Cardinals did not know at that time how to give a reasonable answer Wherein he pleads that his Ancestors had granted free elections ad rogatum instantiam dictae sedis upon the earnest entreaty of the See of Rome which now they endeavoured to usurpe and seize upon who made himself in Parliament the Judge of all the grievances which the Kingdome sustained from the Pope who made expresse Lawes against the oppressions of the Roman Court declaring publickly That it was his duty and that he was bound by his oath to make remedies against them This was more then twenty such complements as this which is most true in a right sense That it was but a complement appeareth evidently by this The question was about Edward the thirds right to the Crown of France and his confederation with Lewis of Bavaria these were no Ecclesiasticall matters the King sent his Ambassadors to the Pope to treat with him about his right to the Crown of France But notwithstanding his supereminent judgment he gave them in charge to treat with the Pope not as a Iudge but as a private person and a common friend not in form nor in figure of judgement He attributeth no more to the Pope then to another man according to the reasons which he shall produce His own words are these parati semper nedum a vestro sancto cunctis presidente judicio imo a quolibet alio de veritate contrarii si quis eam noverit humiliter informari qui sponte rationi subjicimur aliam datam nobis intelligi veritatem cum plena humili gratitudine complectemur Being ready alwaies humbly to be informed of the truth of the contrary if any man know it not only from your holy judgement being placed in dignity before all or as it is in another place before every Creature but from any other And we who are subject to reason of our own accord will embrace the truth with humility and thankfulnesse when it is made known unto us This was Edward the thirds resolution to submit to reason and the evidence of the truth from whomsoever it proceeded Yet though the case was meerly Civil and not at all of Ecclesiasticall cognizance and though Edward the third did not would not trust the Pope with it as a Judge but as an indifferent Friend yet he gives him good words That his judgement was placed in dignity above all Creatures which to deny was to allow of Heresie Why doe we hear words when we see Deeds The former Popes had excommunicated Lewis of Bavaria and all who should acknowledge him to be Emperor Neverthelesse Edward the third contracted a firm league with him and moreover became his Lieutenant in the Empire Pope Benedict takes notice of it writes to King Edward about it intimates the decrees of his predecessors against Lewis of Bavaria and his adherents signifying that the Emperor was deprived and could not make a Lieutenant The King gives fair words in generall but notwithstanding all that the Pope could doe to the contrary proceeds renews his league with the Emperor and his Commission for the Lieutenancy and trusted more to his own judgement then co the supereminent judgement of the Pope So he draws to a conclusion of this Chapter and though he have proved nothing in the world yet he askes What greater power did ever Pope challenge then here is professed Even all the power that is in controversie between us and them He challenged the politicall headship of the English Church under pretence of an Ecclesiasticall Monarchy He challenged a Legislative power in Ecclesiasticall causes He challenged a Dispensative power above the Lawes against the Lawes of the Church whensoever wheresoever over whomsoever He challenged liberty to send Legates and hold legantine Courts in England without licence He challenged the right of receiving the last Appeals of the Kings Subjects He challenged the Patronage of the English Church and investitures of Bishops with power to impose a new Oath upon them contrary to their Oath of Allegiance He challenged the first Fruits and Tenths of Ecclesiasticall livings and a power to impose upon them what pensions or other burthens he pleased He challenged the Goods of Clergy-men dying intestate c. All which are expresly contrary to the fundamentall Lawes and Customes of England He confesseth That it is Lawfull to resist the Pope invading either the Bodies or the Souls of men or troubling the Common-wealth or indeavoring to destroy the Church I aske no more Yea forsooth saith he if I may be judge what doth invade the Soul No I confesse I am no fit Judge No more is he The main question is who shall be Judge what are the Liberties and Immunities of a nationall Church and what are the grievances which they sustain from the Court of Rome Is it equall that the Court of Rome themselves should be the Judges Who are the persons that doe the wrong Nothing can be more absurd In vain is any mans sentence expected against himself The most proper and the highest judicature upon Earth in this case is a generall Councell as it was in the case of the Cyprian Bishops and their pretended Patriarch And untill that remedy can be had it is lawfull and behooveth every Kingdome or nationall Church who know best their own rights and have the most feeling where their Shoe wrings them to be their own Judges I mean only by a judgment of discretion to preserve their own rights inviolated and their persons free from wrong sub moderamine inculpatae tutelae And especially Sovereign Princes are bound both by their Office and by their Oaths to provide for the security and indemnity of their Subjects as all Roman Catholicks Princes doe when they have occasion And here he fals the third time upon his former Theme that in things instituted by God the abuse doth not take away the use Which we doe willingly acknowledge and say with Saint Austine Neque enim si peccavit Cecilianus ideo haereditatem suam perdidit Christus sceleratae impudentiae est propter crimina hominis quae orbi terrarum non possis ostendere communionem orbis terrarum velle damnare Neither if Cecilian offended did Christ therefore lose his inheritance And it is wicked impudence for the crimes of a man which thou canst not shew to the World to be willing to condemn the communion of the World But neither was that authority of the Bishop of Rome which we have rejected either of Divine or Apostolicall institution Nor have we rejected it for the personall faults of some Popes but because it was faulty in it self Nor have we separated our selves from the conjoyned communion of the Christian World in any thing I wish the Romanists were no more guilty thereof then we Of King Henries exemption of himself from all spirituall jurisdiction we have spoken formerly in this very Chapter CAAP. 5. THe scope of my fifth Chapter was to
kept their ancient bounds But now when the State of the Empire is altogether changed the Provinces confounded and the Dominions divided among lesser Kings who are sometimes in hostility one with another and the Subjects of one Prince cannot freely nor securely repair for Justice into the Dominions of a forrein Prince without prejudice to themselves and danger to their native Country It is very meet that the Subjects of every Soveraign Prince should have finall Justice within the Dominions of their own Soveraign as well in Ecclesiasticall causes as Politicall And this is agreeable with the fundamentall Lawes and Customes of England which neither permit a Subject in such cases to goe out of the Kingdome nor any forrein Commissioner to enter into the Kingdome without the Kings license Upon this ground the Bishops of Scotland were freed from their obedience to the Primate of York and the Bishops of Muscovia from the Patriarch of Constantinople But saith he That which is for the benefit of the Kingdome may be contrary to the good of the Church and should we prefer a Kingdome before the Church the Body before the Soul Earth before Heaven I answer that gain and losse advantage and disadvantage ought not to be weighed or esteemed from the consideration of one or two circumstances or emergents All charges damages and reprises must first be cast up and deducted before one can give a right estimate of benefit or losse If a Merchant doe reckon only the price which his commodity cost him beyond Sea without accounting Customes Freight and other charges he will soon perish his Pack If the benefit be only temporall and the losse Spirituall as to gain Gold and lose Faith which is more precious then Gold that perisheth it is no benefit but losse What should it advantage a man to gain the whole World and lose his own Soul The English Church and the English Kingdome are one and the same Society of men differing not really but rationally one from another in respect of some distinct relations As the Vine and the Elm that susteins it they florish together and decay together Bonum ex singulis circumstantiis that which is truely good for the Kingdome of England cannot be ill for the Church of England and that which is truely good for the English Church cannot be ill for the English Kingdome We may in reason distinguish between Alexanders friend who studies to please him and the Kings friend who gives him good advise The one is a friend to his person the other to his office But in truth whilest Alexander is King and the person and office are united he that is a true friend to Alexander is no enemy to the King and he who is a true friend to the King is no foe to Alexander Indeed if by the Church he understand the Court of Rome then that which was good for the Kingdome of England was prejudiciall to the Church in point of temporall profit But seeing as he confesseth The Soul is to be preferred before the Body it turns to their greater advantage by lessening the account of their extortions He addeth That a Kingdome is but a part of the Church and it is not in the power of any part only for its particular profit to alter what is instituted by the universall Church for her universall good no more then it is in the power of a part of the Kingdome as one Shire or Province to alter for its private inâ—erest what hath been decreed by Parliament for the good of the Kingdome His instance of a Shire or a Province is altogether impertinent for no particular Shire or Province in England hath Legislative authority at all as the Kingdome hath But particular Corporations being invested with power from the Crown to make Ordinances for the more commodious government of themselves may make and doe make ordinarily by Lawes and Ordinances not contra against the Acts of Parliament but praeter besides the Acts of Parliament And let him goe but a little out of the Kingdome of England as suppose into the Isle of Man or into Ireland though they be branches of the English Empire yet he shall finde that they have distinct Parliaments which with the concurrence of the King have ever heretofore enjoyed a power to make Lawes for themselves contrary to the Lawes of the English Parliament But we are so far from seeking to abrogate or to alter any institution of the universall Church or its representative a generall Councell in this case that on the contrary we crave the benefit of their Decrees and submit all our differences to their decision No generall Councell did ever give to the See of Rome Jurisdiction over Britain And though they had yet the state of things being quite changed it were no disobedience to vary from them in circumstances whilest we persist in their grounds To make my word good I will suppose the case to have been quite otherwise then it was That Protestants had made the separation That they had had no ancient Laws for presidents That the Britannick Churches had not enjoyed the Cyprian priviledge for the first six hundred years Yea I will suppose for the present That our Primates were no Primates or Patriarchs And that the Britannick Churches had been subjected to the Bishop of Rome by generall Councells Yet all this supposed upon the great mutation of the state of the Empire and the great variation of affairs since that time it had been very lawfull for the King and Church of England to substract their obedience from the Bishops of Rome though they had not quitted their Patriarchate and to have erected a new Primate at home among themselves Provided that what I write only upon supposition he doe not hereafter allege as spoken by way of concession We have seen formerly in this chapter that the establishment of Primates or Patriarchs and Metropolitans in such and such Sees was meerly to comply and conforme themselves to the Edicts and civill constitutions of Sovereign Princes for the ease and advantage of Christians and to avoid confusion and clashing of Jurisdiction That where there was a civill Exarch and Protarch established by the Emperour there should be an ecclesiasticall Primate or Patriarch And where a Citie was honoured with the name and priviledge of a Metropolis or mother Citie there should be a Metropolitan Bishop The practise of Bishops could not multiply these dignities but the Edicts of Emperors could And this was in a time when the Emperors were Pagans and Infidells Afterwards when the Emperours were become Christians if they newly founded or newly dignified an Imperiall Citie or a Metropolis they gave the Bishop thereof a proportionable ecclesiasticall preheminence at their good pleasure Either with a Councell as the Councels of Constantinople and Chalcedon with the consent and confirmation of Theodosius and Martian Emperours did advance the Bishop of Constantinople from being a mean Suffragan under the Metropolitan of
case they make themselves Judges of the difference between them and the Court of Rome as whether the Pope have invaded their priviledges or usurped more Authority then is due unto him or in contemning his censures which the Councell of Towers doth expresly allow them to doe and judging whether the Popes Key have erred or not Yeeld thus much and the question is at an end That sovereign Princes within their own Dominions are the last Judges of their own Liberties and of papall oppressions and usurpations and the validity or invalidity of the Popes censures There is one thing more in this discourse in this place which I may not omit That Papall Authority is instituted immediately by God but not Regall Cujus contrarium verum est He was once or seemed to be of another minde For of almighty God his meer bounty and great grace they Kings receive and hold their Diadems and Princely Scepters Saint Paul saâ—th expresly speaking of civill Powers The Powers that be are ordeined of God and whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation The eternall Wisdome of the Father hath said By me Kings reign and Princes decree Iustice. If they be ordeined by God and reign by God then they are instituted by God Therefore they are justly stiled the living Images of God that saveth all things He who said by me Kings reign never said by me Popes reign Kings may inherit by the Law of man or be elected by the Suffrages of men But the Regall Office and Regall Power is immediately from God No man can give that which he himself hath not The People have not power of Life and Death That must come from God By the Law of nature Fathers of Families were Princes and when Fathers of Families did conjoyn their power to make one Father of a Country to whom doth he owe his power but to God from whom Fathers of Families had their power by the Law of nature As for the Pope he derives his Episcopall power from Christ his Patriarchall power from the Church and Monarchicall power from himself After this in the vindication I descended to severall new considerations as namely the power of Princes to reform new Canons by the old Canons of the Fathers the subjection of Patriarchall power to Imperiall which I shewed by a signall example of Pope Gregory who obeied the command of Mauritius the Emperor though he did not take it to be pleasing to Almighty God the erection of new Patriarchates by Emperors and the translation of primacies by our Kings And so I proceeded to the grounds of their separation first the intolerable rapine and extortions of the Roman Court in England Secondly their unjust usurpations of the undoubted rights of all orders of men and particularly how they made our Kings to be their vassals and the Succession to the Crown arbitrary at their pleasures Thirdly because our Ancestors found by experience that such forrein jurisdiction was destructive to the right ends of Ecclesiasticall discipline Fourthly sundry other inconveniences to have been dayly subject to the imposition of new Articles of Faith to be exposed to manifest perill of Idolatry to have forsaken the Communion of three parts of Christendome to have approved the Popes rebellion against generall Councels and to have their Bishops swear to maintain him in his rebellious usurpations Lastly the priviledge of the Britannick Churches the Popes disclaiming all his Patriarchall authority and their challenging of all this by Divâ—ne right which made their sufferings irremediable from Rome Lastly I shewed that our Ancestors from time to time had made more addresses to Rome for remedy then either in duty or in prudence they ought to have done All this he passeth by in silence as if it did not concern the cause at all Only he repeats his former distinction between the Pope the Papacy and the Roman Church which hath been so often confuted already and blameth Protestants for revolting from the Roman Church for the faults of some few Popes As if all these things which are mentioned here and set down at large in the vindication were but some infirmitives or some petty faults of some few Popes I have shewed him clearly that the most of our grounds are not the faults of the Popes but the faults of the Papacy it self And as for forsaking the Church of Rome he doth us wrong I shewed him out of our Canons in this very place that we have not forsaken it but only left their Communion in some points wherein they had left their Ancestors we are ready to acknowledge it as a Sister to the Britannick Church a Mother to the Saxon Church but as a Lady or Mistrisse to no Church Afterwards he descendth to two of the grounds of our Reformation to shew that they were insufficient The new Creed of Pius the 4 th and the withholding the Cup from the Laity Two of two and twenty make but a mean induction He may if he please see throughout this Treatise that we had other grounds bâ—sides these Yet I confesse that in his choise he hath swerved from the rules of prudence and hath not sought to leap over the Hedge where it was lowest First saith he The new Creed could not be the cause of the separation because the separation was made before the Creed He saith true if it had been only the reduction of these new mysteries into the form of a Creed that did offend us But he knoweth right well that these very points which Pius the 4 th comprehended in a new Symball or Creed were obtruded upon us before by his predecess ors as necessary Articles of the Roman Faith and required as necessary conditions of their Communion So as we must either receive these or utterly lose them This is the only difference that Pius the 4 th dealt in grosse his predecessors by retaile They fashioned the severall rods and he bound them up into a bundle He saith That the new Creed is nothing but certain points of Catholick Faith proposed to be sworn of some Ecclesiasticall Catholick persons as the 39 Articles were in the Protestants new Creed proposed by them to Ministers Pius the 4 th did not only injoyn all Ecclesiasticks Seculars and Regulars to swear to his new Creed but he imposed it upon all Christians as veram fidem Catholicam extra quam nemo salvus esse potest they are the very words of the Bull as the true Catholick Faith without believing of which no man can be saved This is a greater Obligation then an Oath and as much as the Apostles did impose for the reception of the Apostolicall Creed We doe not hold our 39 Articles to be such necessary truths extra quam non est salus without which there is no Salvation nor injoin Ecclesiastick persons to swear unto them but only to subscribe them as theologicall
