to ruine c. And by the Counsaile of my Clergy and princes we have ordained Bishops through out the Cities and constituted over them Arch-bishop Boniface the Popes Legate Qui est missus Sancti Petri. Andâ—we have decreed every Yeare to congregate a Synod that in our Presence the Canonicall Decrees and the Rights of the Church may be restored and Christian Religion Reformed And in the Synod of Arles held under the said Emperour they begin the Synod with a solemne prayer for the Emperour The Lord of all things establish in the Conservation of his Faith our Most Serene and religious Lord the Emperour Charles by whose Command wee are here congregated And they conclude the Synod with a submission to him These things which wee judged worthy to be amended wee have briefly noted and decreed them to be presented to our Lord the Emperour beseeching his Clemency that if any thing be here waâ—tinâ— it may be supplied by his Prudence if any thing be amisse it may be amended by his Iudgement if any thing be reasonably taxed it may be perfected by his help through the assistance of the Divine Clemency So the Councell of Toures begin their Synodicall Acts That which was enjoined us by so great a Prince we accomplished in meeting at the time and place appointed Where being congregated wee noted such things by Chapters as needed to be amended according to the Canonicall Rule to be shewed to our most serene Emperour So they conclude their Acts These things wee have ventilated in our Assembly but how our most pious Prince will be pleased to Dispose of them wee his faithfull servants are ready at his beck and pleasure with a willing mind Lastly the Synod called Synodus Cabilonensis in the dayes of the said Emperour beginneth thus Our Lord Iesus Christ assisting us and the most renowned Emperour Charles commanding us c. We have noted out certain Chapters wherein reformation seemed necessary to us which are hereafter inserted to be presented to our said Lord the Emperour and referred to his most sacred Iudgement to be confirmed by his prudeÌ„t examination of those things which wee have reasonably decreed and wherein wee have been defective to be supplied by his Wisdome So they conclude We have ventilated these things in our Assembly but how it shall please our most pions Prince to dispose of them we his fathfull servants with a willing mind are ready at his beck and pleasure One Egge is not liker to another then these Synodicall Representations are to our old English Customes Yet these were Catholick times when Kings convocated Synods of their own Subjects and either confirmed or rejected their Acts as they thought meete for the publick good aud did give the Popes own Legate his power of presiding in them by their Constitutions who joined with the rest in these Synodicall Acts. I proceed to the third Branch of the Popes first usurpation concerning the tying of English Prelates by Oath to a new Allegiance to the Pope No man can serve two supreme Masters where there is a possibility of clashing one with another It is true one is but a Politicall Soveraign and the other pretendeth but a Spirituall Monarchy Yet if this supposed Spirituall Monarch shall challenge either a direct power and Iurisdiction over the Temporall in the exteriour Court as Pope Boniface did Nos nos imperia regna principaâ—us quicquid habere mortales possunt auferre dare posse Wee even Wee have power to take away and give Empires Kingdomes Principalities and what soever morâ—all men are capable of Or challenge an indirect power to dispose of all temporall things in order to spirituall good which is the opinion of Bellarmine and his party Or lastly shall declare those things to be purely spirituall which are truly Politicall as the Patronage of Churches and all Coactive power in the exteriour Court of the Church In all such cases the subject must desert the one or the other and either suffer justly as a Traitour to his Prince or be subjected unjustly to the Censures of the Church and be made as an Heathen or Publicane This is a sad case But this is not all If this poore subject shall be further perswaded that his Spirituall Prince hath Authority to absolve him from all Sinnes Lawes Oaths knowing that his temporall Prince doth challenge no such extravagant power what Emperour or King can have any assurance of the Fidelity of his own naturall subjects It is true a Clerk may sweare allegiance to his King and Canonicall obediente to his Bishop but the cases are not like No Canonicall obedience either is or can be in consistent with true allegiance The law full Canons oblige without an Oath And all that Coactive power which a Bishop hath is derived from the Prince and Subjected to the Prince The question then is not whether a Pastor may enjoine his Flock to abstaine from an unjust oath An oath of allegiance to a naturall Prince is