as it hath the advantage of Judgment above all Inferiour or privat persons so of Power too to proceed according to that Judgment against the obstinate No other means of restraint had the Ancient Church as was insinuated Sect. 13. of the former book To conclude This Vnappealable and not Infallible Autority as it cannot consist with the main Principle of Romish belief so may it well enough stand with any thing asserted by us and were it stated aright not in the Pope but in every National Church immediately and in a General Councel finally I suppose there needed not be any matter of difference about it And hitherto of Submission of Judgment and Practise to the Definitions and Constitutions of a Church CHAP. II. Of Reformation begun under Hen. 8. advanced under King Edward perfected under Queen Elizabeth and the warrantableness of it THat the English Reformation was not regular and warrantable but carried against the consent of the Bishops of this Land is the usual reproach of the Romanists It was infinuated in the 4. Section of the former book That the Reformation was begun under Hen. and perfected under Q. Elizabeth not without a just National Synod and that in the Reformation under Hen. 8. there was no displacing of Bishops but all was passed by general consent That late Romish Convert as he pretends himself to be that wrote the reproachful Pamphlet Entituled The Obit of Prelatic Protestancie took notice of what I had said and returns the reproach double upon us saying All the Bishops of this Nation were excluded and imprisoned when the Doctors party first decreed the breach so that they had no more a National Synod then Those that could congregate when they pleased as many of their own party and style it a Synod as the Presbyterians did So he pag. 136. We will consider then how the Reformation was begun carried on and perfected which will appear to be so done as the Romanist can have no just cause to reprove nor the Presbyterian or any Sectaries to pretend to the like 1. Reformation begun under Hen. 8. The First Reformation began under Hen. 8. in the ejection of Papal jurisdiction with some superstitious abuses And here I must first say and desire the Reader to take notice that to this first main point of Reformation the ejecting of that forrein Jurisdiction there needed no vote of National Synod or consent of Bishops the King himself being a sufficient and competent Judg in that cause of Vindicating his own Rights upon which that Papal jurisdiction was a plain Usurpation And therefore the like had been often done by Kings of this Realm before Hen. Not without the Vote of a National Synod 8. putting their Subjects under Premunire that did acknowledg such an usurped power or had recourse to Rome in any cause or matter of Jurisdiction But Secondly we can say and that most truly that it was carryed with the general consent of the Bishops of this Land in ful Synod decreeing not a breach but the casting off and renouncing of Papal supremacy upon which the first breach followed and so Saunders calls it Schisma Henricianum King Henries Schisme 2. Now if Romanists will say Those Bishops and the rest of the Clergy assembled in that Synod were of their party because most of the Romish Doctrine was still reteined then let them say that their Party first made the Breach and cease to lay any imputation upon us for it or for doing the like upon greater cause under Queen Elizabeth however their Party or Ours they must confess the first-breach was then made and the Reformation then begun and that by full consent of the Bishops of this Nation in full Synod 3. If again they say as usually it is said by them of the Romish party That Synod was not free the Bishops and the rest being compelled by fear to vote that which they after repented of and retracted under Queen Mary To say nothing of the liberty of Papal Councels where none can speak freely without note of Heresie or danger of Inquisition it is apparent they voted the like again three years after and it is strange that the Passion of Fear should continue so long or that so many learned men should not in 16. years more see their error and retract it till there came a Queen that discovered her self to be of another mind But if they were compelled through fear so to Vote what compelled them so to write and to make good by such forcible Arguments what they had Voted as the most learned of them did what compelled them I say but the Evidence of Truth and if they voluntarily retracted what they Voted in Synod why did they not as voluntarily answer their own Arguments They are yet to be seen and will remain as a clear Evidence of the warrantableness of that Synodicall Vote upon which the first Breach followed 4. Reformation under K Edward Proceed we now to King Edwards Time under whom the Reformation was carried on and the Breach continued And here if we make enquiry how it stood with the Bishops of this Land we find the two Archbishops Bishops at Liberty Cranmer and Holdgate together with Thirlby and divers other Bishops made in King Henries time continuing in their places unmolested all King Edwards reign As for those few who at last were removed viz. Boner Gardiner Heath Day Vessey None of them were imprisoned till the third year of the King except Gardiner and Boner who for some Misdemeanors felt a short restraint from which upon Submission being