that is by their doctrine by their example and by their approbative suffrage Iust arâ— thou O Lord and right are thy judgments Authoritative confirmation implies either a sole Legislative power or at least a negative voice Whereas it is as clear as the light that the Popes anciently never had either the one or the other in the Catholick Church We meet with no confirmations of General Councels of old but onely by the Emperours whereby Ecclesiastical Sanctions became civil Lawes and obliged all the Subjects of the Empire under a civil pain Wherefore it is no matter whether the Pope confirmed the decree or not whether it was confirmed or unconfirmed it lets us see what was the Catholique tradition and the sense of the Christian world in those daies And we abide in it Secondly I reply that this decree was most conciliarly made and consequently confirmed made after due examination and discussion without any under-hand packing or labouring for voices made in the publick Session not privately before the Deputies of the Nations For clearing whereof take this Dilemma Either this decree and the subsequent Acts done by vertue and in execution thereof were conciliarly made and confirmed and consequently valid in the judgment of the Romanists themselves or unconciliarly made and consequently according to their rules not confirmed but invalid If they grant that this decree was conciliarly made and confirmed then they grant the question If they say it was not conciliarly made nor confirmed then Martine the fifth was no true Pope but an intruder and an usurper and consequently his confirmation was of no value for in pursuance of this very decree and by virtue of that doctrine therein delivered the other Popes were deposed and he was created Pope But to clear that passage from all ambiguity There were in the Councel of Constance the Deputies of the Nations as a selected Committee to examine matters and prosecute them and prepare them for the Councel What was done apart by these Deputies by this Committee was not conciliarly done But what was done in the publick Session of the Councel upon their report that was conciliarly done Now so it was that one Falkemberch had published a dangerous and seditious book which had been complained of to the Deputies of the Nations and condemned by them But the conjoynt body of the Councel in their publick Session had not condemned it conciliarly Yet after the Councel was ended and after the Cardinal had given the Fathers their Conge or leave to depart and dismissed them with Domini ite in pace Fathers depart in peace And the Fathers had answered Amen When there was nothing left to do but to hear a Sermon and be gone The Ambassadours of Polonia and Lituania very unseasonably pressed the Pope to condemn that book alledging that it had been condemned by the Deputies of the Nations To which the Pope answered That he confirmed onely those Acts of the Councel which were conciliarly made That is to say Not the Acts of the Deputies of the Nations apart but the publick Acts of the whole Session This is the genuine sense of that passage which bears its own evidence along with it to every one that doth not wilfully shut his eyes This was an accidental emergent after the Synod was ended and not the solemn purposed confirmation And concerning that glosse that the decree is to be understood onely of dubious Popes or Popes whose title is litigious As it contradicts the text it self which includes all dignitaries whosoever of whatsoever title peaceable or litigious Popes or others So it is sufficiently confuted by the very execution of the decree An inferiour may declare the lawful right of his Superiour and where there are divers pretenders establish the possession in him that hath the best title But to make right to be no right to turn all pretenders right or wrong out of possession onely by the last Law of Salus Populi c. for the tranquillity of the people This is a prerogative of Sovereign Princes and a badge of Legislative authority This was the very case of the Councel of Constance They turned out all pretenders to the Papacy the right Pope and the Antipopes all together Some of them indeed by perswasion but such perswasion as might not be resisted And one whose title seemed clearest which rendered their perswasions as unto him ineffectual by plain power For so the Councel with the consent and concurrence of Christian Princes did find it expedient for Christendome Lastly though the Popes do not abolish the order of Bishops or Episcopacy in the abstract yet they limit the power of Bishopâ— in the concrete at their pleasure by exemptions and reservations holding themselves to be the Bishops of every particular See in the world during the vacancy of it And making all Episcopal Jurisdiction to flow from them and to be founded in the Popes Lawes Because it was but delegated to the rest of the Apostles for term of life But resided soly in Saint Peter as an Ordinary to descend from him to his Successours Bishops of Rome And to be imparted by them to other Bishops as their Vicars or Coadjutours assumed by them into some part of their charge By this account