heads or to take upon me the defence of the Ecclesiastical rights of our Crown which is fully done by abler Pens And indeed our Kings themselves are best able to defend themselves as well as others in their Rights with that Sword which was not given them to bear in vain which they can draw out with a far safer conscience against the Invaders of their Prerogatives and power
wherewith they are Intrusted by God for the defence of his and their People than Popes ever could or can unsheath their Spiritual Weapons in defence of Pride and ambition and scandalous Encroachments Excommunication being intended by Christ and his Apostles to better ends than they apply it to separate between the precious and the vile between scandalous and holy Christians and to cut off putrid parts with grief and compassion to preserve the Communion of Saints and the health and honour of the whole and not to defend proud and ambitious heights and sacrilegious invasions and Usurpations over Churches more Orthodox and more ancient than themselves with Unevangelical revenge and recalcitration after fair eviction Which is the abusing of Christs Ordinance to ends contrary to what he intended and the taking of Gods name in vain for which they will not be held guilt-less yea to have Excommunicated themselves rather by humble acknowledgements and reparations to their power for their wrongs and oppressions to Christ and souls and Churches had been the right Catholick use of their keyes and the surest sign of Salvation to the best and chiefest of their Church Neither is it needful by our Hypothesis and state of our case to defend the Reformation from the charge of Schism and departure from the Catholick Church thereby as they suppose and cry aloud against us for the alteration made by Henry the Eight cannot be called the Reformation of a Religion we derived from Rome by Inferiour Authority against superiour by the daughter correcting the Mother Church Irregularly but our lawful Restoration rather to our Ancient Rights and possessions from which we were wrongfully disseis'd and barr'd The deliverance of our Brittish Church after long captivity and disfiguration to its primitive liberty and health and beauty by just means from the violent hands and Spiriting Arts of Rome much Junior to it in faith and much impurer and unsounder than the true Church of Rome for these last thousand years Our Case I say is not so much Reformation as Restoration which no man of sence or honesty or conscience can find fault with and much less they at Rome who are pleas'd with their deliverance from the long Tyranny of their Exarchs though procur'd by unlawful and pernicious means as before but we had ours through lawful Authority without any wrong or hurt to others or our Superiours and with much right to our selves much less can we be tax'd or blam'd by any at home that have been long kept out from their own rights by Tyrants or Rebels or Oppressors who are bound in all Equity and Honour and Compassion to espouse rather and Assist so just a Cause before any others whatsoever according to Dido's temper in the Poet making the Case of Aeneas in Exile her own Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco The Pope had no more Original right and title to our Brittish Sees how long soever Usurped than Cromwell had to the Brittish Crown Whoever else may envy or hinder or undermine our recovery of our just freedom and liberty they that through Gods mercy have had the like Restoration and deliverance ought not either in Honour or Civility or Humanity to do it nor if themselves appear to have the greatest share and benefit therein without manifest hazard of their Judgement for by revolt to Popery Princes quit no less their external Supremacy in holy Church the choycest Jewel in their Crown than by Apostacy to Heathenism not more by the parity of the Idolatries than by their own Act and Resignation For they cannot longer hold the same in the Catholick-Roman without being Excommunicate as undutyful and they let go their hold thereof in the Protestant Christian by Excommunicating themselves as unkind and unwise Nor if after all this they be found to Act both against Gods revealed will and fate therein or the secret Decrees and discernable purposes of his Providence against it whereof the one was made as clear as the Sun before and the other will afterwards appear as clear as the Moon which is next unto it can they ever be thus unnatural to their own Church and Nation out of vain glorious kindness to forreign cheats without fighting against God as well as their friends to the certain overthrow and ruin either Temporal or Eternal or both of the weaker side Therefore the sharp and searching judgement of the great Arch-Bishop Bramhal could soon espy that the plea of the Antiquity and Independancy of our Brittish Church in the Controversy between us and Rome strikes the cause dead forever at one blow Not that being exempt from the pretences of a Junior Church once animated with Empire to step before her betters we are not bound nevertheless to hold Communion with every good Church of Christ where and when we may yea with Rome it self if it return'd to its Ancient purity and subjection to our Saviour as on the other hand to shun others as we do Rome that were guilty of the like Corruption and Apostacy which flight and distance we are wont to observe in our moral and natural Communion and converse as well as Christian embracing or shunning good or evil Company for our safety or credit as wholesome or Pestilential Air for Health as well as sound and unsound Churches out of Allegiance to Christ our common Lord or fear of scandal and partaking in their sins and judgments by our Complyance For our Communion though it be our great duty as Schisme is a great sin yet it is not in our absolute power and dispose in the general without any other Rule or reason to incline us to be of this or that Church but our own fancy and humour no we are acted by necessity in great part therein for it is a necessary tye upon us to embrace good and relinquish evil and corrupt Communion and to be guided by Christs will and not our own as our rule and standard and to shun all whom his word Excommunicates and to communicate with all whom his word approves For to approve whom Christ condemns or condemn whom Christ approves is not in the power of any Christian that ownes Christ for his Soveraign All the part that we have in our own power is the exercise of every mans Conscience and private judgment under the guidance of Christs rule which they hate the least mention of at Rome as impious and Haeretical and leading to a private spirit the root of all evil errours in the Church and comparing the lives and state of Christians and Churches by this general rule of Christ and this particular eye of our Souls to put our Communion in execution according to Christs mind and to embrace his friends and to shun his enemies and to like and dislike as we are to do all our other Affairs in him from our hearts according to my Text. For let there be no private judgment to distinguish between private good or evil or between the guides themselves we are
to trust then Mahomet shall pass for as good a Prophet as St. Peter and the Alcharon be equal to the Bible for to the blind all colours are the same But regulated Conscience is not a private Spirit wherein God himself speaks who is greater than all the World where it is kept pure from Worldly ends and Idols for nothing is more publick and Catholick than Conscience or reason or right or duty or holiness or justice which are synonymous and carry universality and eternity in their conceptions by reason of the Divine Impression and Authority they partake and answer to And nothing constitutes more a private Spirit than private ends and carnal designs and self advantage and profit and filthy lucre made chief ingredients in duties Doctrines and Religions with which Worldly and sordid mixtures the Roman Faith in all its parts is too well known to abound which unworthy copulations are discernable by the weakest judgments and condemn'd and hated by the most universal suffrages and censures of God and men An Infant can discerne them in his neglectful Nurse an Elephant in his unjust Feeder Clownes in States-men and Politicians and are abhorr'd and declaim'd against by Heathen Philosophers in their Schools and Christian in Pulpits and are those moral wild beasts that all Laws humane and Divine and right Discipline and education and all rules of honour are mainly bent to discover and hunt and chase out of all Societies and converse and hearts Besides a private Conscience proceeding in all its converse according to Christs mind Interest and direction and doing nought that is disallowed by him is Christ himself by fiction personated and acted and defended which is as far from a private Spirit as the East is from the West or the will of God from the ends and lusts of man It being not more natural and congruous in Christ himself to delight in good men and to abhorre the Congregations of the wicked and carnal and scandalous than it is for his faithful Servants and Trustees and Representatives who bear their Masters person and concern and holiness upon them by such a fiction to express and imitate by their own Communion and election of Societies the mind and Inclination of their Lord and soon to discern who are his Friends or Enemies or Traitors and Loyal Subjects in his Kingdom and vigorously and and indispensably to embrace the one and shun the the other for Servants act according to an accountable trust the Master being Lord of his own rights to remit or indulge out of favour as he pleases which is not lawful for the Servant to presume And this skill and instinct and shadows of private judgment to discerne friends from strangers to their Masters is visible in Domestick Creatures emblemes of fidelity who are Courteous to acquaintance but severe and unsociable to such as are not so till by converse and familiarity they prove their unity and friendship and take away private judgment and discretion the distinction and difference between faithful and unfaithful Servants Subjects Christians Churches wholly falls to the ground and Christians and Catholicks are set below the Irrational Creatures And for the Church of Rome to blast good Consciences that find out its faults as private Schismatical Spirits and to extol their own Carnal designes and Trade and Merchandize of godliness as Catholick Religion holy pure and publick and eternal is too visibly one of the uniform symptomes of their Antichristianism whereby they confound Heaven and Earth the Church and the World and reconcile yea change Mammon into Christ and Christ into Mammon Withall equal and coordinate Churches or Christians as we now suppose Rome and Brittain to be are not judges of one another where they separate from one another for Par in parem non habet potestatem is a rule in Law but act severally therein according to their respective duties and allegiance to their own liege and Superiour who is Christ the head and judge of