justifiable both before God aÌ„d man Nor yet whether the Clergy have immunities orought to enjoy immunities such as reÌ„der them more capable of serving God alwayes the first Article in our Great Charter of England Let the Churâ—h injoy her Immunities The question is not whether Clergy men transgressing of the Canons ought to be tryed by Canonicall Iudges according to the Canons especially in the first instance For by the Law of England the Delinquent was alwayes allowed the liberty to appeale to Caesar. But the question is whether the Pope by any Act or decree of his can acquit English Subjects or prohibit them to do homage aud sweare Allegiance to their King according to the Ancient Lawes of the Realme because they are Clergymen And can Command them whether the King will or not to take a new Oath never heard of or practised formerly An Oath of Allegiance aud Obedience to himself So it is called expresly in the Edition of Gregory the thirteenth Electo in Archiepiscopum sedes Apostolica Pallium non tradet nisi prius praestet fidelitatis Obedientiae Iuramentum The Apostolicall See will not deliver the Pall to an Archbishop elect unlesse he first take aâ— Oath of Fidelity aud Obedience Wee have seen already how Henry the First was quietly seised aud possessed of the Homage of his Prelates aud their Oaths of and their Oaths of Fidelity and his Predecessors before him So wee have heard Platina confessing that before the Popedome of Paschalis the second the Homage and Feudall Oaths of Bishops were performed to Lay Men that is to Kings not Popes Thus much Eadmerus and Nauclerus and William of Malmesbury and Hoveden and Iorvalensis doe all assure us This agreeth sweetly not onely with the Ancient Law of Feuds from whence they borrowed the name of Investitures but also is confirmed by the decrees of ancient Councels as diverse Toletan Councells and that of Aquisgrane which who so desireth to see may find
legislative power in England was a grosse Vsurpation and was suppressed before it was well formed But they are affraid of the old Rule Breake ice in one place and it will crack in more If they did confesse one Errour they should be suspected of many If their Infallibility was lost all were gone And therefore they resolve to bear it out with head and shoulders and in place of disclaiming a single power to make Ecclesiasticall Lawes and to give them a coactive obligation in exteriour Courts they challenge a power to the Pope some say ordinarily others extraordinarily some say directly other indirectly to make and abrogate Politicall Lawes throughout Christendome against the Will of Soveraign Princes They who seem most moderate and Cautelous among them are bad enough and deserve right well to have their workes inserted into the Rebells Catechisme If a Civill Law be hurtfull to the Soules of Subjects and the Prince will not abrogate it If another Civill Law be healthfull to the Soules of the Subjects and the Temporall Prince will not enact it The Pope as a Spirituall Prince may abrogate the one and establish the other For Civil power is inferiour and consequently subject to Spirituall power And The Ecclesiastick Republâ—ck ought to be perfect and sufficient to atteine its end But the power to dispose of things Temporall is necessary to atteine Spirituall ends And It is not lawfull to chuse an Infidel or Hereticall Prince but it is the same danger or dammage to chuse one who is no Christian and to tolerate one who is no Christian and the determination of the Question whether he be fit to be tolerated or not belongs to the Pope In good time From these premisses wee may well expect a necessary Collusion Who ever see such a Rope of Sand so incoherent to it self and consisting of such Heterogeneous parts composed altogether of mistakes Surely a man may conclude that either nocte pinxit The learned Author painted this Cypresse tree in the night or he hath a pittifull penurious Cause that will afford no better proofes But I hope the quarrel is dead or dying and with it much of that Animosity which it helped to raise in the World At least I must doe my Adversaryes in this cause that right I find them not Guilty of it Let it dye and the memory of it be extinguished for ever and ever Sect. I. Cap. VII So I passe over from the Popes Legislative power to his Iudiciary power Perhaps the Reader may expect to find something here of that great Controversy between Protestants and Papists whether the Pope be the last the highest the infallible Iudge of Controversies of faith with a Councell or without a Councell For my part I doe not find them so well agreed at home who this Iudge is All say it is the Church but in Determining what Church it is they differ as much as they and wee Some say it is the Essentiall Church by reception whatsoever the Vniversall Church receiveth is infallibly true Others â—ay it is