your Kingdom you may select holy and blameless Laws which may be enacted and supported not by any Forreign but your own Authority who are Gods Vicar in your Kingdom and represent his power to your People But not a word about Lucius his Baptism or the Nations conversion which it rather plainly pre-supposes Nor was it unbeseeming in a first Christian King much less the forfeiture of the Liberties of his Brittish Church and Kingdom forever to ask the advice of Neighbouring Churches or such excellent Christians as the Popes of Rome in those times were about the settlement and Government of the Church in his Dominion and the answer and the event do shew there was no such danger for the Popes answer is Protestant and Orthodox that the King is Christs Vicar in his Kingdom and the head of the Church which he may well Govern with his own Authority without depending upon Forreign provided he took along the Law of God and the opinion of his sages for his Rule and help the advice to be theirs the Acts of Governing to be his own which with the present Church of Rome is unsound and Heretical Doctrine for it 's the Land that moves with some and not themselves when they are sailing from it And it appears by event the Popes did never intermeddle in the Government of this Church or State yea that they were such strangers to us all along to the time of Pope Gregory who sent Austine hither that by his questions and clinches about the English he met at Rome in the Market Angli Angeli Deira Dei ira King Elle Halelujah it appears whether we were Pagans or Christians here in Brittain he did not very well know but some Papists are grown willing of late to relinquish this part of their pretence and to allow this Epistle to be counterfeit because so contrary to their present Doctrines and seditious principles more than for the considerable reasons Sir H. Spelman layes down against it which Mr. Prynne takes upon him to disallow and answer to severally but the other part of the story though thus crack'd in credit that Lucius was Baptiz'd together with all the Land by Eleutherius his Emissaries must stand nevertheless which yet is wholly improbable and contrary to all sense and reason for the Brittish Church in Augustines time was found so uniformly unlike in all its rites and customs to the Roman if the Roman observations in the time of Augustine and Eleutherius were the same that one may easily believe that the fair Nothern Nations are so many Colonies of Blackamoores as believe Brittain to be regenerated by the Baptism of Rome to which Mother it held so little resemblance in any of its Ecclesiastical features For one of the main points in difference between the Brittains and Austine we find in Bede lib. 2. c. 2. was about their Ceremonies of Baptism then that known and lasting difference and contention about Easter and their abstinence on Wednesdays and Frydays not on Saturday as was and is observ'd at Rome against the sense and Custom of the Catholick Church there being as little Conformity between this Church and that in the heads and guides as well as the whole body of the People in the former rites Our Deacons varying from them in point of tonsure our Priests and Bishops in that of Marriage our Arch-Bishops in the Characteristicall Badge and livery of the Pall which these Churches never fetch'd or wore in token of compliance or dependance on that Church as shall be further proved in every particular out of their own or better Authors so that they may be justly ashamed as much of the Second part of this lye and pretence touching the Baptism of our King and Kingdom as they are of the first touching the Epistle where by the way it may be observ'd with abhorrence and detestation what unworthy Arts and Methods this holy Roman-Catholick Church makes no conscience to use to compass its Unchristian Ambition and Supremacy over Kingdoms and Nations where it can find the least colour or occasion what lyes they scruple not to Father upon all manner of men the living and the dead even on their best Popes and the Apostles and the Virgin Mary and Christ and God himself so their Carnals ends and Grandeur may be advanced thereby and what forgeries and falsehoods have they not foisted into all manner of books and Records and Histories to promote their Dominion hook or by crook particularly into our Brittish in the time of Ignorance and their Kingdom of darkness extending once to all parts and Persons Geoffrey of Monmouth affirming that that he did not compile but only Translate into Latine his History out of a Brittish Manuscript which Gualter Arch-Deacon of Oxford brought over hither from little Brittain whereas that Gualter attests likewise in the close of that very book that he Translated a A mysi Cualter Archiagon Rydychen a droes y Llyfr hwn or Lladin yn gymraâ—g I Walter Arch-Deacon of Oxford Translated this out of Latine into Welsh Histor Brittan Galfr'd Monm M. S. Cambro Brit. the same out of Latine into the Brittish tongue by which device the Enemies of the Glory of our Brittish Church and Nation have to the wrong of the first and to help on their vain Supremacy by any Art or shift shuffled in this passage touching Lucius into ours as the other touching Constantine into other Histories that both were Baptized by Popes Eleutherius and Silvester by all means because the one the first Christian King the other the first Christian Emperour and both brag 's equally true as likewise that Dubritius Arch-Bishop of Caerleon in King Arthurs time was Apostolicae sedis legatus not unlike another of their fictions of the Popes sending the Pall to St. Patrick to make him Arch-Bishop of Ireland under Rome though a Pall in Ireland was never heard off till the time b Cambrens Topograph Hiber C. 17. of Malachias Anno. 1152 and to the diminution of the Second clogg'd the Archievements of the great and Religious King Arthur with their unworthy Legends and Fables as with a designe that the one with the other might in time be of equal credit which hath induc'd some blind to lead the blind to believe there was no such King In so much that Buchanan well knowing and seeing the contrary in the Records of his own Nation could not forbear to make a digression on purpose to vindicate his name and story which in other c Ubbo Emmius Rer. frisic Hist lib. 3. Nations concerned in that History is acknowled'd as well as in the Scottish and our own in a just indignation against the underminers of the fame of so great a Hero d Buchanan Rer. Scotic lib. 5. Reg. 45. p. 151. But some light and occasion perhaps they had for their Monkish Invention in that very probably Lucius was Baptized by one from Rome viz. e Usher cap. 3. p. 31. seq Timotheus
either in Scripture or Ancient Fathers or Councils is it express'd that the Pope of Rome is this Chief that all Churches and Provinces are Bound to know and own for such for then this controversy of Supremacy were decided past all further dispute But what Metropolitan or Patriarch then is recommended to us in Scripture or Tradition to know and obey for such My Text and the 34 Canon of the Apostles answers this Question and resolves us whom we are to look upon as our chief both in Heaven and Earth For Christ is that Invisible Chief in Heaven we are to know and serve in all we do from the heart And on Earth the Primate of every Province and not the Pope over all was Him that all Christians in the Ancient and truly Catholick Church were bound to Know and own and obey as their head before Magistrates became Christians And the Pope of Rome is there quite forgot and not mention'd in the lest and at such a time as his Authority and Supremacy had been by all means to be salv'd or heeded if it had been then but a point of any right or order in the belief of the Apostolical Church which is now so great a point of Faith in the Roman 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. The Bishops of every particular Nation ought to Know Him who is Chief amongst themselves and to count Him as their Head And to do nothing beyond their particular concern and duty without Him nor he either to do any thing without the advice of them all for so peace and concord shall be attain'd and preserv'd and God shall be glorified Whereby is evident that the Primitive Ecclesiastical state of Christendom was as its present civil is Aristocratical and not Monarchical where several Provinces had their several Bishops or Primates for their