What mean they by these words As well in all Spiritual as Temporal Things or Causes c. But that Protestants are sworn to yield to the King all manner of Obedience both Civil and Religious Are they not obliged therefore according to the Oath to become Catholicks with a Catholick King Calvinists with a Calvinist King Arians with an Arian I say according to this Oath because the Kings Majesty is the only Supreme Governor under Christ as well in all Spiritual as Temporal Causes which words confess in the King a Spiritual as well as Civil Jurisdiction But whence does his Spiritual Jurisdiction appear without the Power of the Keys Answ You have been as often told what we mean by these words As well in all Spiritual as Temporal Things or Causes as you have asked the Question but you would never take notice of the Answer nor make any exception to it and yet 't is an even wager that the next set of Queries which you intend to astonish us with brings this over again But once more you are desired to take notice of the meaning of our Church where 't is most plainly expressed viz. in Artic. 37. Title Of Civil Magistrates The Kings Majesty hath the chief Power in the Realm of England and other his Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of the Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all Causes doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any foreign Jurisdiction Where we attribute to the King's Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the Minds of some standerous folks to be offended we give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testisie but that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scripture by God himself that is that they should Rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and Evil Doers You see then our Church acknowledges the King to be Supreme Governor in all Causes and over all Persons Ecclesiastical viz. that no Quality in the Church nor cause of the Church exempts a Subject from the Secular Laws and the Sword of Justice which may be very true as it undoubtedly is and yet all manner of Obedience in Religious Matters shall not presently become due to the King. For when Sovereigns require their Subjects to do things contrary to true Religion if their Subjects give but one manner of Obedience to their Laws which goes with us under the name of Passive Obedience it saves at once their acknowledgment of the Sovereigns Supremacy over them and Gods Supremacy over All. So that we are not obliged by our Oath to become Calvinists with a Calvinist King nor Arians with an Arian King nor Roman Catholicks with such a King nor in a word to be of the Kings Religion but to submit to his Authority let his Religion be what it will. In short let the Persons or the Causes be what they will out Church acknowledgeth the King to be Supreme Governor in his Dominions he only having the Civil Sword. But now as for you that make the Pope the Head of the Catholick Church and Union to him necessary to your being a Member of it who laugh at us for that dependence which our Ecclesiasticks have upon the King and depend in effect for all the benefits of Christianity upon your Ecclesiastical Union to the Pope which is something more than the Article recognizes of our Sovereigns you I say would do well to tell us how you can avoid being Arians with a Pope Liberius or Monothelites with a Pope Honorius or No Image-Worshippers with a Pope Gregory I. or Image-Worshippers with a Pope Adrian I. Sect. 32 Quer. You will say the King is to be Obeyed so far as we may by the Laws of God and the Kingdom Be it so then it follows that the King is not Supreme Governor under Christ but the Laws of God and the Kingdom Answ To this silly Stuff I oppose a little plain Sense That the Laws of the Kingdom are not to be opposed to the Supremacy of the King whose Laws they are That the King is our Supreme Governor under God but that we know of no Supreme Governor that is to be Obeyed absolutely without any Limitation whatsoever but God himself Sect. 33 Quer. What if Controversies rise between the King and his Subjects about the True Sense of Scripture Who shall be Judge The Private Spirit or not Hence If am not mistaken came the Rise of our late Civil Wars Answ I dare say you are the first that ever found out the want of a Judge betwixt King and People to be the Rise of the late Civil Wars 'T is pity the Observation should be lost for 't is a notable one and would mend the History of those Times not a little But pray who should that Judge be to determine the True Sense of Scripture between the King and his Subjects The Pope without doubt And so we are gotten into the old Circle again For if they must take the Judgement of the Pope at a venture then any Man may be agreed upon to be the Judge and he will serve the turn as well as the Pope But if God has made the Pope Judge that indeed is another case But how shall we know it By the Scripture Who then must be Judge of the True Sense of Scripture with reference to the Question The Pope says 't is a plain case on his side But it may be neither the King says it nor his Subjects Who therefore must be the Judge between the King and the Pope or between his Subjects and the Pope Not the private Spirit for the World for thence come Wars So that the Pope must be Judge because the Scripture says so and the Scripture says so because the Pope must Judge Now if instead of Pope you put in Council you will find the Circle go as round with one as t'other Nor do I see how you can avoid it but by running out into the long line of a Judge upon a Judge without end which I gave you some warning of before To Conclude When you have tired yourselves with these frivolous Expedients for the Ending of Controversies do what you can you will find it best to come to that which you disgrace under the Name of a Private Spirit the Good use whereof is that which must do the business Men must be Honest and hearken to Instruction and love Truth and remember that the Day of Judgment is coming This you cannot deny to be the Duty of All. And if you and every Body else could be brought to it then about plain Things there would be no Controversie at all and those about Points that are indeed difficult might do