both in the other World and in this also by a free and general Council which both parts ought for peace and unity to submit to which thereby becomes Superiour to both either by Divine Institution and custom Ecclesiastical or by their own consent and agreement as in the Case of Arbitrators And accordingly such general Synods have censur'd and sentenced and Excommunicated persons Churches Provinces Priests Bishops Patriarchs and Popes themselves when they walk'd awry from Christ's Rule As the first General Council at Nice against Arrius Priest of Alexandria The second at Constantinople against Macedonius Arch-Bishop of that See The third at Ephesus against Nestorius another Constantinopolitan Arch-Bishop the fourth at Chalcedon against Eutyches Dioscorus c. Priests and the fift at Constantinople against Diodorus and Theodorus Bishops reviving Origens errours and the sixth Oecumenical or general Council in Trullo at Constantinople against other Bishops and amongst them against the whole Church of Rome its Clergy and Laity for departing from the Catholick tradition of the Church about their Saturday fast wherein the Brittish Church was ever Orthodox with the rest of the Ancient Christian World as was shewed But the Church of Rome will allow of no Council or Canons or Fathers that shall offer to check its errours nor Scripture it self but with its own sence and Interpretation thereof whereby it shall be sure not to cross its Interest Being a manifest and notorious example therein of disobedience and Irregularity to all its Superiours and the most Schismatical Church in the Christian World for Baronius a Spondan An. 692. n. 5. cannot deny that the Greek writers declare their sence that the breach of Communion between the Greeks or Eastern and the Latine or Western Church of Rome was upon the disobedience of the Popes to yield and submit to the Council in Trullo wherein it had all other Churches of the World and the Canons of the Apostles of its side and undoubted Apostolical tradition mentioned in most of the Ancient Fathers as b Idem An. 34. n. 47. Baronius cannot and doth not deny A Church therefore that deserves to be shun'd and disown'd as scandalous for that and its other innumerable corruptions and infamous Usurpations and gross Idolatries and particularly its Blind Obedience and Implicit Faith that allows and directs to put confidence in man the head and fountain of all its damnable errours and superstitions whereof all that communicate with it must be approvers and partakers by the terms and Injunctions of its Communion which requires them to be all receiv'd as Catholick Articles and Doctrines and all contrary Truths to be abjur'd as Heresies whereby it becomes impossible for any understanding sober Christian to be at the same time within her Communion and pale and out of the curse of God Esa 1.5 20. Therefore it were lost and needless labour as to them or our selves to go about to disprove all their imputation and charge of Schism against us or to prove on the
by his high disloyalty though not by his resolution and many other great parts if rightly used And what makes our Frustrations to be Panegyricks in many mouthes of his Attainments but that having the same men and courage and preparations and more we take not the same method to prosper in a good cause as he did in a bad And to borrow light from vanity what can the skill of the best Player avail if the Dice be altogether against him For some will say that Interest and reason of State all may see that the temper of the whole Nation and the wise may observe that Heaven and fate forbid the banes and realliance of this Land with Popery For who are more miserably rent and divided then we now of this Nation are though restor'd Our people distrusting their Princes and our Princes their people whereby our strength and glory by mutual subductions is brought to nothing like a Merchant that hath 10000 l. Stock and is 20000 l. in Debt and all this only by striving against fate And making Popery and our selves the weaker by favouring it against Profession Interest Duty Oaths Trusts halting between God and Belial between Christ and the Pope between Protestant and Papist being as they say neither good fish nor flesh but deservedly weak and improsperous and contemptible and acting all in the dark like men under fear or guilt or self condemnation yet a sincere Resolution to be firm and true to God and Protestant truth without further doubling Cures the whole Nation in an Instant clears all Debts dissolves all jealousies and fears strengthens all Interests opens all hands and hearts and purses and makes us Brittains again happy and united within our selves and serviceable to our friends and formidable to our enemies and acceptable to God All our Divisions in this Nation for these 1600 years and upwards were ever rais'd and fomented by harbouring Rome within our bowels either with or against our wills The Picts from the North and the Scots or Irish from the West were enemies heretofore to the Brittains though much their flesh and bloud solely upon the score of Rome upon the like inducement as Roman-Catholicks at this day are enemies to our peace and Nation the one gnawing our bowells as the other did Infest our borders upon the same score of Rome For the Roman power ruling here while Picts and Scots were unreduc'd forc'd the Brittains to serve and fight against them whether they would or not and them to fight against us by consequence and Provocation The Roman cheat since prevailing upon many through their want of love to the truth makes men enemies and Spies and Traitors to their own Countrey not through force but by their own choice and zeal to serve and promote the ambitious ends of Forreigners which less intoxicate than mens own personal lusts and passions and renders them therefore more inexcusable and despicable than any other Traitors or Malefactors whatsoever that set up for themselves An hearty embraceing of the Ancient Apostolick Brittish Faith which the Scotch and Irish defended with us heretofore against Monk Augustine and planted amongst the English before he and his Successors sowed their Tares amongst them which our Roman-Catholicks are so fond of would unite these three Nations as one man in mutual love and peace and truth and prosperity and renown and strength and Gods blessing which was the whole aime and designe of this discourse and an effectual care taken against Roman seducers on the one hand and compassion towards the seduced on the other and the exemplification of our own right faith by an answerable good life would under God easily effect this reduction They are unnaturally unkind to their own Countrey that take part with Rome against it which was ever a bad neighbour to our Brittain returning us evil for good It destroyed our Empire through the ambition of Maximus our Church through Monk Augustine whereas we ever did but Cures upon it Planting the first Gospel amongst them before the arrival of St. Peter or St. Paul Ridding their Roman World of the remainders of their old Pagan Idolatry which there was in great power and value by the zeal of our Great Constantine and healing their new Christian Idolatry in good part wherewith it was as much enamour'd by our Henry the 8th his President Let them beware of the Repentance of another Generous Prince descending together from the same Royal Brittish stock and of no less a spirit who being once fully undeceived shall see great wrongs to the Innocent to be repair'd great indignities to his own Interest and honour to be reveng'd and chastiz'd as King Henry did his Incest great oppression to patient Protestancy both at home and in Neighouring Kingdoms yea and great abuse to all Christendom in general by Holy frauds and Impostures and abominable Idolatries to be reliev'd and redress'd to whom Cromwel their Terrour was but a Blazing-warning Meteor who shall unite to himself both the heart of God and of the three Nations by his zeal for his cause and glory against such Hypocrites and everlasting troâ—â—â—â—ers of Kingdoms and Churches and judge it a design commensurate to his Princely Grandeur and Renown to go along with Fate and Providence to put a period to their Kingdom of Lyes and Forgeries and Profanations and begin the overthrow of Turkish by suppressing Christian Antichrist the great enemy of Souls and Truth which gave the other its chief rise and growth and was the first president in Christian Kingdoms of Rebellion against lawful Soveraigns upon the pretence of Religion the only obstacle of the Union of all Christian Churches by his Pride and usurpations And the most dangerous enemies to all humane Society and Government and to all Faith and Truth among men and Christians which support them by Dispens'd Perjuries Licensed Dissimulations Equivocations Mental Reservations Canoniz'd Tteasons c. The like practices being never known or heard of in the World before amongst sober Heathens nor the most wild and barbarous much less amongst the Primitive Christians and Martyrs but only the Gnostick Disciples of Simon Magus If it be the Fate of Brittain to give Rome another Cure and Castigation without which neither England nor Christendom are like be at rest And none are easier and sooner reduc'd than such whose principles and practices have long warr'd against Heaven and the Brittish Proverb saith Drwg y Ceidw Diawl ei wâas The Devil ill brings off his Servant It were to be wish'd and prayed it might please the Almighty to effect it mildly by the Authority and power of a generous and lawful Prince like as Constantine was from hence and not for our neglect raise a Tyrannical Cromwel for the scourge and ruine of their Degenerate Church as he did Ruffinus heretofore for the overthrow of their Degenerate Empire who is a Balaus Cent. 1.42 reported to be a Brittain born and his name greatly proves his Original were he born elsewhere