the Pope must be the universal or onely Bishop of the world The keyes must be his gift not Christs And all the Apostles except Saint Peter must want their Successours in Episcopal Jurisdiction What is this but to trample upon Episcopacy and to make them equivocal Bishops to dissolve the primitive bonds of brotherly unity to overthrow the discipline instituted by Christ and to take away the line of Apostolical Succession The name of Oecumenical or universal Bishop is taken in three senses one without controversie lawful one controverted whether lawfull or unlawfull And one undoubtedly unlawful and Schismatical In the first sense an universal Bishop signifies no more then an eminent Bishop of the universal Church implying an universality of care and vigilance but not of Jurisdiction And in this sense all the five Protopatriarchs used more Emphatically to be caled universal Bishops Either by reason of their reputation and influence upon the universal Church or their presidence in general Councels In another sense an universal Bishop signifies such a Bishop who besides an universal care doth also challenge an universal Jurisdiction This was that title which Iohn Bishop of Constantinople affected omnibus praeesse nulli subesse And again Cuncta Christi membra sibimet supponere universalitatis appellatione This was that title which Grâ—gory the Great and his predecessours refused if they did refuse any such title For it were evident madnesse to fancy that ever any General Councel did offer any particular Bishop the title of the only Bishop of the world This title in this sense was that which Gregory himself did condemn as a vain profane wicked blasphemous Antichristiaâ— name Lastly the name of Universal Bishop may be taken exclusively for the only
diminution Schisme for the most part is changeable and varies its Symptomes as the Chamaelion colours As it was said of the Schisme of the Donatists that the passion of a disordered woman brought it forth Ambition nourished it and covetousnesse confirmed it And therefore it is as hard a task to shape a coat for Schismaticks as for the Moon which changeth its shape every day The reason is because having once deserted the Catholick communion they find no beaten path to walk in but are like men running down a steep hill that cannot stay themselves or like sick persons that tosse and turn themselves continually from one side of their bed to the other searching for that repose which they do not find Hence it comes to passe that Schisme is very rarely found for any long space of time without some mixture of heretical pravity it being the use of Schismaticks to broach some new doctrine for the better justification of their separation from the Church Heretical errours in point of faith do easily produce a Schisme and Separation of Christians one from another in the use of the Sacraments and in the publick service of God As the Arrian heresie produced a different doxology in the Church The Orthodox Christian saying Gloâ—â— be to the Father and to the Son and to the holy Ghost And the heretical Arrian Glory be to the Father by the Son in the Spirit So of later times the opinions of the lawfulnesse of detaining the cup from the Laity and of the necessity of adoring the Sacrament have by consequence excluded the Protestants from the participation of the Eucharist in the Roman Church Thus Heresie doth naturally destroy unity and uniformity That is one Symptome of Schisme But it destroyes order also and the due subordination of a flock to their lawful Pastour nothing being more common with hereticks then to contemne their old guides and to choose to themselves new teachers of their own factions and so erect an altar against an altar in the Church That is another principal branch of Schisme So a different faith commonly produceth a different discipline and different formes of worship A man may render himself guilty of heretical pravity four wayes First by disbelieving any fundamental article of faith or necessary part of saving truth in that sense in which it was evermore received and believed by the universal Church Secondly by believing any superstitious errours or additions which do virtually by necessary and evident consequence subvert the faith and overthrow a fundamental truth Thirdly by maintaining lesser errours obstinately after sufficient conviction But because that consequence which seems clear and necessary to one man may seem weak and obscure to another And because we cannot penetrate into the hearts of men to judg whether they be obstinate or do implicitely and in the preparation of their minds believe the truth it is good to be sparing and reserved in censuring hereticks for obstinacy Fourthly by maintaining lesser errours with frowardnesse and opposition to lawfull determinations Though it be not in the power of any Councel or of all the Councels in the world to make that truth fundamental which was not fundamental or to make that proposition heretical in it self which was not heretical ever from the daies of the Apostles Or to increase the necessary Articles of the Christian faith either in number or substance