the Representative Church that is a Generall councell Others say it is the Virtuall Church that it is the Pope Others say it is the Virtuall Church and the Representative Church together that is the Pope with a Generall Councell Lastly others say it is the Pope with any councell either Generall or Patriarchall or Provinciall or I thinke his College of Cardinalls may serve the turne And concerning his infallibility all men confesse that the Pope may erre in his Iudgement and in his Tenets as he is is a private Doctor but not in his Definitions SecoÌ„dly the most men doe acknowledge that he may erre in his Definitions if he Define alone without some Councell either generall or Particular Thirdly others goe yet higher that the Pope as Pope with a particular Councell may Define erroneously or heretically but not with a Generall Councell Lastly many of them which goe along with others for the Popes Infallibility doe it upon a Condition Si maturus procedat consilium audiat aliorum Pastorum If he proeeed maturely and hear the Counsell of other Pastors Indeed Bellarmine saith that if any man should demand Whether the Pope might erre if he defined rashly Without doubt they would all answer that the Pope could not define rashly But this is meer presumption without any colour of proofe I appeale to every rationall man of what communioÌ„ soever he be whether he who saith The Pope cannot erre if he proceed maturely upon due advise doe presume that the Pope cannot proceed immaturely or without due advise or not rather that he may proceed rashly and without due advise Otherwise the condition was vainly and suâ—eâ—fluously added frustra fit perplura quod fieri potest per pauciora But the truth is wee have nothing concerning this Question nor concerning any Iurisdiction meerly Spirituall in all the Statutes of Henry the eighth They doe all intend Coactive Iurisdiction in the Exteriour Court of the Church Yet although nothing which he saith doth constrain me I will observe my wonted Ingenuity Wee give the Supreme Iudicature of Controversies of Faith to a Generall Councell and the Supreme Power of Spirituall Censures which are Coactive onely in the Court of conscience but if the Soveraign Prince shall approve or confirm the Acts of a generall Councell then they have a Coactive power in the Exteriour Court both Politicall aud Ecclesiasticall There is nothing that wee long after more then a generall Councell rightly called rightly proceeding or in defect of that a free Occidentall Councell as Generall as may be But then wee would have the Bishops to renounce that Oath which hath been obtruded upon them and the Councell to declare it void I. A. Bishop c. will be faithfull to St. Peter and to the Holy Apostolicall Church of Rome and to our Lord Pope Alexander c. I will be an assistent to retein and to defend the Roman Papacy and the Royalties of St. Peter Where this Oath is esteemed Obligatory I doe not see how there can be a Free Councell But I retire my self to that which concerneth our present Question and the Lawes of Henry the eyghth concerning Iudiciary Power in the Exteriour Court of the Church The First Branch of this third Vsurpation s Whether the Bishop of Rome can receive Appeales from England and send for what English Subjects he pleaseth to Rome without the Kings leave The First President and the onely President that we have of any Appeale out of England to Rome for the First thousand yeares after Christ was that of Wilfrid Arch-Bishop of Yorke though to speak the truth that was rather an Equitable then a Legall appeale to the Pope as the onely Bishop of an Apostolicall Church in the west and an honorable arbitrator and a Faithfull Depositary of the Apostolicall Traditions not as a Superiour Iudge For neither were the Adverse Parties summoned to Rome nor any witnesses produced both
Matrimony of Cloysterers from their Vowes of Celibate of all sorts of persons from all Obligations Civill or sacred And whereas no Dispensation ought to be granted without just cause now there is no cause at all inquired after in the Court of Rome but onely the Price This is that which the nine choise Cardinalls laid so close to the conscience of Paul the third How Sacred and Venerable the Authority of the Lawes ought to be how unlawfull and pernicious it is to reape any gaine from the exercise of the Keys They inveigh sadly throughout against dispeÌ„satioÌ„s and among other things that Simoniacall persons were not affraid at Rome first to commit Simony and presently to goe buy an AbsolutioÌ„ and so reteine their Benefice Bina Venena juvant Two grosse Simonies make a title at Rome Thankes to the Popes dispensations But I must contract my discourse to those Dispensations which are intended in the Lawes of Henry the eight that is the power to dispense with English Lawes in the Exteriour Court Let him bindor