29. Usher p. 69. Paulinus for York and to r Bede l. 1. c. 28 29. Usher p. 69. Siagrius of Augustodunum or Autun advancing his Seat thereby to be next in Dignity to Lyons And in like manner to several other with Canting Epistles touching their use and the Office of them that are exalted to wear them at proper seasons The first conditions that attend it were 1. It was to be given to none but first upon the score of Å¿ Greg. lib. 7 Epist 5. c. 5. Epist 114. high merit 2. Nor without great t Ibid. entreaty 3. And without u Ibid. Platina in Leone secundo all Fee which last came to be dispens'd with after it was well rung into credit by other Arts and divine additional definitions of it that it was taken from x Pontif. Rom. Clem. p. 8. 86. off the body of St. Peter having vertue in it y Innocentius â—tius de Officio misse l. 1. c. 51. Pontif Rom. Ibid. to give plenitude of Archiepiscopal power to the wearer And by this time lest the cheapness should bring it into contempt it was not parted with but for a great and round sum and an Oath z Antiq Eccl. in Deneo p. 302. of Allegiance and particular fidelity to the Pope and to be a Pontif. Rom p. 89. buried with every Archbishop and purchas'd b Gratian distinct 100 a new within three Months upon pain of suspension and deprivation Thomas c Eadmer Histor Nov. lib. 4. p. 98. Archbishop of York half broak himself in the time of Henry the first to gain it to have his will against the Archbishop of Canterbury Walâ—er Grey d Math. Paris 1215. p. 463. Bishop of Worcester laid down 10000 l. Sterling now 30000 l. to be translated by it to the See of York The Bishops of Mentz e Fox Acts and Mon. vol. 1. p. 223. used to purchase it at 1000. then 20000 25000 and 27000 Florens Our Archbishops of Canterbury and York came at last to a certainty of f Godwin Catalog p. 133. 5000 Duckets and the rest of the Bishops to a known proportion for their Investitutes which in 40 years compass were computed in Henry the 8th's time g Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae p. 326. to amount to one hundred and sixty thousand pounds Sterling Now this last Title by Pall the Ancient Brittish Church never heeded as appears by Pope Gregory's Confession upon search of his h Bede 1. 28. Registers before and therefore that allegation in i Girald Cambrens Itinerarium Cambr. lib. 2. c. 1. Cambrensis and Hoveden of 25 Archbishops of St. Davids who succeeded St. David and used a Pall till Sampson who carried it to Dole is inconsistent with that utter enmity that continued some hundreds of years between the Romish and the Brittish Church unless as the Learned Vsher k Usher p. 74 75. proves it be understood of Sampson of York that went over to Dole as Pope Innâ—cent himself could tell k Usher p. 74 75. and not of Sampson of St. David who might have had a Pall remaining at York from the guift of Emperours as usual and not of the Pope whose Supremacy here was not then acknowledg'd Neither were our Metropolitans the less Metropolitans for the want of the Roman Pall for they had all other requisites saving l that one which is sufficient and the rather because they were as Perfect Metropolitan Bishops as the Pope himself before the time of Pope Marcus who first us'd a Pall because upon the Summons of Constantine the great they Sate as Archbishops and were so allowed of by the great Council of Arles and by Pope Sylvester himself or his Deputies who made no exceptions then against their dignities and sitting as we can read or hear of which was several years before the time of Pope Marcus the first Founder of the Pall And therefore their Metropolitan rights which were firm and valid so long before in the esteem of those two great powers who were able to create and abrogate such dignities Emperours and great Councils could not be infring'd in after Ages for want of that suspicious new mark and Livery Apoc. 13.16 17. that was to be far fought and dear bought and after all impertinent and Insignificant for the Brittains had not Faith or Brains to believe all the Lyes and false suppositions that are required to support the Credit and Veneration of this Pall. 1. That it was taken from off the body of St. Peter as is alledg'd by the Pope m Antiq. Eccl. 302. in Deneo or his Deputy for him at the Altar that being moulder'd into dust and ashes so long time agoe Nor 2. that his dead body were it in visible being could by this contact communicate such sanctity and authority to a patch of Wollen Cloth 3. That this Cloth sanctified by such Contact can alone conveigh to Archbishops their lawful power of Ordination and the rest of their Archiepiscopal Authority 4. That it cannot invest the Successor with the same power but by a Canonical Flannel Act must be buried out of the way as useless For a touch of a Loadstone serves to attract many needles one after another and the Father's Cloak may serve his Child or some poor body after his death 5. n Pontific Rom p. 68. That all Consecrations of men and Sacraments are void and useless without this ragge upon which the Authority of the Archbishop depends as the Ordinations of Ministers and Bishops upon the Authority of the Archbishop and all their lawful Consecrations of Sacraments upon the Authority and validity of their Ordinations Nor 6. That the Primitive Church for the first three hundred or five hundred years was no Church and had no lawful Governours nor Metropolitans nor Bishops nor Ministers either to Ordain or Consecrate Successors or to Preach the Word or to administer Sacraments with a right Calling because they had not this Roman Pall. All these fundamental points of the new Roman-Catholick Faith could not go down with our Orthodox and sober Ancestors But since the Church with them at Rome hath got new marks and definitions and Palls and Fees are now its measures aâ—â—Touchstones instead of Christ and the Heart This Controversy is now reducible to a narrower compass to a Dilemma and a short Issue The Dilemma this The Brittish Churches and their Metropolitical Sees and Authorities upon Monk Augustâ—â—â—'s Arrival hither were for want of Palls which 〈◊〉 implyed against them by Pope Gregory either all null and void and vacant or not If the latter then Pope Gregory and Augustine his Missionary were manifest Schismaticks and worse as shall be furher shewed for Invading Sees and Consecrating and Ordaining Ministers and Bishops in other 〈◊〉 Dioceses against their wills and rights and the Canons of the universal Church But if the former be true that they were no Churches of Christ nor lawful Sees nor Metropolitans whatever was
half a word spoaken to any of our Gracious Princes by our Reverend Bishops in behalf of a long oppressed Church would make Wales also a full sharer in the Common liberty and benefit of the Reformation They being the first sufferers in Europe for their early opposition against the Supremacy and Superstitions of Rome several hundreds of years before Martyn Luther was born or heard off and therefore more fit to be considered notwithstanding former enmities who ever was in fault in a Protestant Church and a Polite and curious Nation that hath a fam'd regard for Antiquity in stones and marbles The visible and distinct Remnant of the Ancient Brittains in Wales whom Rome hath endeavoured these 1000 years to suppress and destroy in their fortunes and faith and fame and value and love with several of the English being the most Ancient standing and living Monument and Record against Popery in this our Western World Must that Ancient leaven that gain is godliness and Superiority hook or by crook over Ancienter Churches be retained with scandall for ever in the best of Reformed Churches Is there none that will speak but for themselves none against themselves and purse and pride for conscience Justice and the interest of Protestantism And yet I believe the Brittish Church had rather rest in Patience as they are than arrive at any deliverance or redress or liberty by any means unpeaceable or unamicable much less indirect Neither can their rights and Priviledges be further withheld from them without deserving and Incurring the Censures and Anathemaes of General Councils manifest and unanimous in their defence which if they are not to be regarded wherefore are they Read or Printed and not without some defiling approbation of a most unrighteous and an unconscionable Popish Sentence past against them and their Successors without cause and with as little colour against all faith and Truth and promise of Protection leaving them in the Lurch in the midst of their trust and submission against the use and Custom and Instinct and honour of all Patrons and Creatures whatsoever but his Holiness alone Withall hard usage is more tolerable from an Enemy than from a friend and from the corrupt Roman Church where tyrannical and ambitious principles are so openly professed and own'd than from a neighbouring Orthodox Church of Christ who suck'd the breasts of the Brittish or others at least who had been nurs'd and nourished by her Milk Neither was it the Intention or practice of the Roman Court that Churches should remain concluded for ever by any of its Sentences whether just or unjust as appears in the frequent contests heretofore between the Arch-Bishops of York and Canterbury for Primacy where after both parties were well spunged and squeezed by decrees and Sentences for each the right of precedency reverted after all where it ran before in its former Channell If a Pope predecessor exempted York from Canterbury upon a considerable feeling The Next Pope his Successor who had no share in that Boon is troubled in Conscience if well illuminated by a splendid present from the adverse side till Canterbury were righted and the Ghost of Austin appeas'd At last this Controversy was referr'd by the Pope to the pleasure and decision of our own Kings whose Original right to judge of this Cause was now remarkably estabished in the Crown by this concession and president from what motive soever it proceeded for it thwarted two of their chiefest fundamentalls their Profit and their Incommunicable Judicature of Church matters which they seldom quit where they have either cowardly or credulous Kings to deal with And so we find that the wise and valiant King Edward the third put an everlasting period to that Controversy under his great a Sr. Roger Twisden Histor Vindicat. p. 21 22. Seal As any of his Protestant Successors being better enlightned and Brittishly allyed may give due redress to the Ancient See of St. David in like manner if they please and also unite Canterbury to London as it was ever at first The Extinction of great and Ancient Sees being Sacriledge but their Translation from that place to this the undoubted right of Princes which is the third point That the Protestant Constitution and Confirmation of the Primacy of Canterbury is according to the b Photii Nomocanon Tit. 1. c. 20. Concil Eph. Can. 8. Concil in Trullo Can. 38. Concil Chalced. Can. 12. 17. Canons of the Universal Church as well as the Law of this Land which is sufficiently cleared before and hereafter and more at large and irrefragably by several great Writers of our Church particularly Dr. Hammond and Archbishop Bramhall to whom they are referred who have a mind to meet more Instances and Presidents on this point And our Romanists of any men should not except or regret at the Constitution of our chief Chairs by the Authority of our lawful and Brittish Kings whose first power and footing here was by the aid and assistance of Conquerours and Invaders to the wrong of this Church For though the Pope first pointed out London who had the same right to dispose of the Crown as of the Chaire yet the Influence of King Ethelbert settled the Primacy at Canterbury as some of the Norman Kings wrested that of St. David to it by meer force and power If therefore they believe in behalf of themselves that Kings may constitute or translate Metropolitan Sees against old Right and Canons much more may they do the same with Right and Canons of their side For lawful Kings in their own Territories succeed in that power which was given or restor'd by General Councils to Christian Emperours to make what Alteration and translations of Sees and Primacies as they should see cause The Emperours and Metropolitans both agreeing and consenting that before any new Metropolitan See should be alter'd that the Mother Church should be satisfied and understand from his Majesty under his hand that he was not surpriz'd or sollicited or misled by others in what he did as well might be the Case of Canterbury in its Confirmation by our English Kings in the darkness of Popery before the Reformation but that he did it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of his own accord and choice and for a just and convenient cause either out of respect to the Dignity of the new place or City or out of particular honour to the personal vertue and merits of its present Prelate or for some publick benefit and advantage to the Church in general as Balsamon Notes on the 38 Canon of the General Council in Trullo whereby it appears that it is still in the power and Authority of the Kings of Great Brittain to settle continue or translate this Primacy by their Laws to what place they please and to restore the same to London where it formerly was if by any just cause they shall be mov'd thereunto Either 1. out of respect to the 6th Canon of the great and venerable Council of