released they enjoyed their Bishopricks till the end of the Kings third year Neither can I find that any of them during that time was excluded from sitting in Parliament there being indeed no cause for it for They had all taken the Oath of Supremacy to the renouncing of Papal power and Jurisdiction the form of which Oath is set down in Fox his Acts and Monuments They did also generally receive those few injunctions sent out for Reformation as we shall hear presently I find in the first and second Parliaments in King Edwards Time the Lords Spiritual and Temporal sitting and enacting and John Stow gives us a Copy of Stephen Gardiners letter sent out of the Tower in the third year of the King for then he was imprisoned to the Lords of the Councel Sitting in Parliament wherein he sues for his Liberty that he might do his duty in Parliament then sitting being a Member of the same This plainly shews the only hinderance of his sitting there was want of Liberty and that he only of all the Bishops was kept from thence That which Master Fox saith in the beginning of his story of King Edward that several prisons is spoken by Anticipation as other things also there insinuated that were after done throughout the following course of the Kings reign 5. National Synod If now it be asked where is the judgment of a
though derived to us from the Church of Rome appears sufficiently by Bucer Peter Martyr and other Protestants being here in England and assisting our Bishops in the work of Reformation also by the Letters of the chief and best Learned in those Churches Calvin Zanchy c. to our Bishops and to others concerning them whose Testimonies collected by the Bishop of Durham were published in these Times and opposed to our Covenanters and all other Sectaries that attempted the extirpation of Episcopacy as Antichristian 7. As for the sayings which Champny gives us out of Luther Calvin Mornaeus to whom he adds Fulk and Whitaker rejecting and condemning the Romish Ordinations as Antichristian corrupt and unlawful he might remember that elsewhere he tels us of their pleading by them their alledging that Luther Bucer Oecolampad c. were ordained in the Church of Rome c. 4. and 9. and he could not but know that Fulk and Whitaker allowed of Bishops here and were ordained by them But hence he concludes them all to be taken in a contrary tale and put to a miserable shift For ask them saith he Whence came ye who sent you they will tell us they came from the same stock and originall as the Pastors of the Catholic Roman Church did for their first Doctors Luther Bucer Zuinglius were by them ordained Priests ask them again how can they account that to be a lawfull calling which is derived from the Ministers of Antichrist they will not stick to defy those Orders and Ordinations and presently flie to an extraordinary vocation So he c. 9. p. 323. 324. And yet this seeming contradiction is very reconcilable For when they reject the Ordinations received from Romish Bishops as corrupt and Antichristian they do it not simply as if they were Null or none at all but in regard of the additionall abuses especially that great and sacrilegious depravation of giving such a sacrificing power and placing the Priestly function chiefly in it Therefore so far as the Romish Ordinations pretend to give that power with other superadded abuses they are justly condemned and rejected but in as much as they retain withall the words of the Evangelicall commisson Receive the holy Ghost whose sins ye remit c which give the power of the Ministery of reconciliation in the dispensing of the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel they are valid and good and not to be reiterated where they are given 8. By this power of Order received in the Roman Church Luther Zuinglius Oecolamp and others had lawfull calling to preach the Word yea to preach against the very Errors of that Church which considering the condition of that Church and the Errors of it they might do and for any thing I know they did lawfully without transgressing the bounds and limits of submission due to a Church which I endevoured to fix at the beginning of this Treatise 9. Plea of â—extraordinary Vocation Now what is spoken by some of extraordinary Vocation as that implyes a renouncing of Orders received from Rome must not be taken as the generall plea or judgment of those Churches for we heard them pleading Orders received in the Roman Church and Luther wrote very well as Champny cites him chap. 8. against Munster and others that pretended to extraordinary Vocation bidding them prove it by Signs and Miracles Again that extraordinary calling which some in the Reformed Churches have alleged sounds not any new office they pretend to be call'd to but that of Pastors and Teachers and according to the end it was instituted for nor other way of comming to that office but by external vocation from men but it implies some difference from or failing in the ordinary and usual way of ordaining to that office viz. by Bishops for which they plead their case and concernment was extraordinary which rests upon them to demonstrate 10. Hitherto of their judgment in the point from whence we infer that the present Reformed Churches if they follow the judgment of the first Reformers and of the most sober and learned men that have been in them since must allow of our plea of Ordinations by