time of our late civil warres wherein our Monarchy once subverted we all perished with it and our rights and welfare at such a loss that no man could say that aught he had remaining was his own It must needs be so for the government what ever it be is before the laws and the laws receiv all their strength and vigour from the acknowledged autority of that power from whence they are derived Now that the Christian Church was first monarchicall under one Sovereign Byshop when Christ who founded it was upon earth no man will deny for aristocracy or democracy it could not be sith all his twelve apostles were under him as his disciples and not fellow doctours or legislatours with him nor did he ever pretend to receiv his autority from men but immediately from God above unto whom he was personally united and this autority of his must first be accepted before his word can be believed or his law acknowledged and these must have all their force from that power which according to its firmitude of truth gives them all their life and vigour which remains and dies with it and with the government under which the laws and doctrin began It appears then that all the laws and rules and promises and whole doctrin of Christianity and founded upon the spiritual monarchy of Jesus who was Man-God that he might be both unto human kind a fit and proportioned head as man and uncontroulable independent and infallible as God And hence it must needs follow that the subversion of episcopacy which is the spirituall monarchy in which our Lord founded his Christianity must needs weaken and by degrees utterly destroy all faith for the ruin of the polity is the death of all its laws founded in it Nor will it suffice if an Independent or Presbyterian say that they are still under their head Christ who being in heaven hath his spirituall influences over them I say this suffices not for the true Church of Christ whersoever it is must have the very same head she had at first or else she cannot be the same body and that head was man-God personally present in both his natures with the body of his Church here on earth and although Christ may and does supply the invisible part of his God-head influence upon his mystick body yet a visible head or byshop if the Church hath not now over her as at first she had she is not the same she was and consequently in the way to ruin What then you will say cannot God preserv his Church without the help of man I answer we must not here dispute what God can do but what he will do God can warm the earth and make fruits to grow and us to see without the sun but if he have otherwise ordained we must expect those effects from the caus he hath set and no other wayes And that all truths are to be expected from his Church and from him he hath substituted in his place to govern us as our only visible Pastour is manifestly apparent both by his own law and practise and our experience By his law when he sayes that he who will not hear his Church must be as a publican and reprobate by his practise when he would not have his own supernatural vocation and endowment and light from heaven to suffice St. Paul either to make him a Christian or a Teacher till he had received both from the hands of his Church and pastors by our experience while we see from age to age that all those that withdraw themselves from the Catholick Church and from her chief Byshop and pastour let the occasion be what it will or never so little do run themselves restlesly into endles schisms denying one thing after another still from less to more till at length all Christianity be cancelled and beginning with schisme they end with atheisme all truth unity and peace being to be had onely from and in that one Church which as St. Paul does well and wisely call it Christs Body so is it only animated with his spirit of truth and from the government there appointed which is episcopal and in a special manner from the chief pastour there presiding ruling and directing in place of Jesus Christ unto whom all obey in yielding obeysance unto him in spiritual affairs according to his own order and appointment Nor is there any more certain rule of discerning the approaching ruin of Christianity in any person or people than when we see them either secretly to undermine or openly to oppugn papal autority No pope no byshop no byshop no Church no Church no salvation This being once well pondered as a thing of such weighty concernment deservs we shall begin both to suspect that the first reformers Luther and Calvin who being Priests under that Papal hierarchy flew out against the Church whereof they had been members and furiously cryed down both Pope and all episcopacy were not sent from God and likewise conclude that the counsel of Queen Elizabeth did wisely reassume that ancient form of Church government though it were opposite to the principles of reformation and judgment of all the first reformers becaus it was both most conformable to times of primitive Christianity and in all reason most likely to conserve the land in unity And if we were once by Gods grace freed from preconceived prejudice we should all of us as clearly see and love the beauty of papal doctrin as now some of us allow of papal government nor is there any thing commendable in any reformation but that and only that which it hath in it of Popery And lastly we shall easily discern that the the Presbyterian plea and all its arguments or whatever else they can have to say against episcopacy are of no value and indeed too slight for me to insist upon their solution I had a mind here to decipher the Protestants plea against the Papist but I finde that there cannot be made any one scheme of it as of the Independent and Presbyterians becaus these the first of them speaks so generally of all things that he seldom touches upon any one particular the other so insists upon one particular that he troubles himself with nothing else and a man may know what both of them would have But all these and several other reformations when they set their face against the Roman Catholick go all under the generall name of Protestants and yet speak several and contradictory things one accusing them for that which the other approves And generally they do neglect their doctrin and inveigh against the vices and follies which either they put upon them or are indeed found amongst som people or persons that do profess that faith in France Spain Italy or other parts as pride tyranny drunkennes leachery foolish gambols and usages of Countreys with which Protestant books against popery are lustily stuft up or if they do indeed speak to their doctrin it is either done onely with some