yet when inferiour question 's not fundamental are once defined by a lawful general Councel All Christians though they cannot assent in their judgments are obliged to passive obedience to possesse their soules in patience And they who shall oppose the authority and disturb the peace of the Church deserve to be punished as hereticks To summe up all that hath been said Whosoever doth preserve his obedience intire to the universal Church and its representative a General Councel and to all his Superiours in their due order so far as by Law he is obliged who holds an internal communion with all Christians and an external communion so far as he can with a good conscience who approves no reformation but that which is made by lawfull authority upon sufficient grounds with due moderation who derives his christianity by the uninterrupted line of Apostolical Succession who contents himself with his proper place in the Ecclesiastical body who disbelieves nothing contained in holy Scripture and if he hold any errours unwittingly and unwillingly doth implicitely renounce them by his fuller and more firm adherence to that infallible rule who believeth and practiseth all those credenda and agenda which the universal Church spread over the face of the earth doth unanimously believe and practise as necessary to salvation without condemning or censuring others of different Judgement from himself in inferiour questions without obtruding his own opinions upon others as Articles of faith who is implicitely prepared to believe and do all other speculative and practical truths when they shall be revealed to him And in summe qui sententiam diversae opinionis vinculo non praeponit unitâ—â—tis that prefers not a subtlety or an imaginary truth before the bond of peace He may securely say My name is Christian my sirname is Catholique From hence it appeareth plainly by the rule of contraries who are Schismatiques whosoever doth uncharitably make ruptures in the mystical body of Christ or sets up altar against altar in his Church or withdrawes his obedience from the Catholique Church or its representative a General Councel or from any lawful Superiours without just grounds whosoever doth limit the Catholique Church unto his own sect excluding all the rest of the Christian world by new doctrines or erroneous censures or tyrannical impositions whosoever holds not internall Communion with all Christians and externall also so far as they continue in a Catholique constitution whosoever not contenting himself with his due place in the Church doth attempt to usurp an higher place to the disorder and disturbance of the whole body whosoever takes upon him to reform without just authority and good grounds And lastly whosoever doth wilfully break the line of Apostolical Succession which is theâ—very nerves and sinewes of Ecclesiastical unity and communion both with the present Church and with the Catholique Symbolical Church of all successive ages He is a Schismatick qua talis whether he be guilty of heretical pravity or not Now having seen who are Schismaticks for clearing the state of the Question Whether the Church of England be Schismatical or not it remaineth to shew in a word what we understand by the Church of England First we understand not the English Nation alone but the English Dominion including the Brittish and Scottish or Irish Christians for Ireland was the right Scotia major and that which is now called Scotland was then inhabited by Brittish and Irish under the names of Picts and Scots Secondly though I make not the least doubt in the world but that the Church of England before
that by which it was acquired I say in this our case there can be no doubt at all And yet it can much lesse be doubted whether a Soveraign Prince with a National Synod may remedy the incroachments and usurpations of the Roman Court within his own dominions or exclude new Creeds and new Articles of faith lately devised and obtruded contrary to the determination of the General Councel of Ephesus of which let us hear what is Doctor Holdens opinion Notum est inter Catholicos omnes tanquans axioma certissimum c. It is known that all Catholicks do hold this as a most certain axiome that nothing ought or may be maintained for a Christian revealed truth but that which was received by our Ancestors and delivered from one generation to another by continued succession from the times of the Apostles This is all that we have done and done it with due submission to the highest Judge of Ecclesiastical controversies upon earth that is a general Councel If the Court of Rome will be humorous like little children who because they cannot have some toy that they have a mind to do cast away all that their parents have given them we cannot help it Over and above all the former grounds which the Romanists themselves do in some sort acknowledge I propose this further that Patriarchal power in external things is subject and subordinate to Imperial When Mauritius the Emperour had made a Law that no Souldier should turn Monk untill his warfare were accomplished St. Gregory Bishop of Rome disliked the Law and represented his sense