and if you intend to go on in this way then you shall hear farther from me Concerning the Sacraments which the Church of England appears I have told you my mind once already Sect. 14 Quer. Whether at this day there be no Pure and Apostolical Service of God in the World except that established by Law in England and Irealnd Whether it be lawful for the People of England to invent a Church to themselves divided from all the rest of the Christian World By what Authority do they censure the Sacraments and Rites of the Roman Church Answ For an Answer to the first part of the Query I send you back but to the last Query of all where you may find it As to the second I say 't is not lawful for the people of England or for any other People to invent a Church by which you mean I should think to invent a New Religion New Doctrins Worships and Governments But what came into your Head to ask this Question I am not able to imagin since our people have Invented no New Church but only retrieved the Old Whilst you all people have been the best at this Invention and by Inventing a New Creed and New Objects of Worship and New Sacraments and a New Head of the Catholick Church have effectually divided yourselves from all the rest of the Christian World that stick to the Old Religion and will have none of your Inventions 2. I must acquaint you that the two former Branches of this Query seem to me to make up a kind of Nonsence between them for in the first you suppose that we pretend to have a pure Apostolical Service amongst us and in the second that we must needs grant our Church to be one of our own Invention Now we might take it ill to have Questions put upon us as if we were such Ninnies as to pretend to an Apostolical Service and yet to grant that we our selves were the Inventors of it 3. Take all together and the most I can make is this that you lay great weight upon your Presumption that by our Service we stand divided from the rest of the Christian World which I have already told you is notoriously false But for your better Instructions I shall add that if indeed we only had a Pure and Apostolical Service and yet upon the account of our Service no other Christians would Communicate with us the rest of the Christian World ought to be ashamed of it but we not at all By the run of your Queries you seem to be ignorant of one of the plainest things in the World which therefore I do again commend to your Consideration viz. that Truth is the same and changes not whether they be many or few that profess it and that our Religion stands not in a multitude of Pretenders but in a Holy Doctrin and a Holy Practice which all ought to follow even when the most do not As for the third Branch of this Query By what Authority c it comes in as if you could never ask it often enough But if I have not given you a sufficient Answer pray do you try to give a better if you can to this By what Authority do you censure the Sacraments and Rites of the English Church Quer. Whether Cranmer was the first Arch-Bishop of the Church of England The reason of my doubt is this because Archbiships of Canterbury for nine preceeding Ages were all Roman Catholicks If he was the first he wanted Episcopal Succession because being the first of his Sect he succeeded to none Then how could he be a lawful Pastor who had neither Succession Mission nor Miracles to recommend his New Doctrin I say New and strange at that time and for many Ages before Sect. 15 Answ He that affirms there were Roman Catholick Archbishops of Canterbury for Nine Ages before Cranmer and yet makes a doubt whether Cranmer were the first Archbishop of Canterbury or not shall doubt on for me If indeed Cranmer was the first Archbishop of Canterbury then as you say he wanted Episcopal Succession in the See of Canterbury that is he had no Bishops that were his Predecessors in that See because he was the first and I am very glad that you don't doubt of that too And yet I think there is as much reason to doubt of that as of the other But then you are come to an end of the first doubt presently for now you do not doubt but Cranmer was the first Archbishop tho' there were Archbishops for Nine Ages before him and wanted Episcopal Succession I suppose you do not care to stand doubting long upon a Matter But in the name of sence how can this be Why Because being the first of his Sect he succeeded none Notably spoken and all is now as plain as can be Because Cranmer was the First of his Sect in the See of Canterbury Therefore he was also the First of his Order for if there were no Archbishop of his Sect before him without all doubt there were no Archbishops before him at all And yet there were too therefore I begin to doubt this will prove but a bad business at last However Sir I give you many thanks for your Argument such as it is for the distinction which it proceeds upon we have been tugging for this hundred and fifty years and you at last have very civilly yielded it to us For in plain English you would prove that Cranmer wanted Episcopal Succession because he wanted Doctrinal Succession he was say you the First of his Sect and therefore he succeeded to none And again How could he be a lawful Pastor who had neither Succession c. to recommend his New Doctrin Now tho' I can by no means grant that want of Doctrinal Succession implies the want of Episcopal Succession nor will you neither when you have taken something to clear your Brain yet I do very thankfully acknowledge that to make a Good Pastor there ought not to be an Episcopal Succession only but a Doctrinal Succession also Now Cranmer we say received his Orders from the Bishops of his Age and his Episcopal Succession from his immediate Predecessor in the See of Canterbury and so upward Thus far now we are very well But then for his Doctrin for which you would make him the First of his Sect he took a far better course than as you would have had him to receive it for good and all from his immediate Predecessors for it was possible and upon trial he found it certainly true that his Predecessors had made a failure in Successon of Doctrin and innovated against the Antient Faith and Worship of the Christian Church He therefore went to the Records of the Primitive Church and to the Scriptures which are the most Antient of all and the only Infallible Rule of Faith by which he found and so may you if you have Grace to do it that some of those Bishops whom you speak of that went