hugely augmented Insomuch that this new clergy made up of fallen priests and votaries fell to writing stifly against their ecclesiastical pastour and the laiety drew themselvs into bodies against their temporal superiours in every place those in Germany against the emperour those in Holland against their King they in France against theirs nay the contagion flew so swiftly about Europe like wild fire in dry stubble that ere King Philip could get into Spain his subjects there were corrupted many of them and hissing hot unto battle but he was a wise prince and well understood the unquiet genius of heresie and therfore took a speedy cours with som for an ensample and terrour to the rest and so preserved his kingdom but the wars in France were long and dangerous those of Germany and Holland hardly yet ended It was almost twelv years before this strang confluence of people could agree together by what name to be owned till a chance gave it them thus There was congregated for the catholick Churches peace a solemn diet at Spire in Germany against which and the articles there agreed upon Luthers new troop made a joint unanimous Protestation appealing from the diet to the emperour although their after comportment shewed that they did indeed no more respect the emperour than his diet upon which general and hearty Protestation of their own they were pleased ever after to call one another Pretestants Yet sooner than they had well agreed in the name they so much disagreed in doctrine ambitious heads as all of them were emulating each one as great a name and fame as Luther had whom they both equalled in renown and place whilst they all remained priests in the catholick Church and now separated injoyed as great fulnes of the spirit as himself that they did not only set up several wayes and sects amongst themselvs but inveighed and wrote bitterly one against another even with more virulency than they had aforetime used against the Church in the beginning of their discession And now there was up and down amongst the Protestants here Osianders church there Stancars there Melanchthons here a body of rigid Lutherans there soft ones here Calvinists enemies to both here Illyricans there Valentine-gentilists here Plenilutherans there Semilutherans there Antilutherans here the disciples of Oecolampadius there of Suinglius c. all which did so eagerly quarrel about the matters of Reformation that a sober man could not have the patience either to hear their sermons or read their books Since that first division of Luther which is now above a hundred years there have been several times both in Germany and other places many great meetings by Protestant divines of all sorts and sides to bring all parties to an union but it could never be effected to this day which is a shrewd sign as Luther spake ingenuously before the duke of Saxony that the concertation was not begun for God nor yet for God shall ever be ended An ambition they have by their very discession and novelties to advance their name and worldly contents being so opposite as it is unto yielding or submission to anothers judgment will both make schisms and maintain them without controul nor can it be expected he should yield to his fellow servant or condisciple who contemns the maister and doctour and chief pastour of Christianity §. 19. Item INto our Kingdom of England this new invented protestancy had found access exceeding difficil if not altogether impossible all our Kings even from the Conquerour to that day being ever most vigilant that no innovation should arise to the endangering as those wise princes apprehended not only the spiritual but politick state under what ever pretens it should begin and the whole land carrying throughout the world so eminent a renown both for their piety and learning and zealous long continued affection to the catholick religion above all other nations when an odde accident set the doors wider open here than either in Germany France or Netherlands for its more free and copious ingress and it was this King Henry the eight a valorous and noble prince who had also set forth a book against Luther and his new coined protestancy for which zealous and Christian act of his the Pope conferred upon him the title of Defensor fidei wherein our Kings glory to this day even this so great a prince stood at that time so vehemently affected unto one of his subjects Anne Bullen that for her he ran himself into a hundred troubles and his whole kingdom into irreparable miseries To the end he might marry with her he endeavoured a divorce from his good wife Queen Catharine with whom he had lived honourably and peaceably twenty years together which with most earnest importunity for six whole years together when he could not obtain of the Pope he renounced him and by the insinuation of some Lutherans who by this time had crept into the land he made himself Pope and head of the Church within the territories of England and