Church and their own rules and principles first it is several wayes against the Canons in respect of their Invasions of the rights of other Metropolitans which was adjudg'd a Photii Nomoc. Tit. 1. p. 20. infamous and mulctable before that in the Council of Chalcedon and in Trullo power was yielded to the Emperours to erect or to translate Metropolitical Chaires and also against the Canons in respect of many Illegal Ordinations which made the Romish Church null in Law in England several wayes besides those nullities in fact and event we have before instanc'd Many are the Canons of the best and Ancientest Councils and the most general and Oecumenical that the Church of Christ ever had which condemn the first Entrance of Augustine and his Pope Gregory and the Re-entrance of Archbishop Theodore and his Successors upon our Brittish Church and Provinces under no less penalties than deposition or degradation of their Clergy from their several States and Dignities and Excommunication of their Laity from Christian Fellowship besides the making all their Ecclesiastical Acts and Ordinations to be utterly void and null to all intents If this were of any value or moment with them of the Church of Rome who boast and crack of a great respect they have above others for Fathers and Councils and Ancient Traditions but experience too much discovers it is all with Reservations and Provisoes that they offer not to touch or reflect upon their Church in any of its grossest errours or most enormous misdemeanours for if they do it in the lest the Canons of the Universal Church shall have no more respect at their hands than the Canonical Scriptures which are not allowed to have any sound or sense where they cross and disagree from the private interpretation of their Church I say private and suspicious because notoriously savouring of private ends and carnal designes and Worldly ambition and self-love above any Church or Haeresie whatsoever in all their Commentaries and Expositions and every point and Article of their Faith and Government wherein they differ from us Or they shall be openly disown'd and rejected for no lawful Councils either in whole or in part according to their liking or disliking of particulars who yet call for implicit obedience to their own petty Authorities and decrees how contrary soever to Common sense or reason while themselves dispute and contradict the power and jurisdiction of far greater Superiours acting and decreeing with the special assistance of the Spirit of God So that as to such Roman-Catholicks who are wedded and guided by their wills and Idols more than Truth or Conscience the Testimonies and Canons I shall produce will prove but Pearls ill cast yet with this advantage and satisfaction that they shall drive and force them either to submission or to rebellion either to confess and acknowledge themselves to be convict Schismaticks and Sacrilegious Robbers and Oppressors and their Popes and Missionaries depos'd and condemn'd in all their Titles Holy Orders and pretences by the Holy solemn Laws and Canons of the Universal and undoubtedly Catholick Church of Christ or manifestly detect themselves to be Antichrist in this as in their other practices and the Invaders of Gods Regiment and power in all its formes and varieties of of appearance as of God the Creator in disposing the Kingdoms of the World of God Redeemer in Lording over Souls and Consciences so of God the Holy Spirit and Sanctifier in slighting Scriptures and General Councils Which last part it is to be fear'd they 'l chuse to take as being thereto too much inclin'd by their Principles being one main cause if not perrhaps the principal that the spirit of truth and concord hath withdrawn it self in lamentable manner from Christian Churches and Councils these several last hundreds of years in whose Assemblies it cannot well appear with liberty and without diminution of its Divine Honour and Glory when its promis'd assistance to Gods Church gathered together in his name must be eftsoons check'd and controll'd by the Negative will and lust of one man that sets up himself above Both and the Interest of Rome made the mark to steer by instead of Truth and Holiness and Gods holy spirit thereby necessitated either to countenance Errour and Tyranny by its presence or to stand out whereby is left but a Carcass of a Church and not a Church for a Church without Gods spirit is but as the body without the Soul the one as ready moulders into errour and corruption as the other into stench and rottenness as is the condition of the Modern Roman Church too visibly The first Canon I shall instance in shall be the third General Council held at Ephesus than which hardly any president can be more apposite to the Case of Rome and Brittain and that Councill's determination upon the complaint of Cyprus against Antioch where three points may be observ'd 1. The state of their case and grievance 2. The sense and resentment of the Council 3. The decree and redress 1. Their complaint to the Council by Declaration and the Affirmation of their Bishops then and there present was that the Bishop or Patriarch of Antioch did send and Consecrate Bishops for the Isle of Cyprus in violation of their Ancient Rights and Customes The occasion of this encroachment was as is noted by Balsamon and Zonaras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon a pretence and imitation of the Duke of Antioch under the Romans sending thence a Deputy Governour for this Isle The plea of the Cypriots was as is imply'd in the Canon an Ancient immemorial right of chusing and consecrating their own Bishops among themselves On the other hand the Bishop of Antioch had his Patriarchal dignity and the Supremacy of St. Peters Chair to insist on from whom he deriv'd by undoubted Lineal Succession Now if this Controversy had come before the Pope of Rome and his Conclave or Lateran or Tridentine Council it is easie to coniecture who had gone by the worst but not so easie to know whom the prey should have been adjudg'd to whether to Antioch or rather to Rome her self although the other were the acknowledg'd Chaire of St. Peter establish'd for 7 years at Antioch at the lest before ever he arriv'd at Rome 2. But the sense and resentment of their wrong by this great Council is very remarkable who took this matter into their cognizance and Judicature though no lesâ— than the Patriarch of the East and as great as the Pope takes himself to be was one of the parties to aâ—ide their censure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus they represent the mischief and consequence of this encroachment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A new kind of Schismatical attempt in defiance of the Apostolical Laws of the Church and Canons of the Holy Fathers and striking at the common Liberty of Christendom yea the Spiritual Spiritual Liberty of men Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Christ himself by his bloud hath purchas'd for us
either in Scripture or Ancient Fathers or Councils is it express'd that the Pope of Rome is this Chief that all Churches and Provinces are Bound to know and own for such for then this controversy of Supremacy were decided past all further dispute But what Metropolitan or Patriarch then is recommended to us in Scripture or Tradition to know and obey for such My Text and the 34 Canon of the Apostles answers this Question and resolves us whom we are to look upon as our chief both in Heaven and Earth For Christ is that Invisible Chief in Heaven we are to know and serve in all we do from the heart And on Earth the Primate of every Province and not the Pope over all was Him that all Christians in the Ancient and truly Catholick Church were bound to Know and own and obey as their head before Magistrates became Christians And the Pope of Rome is there quite forgot and not mention'd in the lest and at such a time as his Authority and Supremacy had been by all means to be salv'd or heeded if it had been then but a point of any right or order in the belief of the Apostolical Church which is now so great a point of Faith in the Roman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Bishops of every particular Nation ought to Know Him who is Chief amongst themselves and to count Him as their Head And to do nothing beyond their particular concern and duty without Him nor he either to do any thing without the advice of them all for so peace and concord shall be attain'd and preserv'd and God shall be glorified Whereby is evident that the Primitive Ecclesiastical state of Christendom was as its present civil is Aristocratical and not Monarchical where several Provinces had their several Bishops or Primates for their Ecclesiastical Princes As now-a-dayes several Kingdoms are under their own several Kings and States and no one Prince Supream or as a civil Imperial Pope over all the rest But in comparison of one another all were equals and unsubordinate to one another as to power and subjection though not to order and precedency And in their own Territories Monarchical or supream within themselves And if the State of the Church was so and so to be preserv'd by this Canon although the state civil was different and Monarchical all Christian Kingdoms and Provinces being then under one Emperour as he that hath read St. Cyprian or St. Hierome can make but little doubt what reason is there that the State Civil and Sacred being now equally Aristocratical the harmony should be dissolv'd and all should become slaves against right and Laws and Canons to please the Pride and sin of one He that drives at an Universal Monarchy is and ought to be taken by every Prince and State as a publick enemy The reason is the same in Church as well as State Yea there is president for Universal Monarchy in States but none in the external Church but only Prophecyes and warnings of Antichrist that should be such Now for