Consciences then of Papists in those dayes throughout the whole Kingdome of England In the Citie of London alone we finde an hundred and twenty Pastors of Parish Churches whereof fourty were Doctors in Theologie turned out of their Benefices and homes plundred imprisoned and many of them dead under the burthen of their grievous pressures besides all the numerous Dignitaries Prebends and inferior Clergy men belonging to the Cathedrall Church of St. Paul and the Collegiate Church of St. Peter and their respective Quires I could say more touching your Romish Confessors at that time That they refused the Oath of Supremacy more out of compact then Conscience hoping by their unanimity and for fear of wanting means of ordination to necessitate the State to continue them all But when they see how miserably they were deceived and their Churches filled with such as were returned from banishment of whom they dreamed not conjurationis eos poenituit they repented of their foolish plot And when it was too late multi ad Iudices recurrunt contumaciam agnoscunt ac petunt sibi contra pontificem jurare licere many of them run to the Iudges confessed their obstinacy and desired leave to take the Oath as they had done in King Henries dayes But let the faith of this rest upon the Author To my third Argument he giveth no answer in his Survey but what was taken away in the vindication before it was made The sum of my Argument was this That Court which rebelleth against the highest tribunall of the Church assumeth a sovereign Power over it to it self is schismaticall but the Court of Rome rebelleth against the supreme Tribunall or Judicatory of the Militant Church that is the Representative Church or a general Councel The Reader will excuse me if I doe sometimes complicate two or three medios terminos together for brevity sake His first exception is That whereas I should prove that the Papacy is the cause of Schism I doe seek to prove that the Papacy is Schism To say the Papacy is Schism is non sense I hope I may have leave to write common sense But I did say and I doe say that the Court of Rome is in Schism or Schismaticall To say it is in Schism and to say it is the cause of Schism is the same thing for it is not the separation but the cause that makes the Schism They who give just cause of separation are Schismaticall and they who take it are innocent Secondly he demandeth how the Papacy as it is now maintained by many could be a sufficient ground of separation to the Protestants especially of separation from the whole Roman Church I answer very well because it was then and two or three ages before that maintained in the same manner or rather an higher degree by the Court of Rome and some others of the Roman Church though not so many as at this day Our separation from the Court of Rome is totall and absolute because we know no legall Subjection which we owe to the Court of Rome But I know no such absolute separation on our parts from the Church of Rome but only a difference from them in their erroneous Opinions and a forbearance to practise some other things which are made by them conditions of their externall Communion wherein we cannot joyn with them with a good conscience The making of their errors to be essentialls and necessary conditions of Catholick Communion makes the breach appear greater then it is That this is clearly the sense of our Church I have shewed out of the thirtieth Canon So he comes to his main answer That to rebell against a complete generall Councell joyned with the Pope as Head thereof is gross Schism But not to resist an incomplete generall Councell without the Pope This answer is sufficiently confuted in the vindication first by the authority of Saint Gregory who makes it to be schismaticall in the Pope to challenge such an universall headship of Power Secondly by the Popes own Laws and by their professions of obedience to the Canons Thirdly by the Appeales made by Princes and Prelates and Universities from the Popes to generall Councells And lastly by the express Decrees of the Councells of Constance and Basile in the point To which I adde that those very Decrees of generall Councells which have been not only not ratified but opposed by the Popes have nevertheless been evermore received and obeyed as Lawes in the Catholick Church for the authority of the Councell As the Decree of the Councell of Chalcedon for equalling the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Patriarch of Rome was protested against by the Popes Legates in the name and on the behalf of their Master and yet was ever held and practised as an authentick Rule by the Catholick Church and reverenced by Saint Gregory as a part of the Gospell Iustinian the Emperor called the fifth generall Councell at which Vigilius the then Pope refused to be present or to give any consent unto it for which his frowardness he was banished by the Emperor This in R. C. his judgement was an incomplete generall Councell Yet in all succeeding ages and by the Popes themselves it was honored and esteemed as a true general Councell I confess a generall Councell was not held complete in the primitive times when such an assembly might be had without the presence of the five Protopatriarchs by themselves or their Deputies But to think that any one of these either the Roman Patriarch or any other had an Headship of Power over the Councell or a negative voice against the Councell is a most groundless fancy whereof we finde not the least footstep in all antiquity And therefore R. C. might well have forborn his comparison of King and Parliament as altogether impertinent The King was confessedly an Head of Power over the Parliament so was not the Pope over a generall Councell The King had evermore a negative voice in Parliament so had the Pope never in a generall Councell When the Parliament had made up their Billes they preferred them alwaies to the King by way of petition but the Bishops in a generall Councell by way of definition Ego A. definiens subscripsi In a generall Councell the President who is no more then a Prolocutor or Speaker in Parliament makes his last address to the body of the Councell in this sort placet aut non placet doth it please you or not But in Parliament after the Members have voted content or not content the last address must be to the King and he is free to say the King will have it or the King will advise If a generall Councell have not the Rites and Priviledges of a generall Councell unless the Pope be present as the Head thereof and concurre with it to what purpose were those questions so canvased in the Western Church whether a generall Councell be above the Pope and whether a generall Councell can depose
the Councel That there was no fear so long as none but Italians were in Trent and ingageth himself to secure it The grievances which they complained of were done in Germany the redress which they sough was in Germany Germany not Italy had been the proper place for the Councel R. C. proceedeth the Protestants were the first accusers of the Pope It may be so but not in a legall or judiciary way He confesseth That in doubtfull cases there ought to be four distinct persons the accuser the witness the person accused and the Iudge but not in notorious rebellion in which case there needs neither witness nor accuser And doth not this merit the reputation of a doubtfull case wherein so great a part of the occidental Church are ingaged who are ready to prove evidently that he who is their accuser and usurps the office of their Judge is the notorious Rebell himself I confess that in some cases the notority of the fact may supply the defect of witnesses but that must evermore be in cases formerly defined by the Law to be Rebellion or Heresie or the like The Popes Rebellion hath been already condeâ—â—ed in the Councel of Constance and his heretical maintaining of it in the Councel of Basile But the Protestants renouncing of his usurped authority hath never yet been lawfully defined to be either the one or the other Yet he saith The Protestants were condemned not only by the Councel of Trent but by the Patriarch of Constantinople to whom they appealed One that readeth this and knoweth not otherwise would beleeve that the Protestants in general had appealed from the Councel of Trent and were juridically condemned by the Patriarch of Constantinople Who gave the Appellants procuration to appeal in the name of the Protestants in general Who gave the Patriarch of Constantinople power to receive the Appeal Where is the condemnation Is the English Church included therein No such thing The case was this One or two forrein particular Protestants made a representation to the Patriarch of Constantinople of some controversies then on foot between the Church of Rome and them And he delivered his opinion it should seem as R. C. conceiveth more to the advantage of the Romanists thâ—n of the Protestants This he calleth an Appeal and a condemnation I crave pardon of the Reader if I doe not in present give him a punctual and particular account of the Patriarchs answer It is thirty years since I see it Neither doe I know how to procure it Thus farre I will charge my memorie that the questions were ill chosen and worse stated and the Patriarchs answer much more to the prejudice of the Church of Rome then of the Church of England The right stating of the question is all in all When the Church of England have any occasion to make their addresses that way they will make them more apposite more to the purpose But since he hath appealed to the Patriarch of Constantinople to the Patriarch of Constantinople let him goe I mean Cyrillus since the time of Hieremy whom that learned Gentleman Sir Thomas Roe then Ambassador for our late King at Constantinople had better informed of the true state and belief of the English Church He published a Treatise of his own much about the year 1630 which he called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or a confession of the Christian Faith so conformable to the grounds of the Church of England that it might seem rather to have been written by the Primate of Canterbury then by the Patriarch of Constantinople I will cull out a few flowers and make a posie for him to let him see whether the Patriarchs of Constantinople doe condemn the Church of England or the Church of Rome In the second Chapter he declareth That the authority of the Scripture is above the authority of the Church 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. for it is not equall or alike to be taught of the holy Ghost and to be taught of man In his tenth Chap. he declareth That 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mortall men can by no means be the head of the Church and that our Lord Iesus Christ alone is the head of it In the thirteenth Chapter he asserteth justification by Faith alone just according to the Doctrine of the Church of England In the fifteenth Chapter he acknowledgeth but two Sacraments In the seventeenth Chapter he professeth a true reall presence of Christ the Lord in the Eucharist just as we doe and rejecteth the nâ—w devise of transubstantiation In the eighteenth Chapter he disclaimeth purgatorie c. All this he declarâ—th to be the Faith which Christ taught the Apostles preached and the orthodox Church ever held and undertaketh to make it good to the World And after in his answer to some questions which were proposed to him he excludeth the Apocryphall Books out of the Canon of holy Scripture and condemneth the worship of Images In a word he is wholy ours And to declare to the World that he was so he resolved to dedicate his confession of the Faith of the Greek Church to the King of England When this Treatise was first published it is no marvel if the Court of Rome and the congregation for propagating of the Roman Faith in Greece did storm at it and use their uttermost indevor to ruine him But he justified it before the Ambassadors of Roman Catholick Princes then remaining at Constantinople and came off fairly in despite of all those who did calumniate him and cast false aspersions upon him Besides his own autograph and the testimonies of the Ambassadors then present if there had been nothing else to justifie this truth the instructions given by Cardinal Bandini to Cannachi Rossi in the name of the Pope alone had been sufficient proof and the plots which they contrived against him either to have him taken away by death or deposition For at the same time they decryed the Treatise here as supposititious and accused him there as criminous for being the Author of it But God delivered him out of their hands He pleadeth moreover That the Bishops assembled in Trent were not the Popes Ministers Yet he knoweth right well that they had all taken an Oath of obedience to the Pope for maintenance of the Papacy Were these equall Judges I confess there were many noble souls amongst them who did limit their Oath according to the Canons of the Church But they could doe nothing being over-voted by the Popes Clients and Pensioners He asketh who were the accusers witnesses and Iudges of the Pope in the Parliament 1534 but King Henry himself and his Ministers I answer that they were not King Henries Ministers but the Trustees of the Kingdome they were not sworn to maintain King Henrie's usurpations they acted not by a judiciary but by a legislative power neither did they make any new Law but only declare the ancient Law of the Land Otherwise they medled not with the person of