loose inwardly whom he will whether his Key erre or not we are not concerned Secondly as he is a Prince in his own Territories he that hath power to bind hath power to loose He that hath power to make Lawes hath power to dispense with his own Lawes Lawes are made of Common Events Those benigne Circumstances which happen rarely are left to the dispensative Grace of the Prince Thirdly as he is a Bishop whatsoever dispensative power the ancient Ecclesiasticall Canons or Edicts of Christian Emperours give to the Bishop of Rome within those Territories which were subject to his Iurisdiction by Humane right we do not envy him So he suffer us to enjoy our ancient Privileges and Immunities freed from his encroachments and Vsurpations The Chief ground of the Ancient Ecclesiasticall Canon was Let the Old Customes prevaile A Possession or Prescription of eleven hâ—ndred yeares is a good ward both in Law and Conscience against humane Right and much more against a new pretense of divine right For eleven hundred yeares our Kings and Bishops enjoyed the â—ole dispensative power with all English Lawes Civill and Ecclesiasticall In all which time he is not able to give one Instance of a Papall Dispensation in England nor any shadow of it when the Church was formed Where the Bishops of Rome had no Legislative power no Iudiciary power in the Exteriour Court by necessary consequence they could have no Dispensative power The first reservation of any Case in England to the Censure and absolution of the Pope is supposed to have been that of Albericus the Popes Legate in an English Synod in the yeare 1138. Neque quisquam ei praeter Romanum Pontificem nisi mortis urgente periculo modum paenitenttae finalis injungat Let no man injoyn him the manner of finall Pennance but the Bishop of Rome except in danger of death But long before this indeed from the beginning our own Bishops as the most proper Iudges who lived upon the place and see the nature of the Crime and the degree of the Delinquents Penitence or Impenitence did according to equity relaxe the rigour of Ecclesiasticall Canons as they did all over the Christian world before the Court of Rome had usurped this gainfull Monopoly of Dispensations In the Lawes of Alured alone and in the conjoint Lawes of Alured and Guâ—thrun we see how many sortes of Ecclesiasticall crimes were dispeÌ„sed withall by the sole authority of the King and Church of England and satisfaction made at home to the King and to the Church and to the Party grieved or the Poore without any manner of reference at all to the Court of Rome or to any forrein Dispensation The like we find in the the lawes of some other Saxon Kings There needed no other paenitentiary taxe Dunstan the Arch-Bishop had Excommunicated a great Count He made his Peace at Rome and obteined the Popes Commaund for his restitution to the bosome of the Church Dunstan answered I will obey the Pope willingly when I see him paenitent But it is not Gods will that he should lie in his sinne free from Ecclesiasticall discipline to insuâ—t over us God forbid that I should relinquish the law of Christ for the cause of any mortall man Roman dispensations were not in such Request in those daies The Church of England dispensed with those Nunnes who had fled to their Nunneries not for the love of religioÌ„ but had takeÌ„ the veile upon them meerly for feare of the French and this with the counseile of the King in the daies of Lanfranke and with Queene Maud the wyfe of HeÌ„ry the First in the like case in the daies of Anselme without any suite to Rome for a forreine dispensatioÌ„ There can be nothing more pernicious then where the sacred Name of Law is prostituted to avaricious ends Where Statutes or Canons are made like Pitfals or Traps to catch the Subjects by their purses where profitable faults are cherished for private Advantage by Mercinary Iudges as beggers doe their sores The Roman Rota doth acknowledge such ordinary avaricious Dispensations to be Odious things The Delected Cardinalls make them to be sacrilegious things an unlawfull selling of the power of the Keys Commonly they are called Vulnera Legum The woâ—nds of the Lawes And our Statutes of Provisers doe stile them expresly the undoing and Destruction of the Common Law of the Land The King the Lords Spirituall and Temporall and the whole Common wealth of England complained of this abuse as a mighty Grievance Of the frequent comming among them of this infamous Messenger the Popes Non Obstante that is his Dispensations by which Oaths Customes Writings Grants Statutes Rights Privileges were not onely weakened but exinanited Sometimes these Dispensative Bulls came to legall Tryalls and were condemned By the Law of the Land the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was Visiter of the Vniversity of Oxford Boniface the eyght by his Bull dispeÌ„sed with