Ecclesiastical Princes As now-a-dayes several Kingdoms are under their own several Kings and States and no one Prince Supream or as a civil Imperial Pope over all the rest But in comparison of one another all were equals and unsubordinate to one another as to power and subjection though not to order and precedency And in their own Territories Monarchical or supream within themselves And if the State of the Church was so and so to be preserv'd by this Canon although the state civil was different and Monarchical all Christian Kingdoms and Provinces being then under one Emperour as he that hath read St. Cyprian or St. Hierome can make but little doubt what reason is there that the State Civil and Sacred being now equally Aristocratical the harmony should be dissolv'd and all should become slaves against right and Laws and Canons to please the Pride and sin of one He that drives at an Universal Monarchy is and ought to be taken by every Prince and State as a publick enemy The reason is the same in Church as well as State Yea there is president for Universal Monarchy in States but none in the external Church but only Prophecyes and warnings of Antichrist that should be such Now for Rome to be Soveraign as she pretends and every Metropolitan Church to be 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Chief and unsubordinate within its own Province according to right and Ancient customes is a manifest contradiction and inconsistency Both cannot be true together but the last was proved to be most true by as great a testimony and suffrage as Earth can afford the consent of several General Councils the greatest that ever met and in the best and purest times And 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Per omnia autem manifestum est This is universally manifest is the manner of wording of this point in this Canon as 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Manifestum namque est quod per singulas quasque Provincias in the other like unto it both in the Originals and their own Roman Translations Therefore if the one be so manifestly true the other of Rome's Supremacy is as manifestly false Let them shift off the consequence of Antichristianism as they can Yet Baronius a Spondanus An. 325. n. 32. would prove the Supremacy of Rome out of this very Canon as what will they not venter before they 'l part with their chiefest Idol but his offers are meer Cavil and Petitio Principii or begging of the Question contrary to the context and the design of this great Council and contrary also to the text in whole and in part The design being to strengthen the Authority of the Bishop of Alexandria against Meletius and Arrius who ordain'd Bishops for themselves within his Province against his will and consent which Consecrations were as Schismatical being done against his License in Egypt as the like were if done at Rome or Italy against the Authority of the Pope Both of Ancient custom having the like Authority within their proper Province and the Foundation of the Decree being the equality of Alexandria with Rome as likewise with Antioch in this respect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Where equality is suppos'd its absurd to imagine the same in the same respect to be subject and supream for that were inequality and contradiction Besides the union and strength of the Churches Government and Discipline that whosoever is excommunicate in one Province should stand so with all the rest is not grounded upon the necessary Dominion of One over all the rest which is the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of Popery and one of its Master errours against the mind of our Saviour and the known state of the Primitive Church and the union and the peace of all Christendom but upon the Brotherly love and communion suppos'd amongst all Christian Churches in the 5th Canon of Nice wherein appears the difference between Ecclesiastical and Civil Polities of those times and this The Laws and Sentences of these being of force only within their own Territories by right of Empire but of those every where without through the bond and union of love And they at Rome bound to observe the decrees of their neighbouring Churches as well as these of It which imports mutual subjection to one another by mutual humility and excludes the proud conceit of Soveraignty in any one over the whole The whole Church in this respect being as one Province by the fiction of love and unity which in other respects was several and distinct by local limits as before One not by the dominion and supremacy of any one over all the rest which is the Carnal aime and Antichristian Tyranny of Rome but by the submission of all the parts to the Interest of the whole which is right Christian liberty and the harmonious Communion of Saints The act and deed of one being as the act and deed of all where the publick weal of the Church of Christ was concern'd And the ambitious swelling Supremacy of Rome is as much contrary to the Text of this Canon both in whole and in its parts as it was to the connexion and
Spirit and of Rome's disobedience to general Councils p. 368. No Church more led by a private Spirit than Rome why ibid. What a needless labour it is for the Church of Brittain to defend it self against Romish imputation of Schisme clear'd by several Instances p. 372 373. The Reformation commenc'd in its causes with H. 7th p. 374. seqq His Restoration Prophecyed of p. 375. Dr. Colet Founder of St. Pauls School began to preach against Superstitions and Legends Accus'd for Heresie liked by Henry the 7th Warner had his Principles from Colet Cranmer from Warner Henry 8th from Cranmer p. 377. seqq A strange alteration of the state of the Nation with King Henry the 7th p. 379. Of the hand of God and man in the Reformation Most Instruments acted against their first intention p. 381 382. The Spirit of Henry the 8th not to be parallel'd p. 381. Excommunicated by thy Pope though a Catholick and with right of his side ibid. The favour and frown of Providence upon this Nation according to its disposition against Popery or for it observed remarkably p. 384. seqq K. Henry 8. how Great p 385. Queen Mary unfortunate Ibid. The success and Fame of Q. Elizabeth p. 386. Whence are our troubles and ill successes p. 387. Cromwells police and successes ibid. The fate and humour of this Nation against Popery p. 388. What will cure this Nation probably p 389. 435. Rome and Brittain mutually and differently fatal to one another p. 389. seq English more inexcusable than Forreign Papists p. 389. 390. SECT XIII Of our Brittish Archbishopricks London York and Caerleon or St. Davids p. 393. seq How Metropolitical Sees began p. 396. Emperours honour'd the place of their birth and Seat of Empire p. 397. 398. Of the Roman pall which at Rome gives all their Authority to Patriarchs and Archbishops And how our Brittains had no faith for it Archbishop Sampson's Pall at York was Imperial not Papal p. 402. 403. â—ees and Pals at Rome constitute a Church instead of Christ and the heart p. 404. How Rome hath Unchurch'd her self by her new Principles p 404. 405. It 's hard to determine where the Brittish Primacy was de facto easie where de jure Ibid. The reasons for York Ibid. Perterna the name of Constantine's Pallace there what it signified p. 406. The Antiquity and merits of York not Inferiour to Rome or Antioch c. 40â— How unworthy it is to advise Princes to desert the rights of their Country p. 409. The Title of London p. 410. How greatly wronged by Rome p. 411. The Title of Caerleoni Ibid. Cressy's exception against the Welsh Epistle in Sir H. Spelman invâ—ild p. 412. Where the Primacy was of right p. 413. Originally emmently Our Kings are Primates of the Temporal part of the Eternal Church and Christ of the Eternal p. 415. The practice of Sea-men decides this point Ibid. An old appetite in Mitre and Crown to reunite p. 416. The different respects of Christian and Antichristian Mitres to the Crown Ibid. The fate of this Church observed to follow that of the Crown Ibid. The Revolutions of the Primacy of York p. 417. The duration and Period of the Archbishoprick of London p 419. Why Monk Augustine did not settle his Archiepiscopal Chair at London according to the first directions of the Pope and that London suffered pobably for its adherence to the Brittish Faith p. 420. 