Bishops and those derived from the Church of Rome and Champny must acknowledg an agreement so far between us Now for their Practise not conformable to that Judgment as we cannot approve of it so are we ready to excuse their failing so far as the necessity they plead will bear leaving it to the Romanists desperatly to cut off Nations and People from the Church for failings and wants in such things as do not immediatly touch the very life and being of a Church or of the Members of it 11. Two things in the constitution and continuance of the Church To this purpose there are two things considerable in the constitution and continuance of the Church both necessary though not equally 1. The Doctrine of Faith and Life the due profession of which makes a man a Member of the Visible Catholic Church and the true belief and practise of which makes him a lively Member of the true Symbolical Catholic Church that which we believe in the Creed that which is the true mystical body of Christ 2. The order of Ministery and Government in the Church for bringing of Men to that due profession of Doctrine and so on to be true lively Members of the body of Christ and for holding them in the Unity of faith To this end Pastors and Teachers in whom that Ministery and Government rests are given by our Saviour Eph. 4.11 12 13. 12. Concerning these two things are clear First that although Apostles Prophets Evangelists there mentioned and taken in a stricter sense were only then given and for those Times yet Pastors and Teachers were given to continue to the worlds end The purpose for which he gave them expressed Eph. 4.1 doth imply so much and so doth his Commission given to them As my Father sent me so I send you S. Jo. 20. by vertue whereof they were to send others and so doth his promise given them imply as much I am with you to the end of the world S. Math. 28. Secondly That this giving or sending of Pastors was to be continued by such as our Saviour appointed and his Apostles after him I send you saith he and accordingly they committed this power of sending or ordaining Pastors unto the hands of special men such as Timothy Titus Sylvanus Sosthenes Clemens Epaphroditus c. Whom we find either written to by the Apostle or joyned with him in the inscription of his Epistles to the Churches or honourably mentiond for special labour and care in the affairs of the Church whom Antiquity also witnesseth to have been chief Pastors or Bishops in governing the Churches planted by the Apostles Such also and no other could be the Angels of the Asian Churches written to by S. John or by our Saviour rather 12. The concernment and necessity of 〈◊〉 But as it is clear that the having
as Enemies to the Kings state and not to return under pain of High-Treason so the Sentence ran In like manner they were not long after driven out of the Territories of the Venetian Republic and never since received in To conclude It is not Religion nor the Function nor any ministerial Act belonging to it that is punished in Romish Priests but Treason and Seditious Practises to which Religion Sacraments Ministery of Reconciliation and all that is reputed Holy are made to serve and all this to advance and secure the Papal Usurpation And thus much in answer to Champny's reasonings against our condemning their Orders and yet pleading by them also against our condemning them in one part and admitting them in another 10. Of the indelible Character There remains one Argument more against our pleading Ordinations from them and that is drawn from our Doctrine about the Indelible character which seeing we deny we consequently must hold we receive no Order from them no power to ordaine it being not possible saith he to conceive how a Heretic declared in whom the designation of the Church ceaseth and all lawful use of Order stil hath the power the Act if done is valid but only by reason of the Indelible character remaining in him This Argument he doth not insist on but hints it several times cap. 9. and elsewhere and in courtesie passes it over suffering us to help our selves by the Catholic Doctrine as he saith of the Character when we are put to shew how those of the Church of Rome being faln into Heresie could give us Orders or why the Antient Church received Bishops returning from Heresie and restored them without Ordination To this purpose he 11. Orders not to be reiterated But we can answer them We need not the help of their Doctrine touching the indelible Character of which as they phansy it they can give no solid reason yea we can help them with a better reason why the power of Ordination remains notwithstanding Heresie or other irregularity Their Character as they phansie it to be a Sacramental effect and real quality imprinted upon the soul we have cause to deny but we grant as was above insinuated there remaines in the person such a disposition or habitude to the End or Office he is ordained to which is not by Heresie or Schism so lost or broken off but that stil he hath a power to the work or Ministerial Acts of that office And this if any will call a Character or mark remaining he may Only it is not a Sacramental effect properly a or real quality impressed on the soul as they will have it but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or habitude consisting in respect and relation as Dur. in 4. Distin 4. seems plainly to acknowledg 12. Now