land when soever these were infringed or an attempt made to destroy them as the liberties of the Crowne and Church of England had then been invaded by the Pope it was the manner to restore them or to declare them by a statute which was not operative to make or create new law but declarative to manifest or to restore ancient law This I told him expressely in the vindication and cited the judgement of our greatest Lawyers Fitz Herbirt and my Lord Cook to prove that this very statute was not operative to create new law but declarative to restore ancient law This appeareth undeniably by the statute it self That England is an Empire and that the King as head of the body politicke consisting of the spirituality and temporality hath plenary power to render finall Iustice for all matters Here he seeth expressely that the dolitcall supremacy or headship of the King over the spirituality as well as temporality which is all that we assert at this day was the an e nt fundamentall law of England And lest hâ—e should accuse this Parliament of partialiâ—y I produced another that was more ancient The Crowne of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately subjected to God in all things touching it's Regality and to no other and ought not to be submitted to the Pope Here the Kings politicall Supremacy under God is declared to be the fundamentall Law of the Land Let him not say that this was intended onely in temporall matters for all the grievances mentioned in that statute are expressely Ecclesiasticall What was his meaning to conceal all this and much more and to accuse me of impudence Secondly he saith that I bring diverse allegations wherein the Popes pretences were not admitted or where the Pope is expressely denied the power to do such and such things Do we professe the Pope can pretend no more then his right Doth he think a legitimate authority is rejected when the particular faults of them that are in authority are resisted He stileth the Authorities by me produced meer Allegations yet they are as authentick Records as England doth afford But though he be willing to blanch over the matter in generall expressions of the Popes pretences and such or such things as if the controversy had been onely about an handfull of goats wool I will make bold to represent some of the Popes pretences and their declarations against them And if he be of the same mind with his Ancestours in those particulars he and I shall be in a probable way of reconciliation as to this question They declared that it was the custom or common law of the land ut nullus praeter licentiam Regis appelletur Papa that no Pope might be appealed unto without the Kings licence They made a law that if any one were found bringing in the Popes letters or mandates into the kingdome let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a Traitor to the King and kingdome They exercised a legislative power in all ecclesiasticall causes concerning the external subsistence Regiment and regulating of the Church over all Ecclesiastical persons in all ages as well of the Saxon as of the Norman Kings They permitted not the Pope to endow Vicars nor make spiritual corporations nor exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary nor appropriate Churches nor to dispose Benefices by lapse nor to receive the revenues in the vacancy but the King did all these things as I shewed at large in the vindication They permitted not the Popes canon law to have any place in England further then they pleased to receive it They gave the king the last appeal of all his subjects they ascribed to him the patronage of Bishopricks and investitures of Bishops They suffered no subject to be cited to Rome without the Kings license They admitted no Legates from the Pope but meerly upon courtesy and if any was admitted he was to take his oath to doe nothing derogatory to the King or his Crowne If any man did denounce the Popes excommunication in England without the Kings consent or bring over the Popes bull he forfeited all his goods So the laws of England did not allow the Pope to cite or excommunicate an English Subject nor dispose of an English Benefice nor send a Legate a latere orso much as an authoritative bul into England nor to reâ—eive an appeal out of England without the kings license But saith he To limit an authority implies an admittance of it in cases to which the rsstraints extend not This was not meerly to limit an authority but to deny it VVhat lawfull Jurisdiction could remain to him in England who was not permitted by law to receive any appeal thence nor to send any Citation or sentence thither nor execute any authority over an English Subject either at Rome by himself or in England by his deputies without licence That he exercised all these acts at sometimes there is no doubt of it But he could not exercise them lawfully without consent Give us the same limitation which our Ancestours alwayes claimed that no forraign authority shall be exercised in England withour leave and then give the Pope as much authority as you please volenti non fit injuria consent takes away error He is not wronged who gives leave to another to wrong him He demandeth first were not those bawes in force in the beginning of Henry the eighths raign Yes but it is no strange matter to explaine or confirm or renew ancient laws upon emergent and subsequent abuses as we see in magna Charta the statute of proviso's and many other Statutes Secondly he asketh whether we began our Religion there that is at that time when these ancient lawes were made no I have told him formerly that these statutes were onely declarative what was the ancient common law of the kingdome VVe began our Religion from Joseph of Arimathea's time before they had a Church at Rome But it is their constant use to make the least reformation to be a new Religion Lastly he enquireth whether there be not equivolent laws to these in France Spaine Germany and Italy it self and yet they are Catholicks and hold communication with the Pope Yes there are some such laws in all these places by him mentioned perhaps not so many but the liberties of the French Church are much the same with the English as I have shewed in the vindication And therefore the Popes friends do exclude France out of the number of these Countries which they term Pays d' obedience loyall Countries VVhat â—use some other Countries can make of the Papacy more then we in England concerns not me nor this present discourse And here to make his conclusion answerable to his preface in this section he cries out How ridiculous how impudent a manner of speaking is this to force his Readers to renounce their eyes and
receive it when God shall reveal it to them How far this may excuse not the crime but their persons from formall Schisme either a toto or a tanto I determine not but leave them to stand or fall before their own Master But though these Protestants were worthy of this contumely yet surely the Romanists are no fit persons to object it whose opiniastrety did hinder an uniform Reformation of the western Church Who did first invest Presbyters with Episcopall Jurisdiction and the power of ordeining and confirming but the Court of Rome by their commissions and delegations for avaritious ends And could they think that the world would beleeve that necessity is not as strong and effectuall a dispensation as their mercicinary Buls It is not at all materiall whether Episcopacy and Priesthood be two distinct Oâ—ders or distinct degrees of the same Order the one subordinate to the other whether Episcopal ordination doe introduce a new Character or extend the old For it is generally confessed by both parties Protestants and Roman Catholicks that the same power and authority is necessary to the extensioâ— of a Character or grace given by ordination which is required to the institution of a Sacrament that is not humane but divine These avaritious practises of that Court though it be not commonly observed were the first source of these present controversies about Episcopacy and ecclesiasticall Discipline which doe now so much disturb the peace of the Church The second fault which he imputeth to me is That I endeavor to clear the English Church from Schisme only in relation to the Church of Rome not to all other Churches It was altogether needless to have troubled his own head or his Readers with this For first he esteems none of all those Churches to be true Churches but a Mass of Monsters an Hydra of many heads or so many Packs of Hereticks and Schismaticks making the Roman Church and the Catholick Church to be Convertibles Secondly it had not only been vain but a sign of guilt to make a defence before we were accused None of those Churches nor any body else that ever I heard of hath accused us for deserting them before R. C. and he hath received his answer If it had been needfull the Church of Rome had saved us that labour by excommunicating them before hand I only wish more intelligence between us and them My third fault is That I endeavour principally to justifie our separation from the Roman Church for the personall faults of Popes And my fourth fault is That I justifie our separation from the Court of Rome for their evill manners That this is not lawfull to doe he proves by sundry authorities and arguments I think the rather because no man denyes it or doubts of it or because he would insinuate to his Reader that we doe deny it If he had pleased he might have contracted these two faults into one The Pope and his Court make but one consistory and personall faults and evill manners are the same thing It had been needfull to have joyned them together to give them a little more weight for being twisted they weigh not half a graine First I deny that we hold personal faults or evil manners a sufficient cause of separation Secondly that separation which was made was made by themselves not by us Thirdly I deny that the Pope or Court of Rome ever had right to any Jurisdiction over us And if they ever had any pretence of right we had other manner of grounds for separation than evill manners As new Articles of faith obtruding of idolatrous superstitions and sinfull duties gross usurpation of the rights of the soveraign Prince and all orders and degrees of Subjects the overthrow or endangering of the publick peace and tranquillity of the Kingdome unlawfull oaths contrary to our allegiance to our King contrary to that duty which all Christians doe owe to generall Councells and lastly the Popes quitting of his Patriarchall power Yet by his leave tyranny and oppression and rapine are somewhat more than personall faults and may be just grounds to Princes and Common-wealths to substract obedience untill there be a reformation of exorbitant abuses Some personall faults as Simony aud Schism may give just occasion to Christians to separate from pretended Popes But there are other faults inherent in the Office of the Pope not his Episcopall Office which was instituted by Christ or his Apostles nor his Patriarchall Office which was instituted by the Church but his pretended Monarchicall Office whereby he hath usurped a power paramount over the highest Tribunall of the Church that is a generall Councell whereof more shall be said in due place These faults give just cause to a generall Councell to separate the Popes themselves and to take away their domineering Courts or to a soveraign Prince with a Nâ—tionall Councell to shake off their tyrannicall Yoke CHAP. 2. Concerning the stating of the Question IN stating the Question I observed this Method first to shew what Ecclesiasticall Separations were not Schismaticall As first those Separations which proceed out of a sudden passionate heat without attempting to make any parties as those between St. Paul and Barnabas St. Hierome and Ruffinus St. Chrysostome and Epiphanius Secondly premeditated clashings of Bishops or Churches long maintained if they forbear to censure one another and be ready to submit to the determination of a generall Councell are not schismaticall as those between the Roman and African Bishops about appeals and rebaptization Thirdly where just cause of separation is given for there the Separaters are innocent and they who give the cause are Schismaticks Fourthly separation from an erroneous Church or Pastor in their errors Of all these and their proofs R C. takes no notice at all but passeth silently by them without either granting denying or distinguishing The first Exception that he takes is against my two supposed definitions of Schisme the former is Schisme is a criminous scissure rent or division in the Church an ecclesiasticall sedition like to a mutiny in an Army or a faction in a Sate The second meer Schisme is a culpable rupture or breach of the Catholick Communion And to supply my defect he promiseth a better definition of his own True Schisme is a voluntary division in some substantiall part of the true Church Really I doe not wonder if my definitions be not complete I doe not take my self to have so happy a vein that all that I utter should be a definition I did not hold it needfull nor had any purpose to define Schisme but only to explane it which my very words might have taught him Schisme signifies a criminous scissure not is but signifies And those two similitudes added to the foot of my pretended definition like a mutiny in an Army or faction in a State Similitudes are apt to illustrate but not to define The definition and the thing defined are ever the same Those
Church from Rome Yet something he saith upon the by which is to be examined first That they who made the King head of the Church were so far from being Zelots of the Roman Religion that they were not then of the Roman Religion but Schismaticks and Hereticks outwardly whatsoever they were inwardly What a change is here Even now when they opposed the Reformation they were the best Bishops and now when they oppose the Popes Supremacy they are Schismaticks and Hereticks Let them be what they were or whatsoever he would have them to be certainly they were no Protestants And if they were not Roman Catholicks they were of no Christian Communion They professed to live Roman Catholicks and they died Roman Catholicks The six bloody Articles contrived by them and executed by them in the reign of King Henry and the Bonefires which they made of poor Protestants in the dayes of Queen Mary doe demonstrate both that they were no Protestants and that they were Zelots of the Roman Religion But saith he the essence of the Roman Religion doth consist in the primacy of the Pope If it be so then whereas the Christian Religion hath twelve Articles the Roman Religion hath but one Article and that none of the twelve namely the supremacy of the Pope But this needs makes no difference between us For they denyed not the Popes Primacy that is of order but his Supremacy of power Neither is his Supremacy either the essence or so essentiall a part of the Roman Catholick Beleef but that many of the Roman Catholick Communion have denyed it of old as the Councells of Constance and Basile and many doe deny it and more doubt of it at this day But let that be as it will In all other Controversies they were pure Romanists and the denomination is from the greater part Certainly they were no Protestants which is enough for my purpose He tels us from Bishop Gardiner that the Parliament was with much cruelty constrained to abolish the Primacy he means Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome A likely thing indeed that a whole Parliament and among them above fifty Bishops and Abbets should be forced without any noise against their conscience to forswear themselves to deny the essence of their faith and to use his own words to turn Schismaticks and Hereticks How many of them lost their lives first Not one not one changed his Soil not one suffered imprisonment about it For howsoever the matter hath been misconstrued by some of our Historiographeâ—s Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas Moore were imprisoned before this Act of the Supremacy was made for denying the Kings Mariage and opposing a former Act of Parliament touching the succession of his Children to the Crown Thus much is confessed by Sanders in his Book de Schismate p. 73. b. concerning Fisher and p. 81. concerning Sir Thomas Moor. Quae Lex post Mori apprehensionem constituta erat The Law of Supremacy was made after the apprehension of Sir Thomas Moore Of this much cruelty I doe not finde so much as a threatning word or a footstep except the fear of a Premunire And is it credible that the whole representative of the Church and Kingdome should value their Goods above their Souls Or that two successive Synods and both our Universities nemine dissentiente should be so easily constrained But who constrained the most learned of the Bishopâ— and the greatest Divines in the Kingdome to tell the King that it was his right to publish Catechisms or Institutions and other Books and to preach Sermons at St. Pauls Cross and elswhere for maintenance of the Kings Supremacy These Acts were unconstrained Heare the Testimony of Queen Eizabeth given in their life time to their faces before the most eminent Ambassadors of the greatest Persons in the World when Bishop Gardiner might have contradicted it if he could When the Emperour and other Roman Catholick Princes interceded with her for the displaced Bishops she returned this answer That they did now obstinately reject that Doctrine which most part of themselves under Henry the eighth and Edward the sixth had of their own accord with heart and hand publickly in their Sermons and Writings taught unto others when they themselves were not private Persons but publick Magistrates The charge is so particular that it leaves no place for any answer First of their own accord Secondly not only under Henry the eighth but Edward the sixth Thirdly when they themselves were publick Magistrates Fourthly with heart and hand not only in their Sermons but also in their printed Writings Against Subscriptions and printed Writings there can be no defence But upon whose credit is this constraint charged upon King Henry upon Bishop Gardiners In good time he produceth a Witness in his own cause He had an hard heart of his own if he would not have favored himself and helped to conceal his own shame after King Henry was dead Mortui non mordent Is not this that Stephen Gardiner that writ the book de vera obedientia to justifie the Kings Supremacy Is not this that Stephen Gardiner that tels us That no forrein Bishop hath authority among us that all sorts of people are agreed with us upon this point with most steadfast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to doe with Rome Is not this he that had so great an hand in framing the oath of Supremacy and in all the great transactions in the later dayes of King Henry was not he one of them who tickled the Kings eares with Sermons against the Popes Supremacy who was a Contriver of the six bloody Articles against the Protestants and was able by his power with the King to bring the great Favorite of those times to the Scaffold for Heresie and Treason To conclude if any thing did constrain him it was either the Bishoprick of London or Winchester or which I doe the rather beleeve out of charity the very power of conscience So much himself confesseth in the conclusion of his book de vera obedientia where he proposeth this objection against himself that as a Bishop he had sworn to maintain the Supremacy of the Pope To which he answers That what was holily sworn is more holily omitted then to make an oath the bond of iniquity He confesseth himself to have been married to the Church of Rome bona fide as to his second Wife but after the return of his first Wife that is the Truth to which he was espoused in his Baptisme being convicted with undenyable evidence he was necessitated out of conscience to forsake the Church of Rome in this particular question of Supremacy and to adhere to his first Wife the Truth and after her to his Prince the supreme head of the English Church upon earth His next attempt is to prove that the Protestants were the Authors of the separation from Rome And he names three Cranmer Crumwell and Barnes He