421 206. The primacy in Henry 8. was restored to Brittain though not to London p. 422 423. Bede's testimony that the faith never failed in Brittain p. 423. Some of the Sees in Wales erected since the Saxon Invasion others from King Lucius ibid. The See of St. David never Subject to Canterbury till Henry 1. and that by force and an unjust sentence of the Pope How first brought to be under Rome 424. 425 426. Sir H. Spelman bewails the wrong of the See of St. David how it may be remedied and why p. 427. How the Pope made advantage by the contests of our Metropolitans p. 427 429. Left them at last to the decision of our Kings p. 432 Kings have power by the Canons to alter and translate Metropolitical Sees p. 431. The Primacy of Canterbury a stumbling-block to some not versed in History to believe Rome to be a Mother-Church to Brittain and consequently our Reformation to be Schismatical and not fit to be countenanced by Princes for the disobedience how answered and remedied p. 433. Papists the first Schismaticks here and the causes of our divisions and troubles p 435 SECT XIV Rome will stand to no Councils that are against it p. 437. Yet calls for Obedience to its Bulls ibid. The probable cause why the Spirit of truth hath withdrawn from the latter Councils of the Church p. 432. Cyprus exempted from Antioch by the General Council of Ephesus and how the case of Brittain as to Rome's pretence is exactly the same p. 439. seqq Of the 6 Canon of Nice Our Brittish exemption confirmed by it because our Sees were before in being and proved by Ruffinus his sence thereof who was of these parts and knew our rights 443. seqq Rome's pretence of Supremacy if true overthrowes this and all General Councils if false proves it self to be Antichristian p. 444. 438. several Churches besides Brittain supreme within themselves p. 447. â—â—wes â—orgery openly detected in the Council of Carthage and its Supremacy shut out ibid In the Church as well as State men are bound to know their Chief and who this is p. â—49 The Government of the Primitive Church was Aristocratical when that of the State was Monarchical and the Pope would have it now Monarchical when the Governments of the World are Aristocratical and co-ordinate p. 450. The difference between the Ecclesiastical and Civil Powers as to extent of Authority heretofore p. 452. The several nullities of the Roman Church in England And how their Clergy stand deprived of their holy Orders and the danger of the Laity that abet their Intrusion proved at large by undoubted Canons of General Councils and particularly their beloved Council of Sardyca by which they are not to be reckon'd amongst Christians as the Ancient Brittains in Bede stifly insisted p. 456 to 465. Of other particular Nullities in the Ordinations of Romish Bishops here p. 465. seq The truly Catholick Church was govern'd by Laws the Roman-Catholick would be above all Laws and Canons p. 4â—0 The Nullities of the Romish Church here prov'd out of their own Rules and Principles p. 470. seqq The argument against their H. Orders Contracted p. 475. SECT XV. How Christendom is infected by such lawless examples of Popes made consistent with Holiness p. 477. How they make themselves incurable p. 479. Papists are more Pope's people than Gods people ibid. The cause and occasion of their Apostacy from History and how parallel for cause and effect to the fall of Angels p. 480 489. The advice of the Wesel to the Fox had been their Cure p
OF THE HEART AND ITS Right Soveraign AND ROME no Mother-Church to ENGLAND OR AN HISTORICAL Account of the TITLE of our BRITTISH CHURCH And by what Ministry the Gospel was first Planted in every County With a Remembrance of the Rights of JERVSALEM above in the great Question Where is the true Mother-Church of Christians By T. J. of Oswestry in the County of Salop sometime Domestick and Naval Chaplain to His Royal Highness the Duke of York Rom. 8.31 If God be for us who can be against us London Printed for Edw. Foulkes and are to be Sold by T. Basset at the George in Fleet-street 1678. To His Royal Highness JAMES Duke of York and Albany c. May it please your Royal Highness AS the Peace of Kingdoms which your Royal Highness excellently knows and the duty and safety of Subjects together with the great ease of Princes consist in one short easie rule and equitable well maintain'd and practic'd The submission of the Creature to its Creator or the Obedience of Inferiours in the low condition of the one to their respective Superiours over them in the Authority and high Character of the other so it may be affirm'd that the Peace and welfare of the Church depends no less upon the like lesson and method For what are Conventicles Schismes Heresies Idolatries which disturbe the Peace and destroy the being of the one but like so many Riots Factions Seditions Treasons which alike undermine and overthrow the Constitution of the other so that in short the Disturbers of the World are those alone who disobey Superiours Who in the time and under the covert of Peace are of two sorts such as undutifully despise the right or treacherously erect a wrong Sovereign over themselves The first are those who from Avarice or Pride or Ambition by craft or force disobey the Laws and usurp and encroach upon the Rights and Prerogatives of their lawful Governours where every inconsiderable Inceptor and Puny Recusant is a Cromwel or Lucifer in his path and tendency The next those who through fear or easiness will admit or submit to any wrong pretender in his usurpations and believe the Serpent against God And then it cannot be expected but that they who mistake their Sovereign in the first place will mistake their Loyalty in the next And Allegiance misplac'd shall make men Rebels as much as the failer or subduction The prime indispensable â—charge therefore first of Heaven's King next of every King on Earth that represent him is that known Commandment Thou shalt have none other Gods but me The Peace therefore of Churches and States manifestly consists in two points 1. In the exact knowledge and discovery who are our right and lawful Superiours on Earth 2. In exact obedience perform'd to their Laws and wills and no other Nor to them acting beyond their Sphere and usurping upon Gods Rights in Heaven under whom all Earthly Superiours and Inferiours are equally fellow-subjects And not to be allowed the liberty of eyes and understanding or private judgment to discerne between right or wrong Leaders which is of such temporal concern and preservation to every man in this World nor between the will of God and his Creature where they interfere which is of such Eternal moment in the other wherein lyes the Radical errour of some Modern Christian Heathenism were to be depos'd from being men any more or reduc'd to an Eternal non-age and inability to discern between good and evil and fitter therefore to be governed than to govern either themselves or others Having therefore for the establishment of Friends and the comfort of Regular and recovery of Irregular and seduc'd sufferers for Religion bestowed endeavours to distinguish the several parts of Divine and Human Soveraignty whereon the Peace of Communities and the Salvation of Souls depends being as manifestly distinguishable as Heaven and Earth or Soul and Body and stated also and evinc'd the Title of Right Mother-Church to our own Brittain though it s known a Harlot can bid fair for a true Mother where she lights not on Solomons for Judges and where she does be willing the Child be divided into Sects and parcells which she is not like to enjoy to her self entire and sufficiently demonstrated to any whose invincible minds and Spirits are unreduc'd from their Loyalty to God and truth That Popery in its Leaders is an uniform invasion and in its followers a necessary disobedience to right Soveraigns in Heaven and Earth and Protestancy in its Principles to be safe and clear from such disorders I judg'd fit to dedicate the Argument to whom it was duty to present the first Copy to your Royal Highness my Gracious Prince and Master having afore-hand weighed and consider'd as I ought it would make for your Highness Honour and publick love either at home or abroad in the disjunctive whatever were its resentment or success At home with God and the Countrey if it serv'd in the least to fortifie your Royal Breast against temptations or at least with Forreign Lords of Celestial Crowns and Canonizations against whose Sacred Avarice and Catholick canting for Tribute and subjection