of it to the Emperour but withall according to his duty published it Ego quidem missioni subjectus eandem legem per diversas terrarum partes transmitto quia lex ipsa omnipotenti deo minime concordat Ecce per suggestionis meae paginam dominis nunciavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolvi qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro deo quid sensi minime tacui I being subject to your command have transmitted your Law to be published through diverse parts of the world And because the Law itself is not pleasing to Almighty God I have represented my opinion thereof to my Lords wherefore I have performed my duty on both sides in yeelding obedience to the Emperour and not concealing what I thought for God A most rare and Christian president of that great Patriarch and fit for our observation and imitation in these dayes He acknowledged the Emperour to be his Lord and himself to be subject to his commands And though no humane invention can warrant an act that is Morally evil in it self yet if it be onely impeditive of a greater good as that blessed Saint did take this Law to be the command of a Soveraign doth weigh down the scale and obligeth a Patriarch to obedience in a matter that concerns Religion How much more doth the command of the English Monarch and the English Church disoblige an English subject from a forrein Patriarch whose Original right is but humane at the most and in the case in question between Rome and England none at all But to come up yet closer to the question The general Councels of Constantinople and Chalcedon with the presence concurrence and confirmation of Theodosius the great Martian the Emperours notwithstanding the opposition of the Roman Bishop by his Legates did advance the Bishop of Constantinople from being a poore Suffragan under the Metropolitan of Heraclea to be the second Patriarch and equal in dignity power and all manner of priviledges to the first and assigned unto him for his Patriarchate Pontus and Asia the lesse and Thracia and some other countries part of which territories they substracted from the obedience of the Roman Bishop at least over which the Roman Bishops challenged Jurisdiction and part from other Patriarchs And the reason of this alteration was the same for which Caesarea of old was a long time preferred before Hierusalem and Alexandria before Antioch and Rome before all others to conform the Ecclesiasticall regiment to the Politicall because Constantinople was made of a mean City the seat of the Eastern Empire and had as many Diocesses and Provinces subject unto it as old Rome it self But lest it may be conceived that this was not done at all by Imperial power but by the authority of the Oecumenical Synods we may observe further that Iustiniâ—n the Emperour by his sole Soveraign Legislative power did new-found the Patriarchate of Iustiniana prima and assign a province unto it and indow it with most ample priviledges freeing it from all appeals and all acknowledgment of superiority giving the Bishop thereof equal power with that which the Bishop of Rome had in his Patriarchate The same priviledges and prerogatives were given by the same Emperour by the same Legislative authority to the Bishop of Carthage notwithstanding that the Bishops of Rome did alwayes pretend that Carthage was under their Jurisdiction I deny not that Vigilius and Gregory succeeding Popes did make deputations to the Bishop of Iustiniana to supply their places But this was but an old Roman fineness The Bishops of Iustiniana needed none of their Commissions Iustinian the Father and founder of the Imperial Law knew well enough how far his Legislative power did extend And though the Act was notorious the whole world and inserted into the body of the Law yet the Fathers of that age did not complain of any innovation or usurpation or breach of their priviledges or violation of their rights King Henry the Eight had the same Imperial power and was as much a Soveraign in his own Kingdomes as Iustinian the Emperour in his larger Dominions as William Rufus Son and successor of the Conqerour said most truly that the Kings of England have all those liberties in their own Kingdomes which the Emperours had in the Empire and had as much authority to exempt his own subjects from the Jurisdiction of one Patriarch and transferre them to another especially with the advise consent and concurrence of a National Synod So King Arthur his predecessor removed the Primacy from Caâ—rleon to Saint Davids and another of them to Canterbury for the advantage of their subjects according to the exigence of the times If the Pope had been the King of Englands Subject as former Popes were the Emperours he might have served him as they did some of his predecessours called a Councel regulated him and reduced him to order and reason or if he proved incorrigible have deposed him But the Pope being a stranger all that he could justly do was what he did rather then to see his royall prerogative daily trampled upon his Lawes destroyed his Subjects oppressed rather then to have new Articles of faith daily obtruded upon the English Church rather then to incur the peril of willful Idolatry against conscience and therefore formal to Cashier the Roman Court with all their pardons and