so he dispensed with himself and made that divorce by his own autority which the Pope could not do with his and married Anne whom a while after by the same autority he divorced again and cut off as King and Pope both Anne from his bed and Annes head from her shoulders Upon this strang act of the Kings declaring himself head of the Church never before known or heard of since Christianity first entered England for though Kings were ever honoured as nursing fathers of the Church yet head of influence to this mystical body of Christ is onely Jesus himself and head of government under him only that person who first begot us in Christ and in whom all the sacred hierarchy ends I say upon that strang act of his both King Henry and his whole kingdom was overthrown at one blow and laid prostrate under the feet of those men whom he had so gloriously triumphed of late and obtained thereby to the no small ornament of his crown the addition of a new title for now came flocking in out of Germany Geneva and the Netherlands whole swarms of reformers as thick as grashoppers by whom in a small time the Kings countenance being now set against catholicks who could never be brought to like of his divorce the land was so universally corrupted defaced and spoiled that within few years all the goodly monasteries nunneries abbeyes and their Churches were utterly dispeopled pillaged and ruined and millions of people of both sexes a sad sight to behold who had served God night and day in those their angelical retirements cast forth into the wide world to begin a secular worldly life many of them in their feeble old age when all their whole livelihood was taken from them The prey indeed was very great but it proved aurum Tolosanum neither King nor people was ever the richer for it general granaries as the monasteries then were making provision for all children to be born in the land
men for my name but who shall persever unto the end he shall be saved But I hope our countreymen will at length discern their own dangerous mistake and perceiv with me that the Popish Mass which is the old opostolical devotion merits not the hatred and mischief we have either wrought or intended the observers of it in our land Hitherto then I hope we have no reason to hate popery upon the account of their Messach which is indeed the chiefest piece of our division and occasion of the many contumelies we put upon them especially considering that in our own Communion so far as it goes we do but imitate great part of it and that in their very words § 23. B. V. Mary AL Catholiks I could ever see or hear or read of bear a most devout respect to the Virgin MARY whom others care not how they villify and dishonour either by their words or writings and I cannot but dislike this our uncivil carriage to say no wors of it as much as I do approve of their piety Surely that Virgin of whom God would be incarnate and with whom he lived so many years together must needs be a person of strang perfection and worthy of great esteem amongst all such as worship her Son and look upon him indeed as their Redeemer He that loves him that begets saith the good apostle loves him that is begotten and I should think he that worships him that is begotten must needs have some respect for her that bare him The blessed Virgin was her self so confident of this that she was bold to say Ecce enim ex hoo beat am me dicent omnes generationes all generations all nations saith she shall call me Blessed And surely if this be true and in gospel it passes for divine words we that instead of calling her Blessed presume so highly to villify and blaspheme her even in our publick streets for which in catholick countries we should be in danger of being stoned to death by the people show our selvs to be a nation that belongs not to the Magnificat Indeed all here amongst us are not so rude but such as be are neither punished nor questioned for it And what in the name of God hath the Virgin Mary don to us what ill or harm hath she ever wrought us that any English Christian should cast so many gibes and show so much disesteem to that blessed creatur whom the whole catholick world the angels of heaven nay our Lord himself and that great God that made heaven and earth have set in so high a place of honour Will our incivility as it hath no ground or reason admit likewise of no limits It may be feared that the spirit of Luther anisme is some very foul one for it hath moved the professours of it in several places unto most unseemly language and highest disesteem of very thing that is venerable Not only princes and prelates priests and altars shrines and sacrifice byshops and their sacred ordinations the real presence tribunal of our reconciliation and the like but the very saints and angels of heaven nay the most innocent blessed Maid whom the very Turks do honour to this day and that she may not be thought the wors of for that an angel from heaven saluted by the mandate and in the name of him who is primogeneal Life and substantial Truth with the title of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Most beloved and Gratious escape not the lash of our lips and pens And yet this is not all neither Do not I know that the primitive protestants in forreign parts have uttered some openly some more obscurely in their writings many odde words against the very honour of Jesus Christ himself although our more moderate Church of England I am confident hates them for it Did not Calvin taunt at his ignorance and passion and too much haste for his breakfast when he crust the figtree that had not fruit upon it when he sought it if he had studied catholick divines they would have taught him a more modest and pious interpretation than that idle wicked one of his own Did not Michael Servetus that bold apostate Spanish