and other Politick Arts which are not unknown and infallible errours and Idolatries which are not unconfuted such plain and manifest Truths from clean hands and ends could so little prevail though seconded with the sense of the whole Nation and the rights of this ancient Apostolical Church undoubtedly Senior if not Mother to Rome it self Withall the Subject being of the Heart and Conscience and comprizing as the heart doth in a narrow Room a competent stock of Divine Rules and measures to judge of Truth and about Church matters seem'd therefore the fitter present for a Prince so nigh to Soveraign who is a Nation contracted in one man And Princes like God whom they represent delight in hearts And no Prince in Story was ever the Darling of more English Hearts than your R. H. and strange and unjust it were you should suffer any abatement of that Glory for no other reason but your exalted superlative zeal for God and your Conscience above Crowns or Kingdoms being the highest strein and pitch of sublime and transcendant Honour that Mortality could ever exert or phancy and higher still if that zeal were well guided with discretion as the Apostle requires and not taken upon undue trust whereof if there were not some manifest cause to doubt or fear none were more inexcusable and worthy to be deserted forever by Your R. H. than him who having had once the honour to adhere to you in your military dangers should want a heart at last to follow you in your Ecclesiastical motions after truth my more proper Element and Profession Having therefore as I ought doubted my self not a little and reviewed my Principles upon this occasion and with best endeavours of Brain and Knee studied to know the Truth and Gods mind herein with a heart resolv'd to be of its side to my power against the
negligent Therefore the inspired King recommends it as their wisdom to all Earthly Kings To kissâ— the Son lest he be Angry and so they persh from the right way Psal 2.10 12. This Son is the Messia the Lord Christ in my Text whom to kiss is to submit to his Laws to love his nature and to imitate his way and example to win the hearts of the World And to chuse rather to die as he did for the liberties of their people than devour their Birth-rights or Sacrifice their Lives in whole â—hecatombs and Myriads to their pleasure and ambition Full Dominion and full Liberty which both covet Governours and Governed are both obtain'd when both observe this Rule in my Text Governed obey from their hearts as unto Christ and Governours rule from their hearts according to Christs mind and will for the same Gospel which binds the one to submit binds the other to protect and to be compassionate tender Fathers as well as the other dutiful and mild Children That the Prerogative of the Prince should be preserv'd by the people as their own Interest and Glory and the liberty of the people preserved by the Prince as his chief trust and honour Even as the Church loves Christ above its own life and Christ his Church in like manner and that they preserve not each themselves apart which would tend to coldness and alienation and trespass and removal of bounds in the party unreasonable but that they mutually transplant and place their own preservation and Interest in the maintenance of each others right as it were forgetting their own and this begets endearment and firm trust and union and peace between both parts and the contrary tends to separation and to divide the Nation and Kingdom against it self especially when the one or the other part shall plead themselves free from their duty jure divino and the other bound which suggestion cannot be from the God of peace and order but from Satan and Antichrist the contrivers of Confusion But when both are as they should be that is both discharge their duty from the heart as unto Christ which is all that the Church meddles to direct in state matters then both should have their wills and great peace and blessing from God besides the soul best directs the body and the body best obeys the soul when both are as they should be and enjoy their several healths natural and moral being free from all Disease and Vice but let the one be Sottish or the other Hydropical and be enclined to neglect or over-reach the one the other they shall observe no bounds but covet on Insatiably against one another to the burden and ruine at last of both The happiness and bliss of a Nation consists in this when the Prince who is the soul and the people who are as the body enjoy both their several healths Mens sana in corpore sano which all good Subjects ought and will ever pray and wish for and is only attainable when both observe and follow the directions and Prescriptions of this Text. Thirdly this Text is of use to discover and confute false Doctrines that creep in among us some more covertly others more openly and with a high hand threatning the utter Subversion of the Church It serves first to convince Socinians or Modern Arrians and Anabaptists who labour to suppress and overthrow and deny the Divinity of our Saviour God blessed for ever For if the Lord in my Text who is in the following verse expressly affirm'd to be the Lord Christ be not the High and true God then to do all from the heart as unto him were flat Idolatry in us Christians which yet our Inspired Apostle prescribes and binds upon us all as our indispensiable duty and that in contradistinction to men do it saith he to the Lord and not to men manifestly owning thereby his God-head besides there are two Attributes implied in this and another parallel Paragraph Eph. 6 5.-8 belonging to this Lord. 1. First that he is the searcher of the heart 2. That he is the Judge of of the world according to the secrets of the heart which are not communicable either of them to any Creature in Heaven or Earth neither to Angels nor Archangels but to him alone who is the true God Christs Divinity which these dangerous Hereticks would overthrow is the main Pillar and Foundation of all our Christian comfort For because he was truly God that was it gave price and Infinite value to his death for our Redemption whereby he became 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Soveraign Lord of Christians as our Creeds acknowledge And because he was the eternal Son of God that also was it that gave beauty and exstasie to his unparallel'd astonishing humility and love in condescending to take our nature upon him to die in it for us when we were his enemies whereby he became Lord of Hearts and all knees in Heaven and Earth and under the Earth bound to bow unto him and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord to the glory of God the Father Phil. 2 6-11 Rom. 5.10 This merit and humility of his death is that which is recommended in Sacraments to our remembrance and in Brotherly Charity towards one another to the Worlds end And the impudent imitation of Antichrist is not the least proof amongst many of Christs Divinity as St. Chrysostom well observes who would not have acted his part so forgetfully as falsely to assume to be God 2 Thes 2.4 if Christ had not been truly so SECTION I. The Controversie reduced to one single point in General of Obedience to the Right Soveraign of the heart and Protestancy found Loyal and Popery the contrary in its principles and Practice BUt in the Second place I shall chuse to enlarge and insist upon a more necessary Exhortation because the danger of seduction grows daily greater that you and all other Christians here in Britain would be carefull to preserve your selves true and stedfast members in the day of tryal of an higher Society into which you were early enrolled for more Holy and Eternal purposes and to be obedient to your own good Laws and the Governours that are over you by Providence and by consequence to God himself in them and not to fall off as many false hearts are like to do like leaves in Autumn upon a cold nip or trial into forraign Dirt and Captivity and imposture from which the Wisdom and zeal of your Progenitors have set you free for Originally as the learned on both sides know our Brittish Church never was a Daughter of Rome nor Subject to its See being Ancienter in Christ and Seniour to the Church and Chair of Rome it self or the first arrival of St. Peter there were the Tradition or Legend true But what availeth it to have been unless we still be a true Church agreeing with the mind of Christ which some will by no means allow Take therefore for some instance the