Bishop of the world Which sense was far enough from the intention either of Gregory the Great or Iohn of Constantinople who had both of them so many true Archbishops and Bishops under them But this sense agrees well enough with the extravagant ambition of the later Popes and of the Roman Court who do appropriate all original Jurisdiction to themselves So many waies is the Court of Rome guilty of Schismatical pravity Besides these branches of Schisme there are yet two other novelties challenged by the Popes and their Parasitical Courtiers But neither these nor the other yet defined by their Church both destructive to Christian unity both apt to breed and nourish to procreate and conserve Schisme An infallibility of judgment and a temporall power over Princes either directly or indirectly General and Provincial Councels are the proper remedies of Schisme But this challenge of infallibility diminisheth their authority discrediteth their definitions and maketh them to be superfluous things What needs so much expence so many consultations so much travel of so many poor old fallible Bishops from all the quarters of the world when there is an infallible Judge at Rome that can determine all questions in his own conclave without danger of errour Was Marcellinus such an infallible Judge when he burned incense to Idols Or Liberius when he consented to the Arrians and gave his suffrage to the condemnation of blessed Athanasius Or Honorius when he was condemned and accursed in the sixth General Councel for a Monothelite Or Iohn the 22th when he was condemned by the Theologues of Paris before the King with sound of Trumpets for teaching that the soules of the just shall not see God untill the general resurrection were those succeeding Popes Iohn and Martine and Formosus and Stephen and Romanus and Theodorus and Iohn and Benedictus and Sergius who clashed one with another and abrogated the decrees one of another over and over again such infallible Judges Neither is it meer matter of fact to decree the Ordinations of a lawful Bishop to be void To omit many others But howsoever they tell us That the first See cannot be judged I will not trouble my self about the credit of the authorities whether they be true or counterfeit Nor whether the first See signifie Rome alone or any other of the five Proto-Patriarchates Thus much is certain that by judgment of discretion any private man may judge the Pope and withdraw from him in his errours and resist him if he invade either the bodies or the soules of men as Bellarmine confesseth That in the Court of Conscience every ordinary Pastour may judge him and bind him and loose him as an ordinary man And by their leaves in the external Court by coercive power if he commit civil crimes the Emperour if Ecclesiastical a Councel or the Emperour with a Councel may judge him and in some cases declare him to be fallen from his Papal dignity by the sentence of the Law in other cases if he be incorrigible depose him by the sentence of the Judge But there is a great difference between the judgment of Subjects aâ— those Ecclesiasticks were and the judgment of a Sovereign Prince between the judgment of a General Councel and the judgment of an assembly of Suffragans and inferiours And yet the Roman Clergy are known to have deposed Liberius their own Bishop and justly Or otherwise Foelix their Martyr had been a Schismatick Their other challenge of temporal power whether directly or indirectly and in ordine ad spiritualia cannot chuse but render all Christians especially Sovereign Princes jealous and suspicious of their power and averse from the communion of those persons who maintain so dangerous positions so destructive to their propriety The power of the keâ—es doth not extend it self to any secular rights neither can Ecclesiastical censures alter or invalidate the Lawes of God and Nature or the municipal Lawes of a Land All which do injoyn the obedience of children to their Parents and of Subjects to their Sovereignes Gregory the seventh began this practice against Henry the fourth But what Gregory did bind upon earth God Almighty did not bind in heaven His Papal blessing turned to a curse And instead of an Imperial Crown Rodolph found the just reward of his treason The best is that they who give these exorbitant priviledges to Popes do it with so many cautions and reservations that they signifie nothing and may be taken away with as much ease as they are given The Pope say they is infallible not in his Chamber but in his Chair not in the premisses but in the conclusion not in conclusions of matter of fact but in conclusions of matter of faith Not alwaies in all conclusions of matter of faith but onely when he useth the right means and due diligence And who knoweth when he doth that So every Christian is infallible if â—e would and could keep himself to the infallible rule which God hath given him Take nothing and hold it fast So likewise for his temporal power over Princes they say the Pope not as Pope but as