this law and exeÌ„pted the Vniversity from the Iurisdiction of the Arch-Bishop Whereupon there grew a Controversy and the Bull was decreed voide in Parliament by two succeding Kings as being obtained to the Prejudice of the Crown the weakning of the Lawes and Customes of the Kingdome in favour of Lollards and hereticks and the probable Ruine of the said Vniversity How the Liberties of France and the Lawes and Customes of England doe accord in condemning this Vsurpation wee have seen formerly The power of the Pope is not absolute in France but limitâ—ed and restrained by the Canons of Ancient Councells If it be Limitted and restrained by Ancient Canons then it is not Paramount above the Canons then it is not dispensative to give Non Obstante's to the Canons And the Popes Legate may not execute his Commission before he have promised under his Oath upon his holy Orders that he will not attempt any thing in the exercise of his Legantine power to
is the Keeper of both the Tables and wee say that for the first Table the Bishops ought to be his Interpreters Thirdly as wee question not the Popes legislative or coactive power over his own subjects so we submit to the judgemeÌ„t of the Catholick church whether he ought to have a primacy of order as the successour of S. Peter and as a consequent thereof a right if he would content himself with it to summoÌ„ Councells when and where there are no Christian Soveraignes to doe it and to joyne with other Bishops in making spirituall Lawes or Canons such as the Apostles made and such as the primitive Bishops made before there were christiaÌ„ Emperours But then those Canons are the Lawes of the Church not of the Pope As those Canons in the Acts of the Apostles were the Lawes of the Apostolicall College The Apostles and Elders and Brethren not the Lawes of S. Peter Then their Lawes have no Coactive Obligation to compell Christians in the outward Court of the Church against their Wills or further then they are pleased to submit theÌ„selves All exteriour coactive power is from the Soveraigne Prince and therefore when and where Emperours and Kings are Christians to them it properly belongeth to summon Councells and to confirm their Canons thereby making them become lawes Because Soveraign Princes onely have power to License and Command their Subjects to Assemble to assign fit places for their Assembling to protect them in their Assemblyes and to give a Coactive power to their Lawes without which they may doe their best to drive away Wolves and to oppose Heriticks but it must be with such Armes as Christ had furnished them withall that is persuasions Prayers Teares and at the most seperating them from the Communion of the faithfull and leaving them to the Iudgement of Christ. The Controversy is then about new upstart Papall Lawes either made at Rome such are the decretalls of Gregory the ninth Boniface the eighth Clement the fifth and succeeding Popes Or made in England by Papall Legates as Otho and Othobone Whether the Pope or his Legates have power to make any such Lawes to bind English Subjects and compell them to obey them against their Wills the King of England contradicting it The first time that ever any Canon of the Bishop of Rome or any legislative Legate of his was attempted to be obtruded upon the King or Church of England was eleven hundred yeares after Christ. The first Law was the Law against taking Investitures to Bishopricks from a Lay hand And the first Legate that ever presided in an English Synod was Iohannes Cremensis of both which I have spoken formerly Observe Reader and be astonished if thou hast so much faith to believe it That the Pope should pretend to a legislative power over British and English Subjects by divine right and yet never offer to put it in execution for above eleven hundred yeares It remaineth now to prove evidently that Henry the eighth by his Statute made for that purpose did not take away from the Bishop of Rome any Privilege which he and his Predecessors had held by Inheritance from St. Peter and been peaceably possessed of for fifteen hundred yeares But on the contrary that eleven hundred yeares after St. Peter was dead the Bishops of Rome did first invade the right of the Crown of England to make Lawes for the externall Regiment of the Church which the Predecessors of Henry the eighth had enjoyed peaceably untill the dayes of William Rufus nemine contradicente And that the Kings Lawes were evermore acknowledged to be true Lawes and obligatory to the English Subjects but that the Popes decrees were never esteemed to be binding Lawes in England except they were incorporated in to our Lawes by the King and Church or Kingdome of England Whence it followeth by irrefragable consequence that Henry the eighth was not the Schismatick in this particular but the Pope and those that maintain him or adhere to him