youth speak openly amongst his fellow protestants in Geneva that he wondered that they had raised all their controversies so many as they had against the Church which is named the body of Christ and yet never a one against Christ the head of that body did not Valentine Gentile that unhappy Italian after he had revolted to Calvin take it ill that all the reformed Churches agreed yet with the papists in the beleef of a Trinity and with him sided Matheus Gribaldus Lismanin Francis David and Jacobus Paleologus though this last recanted afterward and returned happily to his catholick faith And who-knows not that Luther Brentius Calvin Suinglius yea and Erasmus too who though he yet remained catholick would be nibling now and then at Arrian and Socinianisme let fly many a secret dart at Christ and the sacred Trinity though they were not yet so bold as to profess openly with som others of their brethren whom they saw to suffer in their repute for it any such opinion till they found the world in a more forward disposition to accept it and all these bent their bowes and fitted their arrowes to the string that if not openly yet at least in the dark and in Lunâ as the prophet phrases it they might shoot and hit every thing that is sacred even Christ himself So true it is that he who loves him that begets loves him that is begotten and he that hates the one does not truly love the other But the penmen of our creed and gospel who made honourable mention of the Virgin Mary were of another spirit than we be that so much dishonour her although for fashion sake we read over those holy penmens words A certain protestant byshop did not many years ago examin a catholick child that stood before him if he could say his prayers the boy replying yes said first his Pater noster after that began his Ave Maria which catholicks use to repeat in memory of Christs incarnation at which words nay quoth the byshop let her alone let her alone we have nothing to do with her The child went on to his Creed and when he came to conceptus est de spiritus sancto natus ex he sodainly stopt and she is here again quoth the child she is here again my Lord what shall I do with her now you may let her pass quoth the byshop in your Creed but not in your prayers As though we might have faith but neither hope nor charity for her But if we seriously consider the spirit of those who wrote either our Gospel or Creed we shall find that of Roman catholicks to have a most near consanguinity with it and loving them we cannot hate these for the respect they bear his virgin Mother whom we all worship §. 24. Images IN all places where
then presume of his knowledg and what motives has he in himself to do so which another wants Be it scriptures prophesies visions light or inward assurance boast of what you pleas all the earth will do the like and with the self-same confidence For let Philosphers speak what they pleas of the certainty of object which som men have over and above the certainty of subject I am not able to conceiv how an objectiv certainty can stand without evidence or how it may consist with that mutability I see to be in the world for men do depart as well from a good religion wherein they would have to be certainty of object as from a bad one wherein they allow only a certainty of subject which is nothing but a personal self-willed resolution in their wayes Since men therefor do thus abound all of them in their own sens haply without sence if a thousand voices may be of force against one single one how does it behoove us if we would be truly wise to walk all our dayes not in disputes and disquietness without end but in humility and fear But som will say all this is nothing to us since Christ our Lord hath revealed to us both God himself and all necessary truths concerning him of all which we may be confident But stay a while and ponder what I have already spoken do not all nations say as much for themselvs What then should we doubt of our faith in Christ no in no wise But I must speak a bold word these very dissentions of ours about that faith in its branches so hot so various so extravagant are apt to inferre a suspicion of it in its very root are not hundreds in our own countrey become atheists already upon that very motiv and these men supposing substantial change once made in religion and deliberately admitted are rather to be commended for their wit than blamed for they do but that sodainly which all the land will will come to by degrees If the Papist or Roman catholick who first brought the news of Christ and his Christianity into the land as all men must needs know that have either heard or read of Christianities ingress into England or other countreys and kingdoms for we do no sooner hear news of Christianity than Popery and his crucifixes monasteries reliques sacrifice and the like I say if the Papist be now becom so odious as we see he is and if the faith he brought and maintained a thousand years together be now rent all asunder by sects and factions which bandy all to the ruin of that mother religion if all her practical truths wherein chiefest piety consists be already abolished as erroneous does not this justify the pagan whom this catholick Christian displaced to make way for his own law And must not this be a certain way and means to introduce atheism which naturally follows that faith once removed even as a carkas succeeds a living body once deceased for one truth denied is a fair way to question another which came by the same hand and this a third till the very autority of the first revealer be at stake which can no more defend himself than he can his law for the same axe and instrument that cut down the branches can cut up the root too and if his reverence for which all the rest was beleeved defend not their truth it must needs at