might even as well say that two or three common Soldiers of the Carthaginian Army and perhaps not one of them at the fight were the Authors of the Roman overthrow at Cannae It was the Universities that approved the separation unanimously It was the Synods that directed the separation It was the King that established the separation It was the Parliament that confirmed the separation How could two or three Privados without Negromancy have such an efficatious influence upon the Universities and Synods and Parliaments and the King himself Yet they might have an hand in it no nor so much as a little finger As much as the Flie that sate upon the Cart-wheel had in raising of the dust The two Houses of Parliament alone did consist of above 600. of the most able and eminent persons in the Kingdome what had these three been able to doe among them supposing they had been then Protestants and of the House Even as much as three drops of hony in a great vessell of vinegar or three drops of vinegar in a great vessell of hony But let us see what it is which he objects against Cranmer and the rest That Cranmer whom I will not deny to have been a friend and favourer of Protestants advised that the King should seek no more to the Court of Rome And that bidding adieu to the Court of Rome he should consult with the most learned in the Universities of Europe at home and abroad There was no hurt in all this There could be no suspicion that the most learned in all the Universities of Europe should be enemies to the just rights of the Roman Court But upon this saith he it was by Commission disputed by the Divines in both Universities And so he concludes triumphantly Behold Cranmer the first author of secession from the Pope I answer That this secession was no secession of the Church of England nor this disputation any disputation concerning the jurisdiction of the Roman Court over the English Church but only concerning a particular processe there depending between King Henâ—y and Queen Katherine about the validity or invalidity of their marriage and the Popes dispensation which Cranmer maintained to be determinable by Divine law not by Canon law The truth is this Doctor Stephens and Doctor Fox two great Ministers of King Henry and Doctor Cranmer chanced to meet without any designe at Waltham where discourse being offered concerning this processe Cranmer freely declared his judgement that the marriage of a Brother with his Brothers Wife was unlawfull by the Law of God and that the Pope could not dispense with it And that it was more expedient and more proper to seek to have this cause determined by the best Divines and Universities of Europe then by the dilatory proceeding of the Roman Court This was related to the King The King sent for Cranmer He offered freely to justifie it before the Pope And to demonstrate both that this was no separation from Rome and that Cranmer himself was no Protestant at that time it is acknowledged by all our Historiographers that after this Cranmer with others was sent as an Ambassador or Envoy to Rome and returned home in the Popes good Grace not without a mark of his favour being made his penitentiary Likewise saith another Cranmer that unworthy Archbishop of Canterbury was his the Earl of Hartfords right hand and chief assistant in the work although but a few moneths before he was of King Harries Religion yea a great Patron and Prosecutor of the six Articles That is as much as to say no friend no favourer of Protestants So this victorious argument failes on both sides Some other places he citeth concerning Cranmer That he freed the Kings conscience from the yoke of Papall dominion that is to say in that processe That by his counsell destruction was provided divinely to the Court of Rome that is occasionally and by the just disposition of Almighty God That the King was brought by Cranmers singular virtue to defend the cause of the Gospell that is in that particular case that the Pope cannot dispense contrary to the Law of God And lastly That the Papall power being discovered by King Henries authority and Cranmers did easily fall down I much doubt if I had the Book whether I should finde these testimonies such as they are cited Howsoever it may be true distinguendo tempora and referendo singula singulis They could not be spoken of the first separation when Cranmer had no more authority then a private Doctor but of the following times King Henry suppressed the Papall tyranny in England by his Legislative Power and Cranmer by his discovery of their usurpations and care to see the Lawes executed Against Crumwell he produceth but one testimony That it was generally conceived and truly as never thought That the politick waies for taking away the Popes authority in England and the suppression of Religious Houses were principally devised by Crumwell First this is but an argument from vulgar opinion Secondly when Archbishop Warham and the Synod did first give to King Henry the Supremacy and the Title of Head of the English Church Crumwell was no Protestant he had lately been Cardinall Wolsies Soliciter and was then Master of the Jewel House of no such power to doe any great good or hurt to the Protestants And at his death he professed that he was no Sacramentary and that he died in the Catholick Faith Lord Cherbury in H. 8. anno 1540. Holl. an 32. H. 8. fol. 242. But for the suppression of Religious Houses it is not improbable He might well have learned that way under Cardinall Wolsy when he procured the suppression of fourty Monasteries of good note for the founding of his two Colleges at Oxford and Ipswich In which businesse our historians say the Pope licked his own Fingers to the value of twelve Barrels full of Gold and Silver Lastly for Doctor Barnes poor man he was neither Courtier nor Councelor nor Convocation man nor Parliament man All the grace which ever he received from King Henry was an honourable death for his Religion He said That he and such other wretches as he had made the King a whole King by their Sermons If they did so it was well done The meaning of a whole King is an Head of the Church saith R. C. It may be so but the consequence is naught Perhaps he meant a Soveraign independant King not feudatory to the Pope which he that is is but half a King Not only of old but in later times the Popes did challenge a power Paramount over the Kings of England within their own dominions as appeareth by the Popes Bull sent to Iames the fifth King of Scotland wherein he declareth that he had deprived King Henry of his Kingdome as an Heretick a Schismatick an Adulterer a Murtherer a Sacrilegious person and lastly a Rebell and convict of laesae Majestatis for that he had risen
the Popes at their pleasures gave legislative interpretations of other of their ecclesiasticall Laws as they thought good in order to their own Dominions made ecclesiasticall Corporations appropriated ecclesiasticall Benefices translated episcopall Sees forbid Appeals to Rome rejected the Popes Bulls protested against his Legats questioned both the Legates and all those who acknowledged them in the Kings Bench condemned the Excommunications and other sentences of the Roman Court enlarged or restrained the priviledges of the Clergy prescribed the endowment of Vicars set down the wages of Priests and made Acts to remedy the oppressions of the Roman Court And all this was shewed evidently not out of the single testimonies of some obscure Authors but out of the Customes and Common Law of the Realm out of the Reports of our Judges and greatest Lawyers out of the Laws of Edward the Confessor the Statutes of Clarendon and Carlile the Articles of the Clergy the Statutes of Provisors and many other Statutes made with the generall consent of the whole Kingdome It is not possible in any cause to produce more authenticall proofs then these are To all which in particular R. C. answers not one word So as once more I take it for granted that Henry the eight did nothing in his separation from the Court of Rome but what his most renowned Ancestors had chalked forth unto him All that he saith with any shew of opposition to this is first That whatsoever Kings doe is not lawfull Whereas I spake not of any single Kings but of the whole succession of British Eâ—glish Danish and Norman Kings nor of Kings alone but of them with the consent and concurrence of the whole Kingdome Clergy and Laity whiâ—h proves irrefragably that what they did was the Custome and common fundamentall Law of the Kingdome And that there is no Prescription nor can be against it That they did it de facto is enough to make good my assertion that Henry the eight did no new thing but what his Predecessors in all ages had done before him Secondly he saith That Kings may resist the exercise or Acts of Papall power sometimes and yet acknowledge the power Whereas the Laws and testimonies which I produced doe not only speak against some acts of Papall power but against the power it self against the Popes power to make Laws to send Legats or Bulls or Excommunications without license the power to receive Appeals the power to make ecclesiasticall Coâ—porations the power to dispose of ecclesiasticall Benefices c. What lawfull power had the Pope in the eye of the Law of England who by the Law of England could neither send a Legate thither to doe Justice there nor call the Delinquents or Litigants to Rome to doe Justice there without license Our Laws speak not only against Pandulphus or this or that Legate but against all Legates that come without license nor against the Bull or Excommunication of Paul the third alone but against all Bulls and Excommunications which were brought from Rome into the Kingdome without license Frustranea est ea potentia quae nunquam deduci potest in actum In vain is an absolute power given to a single person to execute that which he cannot execute without another mans license Lastly our Laws do ascribe this very power to the King which the Pope doth challenge The Patronage of the Church the power to make ecclesiasticall Laws the power to call ecclesiasticall Synods the power to dispose of all things which concern the externall regiment of the Church by the advise of his Clergy and Councell within his own Dominions In vain doth he distinguish between the acts or exercise of Papall power and the power it self seeing our ancient Law doth not only forbid the exercise of Papall power but deny the power it self He saith If I would indeed prove that Henry the eight did but vindicate his ancient liberty I should prove that English Kings before him did challenge to be heads of the Church immediatly under Christ by which headship as it was expressed in King Edwards time all Iurisdiction both in spirituall and temporall causes descended from the Crown To prove that Henry the eighth did but vindicate his ancient Liberty it is not necessary that I should justifie all the extravagant expressions or oylie insinuations of parasiticall flatterers Our Kings neither doe challenge nor ever did challenge all Jurisdiction in spirituall causes nor any part of the power of the Keyes either to their own use or to derive it to others Great Pallaces seldome want their Moths or great Princes their Flatterers who are ready to blow the coals of ambition and adorn their Masters with stollen plumes such as the Canonists were of old to the Popes It is not much to be wondred at if some Protestants did overshoot themselves in some expressions upon this subject having learned that language from a Roman Catholick before them Bishop Bonner being the Kings Embassador with Clement the seventh did so boldly and highly set forth his Masters Supremacy in the Assembly of the Cardinalls that they thought of burning him or casting him into a vessell of scalding lead if he had not provided for his own safety by flight Acworth contra Monarch Sanderi l. 2. p. 195. It would better become him and me if any such thing had beene to give unto Caesar that which is Caesars and unto God that which is Gods It is enough to my purpose to have shewed that all King Henries Predecessors did both challenge and enjoy this politicall headship of the Church as I have shewed throughout all the parts branches thereof if he could see wood for trees These very flowers and jewels of the Crown enumerated by me in this Chapter and demonstrated out of our Laws in my vindication doe make up that politique headship that is a power paramount to see that all persons doe their duties in their callings and that all things be acted by fit Agents which are necessary to that great and Architectonicall end that is the safety and tranquility of the Commonwealth This is that title which Edward the Confessor did enjoy before the Conquest namely The Vicar of God to govern the Church within his own Dominions which is neither more nor lesse then the politicall head of the Church In a great Family there are severall offices as a Divine a Physitian a Schoolmaster and every one of these is supreme in his own way yet the Master of the Family hath an oeconomicall power over them all to see that none of them doe abuse their trust to the disturbance of the Family Our Parliament Rolles our ecclesiasticall Registers the Records of the Kings Bench and Common Pleas doe all prove that it is no innovation for our Kings to interpose in ecclesiasticall affairs I doe confesse that some of these flowers which were peculiar to the King as the Patronage and investitures of Bishops in later dayes were snatched from the Crown by the violence of
Popes but for many of the rest and especially for that which did virtually include them all that is the Legâ—slative power in ecclesiasticall causes wherein the whole body of the Kingdome did claim a neerer interest in respect of that receptive Power which they have ever injoyed to admit or not admit such new Laws whereby they were to be governed it had been folly and madness in the Popes to have attempted upon it One doubt still remains How ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction could be said to be derived from the Crown For they might be apt enough in those dayes to use such improper expressions First with the Romanists themselves I distinguish between habituall and actuall Jurisdiction Habituall Jurisdiction is derived only by ordination Actuall Jurisdiction is a right to exercise that habit arising from the lawfull application of the matter or subject In this later the Lay Patron and much more the Soveraign Prince have their respective Interests and concurrence Diocesses and Parishes were not of divine but humane institution And the same persons were born Subjects before they were made Christians The ordinary gives a School master a license or habituall power to teach but it is the Parents of the Children who apply or substract the matter and furnish him with Scholars or afford him a fit subject whereupon to exercise this habituall power Secondly we must also distinguish between the interior and exterior Court between the Court of Conscience and the Court of the Church For in both these Courts the power of the Keies hath place but not in both after the same manner That power which is exercised in the Court of Conscience for binding and loosing of sinnes is soly from Ordination But that power which is exercised in the Court of the Church is partly from the Soveraign Magistrate especially in England where Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction is enlarged and fortified with a coercive power and the bounds thereof have been much dilated by the favour and piety of Christian Princes by whom many causes have been made of Ecclesiasticall cognisance which formerly were not from whom the coercive or compulsory power of summoning the Kings Subjects by processes and citations was derived It is not then the power of the Keies or any part or branch thereof in the exercise of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction even in the exterior Court of the Church which is derived from the Crown But it is coercive and compulsory and coroboratory power it is the application of the matter it is the regulating of the exercise of actuall Ecclesiasticall Jurisdicton in the Court of the Church to prevent the oppressions of their Subjects and to provide for the tranquillity of the Common-wealth which belongs to Sovereign Princes As to his corollary that never any King of England before Henry the eighth did challenge an exemption from all Iurisdiction under Christ it is as gross a mistake as all the rest For neither did Henry the eighth challenge any such exemption