Rome to be Soveraign as she pretends and every Metropolitan Church to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Chief and unsubordinate within its own Province according to right and Ancient customes is a manifest contradiction and inconsistency Both cannot be true together but the last was proved to be most true by as great a testimony and suffrage as Earth can afford the consent of several General Councils the greatest that ever met and in the best and purest times And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Per omnia autem manifestum est This is universally manifest is the manner of wording of this point in this Canon as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Manifestum namque est quod per singulas quasque Provincias in the other like unto it both in the Originals and their own Roman Translations Therefore if the one be so manifestly true the other of Rome's Supremacy is as manifestly false Let them shift off the consequence of Antichristianism as they can Yet Baronius a Spondanus An. 325. n. 32. would prove the Supremacy of Rome out of this very Canon as what will they not venter before they 'l part with their chiefest Idol but his offers are meer Cavil and Petitio Principii or begging of the Question contrary to the context and the design of this great Council and contrary also to the text in whole and in part The design being to strengthen the Authority of the Bishop of Alexandria against Meletius and Arrius who ordain'd Bishops for themselves within his Province against his will and consent which Consecrations were as Schismatical being done against his License in Egypt as the like were if done at Rome or Italy against the Authority of the Pope Both of Ancient custom having the like Authority within their proper Province and the Foundation of the Decree being the equality of Alexandria with Rome as likewise with Antioch in this respect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where equality is suppos'd its absurd to imagine the same in the same respect to be subject and supream for that were inequality and contradiction Besides the union and strength of the Churches Government and Discipline that whosoever is excommunicate in one Province should stand so with all the rest is not grounded upon the necessary Dominion of One over all the rest which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Popery and one of its Master errours against the mind of our Saviour and the known state of the Primitive Church and the union and the peace of all Christendom but upon the Brotherly love and communion suppos'd amongst all Christian Churches in the 5th Canon of Nice wherein appears the difference between Ecclesiastical and Civil Polities of those times and this The Laws and Sentences of these being of force only within their own Territories by right of Empire but of those every where without through the bond and union of love And they at Rome bound to observe the decrees of their neighbouring Churches as well as these of It which imports mutual subjection to one another by mutual humility and excludes the proud conceit of Soveraignty in any one over the whole The whole Church in this respect being as one Province by the fiction of love and unity which in other respects was several and distinct by local limits as before One not by the dominion and supremacy of any one over all the rest which is the Carnal aime and Antichristian Tyranny of Rome but by the submission of all the parts to the Interest of the whole which is right Christian liberty and the harmonious Communion of Saints The act and deed of one being as the act and deed of all where the publick weal of the Church of Christ was concern'd And the ambitious swelling Supremacy of Rome is as much contrary to the Text of this Canon both in whole and in its parts as it was to the connexion and
that to affect to be universal Bishop and Soveraign of all Churches both name and thing was impious and Sacrilegious and Antichristian and cryed out that Antichrist was nigh coming when John Bishop of Constantinople began to usurp such a Title If therefore by Romish principles all Churches that derive their Palls from thence are thereby subject to their Chaire and those that never had Palls from thence as Brittain and other Churches by consequence in the like case were to be made subject likewise because they had none by Pope Gregories instructions to his Missionary And so by having or not having all Churches became subject by this Artifice Therefore it is manifest Gregory by this Act made himself that universal Bishop he so much abhorr'd though not in name and title yet in effect and reality which is more and Antichrist by consequence Therefore we affirm the Romish Faith in England is to be shunn'd and disown'd by all true Christians because its first plantation was from an Antichristian strein and Original by the confession of its first founder who if Popes be Infallible as they do and must believe in that Church was Antichrist Infallibly by his own Infallible determination Lastly not one but all the Popes f Apud Dr. Hammond of Schisme p. 105. of Rome at their Creation make a solemn vow and profession to observe inviolably all the Ordinances made in the eight first general Councils where nothing is more unanimously provided for and secur'd by all Anathema's imaginable than the Ancient Immunities of Provinces against Invaders and Intruders and of our Brittish Church by consequence whose Rights therefore could not be touch'd nor violated by any of them without incurring the acknowledg'd curse of the Catholick Church and the condemnation of their Holinesses themselves for Faithlesseness and Perjury out of their own mouths What temptation can there now be to any sober Christian to renounce an Ancient and Orthodox good Church and his own Mother for another in a Forreign Countrey which stands condemned by God and the whole Christian World and by it self And these condemnations too visibly executed upon it with a probatum est in a stupendious degeneracy beyond all Heathenism not only in point of Ignorance and gross deliberate errours putting out the Candle of knowledge upon themselves and all in the room for no good ends for many hundreds of years untill the Reformation But in their so liberally Licensing and dispensing in themselves and others that is making nothing of any iniquity or Incest or breach of Faith or Treason or Gods Anathema's in order to their Catholick interest and gain which office of faculties and libertinism the worst and rudest of Heathens never dreamed of Who knowing the judgment of God that they who do such things are worthy of death not only do the same themselves 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 allow and approve that others may do them Rom. 1.32 which is so far from being Christian that no Heathens have been found or known more professedly Satanical or Antichristian Seeing therefore to contract our Argument to three undenyably positions The Catholick Church is still in being and its Canons unrepeal'd And the Church and Province of Brittain is likewise still surviving with Ancient Metropolitical Rights appertaining to it And the Clergy of Rome are dayly intruding upon us not only without the Invitation of this Province though it is their Interest and perhaps their secret practice to try by Cap or Pall or preferment what Wilfrids or Egberts or Elbods they can allure to betray Church and Countrey but against manifest and publick dissent declar'd by Laws and highest penalties What Holy Orders can such men have who are declared by the Catholick Church to be neither Clergy nor Christians for such disorder the scandalous ill consequences we have salv'd before as to the Innocent and charg'd them on their Authors or what validity or power or comfort to the Conscience can there be in their indulgences or Pardons or Consecrations any more than if Butchers or Town Bedles did absolve or Cats laid their paws upon their credulous Disciples enur'd by long custome to be abus'd SECTION XV. A short Diquisition into the Cause and character of the Roman Apostacy in its Leaders and Followers from History and Prophecy and Practice ANd though they thus refuse to be Impal'd from invading our Brittish Liberties by either Conscience or Canons or contradictions which are receiv'd bounds with all other men and Christians in the World and leaving reason seem to appeal to Club or Craft by consequence which would look very Barbarously Heretical in Protestants yet neither are they to conceive themselves Singular in such Magnanimous and Lawless adventures and usurpations for no thief ever came to the Gallows nor Traitor to the Scaffold nor cheat to the Pillory nor Malefactor to the wheel nor any sinner whatsoever to shame and damnation everlasting but for the like obstinate exaltation of their lust and Pride above the Laws of God and men only with this difference the one sin in the Night the other in the Day the one with guilt and fear and shame and somtimes with repentance but the other with open face and Catholick confidence and Sanctity Fathering all their evils upon Christ and St. Peter without hope of Repentance for to amend or change their manners would be to Apostatize from their Apostolical Faith and Principles An abominable new-found evil of Monstrous visage like a Gorgon of Pernicious influence like a Plague of hopeless Cure like a Gout for here light hath Communion with darkness which all reason and Religion and Order were Ordain'd to sever and the Wolf and the Lamb shall lie together and keep their natures and Civil and Wild and Humble and Proud and Regular and Lawless and Holy and Unconscionable and Catholick and Schismatical and Apostolical and Atheistical shall be Consistent and Church and the World and God and Mammon and Christ and Satan be of one Piece enough to distract Innocent beholders not used to monsters with so horrible a Specter and strike them dead with the Antipathy Cicero wanted words fully to express such disorder and confusion Totius autem Injusticiae nulla est capitalior quam eorum qui dum maximê fallunt id agunt ut boni viri esse videantur Of all Injustice and wrong there is none so Abominably Pernicious as that which would sanctifie it self Had he been a Christian he had allowed it the Epithite of Antichristian The like sight made another clear-spirited Heathen start beyond the Pole in his fright Vltra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet Glacialem Oceanum and chuse to be out of the World than live near the Immusical Notes and grating contradictions of debauch'd Curii dissolute Stoicks Sordid Nobles Holy Hypocrites And for its infection as nothing is more abhorr'd so nothing is sooner catching nor more seises the vitals and blunts the edge of Conscience and overthrows all the Laws of the soul The