in his Vsurpations First for the Kings right to make Lawes not onely concerning the outward RegimeÌ„t of the Church but even coÌ„cerning the Keys of Order and jurisdiction so far as to oblige them who are trusted with that power by the Church to doe their dutyes it is so evident to every one who hath but cast his Eyes upon our English Lawes that to bestow labour on proving it were to bring Owles to Athens Their Lawes are extant made in all Ages concerning faith and good Manners Heresy Holy Orders the Word the Sacraments Bishops Priests Monkes the Privileges and Revenues of Holy Church Marriages Divorces Simony The Pope his SenteÌ„ces his oppressions and usurpations Prohibitions Appeales from Eeclesiasticall judges and generally all things which are of Ecclesiasticall Cognifance and this in those times which are acknowledged by the Romanists themselves to have been Catholick More then this they inhibited the Popes own Legate to attempt to decree any thing contrary to the Kings Crown and dignity And if they approved the decrees of the Popes Legates they confirmed them by their Royall Authority and so incorporated them into the Body of the English Lawes Secondly that the Popes decrees never had the force of Lawes in England without the Confirmation of the King Witnesse the decrees of the Councell of Lateran as they are commonly called but it is as cleare as the day to any one who readeth the eleveÌ„th the six and fortieth and the one and sixtieth Chapters that they were not made by the Councell of Lateran but some time after perhaps not by InnoceÌ„t the third but by some succeeding Pope For the author of them doth distinguish himself expresly from the Councell of Lateran It was well provided in the Councell of Lateran c. But because that statute is not observed in many Churches we confirming the foresaid statute doe adde c. Again It is known to have been prohibited in the councel of Lateran c. But we inhibiting the same moro strongly c. How soever they were the Popes decrees but never were received as Lawes in England as wee see evidently by the third Chapter That the Goods of Clergimen being convicted of Heresy be forfeited to the Church That all Officiers Secular and Ecclesiasticall should take an Oath at their Admission into their Office to their power to purge their Territories from Heresy That if a Temporall Lord did neglect being admonished by the Church to purge his Lands from Heresy he should be excommunicated And if he contemned to satisfy within a yeare the Pope should absolve his Subjects from their Allegiance And by the three and fortieth Chapter That no Ecâ—â—â—siasticall person be compelled to swear allegiance to a Lay man And by the six and fortieth Chapter that Ecclesiasticall persons be free from taxes Wee never had any such Lawes all Goods forfeited in that kind were ever confiscated to the King We never had any such Oaths Every one is to answer for himself We know
at is attested by Fathers by Councells by Leiturgies ancient and modern even by the Leiturgies of the Roman Church it self And this is the undoubted sense of this place of the Councell of Ephesus that no man should dare to offer any other Creed to any person willingâ— to be converted from Paganisme or Iudaisme to Christianity that is to say to be baptised Alwaies upon Palm sunday such of the Catechument as were thought fit to be admiâ—ted into the number of the Faithfull did petition for Baptism the Anniversary time where of did then approach who from their joint petitioning were called competentes and from that day forward had some assigned to expound the Creed unto them whereof they were to make solemn profession at their Baptism as we find by the Homilies of the Fathers upon the Creed made to the Competentes So we keep ourselves to the old faith 〈◊〉 the whole Christian World that is the Creed of the Apostles explicated by the Nicene Constantinopolitan Ephesine and Chalcedonian Fathers the same which was professed by them of old at their Baptisme and is still professed by us at our Baptisme the same wherein all the Christian World and themselves among the rest were Baptised None of us all ever made any profession at our Baptismes of the Vniversality of the Roman Church or of the Soveraign Monarchicall power of the Roman Bishop by divine right or of the Doctrin of Transubstantiation Indulgences Imageworship or the like Wherefore we are resolved to adhere to that faith which hath been professed alwaies everywhere and by all Persons and particularly both by them and us at our Baptisms in which faith and which alone we were made Christians without either diminution or Addition of any new Essentialls This was their faith formerly and this is ours still But he objecteth it is a great Absurdity that thus the Creed defined by the Fathers in the Councell of Nice and the Apostles Creed according to the