in the Court of Conscience Among the six bloody Articles established by himself that of auricular confession was one Nor in the Court of the Church seeing the direct contrary is expressly provided for in the Statute it self The Archbishop of Canterbury for the time being and his Successors shall have power and authority from time to time by their discretions to give grant and dispose by an instrument under the Seal of the said Archbishop unto your Majesty and to your Heirs and Successors Kings of this Realm as well all manner of such Licences Dispensations Compositions Faculties Grants Rescripts Delegacies Instruments and all other Writings for causes not being contrary or repugnant to holy Scriptures and Lawes of God as heretofore hatâ— been used and accustomed to be had and obtained by your Highnes or any of your most noble Progenitors or any of yours or their Subjects at the See of Rome So vain a suggestion it is That King Henry the eighth did free himself not only from Papall Authority but also and as well from Episcopall Archiepiscopall and all Spirituall Authority either abroad or in England And his Argument which he presseth so seriously to prove it is as vain That the Head of a Company is under none of that Company The Pope himself is under his Confessor who hath power to binde him or loose him in the Court of Conscience The Master of a Family is under his own Chaplain for the regiment of his Soul and under his Physitian for the government of his Body What should hinder it that a Politicall Head may not be under an Ecclesiasticall Pastor The Kings of England are not only under the forrein Jurisdiction of a generall Councell but also under their Ecclesiasticall Pastors though their own Subjects Only they are exempted from all coercive and compulsory power Let us trie whether he be more fortunate in opposing then he hath been in answering The Kings of England saith he permitted Appeales to Rome in ecclesiasticall causes as is evident in St. Wilfrides case who was never reproved nor disliked for appealing twice to Rome not so but the clear contrary appeareth evidently in Saint Wilfrides case Though he was an Archbishop and if an Appeal had been proper in any case it had been in that case This pretended Appeal was not only much disliked but rejected by two Kings successively by the other Archbishop and by the body of the English Clergy as appeareth by the event For Wilfride had no benefit of the Popes sentences but was forced after all his strugling to quit the two Monasteries which were in question whether he would or not and to sit down with his Archbishoprick which he might allwnies have held peaceably if he would This agrees with his supposed Vision in France that at his return into his Country he should receive the greatest part of his possessions that had been taken from him that is praesulatum Ecclesiae suae his Archbishoprick but not his two Monasteries But this is much more plain by the very words of King Alfride cited by me in the Vindication to which R. C. hath offered no answer That he honored the Popes Nuncios for their grave lives and honorable lookes Here is not a word of their credentiall Letters O how would a Nuncio storm at this and take it as an affront The King told them further That he could not give any assent to their legation So that which R. C. calles permitting was in truth downright dissenting and rejecting The reason followes because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councel of the English should be restored upon the Popes Letter Is not this disliking What could the King say more incivillity then to tell the Popes Nuncios that their Masters demands were unreasonable or what could be more to the purpose and to the utter ruin of R. C. his cause then that the Decrees of the pope were impugned not once but twice not by a few
jussisse ut Sedem suam Petrus ita figeret Romae ut Romanus Episcopus absolute ei succederet Because some Fathers say that Peter did suffer Martyrdome at Rome by the commandement or at least according to the premonition of Christ it is not improbable that the Lord did likewise openly command him that he should so fix his Chair or See at Rome that the Roman Bishop should absolutely succeed him Judge Reader freely if thou didest ever meet with a poorer foundation of a divine right because it seemeth not improbable alltogether to a professed sworn Vassall and partial Advocate well fed by the party It is no marvell if they build but faintly upon such a groundless presumption licet fortè non sit de jure divino although peradventure it is not by divine right He might â—ell have omitted his peradventure Wherefore doubting that this supposition will not hold water he addeth That though it were not true it would not prove that the Pope is not Successor to Saint Peter ex asse but only that he is not so jure divino It is an old artifice of the Romanists when any Papall priviledge is controverted to question whether the Pope hold it by divine right or humane right when in truth he holds it by neither so diverting them from searching into the right question whether he have any right at all taking that for granted which is denyed But for humane right they think they have it cocksure The reason is manifest because S. Peter himself left the Bishoprick of Antioch but continued Bishop of Rome untill his death This will afford them no more helpe then the other When the Apostles did descend and deign to take upon them the charge of a particular Church as the Church of Rome or Antioch they did not take it by institution as we doe They had a generall institution from Christ for all the Churches of the World When they did leave the charge of a particular Church to another they did not quit it by a formall resignation as we doe This had beene to limit their Apostolicall Power which Christ had not limited But all they did was to depute a Bishop to the actuall cure of Soules during their absence reteining still an habituall cure to themselves And if they returned to the same Citie after such a deputation they were as much Bishops as formerly Thus a Bishop of a Diocess so disposeth the actuall cure of Soules of a particular Parish to a Rector that he himself remains the principall Rector when he is present Saint Peter left Rome as much as he left Antioch and dyed Bishop of Antioch as much as he dyed Bishop of Rome He left Antioch and went to Rome and returned to Antioch again and governed that Church as formerly he had done He left Rome after he first sate as Bishop there and went to Antioch and returned to Rome again and still continued the principall Rector of that Church Linus Clemens or the one of them were as much the Bishop or Bishops of Rome during the life of St. Peter and St. Paul as Evodius and Ignatius or the one of them were the Bishop or Bishops of Antioch Suppose a Rector having two Benefices dies upon the one of them yet he dies the Rector of the other as much as that I confesse an Apostle was not capable of pluralities because his Commission was illimited otherwise then as a Bâ—shop is Rector of all the Churches within his Diocess And though he can die but in one Parish yet he dies governor of all the rest as much as that If we may believe their History St. Peter at his death was leaving Rome in probability to weather out that storme which did hang then over his head in Antioch as he had done in a former persecution If this purpose had taken effect then by their Doctrine St. Peter had left the Bishoprick of Rome and dyed Bishop of Antioch Thus much for matter of fact Secondly For matter of right I doe absolutely denie that Saint Peters death at Rome doth entitle the Bishop of Rome as his Successor to all or any of those priviledges and prerogatives which he held in another capacitie and not as he was Bishop of Rome Suppose a Bishop of Canterbury dies Chancellor of England another Bishop dies Chancellor of the University of Cambridge or Oxford must their respective Successors therefore of necessity be Chancellors of England or of that University No the right of donation devolves either to the Patron or to the Society So supposing but not granting that one who was by speciall priviledge the Rector of the Catholick Church died Bishop of Rome it belongs either to Christ or his Vicegerent or Vicegerents invested with Imperiall power to name or to the Church it self to choose a Successor If they could shew out of Scripture that Christ appointed the Bishops of Rome to succeed St. Peter in a spirituall Monarchy it would strike the question dead Or that St. Peter did designe the Bishop of Rome to be his Successor in his Apostolicall power Or lastly that the Catholick Church did ever elect the Roman Bishops to be their ecclesiasticall Sovereigns it were something But they doe not so much as pretend to any such thing The truth is this that after the death of St. Peter that preheminence I doe not say Sovereingty which he had by the connivence or custome of the Church devolved to his Successors in his Chaire the Patriarchs of Rome Alexandria for I look upon Saint Marke as St. Peters Disciple and Antioch among whom the Bishop of Rome had priority of Order not of Power to which very primacy of Order great priviledges were due Yet not so but that the Church did afterwards add two new Protopatriarchs to them of Constantinople and Hierusalem and equalled the Patriarch of Constantinople in all priviledges to the Patriarch of Rome which they would never have done nor have proposed the honor which they gave to Rome with a placet Doth it please you that we honor the memory of St. Peter If they had beleeved that Saint Peters death at Rome had already setled a spirituall Monarchy of that See which had been altogether as ridiculous as if the Speaker of the House of Commons should have moved the House in favour of the King Doth it please you that we honour the King with a judiciary power throughout his own Kingdome Hitherto R. C. hath not said much to the purpose now he falls on a point that is materiall indeed as to this ground if he be able to make it good That the Bishops of Rome exercised ecclesiasticall Iurisdiction over the Britannick Churches before the generall Councell of Ephesus or at least before the six hundreth year of Christ. First he complaineth that few or no Records of British matters for the first six hundred years doe remain If so few doe remain that he is not able to produce so much as one instance his
nothing of Jurisdiction From St. Ninian he proceeds to Palladius and St. Patrick Pope Caelestine consecrated Palladius and sent him into Scotland And not forgetfull of Ireland sent thither S. Patrick In all the instances which he hath brought hitherto we finde nothing but Preaching and Converting and Christening not one syllable of any Jurisdiction Will the British Records afford us so many instances of this kinde and not so much as one of any legislative or judiciary act Then certainly there were none in those dayes Whether Palladius was sent to the British or Irish Scots is disputable But this is certain that whithersoever he was sent he was rejected and shortly after died In whose place succeeded St. Patrick Therefore his Disciples hearing of the death of Palladius the Archdeacon c. came to St. Patrick and declared it who having received the Episcopall degree from a Prelate called Arator straightway took ship c. Here is nothing of Caelestinus but of Arator nor of a Mandate but St. Patricks free devotion He saith The same Pope sent thither St. German and Lupus to confute the Pelagian Heresie and both Britans Scots Picts and Irish willingly accepted these Legates of the Popes nor denyed that they had any authoritie over them I am wearie of so many impertinencies Still here is not one word of any Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishops over the British Church but of their charity and devotion which we wish their Successors would imitate I confesse that Prosper saith that Peladius was sent by Caelestinus If it were so it concernes not this cause But Constantius and venerable Bede and almost all other Authors doe affirm positively that they were both sent by a French Synod to assist the Britans their neighbours against the Pelagians And it is most probable for they were both French Bishops St. German of Anxewe Lupus of Troyes Baronius labours to reconcile these two different relations thus It may be the Pope did approve the choyse of the Synod or it may be that Caelestine left it to the election of the Synod to send whom they pleased Admit either of these suppositions was true it will bring no advantage to his cause but much disadvantage If the Bishop of Rome had been reputed to be Patriarch of Britain and much more if he had been acknowledged to be a spirituall Monarch it is not credible that the Britannick Church should have applyed it self for assistance altogether to their neighbours and not at all to their Superior He addeth that they willingly accepted these Legates of the Popes He is still dreaming of Legates if they were Legates they were the Synods Legates not the Popes As much Legates and no more then the Messengers of the Brittish Church which they sent to help them were Legates eodem tempore ex Britanniâ directa Legatio Gallicanis Episcopis nunciavit c. at the same time the British Legates shewed their condition to the French Bishops what need the Catholick Faith did stand of their present assistance Had they not reason to wellcome them whom themselves had invited who were come only upon their occasion Or what occasion had they to deny their authority who neither did usurpe any authority nor pretend to any authority They came to dispute not to judge Aderat populus Spectator futurus ac Iudex I know Constantius and venerable Bede doe call them Apostolicus Sacerdotes Apostolical Bishops not from their mission but most plainly for their Apostolical Endowments erat in illis Apostolorum instar gloria authoritas c. That Saint Gregory did send Austin into England to convert the Saxons is most true that the British Churches did suffer him to exercise any Authority or Jurisdiction over them is most untrue Touching the precise time of his coming Historiographers doe not agree exactly All accord that it was about the six hundreth year of Christ a little more or less Before this time Cyprus could not be more free from forrein Jurisdiction then Britain was After this time we confess that the Bishops of Rome by the consent or connivence of the Saxon Kings as they came to be converted by degrees did pretend to some formalities of right or authority over the English Church at first in matters of no great consequence as bestowing the Pall or the like But without the consent or against the good pleasure of the King they had no more power at all Jeoffry of Monmouth saith that Dubritius primate of Britain was Legate of the See Apostolick I should sooner have beleeved it if he had proved it out of Gildas who lived in or about the age of Dubritius then upon the credit of Ieoffry of Monmouth who lived so many hundred years after his death whose Writings have been censured as too full of Fables It were over supine credulity to give more credit to him then to the most eminent Persons and Synods of the same and the ensuing age Dubritius was Primate of Wales in the dayes of King Arthur and resigned his Archbishoprick of Caer Leon to St. David who removed his Archiepiscopall See from thence to Minevia now called St. Davids by the licence of King Arthur not of the Pope King Arthur began his reign as it is commonly computed about the year 516. perhaps something sooner or later according to different accounts But certainly after the Councell of Ephesus from whence we demonstrate our exemption And so it can neither advantage his cause nor prejudice ours We are told of store of Roman Legats yet not so much as any one act of Jurisdiction pretended to be done by any of them Certainly either they were no Papall Legates or Papall Legates in those daies were but ordinary Messengers and pretended not to any legantine Court or legantine Power such as is exercised now a dayes St. Samson saith he had a Pall from Rome wherefore untruly saith L. D. that the Pall was first introduced in the reign of the Saxon Kings after six hundred years of Christ. He mistakes my meaning altogether and my words also I said not that the first use of the Pall began after the six hundreth year of Christ but the abuse of it that is the arbitrary imposition thereof by the Popes upon the British Churches When they would not suffer an Archbishop duely ellected and invested to exercise his function untill he had bought a Pall from Rome I know the contrary that they were in use formerly But whether they were originally Ensignes of honour conferred by Christian Emperours upon the Church namely Constantine and Valentinian as is most probable or assumed by Patriarches is a disputable point This is certain other Patriarches and Archbishops under them had their Palls in the primative times which they received not from Rome This Samson was Archbishop of Wales and had his Pall But it appeareth not at all that he had it from Rome It may be that they had