Soveraigns have reduced the one the other and be first at peace till either the Pope conform to the will of Christ which we expect which would beget an unity of Spirit and Truth between us in the bond of peace or Christ to the mind and will of the Pope and have no Scriptures that shall signifie any thing contrary to his sense but that the Popes will shall be taken to be Christs Will where they interfere which is their aim in their engrossing the right of interpreting the Scriptures to their Church alone that is their Pope which would produce peace and union its true but such a carnall peace and slavish union as were worse than any War or Captivity or desolation whatsoever Purgatory indulgencies image worship Transubstantiation blind obedience Universal Monarchy over the whole Church c. let them be never so false or unreasonable or scandalous or absurd not only with all learned and sober men but with many of themselves in their secret thoughts and retirements yet because they support the Kitchin and adorn the Hall and carnal state and esteem of their Apostolick see they shall and must be owned and defended forever as Infallible Doctrines De fide more unalterable than the Laws of Medes and Persians by all her Catholick Sons as they tender their continuance within her Pale out of which with them there can be no Salvation and our worship and Liturgie shall be condemned as Impious and prophane till upon obedience and Submission to their Chair as was offered in Queen Elizabeths days they shall permit it to be Orthodox and Holy and to be used in our Churches without any alteration or further trouble and all our Protestant Doctrines which are the same in effect with Gods Holy Scriptures out of which they are drawn and built upon the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets Jesus Christ himself being the chief Corner stone yet because they comport not with their carnal designs and greatness shall be condemned to be abjur'd as false and Heretical though the Authors of them Christ and his Apostles and his purest Church be involved with us in the same sentence and themselves in Gods wo and curse in the Prophet upon those that call good evil evil good light darkness and darkness light Esa 15.20 What Law of Nature or Nations or Conscience or Honour or Humanity or Civility or Faith or Plain-dealing which are indelible imbred instincts in Vulgar and Heathen Breasts much more in Christian and Generous will not the guides of that Church direct their charge to break and violate with assured hopes of Salvation and Immortal Glory for the feat so it tend to promote and advance their Holy Catholick cause which is with them as it were Gods last will and Testament which Abrogates and annuls all precedent wills the Eternal Laws of God and conscience being but obsolete or Corporation orders when they clash against the Infallible Bulls and paramount Oracles of his Holiness yea the contradiction shall be salved and heal'd and Christ by Interpretation which belongs to them is brought to say and sign their draught to be his own Will and meaning and their Atheime shall be fac'd with his Authority as Hypocrites do their Villanies with the cover of Religion as King Philip of Macedon is said to have made the Oracles to Phillipize and Prophesie for him What Civil War and combustion must this make in English and honest hearts who though they have a respect for Rome think fit nevertheless to reserve due Loyalty towards God and their Redeemer and their Country to be thus necessitated to offend against God and man to save their souls who in compliance with that Church and obedience to its commands and dictates upon perill of damnation must shocke the wise and settled Laws of their Nation and disturb publick peace and Union and bring fear and consternation upon their fellow Subjects that desire to live in quietness and slight and disparage the learned and Religious Clergy of this land and our unparallel'd Vniversities and disobey glorious and Paternal Counsels seal'd in bloud for Gracious Kings are Fathers to all their Subjects next to their own begotten and shame the cause of friends and fellow-sufferers loyally and sincerely defended to the last gasp in bloud and ruine and to give just cause of boast and triumph to others for early and wise fears and jealousies and fore-sight and at last reconcile the Nation by a secret judgment against themselves and profess the true Religion before men believed in the heart to be false by humane Patent and dispensation against Conscience And conceal a false Religion believed in the heart to be true And act to the prejudice of the professed before declaring for the intended like giving Hostile broadsides without an Hostile Flag against the Law of Nations and continue or forbear vitious living according to humane Indulgence and tedder above the fear of God Such twisted Arts and servile postures of the Soul set by God above humane reach and power such chymical sublimated hypocrisie and doubling to which all the Swords and Artillery of the World pointed and planted against a single breast ought not to be able to force a Coward to all Politicians and Head-pieces and Whisperers to gull and seduce a fool to though they may go down with more ease with French and Italian tempers innur'd by ill fate to absolute governments and cringes and Slavery how loathsome and repugnant and against the grain must they prove to any honest and generous and freeborne English spirit And whence can this Civil War and distraction arise but from some failer and breach and division of the allegiance of the heart in admitting some up-start usurper or Impostor to be co-ordinate and equal if not Superiour to Christ its natural Liege Lord and Soveraign which the Loyal part of the Soul will never be flattered or frighted to agree or yield to Thus the heart through its own folly suffers it self to be ever disturbed and racked between two contrary Potentates within its bowells God and Old Conscience command and approve of natural affection and truth and peace and love to Countrey and obedience to Parents and Kings and Mercy and Civility to all in Misery and Anxiety The Anti-god or New Conscience commands the contrary as a piece of Catholick zeal and Glorious hazard and self-denyal under pain of displeasure of the Holy See and St. Peter and St. Paul and exclusion out of the Pale of the Church and the like usual forms Plain therefore and evident it is that the whole Controversy between us and Papists is reduceable to one point touching the Right and Soveraignty of the heart and Conscience whose it is and ought to be whether the Lord Christ in my Text as we hold with St. Paul or the Pope and Successor to St. Peter as they maintain at Random If the Pope be God and Lord of the Soul and not Christ then we Protestants are much to blame in
in general and to all Nations in particular that it is not his will we should be led by strangers more than by guides of our own flesh and bloud for this cause Christ took upon him humane nature when sent by God John 17.3 to direct the world For verily he took not on him the nature of Angels for this purpose Heb. 2.16 which though greatly Holy is yet Forraign to ours and as it were of another Country and their best messages seldome received by the best Christians without fear and horrour and suspition Luk. 2.9 Math. 28.45 But he took upon him the seed of Abraham being sent unto his own John 1.11 And in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren to be the better fitted for Sympathy towards us on his part and the belief thereof on ours Heb. 2.17 18. In like manner in sending his Apostles for the conversion of Nations the first fruits in every Nation that were converted to Christ were appointed for Bishops and Teachers as soon as might be to convert their Brethren and the Supemacy over the Gentile Churches not entail'd upon a Jewish line and succession forever as our first Teachers but upon the Natives themselves in every City and Country when fitted for it to Govern and direct their people and every Province to have its own Metropolitan chief within it self and unsubordinate to Foreigners And it is likewise observed that the needs of every Country in point of food and Raiment and Physick is best supplied from within it self and whether it be for the health or interest of this Nation to delight to wear forraign Liveries above its own