length utterly fail in his own For all the autority they had was purely from him and he falls in them before he falls in himself no man can deny this that shall seriously lay his hand upon his heart and ponder things as he ought And he that once ceases to beleev in Christ whom before he worshipped I am sure he will turn atheist if his wit and reason proceed consequently and beleev nothing A little more to specify my meaning If the institutions of monasteries to the praise and service of God day and night be thought as it hath been now these many years a superstitious folly if Christian Priests and sacrifices be things of high idolatry if the seven sacraments be deemed vain most of them if it suffice to salvation to beleev what ever life we lead if there be no value or merit in good works if Gods laws be impossible to be kept if Christ be not our law maker and directour of doing well as well as redeemer from ill if there be no sacramental tribunal for our reconciliation ordained for us by Christ upon earth if the real body of our Lord be not bequeathed unto his Spous in his last will and testament if there be not under Christ a general head of the Church who is chief Priest and Pastour of all Christians upon earth under God whose Vicegerent he is in spiritual affairs all which things are now held forth by us manifestly against the doctrin of the first preachers of Christianity in this land then say I paganisme was unjustly displaced by these doctrins and atheism must needs succeed for if Christ deceived us upon whom shall we rely and if they that brought us the first news of Christ brought along with it so many grand lyes why may not the very story of Christ himself be thought a Romance And erunt novissima pejora prioribus the latter condition of this land under atheism catholick faith once utterly extirpated must needs be far wors than it was in paganisme before it was planted Far sweeter is that body put case a statue of stone that was never animated than is any carkas of man after the soul is departed And are not we in a wood now who shall lead us out The maze is made greater by the consideration of the multitude of sects now reigning amongst us all which as they do unanimously conspire against that catholick Church they have deserted so do they wrangle now about every thing wherein they first agreed and conspired against her hating and execrating one another even unto war and bloodshed and the utter desolation of our distressed nation Quid est veritas and on whose side is God all this while does he not lie hid and say nothing and leav us wholly to our selvs by a judgment unsearchable in these our affairs even as in other courses of this world i th interim all opinions utter fine words all presume of themselvs all are peremptory and censur not only their neighbours but even the whole earth round about Where is truth here saith one nay not there but here quoth another neither there nor there but here saith a third but so many heres and there 's sounds nothing to a rational man but either every where or no where and which to conclude is impossible for man of himself stedfastly to resolv Here is Christ and there is Christ in the judgment of Christ himself signifies neither here nor there If they say saith our Lord here is Christ or there is Christ do not ye go forth or follow them and
body even as Christs natural body under one spirit and head united and compacted together and that without ceas even so long as that mystick body lasteth upon earth in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi till it receiv its final consummation negatively to prevent schismes and herefies which might otherwise render the Church in her members both contemptuous and liable to continual ruin whiles every particular person left to himself would be carried up and down like children with puffes of novelty blowing several wayes by the cunning subtilty of men pretending new light spirits reasons and such like stratagems in astutia in their knavery and pride of heart to bring people into a circumvention of errour all which inconveniences are avoided by following the guidance of the Church and the Pastours therein appointed over us A general spirit of truth in those that are set over the flock keeps them together and safe whereas particular lights in the sheep that are to be ruled would divide them from their pastour and from one another and division infers destruction Nor could that great Jewish argument be any way warded or put by but by recours to the Churches infallibility which can be no other but what Christ gave her and his own autority and truth revealed by this Church is the utmost foundation that supports the whole fabrick nor can there be any thing further assigned to support it but God with whom it is beleeved to be united for as all material buildings and their connexion are beheld with the eye but their foundation is not seen but is beleeved by the influence it hath in supporting the fabrick which it self is ultimately sustained by the center So may we discern some consequences of the points of religion upon a supposal of a great fundamental truth upon which they all depend as this is that Christ is a true and divine teacher but this cannot be seen or maintained otherwise than by a pure belief yielded unto that Church that first taught him and His truth sustains all his doctrin and the formal fabrick of the Church built upon him and it can be grounded upon nothing but God himself the center of all subsistence and verity This connexion of us to the apostles of the apostles to Christ and Christ to God St. Paul insinuates when he saith to the Christians of Corinth Omnia vestra sunt sive Paulus sive Apollo sive Kephas vos autem Christi Christus autem Dei The Christians might indeed reply to the Jew and say that