it from their first conversion or rather that the British Primates themselves assumed it in imitation of forrein Patriarchs as they might well doe This Pall he carried with him into lesser Britain in the time of an Epidemicall sickness and such extreme mortallity ut mortui aegros aegri integros tum metu tum tabe infecerint so that the dead did infect the sick the sick infect the sound both with fear and contagion That the same Bishop never returned to his See again appears to me more then probable by this that his Successors for many ages reteined their metropoliticall dignity but ever after wanted the use of their Pall. Certainly he who was so carefull of his Pall when he forsooke his See would have been more carefull to have brought it back with him when he returned to his See What time this Samson lived and when that contagious sickness raged so cruelly is more doubtfull whether it was in the reign of Maglocunus the fifth or in the reign of Cadwallader the ninth in succession after King Arthur or long after both these Giraldus Cambrensis makes him to be the five and twentieth Archbishop after St. David sederunt a tempore David successivis temporum Curriculis Archiepiscopi ibidem viginti quinque c. the last of which was this Samson And then followes Tempore Samsonis hujus pallium in hunc modum est translatum c. In the time of this Samson the Pall was transported after this manner The pestilence increasing throughout Wales during his incumbencie whereof the people died by heapes c. The same is testified by Roger Hoveden in the life of King Iohn that this Samson whom he makes the four and twentieth Archbishop after St. David flying from an infectious yellow jaundice did transport with himself into Little Britain the Pall of St. David c. So R. C. had need to retract his rash censure of me that I said untruly That the Pall was first introduced in the reigns of the Saxon Kings for neither did I say so neither doth he prove that it was not so A few of these histories would quickly spoil the Popes market for his Palls The Menevoan Archbishops had but one Pall that was Saint Davids Pall for him and all his Successors whereas the Pope compells every succeeding Archbishop to buy a new Pall. King Iames doth not at all speak of the Bishop of Romes right but how far himself would condiscend for peace sake which words being expresly used by the King in the place alleged are guilefully omitted by R. C. Much less doth he speak of any supremacy of power or submission to the Popes Jurisdiction in any of the cases controverted betweene us and them Our differences are not about any branches of Patriarchall Power If they like King Iames his proposition why doe they not accept it If they like it not why doe they urge it A Church may be and is usually called a mother Church in two senses either because it is the Church of a Metropolis or Mother-City and so no man can deny but the Church of Rome among many others is a prime Mother-Church Or else because it hath converted other Churches to the Christian Faith And so also we acknowledge that the Church of Rome is a Mother-Church to sundry of our Saxon Churches and a Sister to the British Church but a Mistris to no Church I shewed clearly that that Power which the Bishops of Rome doe challenge aud usurp at this day is incompatible and inconsistent with true Patriarchall Power that thereby they themselves have implicitly quitted and disclaimed that true Power which was conferred upon them by the Catholick Church So by seeking to turn spirituall Monarchs they had lost their just Title of Patriarchs But withall that Britain was never rightly a part of their Patriarchate To this he answers nothing but objects That this is to depose all the Popes since Boniface the third for more then a thousand year and say that they have all lost their Patriarchate And cries out O intolerable presumption Thus he confoundeth Papall and Patriarchall Power making things inconsistent to be one and the same thing If they have lost their Patriarchall Power it is their own fault who quitted it it is his fault who doth no better defend it With as much reason he might plead that he who saith that a Rector of a Church by accepting of a new incompatible Benefice had quitted his old doth deprive him of his former Benefice Or that he who saith the King of Spain hath quitted his Title to the united Provinces doth thereby depose him from his Monarchy O intollerable mistake I said not ignorantly but most truly that the British I will adde also the Scotish Church for many hundred years sided with the Eastern Church in the observation of Easter He saith That they did not side entirely with them Neither did I say they did They observed Easter alwaies upon Sunday which Polycrates and those Asiaticks that joined with him did not And so they had nothing common with the Jews those parricides as Constantine the great calls them who murthered Christ and herein they did joyn with the Roman Church but it is as evident that they did not observe it upon the same Sundy with the Church of Rome This is clear by those two British Synods mentioned by venerable Bede This being one of Austins propositions to them that they should conform themselves to the Roman Church in the observation of Easter and after solemn discussion altogether rejected by them That in this they sided with the Eastern Church appeareth as evidently by the publick conferrence between Colman and Wilfrid about this very businesse wherein Coleman did expressely and professedly maintain the tradition from Saint Iohn before the tradition from Saint Peter Lastly to say that this manner of observing Easter was but risen in Scotland a little before the yeer 638 upon the authority of Pope Iohn is ridiculous For it is most evident that it was as ancient as their Christianity contrary to reason for the Britans and Scots had no commerce with the Orientall Christians in those daies and contrary to authority for Colman in that disputation did derive it from Saint Iohn the Apostle CHAP. 6. Sovereign Princes in some cases have power to change the externall Regiment of the Church IF the Reader doth not finde so much in this Replie as he desires and expects let him blame R. C. who according to his custome omitteth all the chiefest grounds and the whole contexture of my discourse only snatching here and there at a word or a peice of a sentence I shall deal more fairly with him In the first place I complain that besides the omitting of those main principles whereupon my discourse in this Chapter is grounded which are received by both parties he doth me wrong in stating of the question For whereas I set down four conditions
or limitations necessary in every reformation first that it be made advisedly upon well grounded experience Secondly that it be done in a Nationall Synod Thirdly that it be only in matters of humane right Fourthly that nothing be changed but that which is become hurtfull or impeditive of a greater good he leaves out three of these restrictions altogether and only mentions one that it be in matters of humane institution as if the rest were of no consideration He cannot chuse but know that by the Doctrine of their own Schools if a man doe vow any thing to God which afterwards is found to be hurtfull and impeditive of a greater good maketh his vow null and voyd and disobligeth him from performance of it If it be true in a vow to God it is more true in a promise made to man and he needeth no dispensation to retract it But let us follow his steps First whereas I alledge their own Authors to prove that to whom a Kingdome is granted all necessary power is granted without which a Kingdome cannot be governed he distinguisheth between the necessity of the Kingdome and the benefit of the Kingdome a King hath power to doe whatsoever is necessary for the government of his Kingdome but not whatsoever is for the benefit of his Kingdome To this I answer first That he confounds Power and the exercise of Power or the necessity of the one with the necessity of the other Power is the necessary qualification of a King But the act or exercise of that power may be free and sufficiently grounded not only upon the necessity but upon the benefit of the Kingdome A Legislative power is necessary to a King but this doth not imply that he cannot make a Law except only in cases of absolute necessity Power to administer an Oath or to commit a Malefactor is a necessary qualification of a Judg yet he may administer an Oath upon discretion or commit a man npon suspicion If a King or a Judg invested with such a power should misapply it or erre in the exercise of it he owes an account to God and the Prince from whom he received the power but the Subject is bound at least to passive obedience Now let him see his own mistake The question between us is whether a power to reform abuses and inconveniences be necessary to a King to which all his Subjects owe at least passive obedience He answers concerning the exercise of this power in what cases a King may lawfully use it but if the King mistake the case yet the Subject owes passive obedience Secondly I answer that there is a double necessity first a simple or absolute necessity Secondly a respective necessity secundum quid which we may call a necessity of convenience which is a true necessity and a sufficient ground of a Christian Law that is rather to make such a Law then to sustein such indignities or to run such extreme hazards or lose such great advantaages As it seemeth good to the holy Ghost and to us to lay upon you no greater burthen then these necessary things And of four things these were three to abstain from meats offered to Idols and from blood and from things strangled None of which things were necessary in themselves either necessitate medii or necessitate precepts But they were necessary to avoyd scandall and to gain advantage upon the Jews and to retein them in a good opinion of Christian Religion Saint Iames used the same argument to Saint Paul Thou seest Brother how many thousands of Iews there are which beleeve and they are all zealous of the Law c. If the advantage be but small it is not worth abrogating a Law or changing a received custome but if it be great Malo semel excusare quare secerim quam semper quare non secerim It is better to make one just apology why a man doth abrogate such a prejudicall custome then to be making dayly excuses why he doth not abrogate it Vivere non est vita sed valere To live is not to draw out a lingering breath but to injoy health So the health and convenience and good constitution of a Kingdome is more to be regarded then the bare miserable being of it Thirdly I answer that our Reformation in England was not only beneficiall and advantagious to the Kingdome but necessary to avoid intolerable extortions and grosse unjust and generall usurpations of all mens rights They found plainly that this forrein Jurisdiction did interfere with the Sovereign power The Oaths which Bishops were forced to take to the Pope were examined in Parliament and found to be plainly contradictory to their Oathes of Allegiance and repugnant to that duty which they did owe to generall Councels They found that they were dayly exposed to perill of Idolatry and in danger dayly to have new Articles of Faith obtruded upon them they see that the Pope had implicitly quitted their Patriarchall right and challenged a Sovereignty over the Church by Divine right Lastly they see that this forrein Jurisdiction was become not only uselesse but destructive to those ends for which Patriarchall authority was first instituted As the Hangings are fitted to the House so was the externall Regiment of the Church fitted and adopted to the then State of the Empire when these Ecclesiasticall dignities were first erected for the ease and benefit of the Subject to the end that no man should be necessitated to seek further for Ecclesiasticall Justice then he did for Civil nor to travell without the bounds of his own Province for a finall sentence Therefore wheresoever there was a Civil Metropolis there was placed an Ecclesiasticall Metropolitan also And where there was a Secular Protarch there was constituted an Ecclesiasticall Patriarch to avoid the confusion and clashing of Jurisdictions This is plain out of the Decree of the Councell of Chalcedon that whereas some ambitious persons contrary to the Laws Ecclesiasticall had multiplied Metropoliticall Sees making two in one Province where there was but one mother City or one Civil Metropolis the Councell defined that no man should attempt any such thing for the future But those Cities which had been adorned with the name of Metropolis by the Edicts of Kings should only injoy that priviledge And more plainly by that of Anacletus cited by Gratian if we may credit him Provinces were divided long before the comming of Christ for the most part And afterwards that division was renued by the Apostles and Saint Clement our predecessor so that in the chief Cities of all Provinces where long since were primates of the Secular Law and the highest judiciary Power c. There the Divine and Ecclesiasticall Lawes commanded Patriarchs or Primates to be placed and to be which two though they be different in names yet retein the same sense This was well so long as the Empire continued in the same State and the Provinces
Heraclea to be equall in dignitie power and all sorts of priviledges to the Bishop of Rome And this very ground is assigned by the Fathers because that Citie Constantinople was become the seat of the Empire So great a desire had the Fathers to conform the Ecclesiasticall Regiment to the Politicall Or without a Councell as Iustinian the Emperour by his sole Legislative Power erected the Patriarchate of Iustiniana prima and endowed it with a new Province substracted from other Bishops freeing it from all Appeals The like prerogatives he gave to the Bishop of Carthage notwithstanding the pretensions of the Bishop of Rome And this was not done in a corner but inserted into the publick Laws of the Empire for all the world to take notice of it So unquestionable was the power of Sovereign Princes in things concerning the Order and externall Regiment of the Church in those dayes that neither the Bishop of Rome nor any other Patriarch or Bishop did ever complain against it Shall the presence of an Exarch or Lieutenant be able to dignifie the Citie or place of his residence with Patriarchall Rites and shall not the presence and authority of the Sovereign himself be much more able to doe it Is so much respect due to the Servants and is not more due to the Master That the British and the English Kings had the same Imperiall Authority to alter Patriarchates within their own Dominions to exempt their Subjects from the Jurisdiction of one Primate and transferre them to another I shewed in the vindication by the examples of King Arthur who translated the Primacy from Caer-Leon to St. Davids above eleven hundred years since And Henry the first who subjected St. Davids to Canterbury above five hundred years since for the benefit of his Subjects Neither did any man then complain that they usurped more Power then of right did belong unto them This is not to alter the Institutions of the universall Church or of generall Councells supposing they had made any such particular establishment but on the contrarie to tread in their stepps and to pursue their grounds and to doe that with all due submission to their authority which they would have done themselves in this present exigence of Affairs Make all things the same they were and we are the same To persist in an old observation when the grounds of it are quite chaâ—ged and the end for which the observation was made calleth upon us for an alteration is not obedience but obstinacie Generall Councells did never so fixe Patriarchall Power to particular Churches as that their establishment should be like a Law of the Medes and Persians never to be altered upon any change of the Christian world whatsoever But to be changed by themselves as we see they did establish first three Protopatriarchates then four then five Or when generall Councells cannot be had which is the miserable condition of these times by such as have the Supreme Authority Civill and Ecclesiasticall in those places where the change is to be made Suppose a Patriarchall See should be utterly ruined and destroyed by warre or other accidents as some have been or should change the Bible into the Alchoran and turn Turks as others have done suppose a succession of Patriarchs should quit or resigne their Patriarchall power explicitly or implicitly or forfeit it by disufe or abuse Or should obtrude hereticall errors and Idolatrous practises upon the Churches under their Jurisdiction so as to leave no hope of remedy from their Successors Oâ— should goe about to enforce them by new Laws and Oaths to maintain their usurpations over generall Councells to which all Christians are more obliged then to any Patriarch Lastly suppose a Patriarchall Citie shall lie in the Dominions of one Prince and the Province in the Dominions of another who are in continuall warre and hostility the one with the other so as the Subjects can neither have licence nor security to make use of their Patriarch ought notthe respective Provinces in all these cases to provide for themselves Put the case that a King going to warre in the holy Land should commit the Regencie to his Councell and they constitute a Governor of a principall Citie who failes in his trust and makes the Citizens swear allegiance to himself and to maintain him against the Councell all men will judge that the Citizens should doe well if he were incorrigible to turne him out of their Gates Christ was this King who ascending into the holy of holies left the Regiment of his Church with the Apostolicall College and their Successors a generall Councell They made the Bishop of Rome a principall Governor and he rebells against them There needs no further application Now to close up this point the end is more excellent then the means The end of the primitive Fathers in establishing the externall Regiment of the Church in a conformity to the civill Government was salus Populi Christiani the ease and advantage of Christians the avoyding of confusion and the clashing of Jurisdictions We pursue the same ends with them we approve of their means in particular as most excellent for those times and in generall for all times that is the conforming of the one Regiment to the other But God alone is without any shadow of turning by change It is not in our power to prevent the conversion of sublunarie things Empires and Cities have their diseases and their deaths as well as men One is another was a third shall be Mother Cities become Villages and poor Villages become Mother Cities The places of the residence of the greatest Kings and Emperors are turned to desarts for Owles to screech in and Satyrs to dance in Then as a good Pilate must move his rudder according to the variable face of the heavens So if we will pursue the prudent grounds of the primitive Fathers we must change our externall Regiment according to the change of the Empire This is better then by adhering too strictly to the private interest of particular places to destroy that publick end for which externall Regiment at first was so established I confesse that this is most proper for a generall Councell to redress Every thing is best loosed by the same authority by which it was bound But in case of necessity where there can be no recourse to a generall Councell every Sovereign Prince within his own Dominions with the advise and concurrence of his Clergy and due submission to a future oecumenicall Councell is obliged to provide remedies for growing inconveniences and to take order that externall Discipline be so administred as may most conduce to the glorie of God and the benefit of his Christian Subjects I made three conditions of a lawfull reformation just grounds due moderation and sufficient authority He faith Henry the eight had none of these First no just ground because his ground was that the Pope would not give him leave to forsake his lawfull wife and