the Character of a good Man whether they had the same Spirit of Sincerity and Piety and Charity and the like then according to this Notion I Answer That I verily believe they bad both the same Spirit notwithstanding that difference and consequently that the Spirit of the one as well as of the other was of God. Thirdly and Lastly This word Spirit is sometimes used to signifie a Persuasion concerning some Doctrin proceeding from the immediate Inspiration whether of the Good or the Evil Spirit And if the Question goes upon this meaning 't is an Impertinent Question for Luther and Calvin did not pretend to teach Doctrine from Immediate Imspiration but to Prove their Doctrine by the Scriptures But if you only meant to make some advantage to yourself from these two Mens disagreeing in a Matter which we must confess to be of Moment I only desire you to turn the Tables and to Answer these Queries Whether the Spirit of the Jesuites who say that the Pope is above a General Council and the Spirit of the Sorbon utterly denying it be the same Spirit Whether the Spirit of Thomas Aquinas affirming that the same Honour is to be given to the Image that is due to the Person represented by it or the Spirit of the Bishop of Meaux denying it be the same Spirit And not to be tedious Whether the Spirit of Innocent III. and his Lateran Council and of I know not how many more Popes and of Cardinal Perron and many more Cardinals affirming that Heretical Kings may and ought to be Deposed and the Spirit of our English Representer and those for whom he undertakes who all deny it be the same Spirit If not then both cannot be of God. Sect. 22 Quer. Was not John Calvin a most impudent Creature in assuming to himself the Office of Reforming the World being but a Young Man of Twenty five or Twenty six years of Age and without all pretence of Miracles a thing which Christ himself undertook not under Thirty years of Age Answ I think indeed Geneva may pass for the World by the same Figure that the Church of Rome goes for the Catholick Church When the World groans for a Reformation I do not see where lies the Impudence of trying by good Doctrine and Example to Reform that Part of it where one lives unless it lies in being Impudently and Bravely Good which is sometimes necessary to give a check to Impudence in that which is Bad. If he be a Young Man that takes this upon himself he is the more to be commended And if he can fairly carry the Reformation beyond his own Countrey this is still more commendable and if he could Reform the whole World then I say for that which you call Impudence Generations to come ought to rise up to his Name and call it Blessed You ought not I tell you to despise John Calvin's Youth as one of your Great Ones did Luther's Meanness who hearing the Auspurg Confession read said to his Confident That these things indeed were True but it was not to be endured that a pitiful Monk should Reform the World. But if nothing else will satisfie you but it must be Impudence in a Young Man to think of Reforming the place where he lives yet at least do not represent him as a most impudent Creature for as I take it there are a long row of Popes from Formosus downwards who if your own Historians are to be credited shall compare with John Calvin in this point not of Reforming the World but the other and shall get the better of him by much And amongst these there is one John XI Son to Sergius III. one of his Predecessors who was something less modest than John Calvin in as much as being yet but a Boy he took upon himself to be Head of the Catholick Church which our John I dare say would never have accepted any time of his life Indeed the young Pope was thus far to be excused that he was put into the Chair by Merocia who though she was not Sergius's Wife was yet John's Mother For Donna Olympia was not the first of her Quality that swayed all at Rome Sect. 23 Quer. Whether from the Womb of the Reformation have not issued all those Slaughters Rapines Tumults Plundering of Churches Schisms and Civil Wars which broke out in the year 1641. Answ No truly for since the Reformation the Church of England hath lent neither Principles nor Examples nor Counsels nor Arms nor Men nor Money to carry on Rebellions or Rapines The World saw that she stuck by her Royal Master to to the last And if you say that it was her Interest to do so then I hope you will grant that she has at other times given Proof of a higher Principle Nor can you without rubbing your Forehead question the strictness of her Loyalty who begin some of you to laugh at her for it I hope you will not say that the Irish Rebellion which broke the ice for all those Slaughters Rapines c. which you mention to come after it that that issued too from the womb of the Reformation I think this Query had better rest least when the Mother of that Off-spring is agreed upon we should be tempted to inquire who was the Father of it Sect. 24 Quer. Whether Africa produces more variety of Monsters than Britain does Fanaticks where every Man may read and interpret the Scriptures according to his own Judgment of Discretion Answ I know pretty well what Fanaticks Britain has produced but what variety of Monsters Africa produces I cannot well say the surest way to be satisfied is to go thither your self for Authors are not agreed But if by Fanaticks you mean False pretenders to Inspiration you may take your comparison nearer home where 't is as much as a Mans or Womans life is worth to have the Scriptures to read In short Britain has Fanaticks but the British Church does what she can to reclaim them which she thinks ought nor to be tried by setting up an Inquisition for some of 'em and cannot be done by making Saints of others of ' em You understand I suppose and therefore go on Sect. 25 Quer. Whether Queen Elizabeth born of Ann Bolen Queen Catharine yet living can be thought Legitimate Answ Without all Question she can be thought Legitimate for I find that I think so and I know many who say so that do not use to say one thing and think another Sect. 26 Quer. How admirable was the Wisdom of Henry the Eighth by expelling one Pope of Rome to raise up infinite Popes of his own Subjects Answ Not very admirable I confess if it were so for we had even too much of One Pope of Rome before as the Complaints and the Laws of our Ancestors can well witness But how did he raise up infinite Popes of his own Subjects Were there so many Heads of the Catholick Church raised by him in his own Dominions Or did every