Christ our Lord was a holy and sacred person divine innocent miraculous and unblamable in his whole life and conversation that he came from heaven by the mission of his eternal father and his own great benignity to plant upon earth an universal catholick Church amongst all nations which in the fulnes of time God was pleased to do whereas Moses had confined his Church by Gods command till that hour of general salvation was come unto the one family of Abraham and that he had received autority from God so to do which not only his own evangelists but even Moses and the prophets sufficiently attest who all do so speak forth the birth and life passion and resurrection of this our great Messias and the glory of his Church amongst the gentiles accordingly as himself promised and it hath now appeared to be and that nothing but rancour and prejudice and the scandal of his humility and the Jews mistake of the Messias his first and second coming did incens them against their own lord when he appeared amongst them who also looked even then for a Messias sodainly to come whom they were to obey and follow and cannot probably being then the onely select people of God ascribe their immense desolations exiles from their own homes and miseries these sixteen hundred years than to the guilt they have contracted upon themselvs by shedding the blood of that sacred person Nor are they to be excused sith all the ancient Rabbies before Christs coming did openly profess throughout all the Hebrew Church that they understood not the end and meaning of Moses law nor ever should till the great Messias came to teach them which was so beaten into their minds that all the Hebrewes beleeved it as appears by the saying of the woman of Samaria When the Messias comes he will teach as all things although through the hatred they bore to Jesus Christ they began after his coming to sing another song This I say and such like words they might reply and prove all by some autority or other but yet whatsoever they could alledge the Jewish Rabbies would give another interpretation to it or if it were their own gospel flatly deny it and so having no other further autority to rely upon but the truth of that Church that stands upon this foundation of Christs divinity there they must rest For there can be no hope either of satisfying a querent or conconvincing an opponent in any point of Christianity unles he will submit to the splendour of Christs autority in his own person and the Church descended from him which I take to be the reason why som of the Jews in Rome when S. Paul laboured so much to perswade Christ out of Moses and the prophets beleeved in him and some did not So then the great resolv of all doubts must be immediately upon the autority of the present Church which derived from the Church foregoing must by several concatenations bring us at length to the autority of Christ which is the root and firmitude and life of all and if this be once acknowledged and firm and firm it cannot otherwaies be than by captivating our wills and understanding to his love and obedience under that notion the Church hath revealed him it must equally support all future generations of Christians be they never so many in any temptation or difficulty that should afterwards happen and the whole Church and all her doctrin built upon it Nor can any at any time pretend rightfully and justly other motive of his beleef than what the apostles had for theirs the first age from the apostles the second age from the first c. and still the foregoing Church does but derive the faith and practise received unto its successour and both must equally stand upon the same foundation of one and the same autority which all generations take by the like resignation and faith-submission unto the worlds end So that he that departs in any age from the waies of the foregoing Church upon what pretence soever it be done of knowledge interiour light reason spirit or other discovery he leavs the foundation on which his faith was built and vertually forsakes Christ and would have had the same argument against him if he had lived in his time for if the Church the visible Church prove not to be even in that particular age a just keeper and deliverer of faith received then was the Church deceived not so
autority which can onely constitute religion so likewise all anticatholicks both Independent Presbyterian and Protestant have the same power and advantage each one against another which any other may pretend against him scripture easy scripture interiour light and spirit whiles none of them will in the interim admit of any living judg nor of the autority of a foregoing Church wherein they found themselvs when they first went out and changed And I have already said and truly said that no man ever yet was impowred even from heaven to go out of the general flock but to have recours unto it nor considering the order God hath set ever can be Nor is there any surer rule of discerning a fals pretension than that of the Apostle Exierunt ex nobis which if it held good in the Church when that apostle was alive it must needs do so unto all generations so long as the Church remains by vertue of him who promised to confirm it and therein his deity must chiefly appear even vnto the consummation of the world And if we consider the first ingress of all these religions we shall find that the catholick faith entred our land first and chased hence our antient paganisme after it had been here existent a thousand years the Protestant went forth out of it the Puritan by and by out of the Protestant not to mention any further subdivision and the catholick religion entered by vertue of her own powerful integrity all the others by force either of Parliament or Sword that Church as she entered peaceably so she remained quietly