Eve in hearkning to the Serpent against Gods word were the first Types of credulous Papists Christ the reformed Adam in siding with plain Scripture against the glosses of the Serpent was the first example of wary Protestants All Religion and Irreligion consists either in turning from the Creature to God to the exaltation and righting of the Soul or from God to the Creatures to its overturning to be in dishonourable subjection to the body its slave to its great wrong and misery This Novel Supremacy therefore being so manifestly unjust for its matter and trespass upon the rights of Soveraigns and Churches and so ungodly and scandalous for the motive and manner of its prevalence being founded in the like Pride that tumbled the Angels into Hell as Pope Gregory affirms it of his Competitor in the like impatience and despair that keeps them in it And carried on with the like love of lyes and murder and seduction as makes them intrude and wander out into our Air and prevailing upon many by the like Arts either as a Catholick Angel of light to seduce the unwary and superstitious or as a bountiful Prince with glorious offers of Palls and Caps and Dignities to win the proud and servile to comply and worship and terminating in the like everlasting damnation both to them and their followers 2 Thess 2.12 Phil. 3.19 hath enough in it hereby to dis-ingage all sober and considering English-men from any necessary zeal or tye of Conscience to subjugate themselves or betray their Church and Countrey into such dangerous and unworthy slavery Yea it were to be hop'd at first sight to dispose Italian zeal and ambition concern'd if it would but lay hand upon heart either to let us alone to enjoy our Ancient rights without wrong or trouble as all would wish to themselves and therefore ought to permit the same to others or at least to let God and Christ and Catholick Religion alone as not to bring his holy name and glory which is to be honour'd above all we have to countenance their sin and wrong to their just rebuke But that from the character of such an Apostatical Church in Prophecy which is praescient History any regard to the heart and Conscience or fear of Blasphemy is the least to be expected yea the exclusion of the one and admission of the other to be rather alwayes met as the sum and total of such Religion as the practice sufficiently confirms and fulfills the Prophecy For what Herogliphick or Emblem could more lively describe such a Church where at once the Heart and Soul is excluded and yet sanctity and zeal profess'd than that of the beast with two horns like a Lamb and speech like a Dragon Rev. 13.12 For what is any Society of men devoid of Conscience and private judgment and common Justice whose part is suum euique tribuere neminem laedere but a meer rout of Ravenous beasts or as they are describ'd elsewhere men of corrupted minds 1 Tim. 5.6 For where the mind is corrupted and dead and the body alone alive what there remains but a beast in humane shape Of the same Herd are those who are deliver'd over to a reprobate mind or a mind void of judgement like Salt that hath lost its savour or those in the Prophet whose eyes are blinded and their hearts hearden'd that they neither see with their eyes nor understand with their heart Joh. 12.40 For an useless eye is equivalent to no eye and an unconscionable Soul to no Soul at all as a depos'd King is a living man but a dead Prince so a reduc'd Conscience dethron'd by lusts or the Tyranny of any Church or Gods desertion is no Conscience A Soul subject to man more than God is no Soul as are all such who by force or choice are to obey man against the Truth Wherein as was proved at first the master-errour of Popery did consist Men of depos'd Souls or silenc'd Consciences in Scripture account are beasts But the other part of the character or a profession of Holiness and zeal included as well as good Conscience excluded is set forth by the other notes Hornes like a Lamb and Speech like a Dragon That is this beast is as Christ for arrogated Holiness and authority and yet as Satan or the Dragon or Serpent in Paradice for destructive seduction Good God! what a monstrous profession of Christians is here painted which in vulgar blazonry would signifie a Church hearted Beast armed Christ and langued Satan And the two horns and not seven as had the other may note that the Roman Empire had more of Gods blessing and approbation though counted Beast for its violence for God blessed the 7th day but so he did not the second Gen. 1.8 And the Roman Empire enlightned and civil'd the Countries it subdued but far otherwise it was with the Empire of Popery The Roman Religion upon this Prophetical supposition being all Christ without for Satan or the Dragon mostly tips his temptations with Religion and nothing of heart or Soul within is a Sphynx or a riddle itâ—s a Religion and no Religion The last because where there is no heart there can be no Lord no God no Bible no Religion no Salvation The first because the Pope alone serves for all for heart and judgement and God and Christ and Church and Bible and Salvation He declares all Faith allows all Scriptures decides all Controversies and where private Conscience is not to be consulted or regarded nor Scripture without his sense what makes good or evil amongst such but his pleasure only Lyes and Perjuries and Murders and Treasons and Blasphemy in favour of that Church and approv'd by them can be no sins but rather meritorious works by this Hypothesis For how can it be otherwise where there is no place or vote for Conscience to except and all power is in him alone acknowledg'd to approve and judge Beasts or un-soul'd men being not capable of faults or misdemeanours Now how can those be true Christians who are not men and how men who want Souls for where is the Soul if it be given away from Christ to any mortal whatsoever For the hearts and judgements that is the Souls of Papists are absolutely subject to the Pope but of Protestants only to Christ and truth the one are holy from the heart to Christ as Christs servants the other without a heart to their Pope or guide as the Servants of men And this Diminutio Capitis or Moral or Legal Annihilation of the Eternal soul by such a sinful profession of absolute Subjection to a mortal Creature hath the like effect and influence upon mens Acts of Worship and Religion as if it were its Physical and real extinction for not to appear is not to be and not to be valued or regarded is not to appear Not that the soul ceases to act as a soul in this its degradation or to cut out means for ends by its work of reason But that
being not the same what need more answer to it but a motion to be dismissed because the Plaintiff against us is not the same with the old Roman Church and if he were neither hath It nor ever had nor pretended any right of Supremacy over us in Brittain This I say was never the claim of old Christian Rome but the sally and invention of the Antichristian which are as much the same Church as a Wolf and a Lamb are the same Creature It cannot be denyed but that they have still amongst them the ruins and rubbish of old Christianity as well as the other of old Rome and both under like defacement And severall good Creeds and Canons of Councils and Scriptures it self if men were suffered to come at it conveyed unto them from the former Inhabitants or from St. Paul or from Brittain which with the sincerity of the heart may serve we trust to the Salvation of many thousands under that captivity as the wardrob of Comedians might serve honest men for good warmth and covering however by them imployed but to counterfeit persons and passions for a Livelyhood by the Hypocrisie to use that word in his Original and first notation For though Christ and Trinity and other Orthodox Articles of our Faith have place and mention amongst them yet it is not for their sakes so much as in order to their own Carnal designs to give them better countenance amongst deluded Christians what more then is their credit or respect thereby than of parcels of our Scripture standing in the Alcharon and as the Creatures groaning under the bondage of corruption Rom. 8.22 and longing to be deliver'd into Christian and Protestant Libertie and true sacredness from serving or countenancing the lusts and Impostures of Tyrants and false Prophets where Christ it is true is named with no less respect than at Rome but Mahomet among them as the Pope amongst these preferred before him in which preference the essence of Popery and its difference from Protestantism doth consist as before was proved Not to descant more on the servitude of the rest of their Christian Doctrines the Worship and Mass-Book of Modern Rome is not the same as was in use before with the Old but strangely altered and depraved with innumerable Superstitious additions and vain Repetitions Prohibited by our Saviour Matth. 6. Begun particularly and most remarkablely of any another by Pope Gregory who sent Augustine and Vitalian who sent Theodore hither but consummated at last by several Popes into a perfect Oglio and mixture of Judaism and Christianity such as the Alcharon it self was fram'd to be by the heads of Sergius and Mahomet And which is also as remarkable our Gregory pretended extraordinary assistance of Gods Spirit in the recourses of a Pigeon at his ear a Math. West An. 605 Spondan An. 604. n. 5. no less than Mahomet by which allegation in his behalf his Books escaped being burnt and served as he had served the old Statues and Monuments of Rome And for the alterations of their Mass by these two Popes particularly we have the Testimony of their own Platina in the lives of the one and the other b Platina in Gregorio prime Antiphonarium diurnum quam nocturnum composuit Introitum litanias stationum quoque magnum partem c. ejus quoque inventum ut novies Kyrie Eleeson caneretur Haleluja He composed their Antiphonary for day and light the Introitus their Lettany and a great part of their Stations the Repetition of Kyrie Eleeson and Halelujah nine times over was his patticular invention and whereas their Liturgy now requir'd to be us'd in their Vulgar tongue as it had been before the Latine tongue being disused at Rome from about the year 580. he so delighted to continue their service in the Latine now unknown to the vulgar and far therefore from the heart and understanding which is the true genius of Popery that he hides and cramps it further from them with unintilligible charms and Repetitions in Greek and Hebrew And in a Solemn Synod of 25 Bishops Establishes his Superstitious Innovations in sustulit quae nocitura multa etiam addidit quae profutura fidei nostrae videbantur He laid aside much of the Ancient formes as contrary and destructive and added many new in their place as more agreeable to their Modern Faith For how could their Ancient Sober and Orthodox Liturgy well agree with his Heathenish conceptions touching purifying Idol-temples with holy water as we heard before out a Bede l. 1. c. 30. of Bede And his Intercessions for Trajan's Soul in b M. Westm An 592. Hell which perhaps brought Purgatory in time in request and fashion in that new Church and with his new stress laid upon the great vertue of Wollen Palls whereon all their Ordinations and Consecrations and Archiepiscopal and Patriarchal Authorities and consequently their whole New-Roman Church depends Non bene conveniunt c. Sober and grave Religion and Worship and such unjustifiable Doctrines and pueril Infatuations how could they well agree Neither was Vitalianus the other great Restorer of the Romish Religion in England wanting in the like humour to alter and change the simplicity of their Roman Service which before kept close to the Scriptures chiefly for themselves acknowledge this their new mode of Liturgy had not been before in use c Platin in Caelestimo 1 mo ante fieri non consuevit perlectâ enim Epistolâ Evangelio finis Sacrificio imponebatur So that nothing by consequence can be imagined to be more the Liturgy of Ancient Rome than our own common Prayer as it is reformed out of the Mass by retaining the Old-Roman flower and casting away the New-Roman-Catholick bran and trash So that the Popish Religion ought not in any right or reason to be call'd Roman but a new Gothic Church as we find about this time their Ancestors and Founders the Gothes to agree and Symbolize with them Gothi d Platin. in Gregr. 