a spiritual Prince hath a certain kind of power temporal but not meerly temporal not directly but indirectly and in order to spiritual things Quo tencam vultus mutantem Protea nodo CHAP. IX An Answer to the Objections brought by the Romanists to prove the English Protestants to be Schismaticks BUt it is not enough to charge the Church of Rome unlesse we can discharge our selves and acquit our own Church of the guilt of Schisme which they seek to cast upon us First they object that we have separated our selves Schismatically from the communion of the Catholick Church God forbid Then we will acknowledge without any more to do that we have separated our selves from Christ and all his holy Ordinances and from the benefit of his Passion and all hope of salvation But the truth is we have no otherwise separated our selves from the communion of the Catholick Church then all the primitive Orthodox Fathers and Doctours and Churches did long before us that is in the opinion of the Donatists as we do now in the opinion of the Romanists because the Romanists limit the Catholick Church now to Rome in Italy and those Churches that are subordinate to it as the Donatists did then to Cartenna in Africk and those Churches that adhered to it We are so far from separating our selves from the communion of the Catholick Church that we make the communion of the Christian Church to be thrice more Catholick then the Romanists themselves do make it and maintain Communion with thrice so many Christians as they do By how much our Church should make it self as the case stands more Roman then it is by so much it should thereby become lesse Catholick then it is I have shewed before out of the Canons and Constitutions of our Church that we have not separated our selves simply and absolutely from the
communion of any particular Church whatsoever even the Roman it self so far forth as it is Catholick but onely from their errours wherein they had first separated themselves from their predecessours To this I adde that it was not we but the Court of Rome it self that first separated England from the communion of the Church of Rome by their unjust censures excommunications and interdictions which they thundered out against the Realm for denying their spiritual Sovereignty by Divine right before the Reformation made by Protestants Secondly we are charged with Schismatical contumacy and disobedience to the decrees and determinations of the General Councel of Trent But we believe that Convent of Trent to have been no General nor yet Patriarchal no free no lawfull Councel How was that General where there was not any one Bishop out of all the other Patriarchates or any Proctours or Commissioners from them either present or summoned to be present except peradventure some tltular Europaean Mock-Prelates without cures such as Olaus Magnus intituled Archbishop of Vpsala Or Sir Robert the Scottish-man intituled Archbishop of Armagh How was that Generall or so much as Patriarchal where so great a part of the West was absent wherein there were twice so many Episcopelles out of Italy the Popes professed Vassals and many of them his hungry Parasitical pensioners as there were out of all other Christian Kingdoms and Nations put together How was that general wherein there were not so many Bishops present at the determination of the weightiest controversies concerning the rule of faith and the exposition thereof as the King of England could have called together in his own Dominions at any one time upon a moneths warning How was that general which was not generally received by all Churches even some of the Roman Communion not admitting it We have seen heretofore how the French Ambassadour in the name of the King and Church of France protested against it And untill this day though they do not oppose it but acquiesce to avoid such disadvantages as must insue thereupon yet they did never admit it Let no man say that they rejected the determinations thereof onely in point of discipline not of doctrine for the same Canonical obedience is equally due to an acknowledged General Councell in point of discipline as in point of Doctrine And as it was not General so neither was it free nor lawfull Not free where the place could afford no security to the one party where the accuser was to be the Judge where any one that spake a free word had his mouth stopped or was turned out of the Councel where the few Protestants that adventured to come thither were not admitted to dispute where the Legates gave auricular Votes where the Fathers were noted to be guided by the spirit sent from Rome in a male where divers not only new Bishops but new Bishopricks were created during the sitting of the Convent to make the Papalins able to over-vote the Tramontains Nor yet lawfull in regard of the place which ought to have been in Germany Actor debet rei forum sequi A guilty person is to be judged in his Province And the cause to be pleaded where the crime was committed And likewise in regard of the Judge In every Judgment there ought to be four distinct persons The accuser the witnesse the guilty person and the Judge But in the Councel of