I shall not now dispute and but that the Witchcraft and fascination that is in errour doth Seal up the Intellect it deludes less dispute there would be with all sober minds but that we have Governours of our own Nation praised be God fitted as likely for ability and compassion to be faithful guides to their Inferiour Brethren as the greatest Angels of the Church of Rome to whom were it alwayes certain they would prove good Angels we are not so near and dear as to our own Pastors who are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh And that our own wise Kings and Parliaments have and can make as wholesom Laws for this Church and State as the Conclave ever can or did how far and how dear soever fetched and bought To alledge as the Romanists do that Christ had his fix'd Officers his Apostles and Bishops in his Church before there were any Christian Kings which cannot be denyed that St. Peter was the chief of these Apostles which also may be granted for peace-sake as to his precedence but not any Jurisdiction that the present Popes are the successors of St. Peter in all his Authority and Holiness whether they follow him as he followed Christ or not and therefore are Superiours to all Christian Kings and Princes in their own Teritories as well as at Rome in all affairs relating to Religion is such a broken Title such a far-fetch'd Etymology and derivation of Authority as only fully proves the Antichristian humour of exalting themselves above every thing that is called God or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Majesty as the word may imply which is the Jaundize that overspreads the face and vitals of that Church all over but cannot satisfie the conscience of any sober English Christian to relinquish and renounce his manifest allegiance and Subjection to his own Prince and Church to whom it is due to bestow the same to his own wrong and Spiritual danger as well as Temporal upon a forraign Power to whom it is not due and to rob his King to maintain a cheat For neither are our Brittish Churches more Subject to the Chair of Rome than is the Crown of France to the Crown of Spain which it had long a mind to but never any right neither if degrees and dignities be compared are Crowns to be Subject to the Mitre but the Mitre to the Crown For Kings if Heathen are without the Church and therefore not Subject to the Pope were he a lawful Vicar of Christ for what have I to do to judge them that are without them that are without God judgeth 1 Cor. 5.12 13. neither do they forfeit their Soveraignty by being Christian Kings by any colour or pretence of St. Peters supremacy St. Peter himself being judge who writes to his fellow Elders to feed the flock of God which was among them 1 Pet. 5.1 2. and to be subject for the Lords sake to the King as supreme for so is the will of God 1 Pet. 5.1 2. There is no where less love and honour from the heart to that blessed Apostle St. Peter no not perhaps in Hell than amongst them at Rome an out-side love or Philauty for Secular ends and designs they may have for him beyond any such as the Ephesian Silver-smiths had for Diana by which they had their wealth Act. 19.24 25. or Turks for Christs Sepulcher which turns to account unto them which is not their love to St. Peter but to themselves and bellies for if they had the least love and honour from the heart in Christ to his name and dignity they would rather chuse to starve or beg than face their frauds and cheats upon all degrees of men with his name and Authority or make him a complice or an Author to all their impious Usurpations and Rebellions against the Kings both of Heaven and Earth against his mind and principles as before For St. Peter himself from whom Popes derive all the power over Kings they can pretend to yea Christ himself from whom St. Peter had his and the whole Christian Church in his divine person while he was on Earth did submit to Magistrates and Presidents acknowledging their Power to be from Heaven John 19.11 and his Kingdom not to be of this world Joh. 18.36 as his pretended Vicars cannot also be by consequence for a Deputy cannot have more Power than his Soveraign St. Paul commands every soul to be Subject or subordinate to the higher Powers Rom. 13.1 which St. Chrysostom upon the place as before extends to Apostles and Ecclesiasticks as well as Lay and with good reason for no Crime can be Treason where is no Subjection and gives the title of excellency to Festus an Heathen President Act. 26. as St. Luke to Theophilus a Christian Luk. 1.3 an evident argument that neither would have denied the title of Majesty to a King and much more to a Christian King for as Servants gained no outward liberty by becoming Christians but continued Servants after as well as before their conversion 1 Cor. 7 20 21. So neither do Kings lose their Prerogatives or Supremacy by being Christians but are to be received into the Christian Society or Church in the same degree and quality they had in the Civil or State Superiour to all Inferiour to none And the Texts therefore that command
peculiar Ministers and Levites set a part by Gods Institution on purpose who were and are the Clergy of his Clergy and Heritage and the Priests to those in speciall that were and are his peculiar people and Priest-hood Exod. 19.6 Revel 1.6 The Church it self being Laick and common compar'd to these as was the World to the Church For no less is implied in the reason of those expressions where both the Christian and Jewish Church are said to be a Kingdom of Priests as in Exodus or Kings and Priests to God as in the Revelation they being in special manner Kings and Priests and Clergy from whom the name and title is deriv'd to others for some likeness and comparison for what the Copy is that is the Original much more And if Christs mission was not from Secular but Divine Authority so neither is the Institution of the Evangelical Priesthood from man but from God being sent from Christ as he was sent from God Joh. 20.21 Bishops and Presbyters being equally from Christs own Ordination and appointment though not of equal order and degree between themselves but in several respects the one Superiour and which may seem strange inferiour likewise to the other For the better understanding whereof the distinction between Spiritual and Temporal is to be remembered and considered in its Primitive and Apostolical acception and not the modern Roman sense who confound Heaven and Earth in their notions as they do in their values and affections the one referring to the present visible world the object of sense the other to the Church or Invisible world to come wherein Christians live here by Faith the Church being more excellent than this world as eternity is more than time and yet this world more excellent than the Church which is dead unto it in the estimation of sense as is the living more excellent than the dead Eccles 9.5 whereby is discoverable the several Superiorities between Episcopacy and Presbytery in the same person in whom both are co-incident as they are in every Bishop and those Elders in Timothy who for Ruling well and labouring also in the word and Doctrine were counted worthy of double honour 1 Tim. 5.17 where in the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 we have a clavis to decide this difference for the habitude and Character of a Bishop is that of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Ruler or Prince as the Brittains term their Arcsh-Bishop of Carleon to Monk Agustine but that of a Priest or Presbyter is the form and quality of a Subject or Servant or Labourer which two notions greatly differ like God and Creature But then their several allotments or respective worlds are to be considered wherein the one and the other are said to labour or bear Rule And clear first it is that the Presbyters labour as a Servant under Christ in his word and Sacraments is within the Vineyard of the Church and therefore belonging to Eternity as the Church it self doth and that the Rule of the Bishop in the second place is Temporal by consequence and about order in this present world and the better preservation of the Temporal out-side of the Church for to affirm it to be a Spiritual Rule over the Church in its in-side which is Eternal and Christs own Peculiar Jurisdiction were very inconvenient and unsound And this Temporal Superiority over the Temporal part of an Ecclesiastical Community as to all Causes