1 mo Gregoâ—â— opera rediâ—re ad unionem Catholicae Ecclesiae or indeed the Gregorian Religion as they also term their Calender as well in respect of the great alteration made thereof at Rome by Pope Gregory both in Doctrine and Worship from the Ancient and Orthodox Roman Church as also of its propagation throughout Churches by his means and missions to the great e Antiquiâ— Eccles p. 42. corruption of Christendom and particularly amongst us in Brittain to the great wrong of the English who before had been rightly grounded and principled in the right and truly Catholick Faith by Brittish Ministry And here we have the Incunabula the first spring and beginning of Popery whose first entrance through Monk Augustine by Commission from this Pope Gregory was under no good Planet or Circumstances being near about the time that Pope Boniface was declar'd the Universal Bishop oâ— Antichrist in the sense of Pope Gregory in the Case of another as before and
effectual appearance and existence of the Truth and reality of this high mercy and its Obligations in our minds and perswasions for what is not known or own'd and received in the soul is as was said before with all men of no account as to them no more than if it had never been and we move and Act in our souls and in the conceptions and models thereof as our souls in God or Idols for we walk not in the Streets and stairs without us but in the Streets and stayers within our brain and count for let the last be mistaken or out of order men shall stumble and stagger though the first be never so true and right And to the Resuâ—â—ection Rom. 4.25 or Ascention into Heaven above 〈◊〉 as to the livery and seisin of this blessed State into which Christ enter'd for us in our Name and Naâ—â—â—â— drawing all hearts after him to Heaven by this 〈◊〉 and obligation as to a new center Wherebâ— the Sâ—â—â—â— of the Christian Church to use the 〈◊〉 of the World or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Country-Ship of every Christian is laid and fix'd in Heaven with Christ our of himself and this Transitory World And the nature of our fall in Adam understood by the cure and reparation to have been our departure far from God and Paradice into flesh and self and death for out of Christ in the fallen State the natural man is neither dead to this World in his Cross nor exalted to Heaven in his Resurrection nor United by love and the holy spirit to his person nor dead to himself but stands upon his own Leggs and Power against all opposition upon his own righteousness and Impeccability against Divine Justice upon his own strength and Grace against Infernal Powers and the deceits of the Flesh and the World upon the love of himself as the spring and end of all his Actions and designs above the love of God being his own 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and in enmity with God by setting up Rebelliously himself Instead being miserably beside himself because so totally in for and to himself man's bliss and rest being not immanent but transitive not in himself but in God his Centre for of him and through him and to him are all things to whom be glory for ever Rom. 11.36 And the return of the soul to God by love in the extinction of all enmity on either hand is wrought alone by Christ our Mediator satisfying Gods Justice by his death for us when we were Enemies and swallowing all our lives and hearts into himself by the obligation infinitely surpassing all comprehension or requital And we are not lost but perfected by this our Transmigation into Christ by love and gratitude lost indeed to our selves and to this World but found in Christ in Heaven each part being the health and perfection of the soul For so the Apostle understood this mystery None of us liveth to himself and none dyeth to himself for whether we live we live unto the Lord and whether we dye we dye unto the Lord whether we live therefore or dye we are the Lords For to this end Christ both dyed and â—ose and reviv'd that he might be Lord both of the Dead and Living Rom. 14.7 8 9. And in another place The love of Christ constraineth us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath our beings wrap'd up together with him because we thus Judge that if one dyed for all than were all dead And that he dyed for all that they which live should not henceforth live unto themselves but unto him which dyed for them and rose again we are to follow him in his Resurrection by our Conversation in Heaven and affections set on things above and in his death by mortification and self-denyal as dead men by construction and entendment to all things here below for the Laws and fictions of reason well supported are as much to guide and conclude us as outward reality the Mathematicks the most certain of Sciences have no other foundation The Church bids farewell to the present World as if it were already dead and buried and lives by its Faith and love in Heaven as if it were already ascended thither and its life hid with Christ in God Col. 3.3 or as we said Christ and Heaven descend to abide in every Christian that thus ascends by his holy Spirit and the consequence of this union for they never are in Heaven with him without his being on Earth in them Withall Christ is never backward at Redamation to prevent the delinquiums and deadly fits of his sincere lovers for want of being re-loved and those Eli Eli Lamma Sabacthani's which himself felt and underwent for us out of Love The Aire is not more at watch and readiness to break in at the place a Vessel is flowing out to prevent a Vacuum than Christ by holy inspirations to replenish that heart that expires after him in zeal and love and by that to prevent its dissolution Yea Vessels though never so full will not and cannot flow without such vent nor the Aire step through for relief but where the Vessel is in a posture and inclination to run out But Divine Inspirations far out do and super-repair human expirations yea sometimes shoot out by their force the all that is within even life it self into Martyrdom and repair it with a stronger life in the midst of death According to the Aphorisms or Paradoxes of Christ himself the first Author of this Divine Art of loving and mutual dying and living in one another He that findeth his life shall loose it and he that looseth his life for my sake shall find it Mat. 10.39 And the reason assign'd why Christians are able to count death and Tribulations as nothing yea to Glory in them is Because the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given us Rom. 5.5 Because love delights and glories to prove it self by tryals especially when rais'd and elevated by a divine life and mixture And if crosses become easie and glorious and acceptable to Christians by this mystery of spending how much more will their prosperities and favours He that can rest on Thornes may much more on Downe There are many and familiar Instances in the World of these mutual transmigrations between lovers and Benefactors as well as between Christ and Christians Vendidit libertatem qui beneficium accepit Obligations exhale mens liberties and a courtesie from the Heart of the Giver steals away the heart of the Receiver But what Grace or obligation can be compar'd to Christs Grace to men The Servant upon the score of a little Salary in his want ceases to be his own man and becomes swallowed in reason into the person of his Master and who more deservedly 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lord and Master of all men than our for ever blessed Redeemer Right love in Matrimony and Friendship is mutually
who ever was uncircumcised was to be cut off from his people so all among Christians that live to their flesh in luxury and uncleanness in wordly pride and vain-glory and carnal security and give their heart from Christ to his Enemy to sin and Satan and the World contrary to the Christian vow cannot belong to Christ but are spiritually uncircumcised and to be for ever cut off from the hopes and priviledge of a Christian Israelite Some strongly led by their Carnal will which easily believes what it loves think their lusts and their Lord may agree and Salvation and a sinful life stand well together what advantage else hath a Christian by having a Saviour above a Heathen who hath none and is not this an honourable requital then to make Christ who came to destroy the works of the Devil a greater Patron for them than the Devil himself and to fortifie his temptations to sin with Indemnity Such suggestions and delusions are not to be answer'd but abhorr'd Shall we continue in sin that grace may abound God forbid Rom. 6.1 2. or to be seriously warn'd and monish'd with a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Have a care be not deceived neither Fornicators nor Idolators nor Adulterers nor Effeminate nor Abusers of themselves with mankind nor Theeves nor Coveteous nor Drunkards nor Revilers nor Extortioners shall inherit the Kingdom of God 1 Cor. 6 9 3. To live with Christ in Heaven or to have our affection and Conversation in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour the Lord Jesus Christ Phil. 3.20 Col. 3.2 For his affections cannot chuse but be with Christ if his heart be with him but his heart can never be with him till it be seâ—sible of his grace nor be sensible of his 〈…〉 see its danger and deliverance by him and 〈◊〉 he can never see without hearing Gods word and believing his Gospel Clear therefore it is Conscience it self being judge that where there is no pulse of Heavenly life and concomitancy of the heart after Christ in his Exaltation there is no belief and who hath no belief is no Christian He may pass for a Protestant or Catholick for his profession before men but God and his heart will pronounce him to be an Infidel and out of Christ at the last day and here great is the usefulness and service of a wary Conscience and a faithful Pastor to be its Adjutant and guide The second question is who are in Christ with a stronger title and firmer possession than others