all the time of her stay in the Kingdom but the others neither stay nor enter without disturbance she hath a rule to go by and a judg to submit unto in all affairs others as they will be their own judg so must the rule speak as they list and no otherwise which manner of proceeding if it have its free cours must needs work much disorder in a kingdom I have often marvelled that these various wayes of religion here in England which multiply without end or any hope of reconciliation have not all this while appealed to the sacred majesty of the King who hath been acknowledged by all the parties to be supreme in all his kingdoms as well in spirituals as temporals and head as well of the Church as State Certainly had this been don and that all had rested upon his verdict as they ought by reason of their own acknowledgment to do much mischief had been prevented But we were so far all of us from doing so that on the contrary first we secretly murmured against both Queen Elizabeth and King James and then broke forth into open hostility against his son Indeed that private swelling of the murmuring waters were an ill boding omen of the vast tempest which followed afterwards in the reign of our good King Charls with so dismal and violent a rage that it both split the ship and drowned our pilot We did not appeal then with submission to his judgment as by our own law and agreement upon our revolt from Popery we ought to have don but forced him imperiously to our own and when in right reason he could not consent unto it we made no conscience to destroy and cut off not so much his head as our own which being a singular unparallel'd piece of insolent cruelty never yet acted before upon earth it will remain an eternal blemish both upon the men and religion too so long as the world lasteth Did we sincerely think our King to be head as well of Church as of State how then durst we subjugate him to our selves in the affairs of both and under pretens of purity of religion oppress him from whom under God all our religion should be derived as the head and sours of it The body may prepare blood and vital spirits to be presented to the head but of these are not made animal spirits till the head receivs and makes them such for the good of the whole and from the head com down all those influences that be fitted and proportioned unto that life which the animal lives So may and ought every kingdom either apart or in Parliament assemblies to propose affairs unto their head but can take none as authentick till he have determined and derived them to us whether civil or spiritual if so be he be head of both resting quiet within our selves both before and after he hath don it for what hand or foot ever questioned the spirits which the head derived it or pretended either to mend or make them But we have by these our proceedings condemned our selves if we do not indeed think him our spiritual head as we profess in words of vise hypocrisie if we do beleev him so of inconsequent madnes But to remove the Pope the King is head with us and to remove the King the people is head and to remove one another each particular person is his own head So arbitrary a thing it is with us to set up and pull down power at our pleasur It would seem very strang to a rational man that the Pope who is in our esteem the worst of men should keep together the people of many kingdoms which as they be not at all subject to him in civil affairs so are they very divers among themselves both in habits manners language lawes and other weighty respects and inclinations in a constant unity of religion from age to age and yet a noble vertuous prudent King should not be able to do so much among his own subjects all of one guarb one law one language for one age together the Pope all the while we beleev to be a fals and onely pretended Head the King an acknowledged and true one This is a greater secret and yet greater too upon this account that if any should fall away from the Popes religion the apostate runs himself into no more danger upon that account than what he willingly brings upon himself the loss of further communion with him and his Church for the Popes excommunication signifies no more and all the Pope can do is but to excommunicate him who before by his own voluntary act put himself out of his communion But the King hath a temporal sword in his hand to take corporal reveng upon rebellion and apostacy and the people subject to him in faith are likewise subject in other temporal respects and by their rebellion against him hazzard their estates and lives I know well enough that Popes are generally as civil and accomplished gentlemen as be in Europe and for the most part very learned yet can I never beleev but that there be others in the Christian world both priests doctours and byshops as learned as the pope himself and as wise too and accomplisht persons in any perfections either natural or moral and yet can none but He hit upon this feat of guiding the Christian flock in unity and peace Nay which yet augments the