Trent the Pope by himself or his Ministers acted all these parts himself He was the right guilty person and yet withall the accuser of the Protestants the witnesse against them and their Judge Lastly no man can be lawfully condemned before he be heard But in this Councel the Protestants were not allowed to propose their case much lesse to defend it by lawful disputation Thirdly it is objected and here they think they have us sure locked up that we cannot deny but that the Bishop of Rome was our Patriarch and that we have rebelled against him and cast off our Canonical obedience in our Reformation To this supposed killing argument I give three clear solutions First That the Bâ—itish Islands neither were nor ought to be subject to the Jurisdiction of the Roman Patriarch as hath been sufficiently demonstrated in my third conclusion For all Patriarchal Jurisdiction being of humane institution must proceed either from some Canon or Decree of a General Councel or of such a Provincial Councell as had power to oblige the Britons to obedience Or from the grant or concession of some of their Sovereign Princes or from the voluntary submission of a free people Or lastly from custom and prescription If they had any such Canon or Grant or submission they would quickly produce it but we know they cannot If they plead custome and prescription immemorial the burthen must rest upon them to prove it But when they have searched all the Authours over and over who have written of British affaires in those daies and all their Records and Registers they shall not be able to find any one Act or so much as any one footstep or the least sign of any Roman Patriarchal Jurisdiction in Britaigne or over the Britons for the first 600 years And for after-ages the Roman Bishops neither held their old Patriarchate nor gained any quiet settled possession of their new Monarchy Secondly I answer That Patriarchal power is not of Divine right but humane institution And therefore may either be quitted or forfeited or transferred And if ever the Bishops of Rome had any Patriarchal Jurisdiction in Britaigne yet they had both quitted it and forfeited it over and over again and it was lawfully transferred To separate from an Ecclesiastical authority which is disclaimed and disavowed by the pretenders to it and forfeited by abuse and rebellion and lawfully transferred is no Schisme First I say they quitted their pretended Patriarchal right when they assumed and usurped to themselves the name and thing of universal Bishops Spiritual Sovereigns and sole Monarchs of the Church and masters of all Christians To be a Patriarch and to be an universal Bishop in that sense are inconsistent and imply a contradiction in adjecto The one professeth humane the other challengeth divine institution The one hath a limited Jurisdiction over a certain Province the other pretendeth to an unlimited Jurisdiction over the whole World The one is subject to the Canons of the Fathers and a meer executour of them and can do nothing either against them or besides them The other challengeth an absolute Sovereignty above the Canons besides the Canons against the Canons to make them to abrogate them to suspend their influence by a non-obstaâ—te to dispence with them in such cases wherein the Canon gives no dispensative power at his own pleasure when he will where he will to whom he will Therefore to claime a power paramount and Sovereign Monarchical Royalty over the Church is implicitely and in effect to disclaime a Patriarchal
and broiles between the Emperours with other Christian Princes and States and the Popes We have seen that from the excesses abuses innovations and extortions of that Court have sprung all the Schismes of the Eastern and Western Church and of the Occidentall Church within it self We have heard the confession of Pope Adrian that for some yeares by-past many things to be abominated had been in that holy See abuses in spiritual matters excesses in commands and all things out of order We have heard his promise to endeavour the Reformation of his own Court from whence peâ—adventure all the evil did spring that as corruption did flow from thence to the inferiour parts so might health and Reformation To which he accounted himself so much more obliged by how much he did see the whole world greedily desire a Reformation We have viewed the representation which nine selected Cardinals and Prelates did make upon their oathes to Paul the third That this lying flattering priâ—ciple that the Pope is the Lord of all benefices and therefore could not be Simoâ—iacall was the fountain from whence as from the Trojan horse so many abuses and so griâ—vou diseases had 〈…〉 into the Church and brought it to a desperate condition to the dâ—rision of Christian Religion and blaspâ—eming of the Name of Christ and that the cure must begin there from whencâ— the disease did spâ—ing We may remember the memorial of the King of Spain and the whole Kingdome of Castile That the abuses of the Court of Româ— gave occasion to all the Reformations and Schismeâ— of the Church And the complaint of the King and Kingdom of Portugal That for these