of their Brethren Or who they be that be no punies but compleat Graduates and of the highest form and degree in the Church of Heaven All men are ambitious of excelling their Brethren either in Riches or Honour or Precedency or Parts or Learning or Activity or Beauty or in their very Clothes And no where is their more scope or encouragement or praise and honour from God and man and Conscience and less danger of wrong or envy than in the honest ambition of being the greatest man with God in Heaven and surer of being saved than many others to be a Christian not in the Positive degree only but also in the superlative according as the Apostle Beseeches and exhorts all by the Lord Jesus that as they have received how they ought to walk and to please God so they would abound more and more 1 Thess 4.1 And Heroes and Worthyes and men taller than others by the Head belonging to the Heavenly Kingdom may be met and found on Earth amongst all Ages and Conditions and Degrees High and Low Young and Old Rich and Poor For Instance he is Princeps Civitatis a Grandee of this Heavenly City who is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the first mark with the Apostle to qualifie a man to be a Bishop 1 Tim. 3.2 there translated blameless but may well signifie one that is unsurprizeable in his Christian principles and profession and watch by any lust or temptation or worldly Allurement alwayes retaining his Baptismal vow and love and Allegiance and fear of God in his remembrance and esteem and that in all times and places and companies by an uniform healthy victorious sobriety and vigilance over his heart and fancy and senses subject to no Convulsion-fits or Spiritual Epilepsies or scandalous fallings But having Heaven ever present in his eye to the life to cure all weariness and fainting and to out-bid all Worldly and Carnal Allurements Keeping himself altogether with God or as near as may be to Him having no end or design ever in his heart that doth not finally reach his Lord no thought therein that his God doth disallow or take unkind no word in his mouth to be publish'd without His License no bargain or sale without his God to approve and supervise it to be just and keeps no Company but with the living Images of his God for every vertue Is inseparable from Church and Sacraments where he is sure to meet with his God by special promise and appointment And either Reads or Prayes without ceasing at all Intervals of business that he and his God may be ever within hearing of one another which is effected with success while God is ever speaking to him or he to his God Which is an infallible method to be ever with God that is to be in the Church of Heaven while he is on Earth by prefruition He is another great Prince or Peer that bears great sway and rule and hath large and fair Possessions and domaines in this Heavenly Territory that bears a Martyrial breast and a fixt Resolution to come off with Faith and a good Conscience in all his Tryals though not with life Being never touch'd or hurt but where his Interest and adherence to Christ where he computes his self and being wholly to be comes to be shaken and assaulted And feels no heat in flames no rubs in Persecution to prove his love and to make good his March and Progress under his Saviour's Flagg but dants all that stand in his way with his immoveable Innocence and Heavenly unconcernedness And makes all Tyrants and Atheists confess they have not strength and power enough to shock his constancy nor the whole World wrongs and vexations enough to overwhelm his patience and forgivenness For the World with all its terrours and preparations is but a dead Host already subdued and crucified to his hand in the Cross of his General through whom he is more than Conquerour and altogether inseparable from him by that love in his heart Which neither Tribulation nor distress nor Persecution nor Famine nor Nakedness nor Peril nor Sword nor Death nor Life nor Angels nor Principalities nor Powers nor things present nor things to come nor height nor depth nor any other Creature can divide from God but maintains his ground though but one against the whole World who may perhaps prevail to seperate his Body from his Soul but never his Soul and Heart from Christ nor from his love or Laws
the faith by Brittish Ministry before the arrival of Monk Augustine p. 255. 256 seq King Aurelius Ambrosius and Arthur zealous in propagating the faith amongst them p. 256. 257. How zealous Etbelfred was for Heathenism p 259. How God moulded the Brittains into several conditions for the Conversion of the Saxons p 260. 261. Bede taxed of partiality p. 261. 214 215 2â—8 The remainder of the English converted by Brittish Ministry proved out of Bede himself p. 263. By the assistance of King Cadwalhan or Cedwalla and Oswald and miraculous Providences regarding the Innocent bloud shed at Bangor p. 264 265 Of Oswalds Bishops Aidan Finan and Diuma and their Countrey and Principles and Brittish names p. 266. seâ—q The place of Oswald's death how remarked by providence p 2â—â— 271. 26 Counties of the North and â—â—â—rcia and East Saxon with the City of London entirely recovered to the faith by the Oswaldian Clergy and the Church of Rome had not the least hand nor finger nor pretence to offer for their conversion p. 271 seq 276. The English and Brittiâ—h Princes after some descents became friendly till Rome and Auâ—ustine interposed p 273 27â— Great numbers of Brittish Christians in the West-Saxon Kingdom conceal'd by Bede That Territory recovered to the faith by them and by Irish ann French Ministry agreeing in faith and communion with the Brittains and by Oswald's Interest and how Rome's help was nothing p. 277. seqq The like of the 4 Counties of the East-Angels p. 280. seq and South-Saxons and the Isle of Wight p. 284. seq The Roman faith in England reduced within the bounds of Kent and thence eradicated p. 286 287 205 207. The Romish Church with its See of Canterbury exstinct for 15 years till the entrance of Theodore a Graecian to be Archbishop there p. 289. The Ptimacy in Licbfeild p. 290. Archbishop Parker's Argument from old Saxons Laws and Homilies of the English having their first faith from the Brittains and not from Rome p. 291. seq To which the Brittish intermarriages with the Saxon Infidels which was their sin was by Providence made useful p. 204. SECT X. Augustine but Rector of Christ Church Canterbury or at best a naturalized Brittish Bishop by their own Principles p. 295. 296. a President of the Pope's over-ruling for the right of a Native against a Forraigner after 600 years possession p. 297 This Controversie at an end if popes would do as they would be done by or stand to their own Decisions p. 298 Brittain how great a Mother Church in Europe p. 298. The Northern Nations converted by the Germans the Germans by English and Irish all from Brittain and God's regard to the Martydom at Bangor p. 299-305 Rome had its first faith from Brittain before the arrival of the Apostles thither p. 306. seq The first Christian Congregation was in our Claudia Ruffina's House converted into a Temple which is therefore their Mother Church and not St. Peters built afterwards by our Constantine p 313 Alcuinus and Rabanus Maurus Charlemagne's Doctors their Brittish Names p. 305 315. The French if not the Gauls owe their Faith and Learning to Brittain p. 315 317 318. What words the Brittains borrowed from the Latine and what the Latine from the Brittains and why p 316 317. The Modern Roman Faith is from the Goths and why 3â—8 The resort was from Gaul to Brittain heretofore for Philosophy and Religion as much as now from England to France for meaner Accomplishments p. 318 319. Exceptions against our plantation of the Faith in Germany answered and that Rome more hinder'd than help'd p. 31â— seq The Saxons had their Learning and Characters from the Brittains p 320. Three marks of nearer Cognation to the East in our Brittains than other Western Nations p. 321. Evidences that the Ancient Greeks had their Philosophy and Letters from this Isle p. 320 3â—â— Of the Original of Peter-pence and the Colledge of Rome least the Saxons should be further instructed by the Brittains and the dismal Ignorance that ensued p. 325 326. Where was the Roman Church in England for 600 years before Monk Augustine What Rome contributed to the German Conversion p. 329 332. If Popery be a good Religion Rebellion is no great sin p. 331 332. What was true and sound in Religion Germany had it from Brittain p. 332. Charlemagne in the Franckford Council against the second Council of Nice and Pope Adrian condemned Image Worship and owed his Orthodoxy therein to Brittain p. 332 333. The Canons of that Council imbezeld and suppress'd by the Roman Hereticks as they did other Records p 333 334 335. Saxons more mild to the Brittish Clergy in Lhoâ—gr after the first Brunt till Rome's entrance p. 334 How Nations â—avour of the Faith of first Planters p. 335. How Brittain was like to the great Primitive Church in being dayly kill'd by Heathens and defil'd by Hereticks p. 336. The Agreement of the Roman Principles with Audius the Apostle of the Goths p. 336. The Female Sex have a right to Supremacy over most Churches by the Roman plea p. 337 Upbraiding Cancels Courtesies why and the Romanists destroy their pretended merits a clear offer made to them p. 338 339 340 341. The Romanists insisting upon the merits of Monk Augustine become responsible for his wrongs to this Church p. 341. How disingenious and unreasonable they are in their imputation of Schism to us p. 342. How under the Roman Usurpation Ordinations here were valid to the Brittains and yet Schismatical and null as to the Romans p. 343 344. No slavery to be shaken off by indirect means the benefit and reward of Patience p. 345. How unworthy it were to return voluntarily under the yoak of Rome ibid. SECT XI Rome promotes its Dominion 1. By giving away the rights and Kingdoms of others p. 346. 2. By politick Matches Popery recovered in England by Oswi's marrying K. Edwins Sister p. 347. seq 3. And Archbishop Theodore introduc'd p. 349 350. How he us'd Archbishop Ceadda p. 351. 4 By preferments to Ambitious parts and of Wilfrid's ill end and faults and omen at his Birth p. 349 351 352. 5. By Ignorance conâ—rary to its first pretences p. 352. seq An address to the Irish wherein they are to be commended and wherein bewail'd 354 355 356 357 358. The Papists ascribe the Priviledges of Jerusalem above to their own Church p. 359 King Cadwaladrs going to Rome out of Devotion a Monkish sorgery and fully refuted p. 359 360. Bede averse to the Brittains 361. 6. How they defeated our Princes of their Church Rights p. 362. Their opposition from our Norman Kings and from Henry the 8th set out in a comparison p. 363 SECT XII Kings can better assert their Rights with the Sword than Popes their Usurpations by Excommunication p. 364. None ought to envy our Restoration nor especially any that have suffered by Tyrants p. 365. More of the Rule of Communion and separation p. 367. Regulated Conscience is no private