supreme Governor of the Realm of England which signifies no more but this that there is no other supreme Governor of the Realm but he which is most true and to say that he is the only and supreme Governor which implies that there is no other Governor but he which is most false There are both spirituall and civill Governors in England besides him To say the Pope is the only supreme Bishop in his own Patriarchate is most true but to say that he is the only and supreme Bishop in his Patriarchate is most false this were to degrade all his Suffragans and allow no Bishop in his Province but himself Secondly I answer that there is no Supremacy ascribed to the King in this Oath but meerly politicall which is essentially annexed to the Imperiall Crown of every sovereign Prince The Oath saith that the Kings Highness is the only supreme Governor of his Highness Realms and Dominions What doth Saint Peter himself say less to his own Successors as well as others Submit your selves to every Ordinance of man for the Lords sake whether it be to the King as supreme How often doth Saint Gregory acknowledge the Emperor to be his supreme Governor or sovereign Lord and profess obedience and Subjection unto him and execute his commands in ecclesiasticall things That Common-wealth is miserable and subject to the clashing of Jurisdictions where there are two Supremes like a Serpent with two heads at either end one The Oath addeth in all spirituall or ecclesiasticall things or causes This is true with some limitations as first either by himself or by fit Substitutes who are ecclesiasticall Persons For our Kings cannot excommunicate or absolve in their own persons Secondly it is to be understood of those causes which are handled in foro contentioso in the exterior Court not in the inner Court of Conscience Thirdly either in the first or in the second instance by receiving the appeales and redressing the wrongs of his injured Subjects Some things are so purely spirituall that Kings have nothing to doe in them in their own persons as the preaching of the Word the administration of the Sacraments and the binding and loosing of Sinners Yet the persons to whom the discharge of these Duties doth belong and the persons towards whom these Duties ought to be discharged being their Subjects they have a Power paramount to see that each of them doe their duties in their severall stations The causes indeed are ecclesiasticall but the power of governing is politicall This is the true sense of the Oath neither more nor less as appeareth plainly by our thirty seventh Article Where we attribute to our Princes the chief government by which Titles we understand the mindes of some slanderous Folkes to be offended we give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments but that only prerogative which we see to have been given alwaies to all godly Princes in holy Scriptures by God himself this is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be ecclesiasticall or temporall and restrein with the civill Sword the stubborn or evill doers Here is no power asserted no punishment to be inflicted by the King in his own person but only politicall I confess persons deputed and delegated by the King doe often excommunicate and absolve and act by the power of the Keyes but this is by the vertue of their own habit of Jurisdiction All which the King contributes by his Commission is a liberty and power to act in this particular case an application of the matter which a Lay Patron or a Master of a Family or a subordinate Magistrate may doe much more a sovereign Prince This power many Roman Catholick Doctors doe justifie The King of Spain cites above twenty of them Let the Princes of this World know that they owe an account to God of the Church which they have received from him into their protection for whether peace and right ecclesiasticall Discipline be increased or decayed by Christian Princes God will require an account from them who hath trusted his Church unto their Power All this Power the King of Spain exerciseth in Sicily in all ecclesiasticall causes over all ecclesiasticall persons as well in the first instance as the second This Power a Lay-Chanceller exerciseth in the Court Christian This Power a very Abbess exerciseth in the Roman Church over her Nuns Whilest all the Mariners are busied in their severall employments the sovereign Magistrate sits at the Stern to command all and order all for the promotion of the great Architectonicall end that is the safty and welfare of the Common-wealth It followes in the Oâ—th as well as temporall that is as truly and as justly but not as fully nor as absolutely And that no forrein Prelate hath or ought to have any Iurisdiction or Authority Ecclesiasticall or Spirituall within this Realm That is to say neither the Pope nor his Court. For a generall Councel which is no standing Court but an aggregate body composed partly of our selves is neither included here nor intended If this be the new Creed of the English Protestant Church as he calls it in scorn it was the old Creed of the Britannick Church as I have proved evidently in the vindication If this profession of Royall Supremacy in our sense doe make men Hereticks and Schismaticks we shall sweep away the most part of the Roman Doctors along with us And for Sovereign Princes we shall leave them few except some necessitous person who could not subsist otherwise then by the favourable influence of the Roman Court Very many Doctors doe hold that for the common good of the Republick Princes have Iurisdiction in many causes otherwise Subject to the Ecclesiasticall Court not only by the positive Law of God but by the Law of Nature And many more give them a power indirectly in causes Ecclesiasticall over Ecclesiasticall persons so far as is necessary for the preservation of the Peace and Tranquility of the Commonwealth nec putem ullum Doctorem Catholicum refragari saith the same Author in the place cited Neither doe I think that any Catholick Doctor will be against it Now I have said my minde concerning the Oath of Allegiance who they were that first contrived it and in what sense we doe maintain it I hope agreably to the sense of the Christian World except such as are prepossessed with prejudice for the Court of Rome As our Kings out of Reverence to Christ did freely lay by the title of Supreme heads of the English Church so though it bee not meet for me to prevent their maturer determinations I should not be displeased if out of a tender consideration of the consciences of Subjects who may erre out of invincible ignorance they would be pleased to lay by the oath also God looks upon his Creatures with all their prejudices why should not man doe the
prescribed to the Bishops those things which did pertain to the profit of the Churches He referred the cause of Caecilianus an Ecclesiasticall cause to Miltiades Bishop of Rome and Marcus and Rhetecius and Maternus and Marinus as his Delegates or Commissioners visum est mihi it hath seemed good to me c. He accepted Appeals from the judgment of the Bishops He commanded Caecilianus to repair to Anilinus the Proconsul and Patritius Vicar of the Prefects as deputed and authorised by him as Judges to doe justice upon Ecclesiasticall Delinquents He sent for the Bishops assembled by his commandement at a Councell first at Tyrus then at Hierusalem that they should repaire with speed to Constantinople evestigio ad castra nostra maturetis to give an account to him of their actions and to shew how sincerely they had behaved themselves in their judgments In a word he medled so much in Ecclesiasticall affaires that he made himself as a common Bishop constituted by God I will conclude with his own profession in an Epistle to the Nicomedians If we have chaste and orthodox Bishops and endowed with humanitie we rejoyce but if any one shall audaciously and unadvisedly be vehemently affected to the memory and praise of those pests Eusebius and other Bishops he shall straight be repressed by my execution as the Minister of God And accordingly they were spoyled of their dignities and cast out of the Cities His second witness is Valentinian in an Epistle to Theodosius but which Valentinian which Theodosius where this Epistle is to be found he is silent and leaveth us if it were worth the labour to seek for a needle in a bottle of hay But the truth is there is nothing in it which concerneth this question nothing which we deny The words as they be alleged by him are these All antiquity hath given the Principality of Priesthood over all to the Bishop of the City of Rome Our question is concerning the Politicall Principality of Kings and Emperours and his answer is concerning the Principality of Priesthood Let them retain their Principality of Priesthood so they leave to Sovereign Princes their just Principality of Power We are ready to give them a principality of Priesthood if that would content them And neither all antiquity nor any antiquity did ever give them a principality of Power Or at least such a Supremacy of single sovereign monarchichall Power as they require about which our controversie now is A Lord chief Justice hath a principality of Order among his brother Judges of the same Coyfe and Bench and in some circumstantiall respects a kinde of eminency or principality of Power but no single supremacy so as to be able to crosse their votes with a non obstante Such a supremacy of sovereing single universall power of Priesthood the Church of God did never know either at Rome or elsewhere The Bishops of Rome were so farre from having power over generall Councells that they had no single power over their fellow Patriarchs So farre from having power over Emperours that they have been delegated by Emperours as their Commissioners in Ecclesiasticall causes have been convened before Emperors and deposed by Emperors Primitive Bishops use to stile Popes their brethren their collegues their fellows but never Ecclesiasticall Princes If he mean the second Valentinian his authority weighs nothing he was a young Novice mis-led by his Arrian Mother a wilfull ill-advised woman If he mean another Valentinian I shall shew him that he exercised this politicall Supremacy in Ecclesiasticall affaies it may be to the questioning of his Prince of Priests His third witness is Theodosius the younger in his Epistle to the Synod of Ephesus his words are these It is not lawfull for him that is not a Bishop to meddle with Ecclesiasticall matters Yet he did meddle with Ecclesticall matters This is that Theodosius that argued with the Bishops upon the holy Scriptures as if himself had been a Bishop This is that Theodosius which made this following Law We decree that who follow the ungodly faith of Nestorius or obey his wicked Doctrine if they be Bishops be cast out of the holy Churches but if Lay men anathematized This is that Theodosius that convocated the generall Councell of Ephesus by his Authority Royall and sent Candidianus thither to be his Deputy among other things set diligenter inspiceret c. to look diligently to the behaviours of the Bishops so see that no dissensions did arise among them to disturbe the consultations of Synods and to represse them likewise otherwise he might as well have staid at home Among the instructions of Theodosius given to Candidianus are the words alleged Candidianum ad banc sacram Synodum abire jussimus sed eae lege c. We command Candidianus to goe to this holy Synod but upon this condition that he should have nothing to doe with questions and controversies which concern Doctrines of faith for it is unlawfull for one not registred in the catalogue of Bishops to thrust himself into ecclesiasticall affairs and consultations This is as much as to say that Candidianus was not sent by the Emperour to dispute in the Councell about Theologicall questions which it is probable he did not understanding nor to overawe the Bishops or controlle their votes We are of the same minde with Theodosius and say as much as he that it is not fit for every man promiscuously to dispute of Theologicall questions And though we give the severeign Regiment of the Church in some sense to Princes within their own Dominions yet we would not have them to govern it upon their own heads but upon mature advise of free Synods of Ecclesiasticall persons who are their proper Counsellors in Church affairs All men know that Candidianus could have no decisive voice in a generall Councell So we would not have Princes meddle with the Keyes of the Church either the Key of Knowledge or the Key of Order We confesse that some causes in the first instance belong properly to Bishops yet the last Appeal may be to the King We say there are many things which Kings cannot doe in their own persons and yet may be done by fit Delegates by their Royall authority His fourth witness is Valentinian the elder It is not lawfull for me who am of the People to search curiously such matters let Priests who have care of these things meet where they please The case was this Valentinian had associated his Brother Valens with him in the Empire Valens was an Arrian Valentinian an orthodox Christian yet so as he troubled not those who were of a contrary Opinion He being at this time in his voyage through Thracia towards Rome the orthodox Bishops about the Hellespont and in Bythinia sent their Depuities unto him to request him to give them leave to assemble together in Councell for the establishment of the right Faith wherein they acknowledged him