and persons that be within it for any Society whether Sacred or Civil can no more subsist or fare well without a Governour or a Chief than a body without a head continues in Bishops by Christs establishment till the rising of the Sun that is till the Civil Magistrate of that Province become Christian whose defect they before supplied as Guardians and then it doth set or cease but Heliacally as the Stars set in the morning in deference to a greater lustre that is better able to do their work continuing still in the same firmament and Sanhedrin under his Rayes and bound nevertheless by their office and duty to be ready to shine again without him as before in case of darkness or Eclipse as was said before And it well appears how the Christian Temporal Magistrates and the Church have understood one another in reference to their several bounds and limits by those parcels of Ecclesiastical Authority the one hath resum'd as his right and the other willingly quitted and yeilded thereunto as just upon his arrivall to Supremacy in Church as well as state For we never find him offering to touch any part of the Priestly office or the Power of the Keys nor to preach or Baptize or absolve or consecrate which acts and Authorities belong to another Spiritual Kingdom farr enough out of his Temporal Dominion and Jurisdiction But several parts of Episcopal Rule and Government have been rightly assum'd and yielded to him in Generall Counsels and in our Church of England in particular wherein he is declared supreme in all Causes and over all persons Ecclesiastical which was the Original Right of Metropolitans but since held by them as was fit not as Soveraigns any more but as subordinate to their Christian Magistrates And by this Hypothesis is resolvable whether Bishops ordain Priests as they are Priests or as they are Rulers which would make for the strength and re-allyance of the Protestant Interest For Bishops cannot Ordain of themselves without Priests to assist much less can Priests Ordain without a Bishop to preside where he may be had and Christian Kings offer not to resume as their temporal right any part of the Ordination or Consecration of either sort but only nominate our Bishops in the right of Patrons or Founders or as representers of the whole Community by whom they were in the Primitive Church elected as likewise in the Brittish Therefore the Priest who is but a Labourer is Inferiour and subordinate in this World to the Bishop who is a Ruler by Divine Order and designation not to be violated by any without the guilt and scandal of being Rebells against Superiours And the Bishop in his Chair as a Ruler is Inferiour to himself in his Pulpit as Christs Labourer and Preacher in reference to the other World For it is a higher excellency to be the least in Eternity than the greatest in time to subdue sin than to subdue the World Psal 84.11 Which yet is so as to Faith and reason and the Consciences of all sober men with their own yet not as to sense or the Law and course of this present life and general Practice whereby through humane infirmity very few yet not wanting in our times have been observed to be as ambitious of the labour of Converting Souls as of the honour and command of a Rich Bishoprick though the worst and Welsey himself at their dying hour have yielded to this Truth Whereby no Inferiour Minister that is diligent in his work and calling can have
example before men belongs to Christian Kings to regulate by discretion with the advice of their Clergy Numb 27.21 Mal. 2.7 for their Transitory Nature makes them more allyed to this present world where Kings are Soveraigns than their bare Connexion to Holy duties doth make them appurtenances to the other immortal world where Christ only Raigns and Rules For Instance whether it be more decent to perform Divine service in a Gown or Surplice or in a Cloak or Querpo whether with the people having all their Hats on as do the Jewes or the Minister as the French or all bare both Minister and People as usually amongst us whether kneeling or sitting be the best and seemliest postures at several Offices before men for it is clear before God that the heart is all in all whether a Bason at the Ministers Elbow be more comly than a Font or whether the Font stand best in the Chancel with the other Table for the other Sacrament or at the Church door in token of our entrance by it Whether the Cross may be used in Baptism or the Ring in Marriage Whether the King have not power to found and endow Churches and to alter Sees and to translate the Metropolitan from one place to another as he thinks fit for any new convenience or redress These things are nominally spiritual but really secular and belong to Christian Temporal Jurisdiction which no way intrenches herein upon Divine Institution or Soveraignity which hath left out such matters and causes free for Christian Kings to regulate even in the Church and Temple as did the Kings of Israel The Church being part of their state and Province where Kings and Subjects are Christian and the one to order every thing to the Lord Christ whose Deputies and Vicars now they are and the other to obey them in all such their Orders from the heart as to the Lord Neither is there any peril of Soul or Salvation by such transitory matters as wears and postures of the Body where they are not ordained for to honour or acknowledge Idols and false Gods there may be great danger in contention 1 Cor. 11.16 and disobedience to those Divine and Eternal Laws which command obedience and Conformity to humane Neither are the Circumstances of Religion made equal hereby to the substantial parts thereof being observed to such several Ends and intents sufficiently distinct and different as are the Authorities that appoint both the one and the other God himself in those and Kings as his Deputies and delegates in these though many mens too much placing their Heaven and zeal and humour and scruples upon Ceremonies and shadows make them substances as to themselves For the difference between Time and Eternity or the Body and the Soul or sense and faith or word and sword or Heaven and Earth or peace of Conscience and the peace of the Kingdom is not more fixt and manifest and unconfounded than is that between the inside and outside of the Church the one lying within the Perambulation and Jurisdiction of Divine Soveraignty the other of humane neither of the Popes over us in England nor the latter but only there where he is a Temporal nor the former even at Rome it self where so he is And O! the Unchristian Arts and Methods that have been us'd by Popery all along both above and under-board according as it was high or low to wrest this Ecclesiastical Supremacy and Prerogative from Christian Kings which is their manifest and undoubted right and chiefest Glory in their Temporal Crowns and a peculiar Talent for their management in order to an Eternal Sometimes openly and above-board by an impudent pretence of Plenitude of Power when they had none at all they have eagerly endeavoured to hook unto themselves our Kings Royal Priviledges about Investures and nomination of Bishops and the Crowns off from their heads which is too well known For any ones Temporal right that had any reference or Relation towards the Church was straightway the undoubted Appurtenance of St. Peters Chair under that pretence they caus'd King Henry the Second in the Controversie about the exemption of the Clergy which was an absolute invasion of his Royal Government and Authority to be whipt and stript by his Subjects like a Malefactor in Bridewell for the good of his Soul and in breach of his Royal Trust and Dignity to allow Appeals to Rome to heal his wounded Conscience Their poisoning Attempts and Invasions and Powder-plots against Queen Elizabeth and King James are fresh in Memory When open Arts can do no good they 'l work their Ends in Masquerade and smaller undertakings Here possessing Quakers and raising Sects to resist and Blaspheme our Religion and Government There endeavouring to get more considerable Instruments into power to promote their Romish Interest in Protestant Shapes with greater succcess and lesser noise because less discern'd to corrupt our hopeful Clergy and destroy honest men under-hand and imbroile the Nation by widening the differences between Protestants which were ready to close and multiplying Non-conformists whether they would or not For it is obvious and