Bishop are one and the same Creed Have you found out that Yes indeed are they and alwayes have been so reputed in the Church even in the Roman Church it self in their ancient Leiturgies which call the Nicene Creed the Evangelicall Creed the Creed of the Apostles inspired by the Lord instituted by the Apostles and when he groweth older he will be of the same mind I hope by this time he seeth that although I did not cite the Councell of Ephesus in this place and therefore could be no falsifier of it Yet the Councell of Ephesus saith more then I did in every respect I said onely the Councell did forbid but the Councell it self goeth higher that whosoever should dare I said forbid to exact but the Councell itself goeth higher whosoever should dare to compose or publish or offer The Originall word is Prospherein to offer and as it is translated into Latin Qui verò ausi fuerint aut componere fidem alteram aut proferre aut offerre Whosoever shall dare to compose or to utter or to offer another faith or Creed One may compose or publish and not offer one may offer and not exact but whosoever doth exact doth more then offer If the Councell doth forbid any man to compose or publish or offer any other Creed much more doth it forbid them to exact it Thirdly I said to exact any more then the Apostles Creed as it was explicated by the Fathers that is concerning Essentialls of saith but the Councell goeth higher to compose or publish or offer alteram fidem another Creed containing either more or lesse either new Essentialls or new Explications I said onely at our Baptismall profession but the Councell extendeth it further to the reconciliation of Hereticks as well as the Baptism of Pagans and Iewes and generally to all occasions not allowing any man Clergy or Lay to compose or publish any other Creed or form of profession So every way the Councell saith more then I said But he saith there is nothing in the Councell of Baptismall profession except the bare word fidem Well fides in that place signifieth the Creed and that Creed which all Christians did professe at their Baptisme is their Baptismall Profession But that is not all for as fides signifies their Creed or Profession of faith so those other words to any Persons willing to be converted from Paganisme or Iudaisme signiâ—ieth as much as who desire to be Christened or to be Baptised But he saith these words if the proposers of another faith â—e Lay men let them be excommunicated do make it impossible to have relation to Baptism because the Ordinary Minister of Baptisme is a Clergy man If a Sophister should have brought such an Argument in the Schooles he would have been hissed out for his labour Because one part of the Canon hath reference to Lay men therefore no part of it can have reference to Clergy men Iust like this an Aethiopians teeth are white therefore it is impossible that any part of him should be black Whereas the CanoÌ„ saith expresly the Contrary if they be Bishops or Clerkes let them be deposed if LaymeÌ„ Anathematised But this great Censurer himself doth falsify the Councell of Ephesus indeed twice in this one place Once in omitting the word Prospherein to offer Secondly where he saith that Charisius had made a wicked Creed It was not a wicked Creed but a wicked exposition of the Creed which the Councell condemned Depravata Symboli Expositio Which was indeed produced by Charisius but neither made by him nor approved by him but condemned by him as well as by the Councell Observe Reader with what grosse Carelesnesse these great Censurers doe read Authors and utter their fictitious Fancies with as great Confidence He would have called this Forgery in another Sect. I. Cap. XII He saith I charged their whole Church with changing the ancieÌ„t discipline of the Church into a Soveraignty of power above Generall Councells whereas I confesse that it is not their Vniversall Tenet and withall acknowledge that they who give such Exorbitant Privileges to Popes do it with so many Cautions that they signify nothing And then curteously askes me whether this be a matter deserving that Church Vnity should be broken for it I doe easily believe that this is one of his merry Stationers Contradictions What pittifull Cavills doth he bring for just exceptions First I doe not clap it upon their whole Church that is one injury or if I should speake in his language a grosse Falsification but upon the guilty party Secondly I never said that they who change the ancient Government of the Church into a Soveraignty of power do it with so many Cautions but I spake expresly of them who ascribe infallibility and temporall power over Princes to the Pope This is another injury or falsification Thirdly how often must I tell him that we did not disunite our selves from their Church but onely reinfranchise ourselves from their Vsurpations Lastly this party which