if we put them to give a reason of their indelible Character either in Baptisme or Orders they use very poor shifts catching at the word Seal and Sealing where-ever they meet with it as 2 Cor. 1.22 Eph. 1.13 and 4.30 which is most plainly meant of the graces of the spirit and as we see the impertinency so the unreasonableness of it They hold the graces of the spirit which are real infused qualities and do seal indeed may be blotted out or lost yet the supposed Character they would prove by them is indelible Again they set it out rather then prove it by the indelible mark that Circumcision left upon the Person receiving it but here are many impertinencies for Circumcision was a mark in the flesh only and imprinted none upon the soul as the Romanists must hold of the Sacraments of the Old Testament but this mark of theirs is only in the soul and only marks a man out in respect of Gods knowledg who only can look into the Soul Besides that of Circumcision was not indelible but by Art they could recover the praeputium as we read some Apostate Jews did to which device the Apostle relates and gives us the word for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him not become uncircumcised 1 Cor. 7.18 Lastly Women had not that mark in the flesh yet as they were born to God Ezek. 16.20 so they remained his notwithstanding the Idolatry in which their Parents lived and brought them up in and this not by reason of any such Character or stamp set upon them but because of the Covenant of God into which that people were entred and caused a relation that could not wholly be broken off 13. Wel we may help them from hence with a reason of that which so remains of Baptism that it need not be reiterated and that is the entring of Covenant with God a Covenant indeed of Salt as that which is so called 2 Chron. 12. upon which such a relation ariseth as cannot be quite lost as appears by the forenamed place of Ezek. where God speaks to the Idolatrous Israelites the Sons and Daughters thou bearest to me Also we know what is consecrate to holy use may not be alienated Now Baptism is a consecrating a devoting of the party to God and so is Ordination too That according to the general profession and service of a Christian This according to the special vocation or calling of a Minister of the Gospel and in both he that puts his hand to the plough i. e. admitted to be a Disciple generally or specially taken must not look back We may see then a reason why the power received in Ordination remains not because of the designation or deputation of the Church which ceaseth in Hereticks actually broken off from the Unity of the Church and so doth the lawful use of that power so long as they continue in Heresie for the Church intends not to make use or allow of the ministry of such but by vertue of their consecration to God and his service and that in such an office as by our Saviours institution may not be cast off by him that is once admitted into it Thus far in answer to Champneys several Arguments against our Ordinations or the Lawful calling of our Pastors or Bishops in regard of supposed Defects in the Ordainers viz. those of the Church of Rome according to our Doctrine and judgment of them and the Orders given by them Now proceed to his other general Heads Defects in the Ordained or in the Form of Ordination CHAP. VI. Of Archbishop Cranmers Ordination and the pretended defects of it Bigamie and Heresie DOcter Champny examining the Ordination of the Reformed Bishops begins with the Archbishop and Metropolitan Cranmer and it is the work of his 11. Chapter With the Form of his Ordination he quarrels not it being done ritu Romano though with some protestation interposed on Cranmers part but he charges him with these Personal irregularities or Defects Bigamie Heresie Schism So that however by vertue of his Ordination he received the substance and power of the Order yet by reason of those defects in his person he did not receive the Lawful
usurped power and jurisdiction is chiefly sought and aimed at in this Oath appears by the Oaths which all the Bishops under King Henr. 8. and King Edw 6. made in which the first main thing is their renouncing of the Papal Jurisdiction and their swearing never to admit it again within this Land and by the Statutes under Queen Eliz. inforcing this Oath in which the end is expressed wherefore the Oath is required and former Acts concerning the Supremacy revived For repressing the said usurped power 1. Eliz 1. For preservation of the Queens Highness and dignity of this imperial Crown and for avoiding such Hurts Perils dishonours and inconveniences as have befaln to the Queens Noble Progenitors the Kings and Queens of this Realm and to the whole estate thereof by meanes of the Jurisdiction and power of the See of Rome unjustly claimed and usurped within this Land 5. Eliz. 1. 