reasons many Kingdomes had withdrawn their obedience and reverential respect from tâ—e Church of Rome These were no Protestants The first step to health is to know the true cause of our disease It hath been long debated whether the Protestant and Roman Churches be reconciliable or not Far be it from me to make my self a Judge of that Controversie Thus much I have observed that they who understand the sewest controversies make the most and the greatest If questions were truly stated by moderate persons both the number and the height would be much abated Many differences are grounded upon mistakes of one anothers sense Many are meer logomachies or contentions about words Many are meerly Scholastical above the capacity and apprehension of ordinary brains And many doubtlesse are real both in credendis and agendis both in doctrine and discipline But whether the distance be so great or how far any of these are necessary to salvation or do intrench upon the fundamentals of Religion requires a serious judicious and impartial consideration There is great difference between the reconciliation of the persons and the reconciliation of the opinions Men may vary in their judgments And yet preserve Christian unity and charity in their affections one towards another so as the errours be not destructive to fundamental Articles I determine nothing but onely crave leave to propose a question to all moderate Christians who love the peace of the Church and long for the re-union thereof In the first place if the Bishop of Rome were reduced from his universality of Sovereign Jurisdiction jure Divino to his principium unitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sense of the Councels of Constance and Basile and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we Secondly if the Creed or necessary points of faith were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Councels according to the decree of the third General Councel Conc. Eph Part. 2. Act. 6. c. 7. Who dare say that the faith of the primitive Fathers was insufficient Admitting no additional Articles bur onely necessary explications And those to be made by the authority of a General Councel or one so general as can be convocated And lastly supposing that some things from whence offences either given or taken which whether right or wrong do not weigh half so much as the unity of Christians were put out of divine offices which would not â—e refused if animosities were taken away and charity restored I say in case these three things were accorded which seem very reâ—sonable demands whether Christians might not live in an holy communion and joyn in the same publick worship of God free from all Schismatical separation of themselves one from another notwithstanding diversities of opinions which prevail even among the members of the same particular Chrches both with them and us FINIS Nothing more probably objected to the Church of England then Schisme But nothing more unjustly The method observed in this Discourse Every passionate heat not Schisme Acts 15. 〈◊〉 39. Ecclesiastical quarrels of long continuance not alwaies Schisme Hen Holden Append. de Schis Act. 1. pag 484. Infidelity unmasked Sect. 176. pag. 591. Idem pag. 516. The Separaters may be free from Schisme and the other party guilty Act. 19. 9. 1 Tim. 6. 5. Infid unmasked Ch. 7. Sect. 112. pag. 534. To withdraw obedience is not alwaies criminous Schisme Idem pag. 481. Theod. l. 4. c. 14. Cyril ep 18. ad Coelestinum Tâ—m 1. Conc. lib. Rom. Pâ—â—t in Anast. Libel ad mancit apud Bar. to 8. an 590. nu 39. 8. Syn. c. 10. What is single Schisme 1 Cor. 1. 10. 1 Cor. 3. 3 Wherein internal Communion doth consist Wherein External Communion doth consist External Communion may be suspended And withdrawn There is not the like necessity of communicating in all Externals Christian Communion â—mplies not unity in all opinions Reg. mor. tit pâ—aec decal lib. de A. P. Cons. 14. â—e unit eccl cons. 10. Lib. 2. de Rom. pont c. 29. Bar tom 10. an 878. Append. de Schismat Art 4. p. 516. The soâ—â—â— of Schisme What the Catholick Church signifies Collat. Carth. Col. 3. Each member of the Catholick Church is Catholick inclusively Schisme is changeable And for the most part complicated with heretical pravity Four waies to become heretical Who are Catholiques Aug. l. 2. cont casâ— Who are Schismaâ—cks What is understood by the Church of England Roman Catholicks first authors of the separation from Rome Act. and Mon p. 965. Râ—gist epist. Vni Oxon. ep 210. Sac. Syn. an 1530. et an 1532. 24 Hen. 8. c. 12. Romanists first gave the King the title of Head of the Church Resp. ad quaest 74. Râ—sp ad qu. 75. Conc. Mil. 2. Henry the 8th no friend to the Protestants Hist. Conc. Trid. 23. H. 8. 24. H. 8. 25. H. 8. 26. H. 8. 28. H. 8. The Authors opâ—nion of Monasteries Supplication of beggars Henry the 8th no friend to Protestants 31. Hen. 8. Much lesse those who joyned with him in the separation from Rome Act. Mon. an 1510. Conc. Tonst et Longlands Hist. aliquot mart et edit an 1550. Apol. sac Reg. pro jur fidel p. 125. England unanimous in casting out the Pope de verâ—â— obed Câ—ted