himself once to any one opinion here in England he sodainly entertains such a prejudice against all the rest that there is left in him no further place for counsel for all other wayes besides his own are condemned as soon as his own is accepted and he does no sooner think himself sure but all others must in the same time be lost And yet he hath but his own judgment for it neither supported only with the appearances of I know not what spirit or internal light which he and his enjoy and all others want And if a man press him once to further difficulties than himself hath thought on though without the reflection upon them he could never be able to settle any firm judgment about these things in particular one shall soon find that he heeds not any of those things without which the other could not be judiciously concluded nor is able even by the help of that light or spirit of his to satisfy therein either himself or other man which argues plainly that the spirit and light he pretends is nothing but his own private resolution not sufficiently amplified and yet irrationally fixed against all autority and counsel The Christians in antient times especially for the first four hundred years after Christ had many serious and grave disputes with the Jew and pagan which being rational and weighty and about the foundations of Christianity whereon the other articles were built did pusle even the wisest of their clergy to answer but after all the ratiocination ended whether it sufficed or no they still concluded with this one word Credo which the love of Christ had fastned upon them as emperour Julian comonly surnamed the Apostate testifies of them And this although in philosophy and logick it had been a weak answer yet in religion it was the best and only one to be made so that all the burden fell at length upon the autority of Jesus Christ who being both a man and one too that was crucified as a malefactor undertook to send forth religion into the world under the title of a divine Prophet and the onely Son of God almighty maker of heaven and earth which could not but at first make a disturbance both among the Jewes and Gentiles where it should be preached And the great mystery begins here and here it must end for this autority being once admitted from the Church that brings it all other catholick truths will follow by a kind of consequence from the same hands and therefor this autority of his which can never be demonstratively proved unto us that live now but only by vertue of the Church that derives it us Christ must maintain himself by signs and wonders and such signall proofs of his divine providence over his Church from time to time that his deity may somewhat appear in his Churches progres and defence and all other doctrins must be made good by it and the Church that first preached it to us In any age of the Christian Church a Jew might say thus to the Christians then living Your Lord and maister was born a Jew and under the jurisdiction of the high Priests these he opposed and taught a religion contrary to Moses otherwise how coms there to be a faction but how could he justly do it no human power is of force against Gods who spake as you also grant by Moses and the Prophets and divine power it could not be for God is not contrary to himself And although your Lord might say as indeed he did that Moses spake of him as of a Prophet to com greater than himself yet who shall judg that such a thing was meant of his person for since that Prophet is neither specified by his name or characteristicall properties who could say it was he more than any other to come And if there were a greater to com than Moses were surely born a Jew he would being com into the world rather exalt that law to more ample glory than diminish it And if you will further contest that such a Prophet was to abrogate the first law and bring in a new one who shall judge in this case the whole Church of the Hebrews who never dreamed of any such thing or one member thereof who was born a subject to their judgments This is the great oecumenicall difficulty and he that in any age of Christianity could either answer it or find any bullwark to set against it so that it should do no harm would easily either solv or prevent all other difficulties should arise by the same autority by which it was cleared For if Christ were not only a lawfull Teacher but even one that was greater than Moses as Christians beleev him to be and both the one and the other pretended this great work of establishing a Church surely Christ must do it in as great an excellency as Moses and with some advantage the doctrin and disciplin must be as sublime and stated as permanently as his and Christ who wrote no law must so provide notwithstanding that his Church might otherwise have one from him and keep it as uniformly as the Hebrew Church did theirs Wherefore as Moses after he had done all things which belonged to himself to do constituted Aaron and his Successours to be guides rulers overseers and judges of all Controversies that might arise in the tribes about any points of their religion he had written them So must St. Peter and his Successours be inabled by some equall if not more speciall means sith they also were constituted by Christ to govern his flock to captivate all men to the obedience of Christs will otherwise his Church could not go on so uniformly in all ages which uniformity is the glory and indeed the very life and conservation of a Church as that of the Hebrewes did Nor may any body prudently imagin that the Spirit of Jesus in his Church and all the members thereof cooperates in every one immediately unto truth as it does to grace for then why should he constitute doctours and pastours and bishops over us as the good apostle learnedly asserts in his epistle to the Ephesians Ipse de dit quosdam quidem apostolos quosdam autem prophetas alios vero Evangelistas alios autem pastores doctores ad consummationem sanctorum in opus ministerij in aedificationem corporis Christi donec occurramus omnes in unitatem fidei agnitionem filii dei in virum perfectum in mensuram aetatis plenitudinis Christi ut jam non simus parvuli fluctuantes circumferamur omni vento doctrinae in nequit â hominum in astutia ad circumventionem erroris Most excellent pathetical words where we have first the doctrin that pastours are set over us in the Church to guide us then the end of that constitution which he declares first positively then negatively the positive end is a perfect unity of faith which by that means must vegetate and fructify and grow up in one