13. Papal Supremacy no cause or point of Faith This therefore being the main point of the Oath as that wherein the Prince is mainly concerned it tels us how their offence arises and what they deserve that by denying this Oath refuse to renounce such forrein Jurisdiction and how the Kings and Queens of this Realm if they could well understand their own power and right and properly judge of it might also understand and judg of what was so contrary to it and be competent judges in this cause of all those that offended against such their known right and power Therefore Champny bending all his forces against the Title of Supremacy attributed to the Queen Princes are competent Iudges in the cause and nothing against the renouncing of Papal jurisdiction hath not by this mistake once touched the main point of the Oath or of their offence who were deprived which if he had considered he would not have taken it for granted as he doth that this cause directly pertained to Faith and Religion Neither can he or any Romanist ever prove that Princes are bound to receive for points of faith what ever Popish Bishops or Priests according to their own and the Popes Interests shall tell them are Points of Faith however prejudicial to their Crowns and Dignities such as is the Papal Jurisdiction with all the branches of Hildebrandine doctrine depending thereupon 14. All those sayings of Emperors and Bishops cited before by Champny were well and piously spoken and may well stand with that knowledg judgment or Supremacy which we attribute to the Prince in and about matters of Faith and Religion as we shall see presently but as to this Papal Supremacy and Jurisdiction which we renounce they speak nothing that may confirm it For had there risen up a Bishop in the dayes of those Pious and Moderat Emperors and made such an Oration as Card Perroun did before all the Estates of France which King James declared against and refuted for the Papal Supremacy or told those Emperors that it belonged not to them to convocate Synods and command Bishops to assemble or to confirm their Decrees but all this and much more belonged to the Bishop of Rome to do to whom their Crowns in order to Spiritual things were subject and Bishops exempt from their Judicature those Emperors would have told such Bishops another tale and not suffered such spiritual persons under pretence of preaching Heaven to win upon them in the Earth as the Pope hath done for divers Ages upon Christian Princes or under shew of teaching the Faith to disoblige their Subjects from their fidelity as Pope Paul V. did by his Breve against the Oath of Allegiance 15. Second mistake is of what we attribute to the Prince The second mistake is in that which by this Oath of Supremacy is attributed to the Prince as if by this Supreme power in Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall things He were made Supreme Judg of Faith decider of all controversies thereunto belonging and might ordain what he thought fit in matters of Religion This mistaken sense of the Kings Supremacy was first broached in Germany by the cunning of Stephen Gardiner who being there among the Protestants and chalenged by them for the Six Articles to decline the Odium of them from himself upon the Regal Supremacy told them the King might Ordain so and what he thought fit being Supreme Head of the Church Calvin speaks of this upon Amos 7. as Bishop Bilson in his book of Subjection hath noted and it is clear that all which he or Kemnitius or others cited above by Champny spoke against that Title of Supreme Head they spoke it against that mistaken sense 16. Expressions of the Supremacy attributed at first very large But that we may better understand what is indeed attributed to the Soveraign Prince look we first to the Statutes which declare this Supremacy where we finde the expressions very large and general Seeing all Autority and Jurisdiction is derived from the Kings Highness as Supreme Head and so acknowledged by the Clergy of this Realm 1. Edw. 6. cap. 2. Also Jurisdiction for Visitation of the Ecclesiastical State and Persons and for Reformation and correction of the same and of all manner of errors Heresies Schismes 1. Eliz. 1. Now see what hath been declared for the explaining and bounding this Supremacy The Queen upon knowledge of offence taken at the Title of Supreme Head of the Church waved it Explication of the former Attributions as was said above and declared in Her Admonition annexed to her Injunctions that nothing else was challenged by that Supremacy but to have a Soveraignty and Rule under God over all Persons born within her Realms of what Estate soever Ecclesiastical or Temporal so as no other forrein power shall or ought to have Superiority over them and that nothing else was is or shall be intended by the Oath So Article 37. of our Church is thus declared We give to our Princes that Prerogative which we see in Scripture alwayes given to all godly Princes by God himself to rule all states and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and to restrain with the Sword all stubborn and evil doers So then we see by these Declarations what is meant by this Supremacy viz. a Soveraignty over all persons estates though Ecclesiastical to rule them c. If it be said the Supremacy is not only over all Persons but also in all Causes and Things Ecclesiastical we bound this latter by the former saying that Kings have and necessarily must have a Supreme power in and about Causes and things Ecclesiastical so far as is necessary to the ruling all Persons of what estate soever moving and commanding them to act according to their several stations and offices for the service of God and his Church keeping them to their known duty and as occasion may require punishing them for transgressing against it 17. In Causes Ecclesiastical In causes Ecclesiastical which are of suit and instance and