which continue in communion with it are the onely Churches which have true doctrine in vertue of the first principle above mentioned and the right governement in virtue of the second and consequently are the entire Catholick or Vniversall Church of Christians all others by misbelief or Schisme being excluded Our answer is ready that the Church of Rome or the Court of Rome have sophisticated the true doctrine of Faith by their supplementall Articles and erroneous additions contrary to the first principle and have introduced into the Church a tyrannical and unlawfull government contrary to the second principle and are so far from being the entire Catholick Church that by them both they are convicted to have made themselves guilty of supertio n and Schisme And lastly where he saith that my onely way to clear our Church from Schisme is either by disproving the former to be the necessary rule of unity in Faith or the latter the necessary bond of governement he is doubly mistaken First we are the persons accused our plea is negative or not guilty So the proof lieth not upon us but upon him to make good his accusation by proving us Schismaticks Secondly if the proof did rest upon our sides we do not approve ofâ—his adviâ—e It is not we who have altered the Doctrine or Discipline which Christ left to his Church by our substractions but they by their additions There is no doubt but Christs legacy ought to be preserved inviolable but we deny that Christ bequeathed spiritual Monarchy over his Church to S. Peter and that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peters heir by Christs ordination And that this was the constant beliefe of the Catholick world at any time This is his province let him either make this good or hold his peace Sect. 2. So his Prologue is ended now we come to his animadversions upon my arguments My first ground was because not Protestants but Roman Catholicks themselves did make the first separation To which his first answer is If it were so how doth that acquit us since continuance in a breach of this nature is as culpable as the beginning Many waies First it is a violent presumption of their guilt and our innocence when their best friends and best able to judge who preached for them and writ for them who acted for them and suffered for them who in all other things were great zeloâ—s of the Roman Religion and persecuted the poor Protestants with fire and Fagot did yet condemn thâ—m and justify this separation Secondly though it doth not alwaies excuse a tâ—to from all guilt and punishment to be misled by others into errour If the blind llead the blind both fall into the ditch yet it doth alwaies excuse a tanto it lesseneth the sin and extenuateth the guilt Persons misled by the example and authority of others are not so cuipable as the first authors and ringleaders in Schisme If this separation be an Errour in Protestants the Roman Catholicks do owe an account to God both for themselves and us did they find cause to turne the Pope out of England as an intruder and usurper and could Protestants who had no relation to Rome imagine that it was their duties to bring him in again Thirdly in this case it doth acquit us not onely a tanto but a toto not onely from such a degree of guilt but from all criminus Schisme so longas we seek carefuly after truth and do not violate the dictates of our Consciences If he will not believe me let himbeleeve S. Austin He that defends not his false opinion with pertinacious animosity having not invented it himself but learned it from his erring parents if he enquire carefully after the truth and be ready to embrace it and to correct his errours when he finds them he is not to be reputed an hereticke If this be true in the case of heresy it is more true in the case of Schisme Thus if it had been a crime in them yer it is none in us but in truth it was neither crime in them nor us but a just and necessary duty Secondly he answereth that it is no sufficient proof that they were no Protestants because they persecuted Protestants For Protestants persecute Protestants Lutherans Calvinists Zwinglians Puritans and Beownists persecute one another VVhat then were VVarham and Heath aud Thureleby Tunscall and Stokesley and Gardiner and Bonner c. all Protestants did Protestants enjoy Arch-Bishopricks and Bishopricks iâ— England and say Masses in those daies will he part so easily with the greatest Patrons and Champions of their Church and opposers of the Reformation If he had wriâ— thus much whilest they were living they would have been very angry with him Yet at the least if they were Protestants let him tell me which of these Sects they were of Lutheranâ— c. But he telleth us that the reouncing of the Pope is the most essentiall part of our reformation and so they had in them the quintessence of a Protestant He is mistaken This part of the reformation was done to our hands it was their reformation not ours But if he will needs have the kingdomes and Churches of England and Ireland to have been all Protestants in Henry the eighths daies onely for renouncing the Popes absolute universall Monarchy I am well contented we shall not lose by the bargain Then the Primitive Church were all Protestants then all the Grecian Russian Armenian Abyssen Christians are Protestants at this day then we want not store of Protestants even in the besome of the Roman Church it self Sect. 3. My second Ground saith he was because in the separation of England from Rome there was no new law made but onely their ancient Liberties vindicated This he is pleased to call notoriously false impudence it self because a law was made in Henry the eighths time and an oath invented by which was given to the King to be head of the Church and to have all the power the Pope did at that time possess in England Is this the language of the Roman Sâ—hooles or doth he think perhaps with his outcriâ—s and clamours as the Turks with their Alla Alla to daunt us and drive us from our cause Christian Reader of what Communion soever thou art be but indifferent and I make thee the Judge where this notorious falshood and impudence doth rest between him and me I acknowledge this was the Title of my fourth Chapter that the King and Kingdom of England in the separation from Rome did make no now law but vindicate their ancient Liberties It seemeth he confureth the Titles without looking into the Chapters did I say they made no new statutes No I cited all the new statutes which they did make and particularly this very statute which he mentioneth here Yet I said they made no new law because it was the law of the land before that statute was made The Customs and liberties of England are the ancient and common Law of the
a single head of Power Jurisdiction for to me he seemeth to hover between two as if he would gladly say more for the Pope if he could Thirdly it followeth and consequently to his Successors I like the general proposition well enough and consequently to his Successours For the reason of the first institution being of perpetual necessity seemeth to imply strongly that such an headship of order ought to continue in the Church or at least may lawfully be continued in the Church But I like not his application to the Bishops of Rome or his Successors in the See of Rome That consequence is but like a Rope of sand There is no necessity at all that he who succeedeth a man in a particular Bishoprick should succeed him in a higher office which is not annexed to that Bishoprick As if a man should argue thus Such a Bishop of such a See dyed Lord Chancellour of England therefore all succeeding Bishops of the same See must succeed him likewise in the Chancellor ship of England If the Catholick Church do nominate the Biâ—hop of Rome for the time that is another matter but that is no perpetuity to the Bishops of that See for ever whether the Church will or not Certainly Christ did leave the chief Mesuagery of his family to his Spouse that is the Church and not to any single servant further then as subservient to his spâ—use But to make Rome to be the Mâ—stris of the Church as this Resuter doth and the Bishop oâ— Rome the Master of the Church is sâ—ch an indignity and affront as no husband would tolerate much less Christ who is proposed to all husbands as the perfect pattern of coâ—jugal love Husbands love your wives as Christ loved the Church His argument drawn from the vicissitude of humane affaires cuâ—s the throat of his cause for what priviledge hath Rome from this vicissitude more then other places It may be demolished and destroyed by enemies it may be swallowed by an earthquake as some great Cities have been it may become heretical or Mahumetan And in all these cases must it still continue Mistris of the Church That were an hard condition Nemâ— sapiens Ligat sibimanus The Church nâ—ver disposeth so of her offices that she may not be able to move the rudder according to the change of wind and weather and to change the mesuagery of Ecclesiastical affaires according to the vicissitide of humane things Let not the Refuter trifle between a primacy of order and a Supremacy of power a Tyranny and an Anarchy are the two extreams The Church may shake off tyranny and yet not vanish into a pure Anarchy nor the frame thereof be utterly dissolved these are but made Dragons Between a tyranny and an Anarchy there is an Aristocracy which was the ancient Regiment of the Christian Church they know no Monarch but Christ their spiritual King A primacy of order is as sufficient nay more sufficient in this case to prevent all these dangers which he seemeth to fear and to procure all those advantages which he mentioneth than a Supremacy of power And I hold it a reasonable proposition that whosoever is admitted to the one should disclaime the other In the next passage he forgetteth himself over much when he maketh the Popes principality to be the bridle which our Saviour hath put into the mouth of his Church So he makes the Church to be the Beast and the Popes office to be to ride upon the Church No he quite mistaketh the matter Our Saviour hath put the bridle into the hand of his Church Dâ—c Ecclesiae tell it to the Church not into the mouth of his Church and the Pope at the best is but one of the Churches Escuriers Next he proclaimeth the advantages of the Papacy He doth well to cry up his cause No man proclaimeth in the market that he hath rotten wares to sell. But it is but with an if If this authority were duly preserved and governed no dissention in faith or discipline nay not any war among Christian Princes could annoy the world What Christian Prince can chuse but be glad to have an arbitrator so prudent so pâ—ous so disinterressed as a good Pope should be He brings to my mind our old distinction between Plato and Aristotle Plato script sit somnians Aristoteles vigilans Plato writ dreaming and Aristotle waking the one looked upon men as they ought to be and the other as they were which was much more proper for one that was to write politicks If all things were as they should be we should have a brave world buâ— if we look upon the case without an if or as he should be we shall finde the Papacy as it is settled or would have been so far from deserving these â—ulogiums which he gives it that it hath been the cause either procreating or conserving or both of all the Schisms and all the greater Ecclesiastical dissentions in Christendom and rather an incentive to waâ— for its own interest and advantage then a means of peace and reconciliation among Christian Princes But now Reader look to thy self that thou receive no hurt for he hath undertaken to let us see all the arrowes which I have shot against them falling down upon mine own head Yes at the Greek Calends when an oblique and a perpendicular motion are the sâ—me But let us see how he attempts to prove it Because the Papacy stands firme and strong in all these Countries which have resisted the Pope when they conceived that he encroached on their liberties c. whereas as the Reformation has made England an headless Synagogue without brotherhood or order Neither â—o nor so the Eastern Southerne and Northerne Churches admit no Papacy nor any thing higher then the chiefâ—st Patriarch A great part of the Westerne Churches have shaken off the Roman yoke and the rest who do still acknowledge the Papacy do it with such cautions and reservations and restrictions especially France and Sicilly that I think the Cardinal Legate in the Councel of Trent had reason to say that he would rather perswade the Pope to give up his Keys to St. Peter then hold them upon such tearms I believe not one of them all doth admit such a Papacy as the Roman Court endeavoured to have obtruded upâ—n them Whereas he stileth England an headless Synagogue without brotherhood or order he seeth or may see that for order we are as much for it as himself for Christian Brotherhood we maintaine it three times larger then himself and for his headless Synagogue they want no head who have Christ for a spiritual head a General Councel for an Ecclesiastical head and a gracious Christian Prince for a political head That Title would better have become themselves about two or three moneths since who sometimes have two or three heads sometimes a broken head sometimes never an head The Protestants do not attempt to make themselves a distinct body from the rest of the
Alan Apol. c. 4. p. 59. Sond de Schism p 103 b. Denique nulla in re a side Catholica discessit nisi libidinis luxuâ—iâ— causa Sect. 4. A full justification of our penall Laws L 3. L. 1. de Orator Leg. 12. tal Aen Gaz. in Theo. phâ—asium Cont Aristâ—câ—aetem Timocratem Sand de Schis l. 1. Camd Annal Eliz. l. 2. p. 7. Id. l. 2. p. 98. Id l 4. p. 145 p. 150. p 164. Câ—md Annal l 3 p. 11 Ibid. l. 3. p. 44. l. 3. p. 74. Camd. An. l. 3. p. 132 Apol. Marc. p. 329. Camd. An. l 3. p. 11. Apr. 1. El. 23. ex Apol. Mart. Edm. Camp epist. ad Conc. R. Aug. pag. 127. Camb. Annal Eliz an 1581. Camb. Annal. Eliz an 1581. Sect. 1. The Kings of England alwaies politicall Heads of the English Church Not only acts of Papall Power but the Power it self contrary to our Laws Jurisdiction is from Ordination but Princes apply the matter Jurisdidiction enlarged and fortified with coercive power by Princes Henry the eighth not exempt from the power of the Keyes An. 25. H. 8. C. xxi Sect. 2. Saint Wilfrid Spel. conc An. 705. Bed l. 5. Ecc. hist c. 20. St. Austin and his â— Fellowes Bed l. 2. c 4. Bed l. 1. e. 25. See Speed l. 6 c. 9. 11.22 Fed. l. 1. c. 29. Bed l. 2. c. 2. Bed l. 2. c. 4. St. Melit L. 2. c. 4. Ibidem Bed l. 3. c 29. An Aâ—ch bâ—shop sent from Rome L. 4 c. 1. Bed l. 3. c 25. St. Peter Poâ—ter of Heaven Camd. Brit. p. 165. St Peter Superior to Saint Paul L. 2. Flor. c. 11. St. Peter a Monarch Bed l. 4 c. 18. John the precentor Malm. l 2â— Reg. c 9. Bishoprickâ— erâ—cted in England by the Pope answered Wil Malmes l. 1. Reg. c. 6. L. 2â— Floâ— c. 11. Edgar apud Ealred in orati ad Episcopos withred a pud Speim Conc p. 192 Clergy-men not exempted from seculaâ— Judges Plat. in politico Ibâ—dem 〈◊〉 Ser. 25 in 14 c 〈◊〉 Rome hath no certainâ—y of iâ—tallibilitiâ— Bell. de Ro. Pont. l. 4. â— 4. Aclred de vita Mirac Edw. Conf. superseriptions to Popes 2 Cor. 11. 28. Aclred ibidem Walsing Aâ— 133 How the Pope presideth above all Creatures Wâ—lsiâ—g â— An 1343. 25 E. 3. Wals. An. 1343. Wals. ibidem Aust. Ep. 50. Sect. 2. Patriarchs indâ—pâ—ndent upon a single Superior Socrat. l. 2. â— 11 Cypr. Epist. l. 1. Ep. 3. Conc. â—â—hâ—sia part 1. act 7. Bâ—itain enjoyed the Cyprian pâ—iviledge Math Paris in H 3. an 1238. Itineâ—az Caâ—â—b l 2. c 1. Bellarmine maâ—â—s the Apostles all equal in power I. 4 de Rom. Pont. c. 23. L. 4 de Ro. pont c. 16. L 1. de Ro Pont. c. 12. Cypr. de unit Ecclesiae Cont. Iovin l. 1. c. 14. How Peter head of the rest A superiority of Order is sufficient to prevent Schisme The rest Pastors as well as Peter De Rom. Pont. l. 4. c. 25. l. 1. c. 9. Sect. 2. Universality an incommunicable qualification of the Apostles 9 c. 8. s. 2. Bel l. 4. de Ro. Pont c â—4 All Episcopall jurisdiction is not derived from the Pope Sect. 3. The Chair of St. Peter not fixed to Rome by Divine right l. 2. de Pont. Ro. c. 12. Bel. de Pont. Ro. l. â—â— c. 23. Io 21.18 Bel de Râ— Poâ— 2. c. 12. Ibidem Nor by humane right Sect. 4. Gild. in Prol. Whether St. Peter converted Britain Onuph Of Eleutherius his sending into Engand And Victors into Scotland Ninian Bed l. 3â— c. 4. Palladius and S. Patrick Bed in viâ—a St. Patriâ— l. 1. Germanus and Lupus Prosp. in Chron. Constant de vita Germ. l. 1. Bed l 1. c. 17. Baron an 429. Constant l. c. 19. Idem c. 23 Austine Dubritius St. Samson Vind. p. 150. Pol. Virg. l 13 hist. Angl. Itiâ— Camb l. 1. c. 1. Râ—g â—â—ved An. anno 1â—99 King Iames. Matrix Ecclesia Sect. 5. Bed l. 2. c. 2. â—ed l. 3. c. 25. Vind. p. 115 116. Aqui. ◠〈◊〉 2.2 quaest 88. Art 2. 10. A King hath all power needfull for the preservation of his Kingdome A respective necessity is a sufficient ground of a Reformation Act. 15.28 Act. 21 20 Senec. Our Reformation was necessary Hall 24. Hen. 8. sol 205. The Regiment of the Church conformed to that of the Commonwealth conc chalc c. 11. vel 12. Dist. 99. In gain or losse all circumstances to be considered 1 Pet. 1.7 Our Reformation not contrary to the Decrees of generall Councels Novell 11 131. p. 127. But in pur suance of them King Henries Divorce lawfull but no ground of the Reformation Hall in Hen. 8. an 20. sol 180. b. an 21 f. 182. All the Cardinals of Rome opposed the Dispensation Hall An. 1. H. 8. Acworth emt Sand 1 2. c 13. 14 Hall An. 19. H 8. fâ—l 161. Sand de Schism p. 11. 12. Steph. Wint. de vera Obedientia apnd Gild. t. 1. p. 721. Ld. Cherb in Hen 8. An 1530. p. 303. Sufficere sant alioqui debuisset causae ipsius c. The Parliament not forced Idem p. 334. Anno. 1530. De vera Obedien tia Ibâ—dem p. 719. King Henry did not act against conscience c 3. s. 5. Ld. Cherb H. 8. an 1530. p. 305. Consilio divino Sand. de Sâ—hism p. 102. Lord Cherb fol. 398. P 128. Our separation from the Papacy was not for the faults of Popes but of the Papacy it self Luk. 13.7 whether Popes have done more good or hurt to England not materiall 2 King 18.4 Sect. 2. Conc. Turor Râ—sp ad Art 3. 48. It was lawfull to withdraw obedience from Papâ—ll Authority corrupted Princes the last Judges of the injuries done to their Subjâ—cts by Popes Bish. Epist. ad Reg. Iocob p. 11. Rom. 13.1 2. Prov. â— 15 Kingly Authority from God not Papal Sect. 3. The grounds of our sâ—paration An. 30. Sect. 4. The Popes new Articles of Faith a just cause of separation The deâ—â—ining of the Cup in the Sacrament a just cause of separation Odoardus Barlosa forma Celebrandi c. Papists right Heirs of the Donatists Optat. l. 2. Whether Protestants and Papists differ in Essentials Psal. 139.16 Sect. 5. Papists acknowledge possibility of our salvation as much as we of theirs Sect. 6. Our separation only from errors Math. 15.9 We arrogate to our selves no new Church c. Whether our Religion be the same with theirs or not we are no Schismaticks Quaest 14. de side Aâ—t 1. Justification by speciall faâ—â—h no Aâ—â—icle of our Church Probl. 22. Probl. 26. Our negatives no Articles of Faith Sect. 7. An implicite submission to the Catholick Church sufficient to salvation 〈…〉 Papists agree not what is their infallâ—ble proponent Aust. epist. 48. The name of Catholick from universall Communion not right beleefe c. 2 sect 6. More dangerous to exclude then to include others in our Communion The politick Supremacy of Princes in