easie to observe that all or most of our Presbyterian Dissenters of the younger sort throughout the Nation did see their Errour and desert their Party upon the Restauration of our Church And that the Elder sort were no less convinc'd from the experience of late confusions but that it was harder for the one than for the other in point of Reputation to change and walk contrary on a suddain to their former Actings And the secret enemies of our Protestant peace and union laid hold of this advantage as Non-conformists alledge and cast in politick Provisoes and obstructions to make their Repentance harder still if not impossible to the trouble of our Government and the joy of Rome Some ambodextrous Pens like Mountebanks upon a Stage shall publickly wound and confute and presently heal and defend the Church of Rome as faithfully as any of her own Inquisitors and as safely as any of our own Authors by this double stile falling fiercely upon their first Deserters and such as begin to espy and loath any of its grosser Errours enough in time if not so carefully prevented and discourag'd to cause a general defection throughout the host because they are not perfect Protestants in a moment able to see and relinquish all her Corruptions at first waking And therefore the sincere Irish Clergy shall be rigorously chid for beginning an Orthodox Allegiance in disobedience to their Church and violation of their Oaths And the Jansenists for defending Catholick Doctrines with the like sincerity to Christ and dis-rellish to the Pope And the Distinguishers of the Church of Rome from its more corrupt Court as Pestiferous and rash beginners or some Ho-body Hoyes and no right Sons of the one Church or of the other against all Principles of Christian Charity which forbids to quench the smoaking Flax or break the bruised Reed as also against common humanity and
in that Church for sincere and true members of Christ by the searcher of their hearts and ours we trust by mutual offices of Prayer and Charity we hold Communion in the General And a particular rent or schism cannot be conceived without some particular Vnion or Subjection preceeding and it sufficiently appears â—ow little there was of old between Rome and Brittain for how can an Arm be out of joynt from that part with whom it was never In. They themselves who accuse first are Schismaticks unavoidably especially our deluded English and Brittish and Irish Roman-Catholicks born under the same Allegiance believing in the same Christ that refuse to joyn in communion and worship with their own Mother Church much more Ancient and pure than that of Rome which were it less corrupt than it is they unworthily prefer before her against proverb and practice for home is homely be it never so homely and you shall not meet a child of that folly that will prefer a pompous Countess before his poor Mother But so truly Catholick and Apostolick and free from all foul and loathsome Idolatries and Superstitions are the Sacraments of our own Church that if they once tasted with us the milk of their own chast Mother they would never covet Forreign breasts that have an ill name any more nor be so earnest with us to prefer manifest poison before it And the cause of their delusion that should nevertheless be so zealous to persevere in such unnatural ignoble obstinacy and disobedience so destructive to themselves must needs be more than humane 2 Thess 2.11 But our Communions and separations are not in our own power but we are to take and leave as God directs and God directs to hold the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace Eph. 4.3 The unity of the Spirit and not the unity of the Flesh that is to select such for our Christian Brethren to associate with them in dear fellowship who express by their Conversation that they are dead to this present World and self ends by their Faith and conformity to the cross of Christ and live in Heaven by their holy conformity to his Ascention which is a state of the Spirit and Grace and the right Catholick Church But to avoid and separate as much as may be in this World from such as are Earthly carnal sensual selfish scandalous and especially if such by their Doctrine policy profession designe and principle for such are enemies to the cross of Christ and a state of confederacy with the flesh wholly asymbolical and contrary to the nature of such a Church a Christian is to hold Communion with so St. Paul explains and expressly decides this case Phil. 3.17 18 19. shewing that such whose God is their belly whose Glory is their shame who mind Earthly things are not to be followed but shunned be their brags never so Christian and Catholick and why are they to be shunn'd because they are enemies to the Cross of Christ which they abuse and profane to compass Worldly ends and grandeur and Christs subjects ought not to correspond with his enemies not only upon the score of Loyalty but Interest and safety for the end of both will be destruction v. 19. And the reason why he and such as walk'd as he did were to be followed and embrac'd is because he followed Christ in his Cross as is implyed by the contrary Antithesis v. 17 18. because he also followed him in his Resurrection and Heavenly life as it is expressed in these words v. 20. For our Conversation is in Heaven from whence we look for the Saviour This is the Catholick Church where all that will joyn with it shall be sure to find Salvation by it And in like manner he directs the Romans 16 17 18. Now I beseech you Brethren mark them which cause divisions and offences contrary to the Doctrine which ye have learned and avoid them for they that are such serve not our Lord Jesus Christ but their own belly and by good words and fair speeches deceive the heart of the simple A prophetical Description of the Roman Church Apostatizing into Roman Catholick and preferring Titles befere Truth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or good words presignifiing their meek and holy and publick pretensions and title of servant of servants Fathers Confessors Apostolick See c. and their 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 faire speeches or rather blessings their easie Absolutions and innumerable Indulgences Ceremonious crossings of all things and persons The like rule is given to Timothy and to all Bishops and every Christian in him If thou observe any make a Trade and Merchandize of the Gospel Supposing gain to be godliness from such withdraw thy self 1 Tim. 6.5 Which markes and characters of true or false Christians though they are less heeded and regarded by the guides of the Church of Rome and their credulous Disciples than by their more observing neighbouring Churches who know that Simon Magus the Father of the old Gnosticks pointed at by the Apostle v. 20. was more certainly at Rome and left his successors behind him than Simon Peter The wonder is the less because gifts and lusts more blind the eyes of the receivers and Actors than the standers by Neither do these Apostolical warnings alone but the woful experiences that back them deterr us from their communion above any other We held communion heretofore with the Eastern Church and that of Jerusalem without spiritual hurt or damage to our selves and our communion with the Ancient Gallican Church in the West added strength and comfort to us The Churches of Scotland and Ireland though by Civil Governments they were under different Kings and them not often friends yet by the Christian faith they were one piece with our Brittish Church defending our cause against Rome and Augustine with equal concern But when we began to acquaint our selves with Rome when it was better than now it is we gain'd nought but wounds and defilements and misfortunes by it There Pelagius with Celestius had his fall and ruine when with like good intentions as some other learned men in after Ages he went about to alter Divinity into a moral Philosophy to fit the needs of Christians there who lived short of men and were but hardned the more in their sins by the Evangelical Doctrines of free grace an evident symptom of their ripeness for Divine vengeance as appeared by the dismal sacking of Rome shortly after Anno 410 †Inter Augustinianas Epist 142. Hieronymianas which he elegantly describes in his Epistle to Demetriades There Wilfrid imbib'd the principles of avarice and ambition wherewith he corrupted his Brittish Institution and brought troubles upon himself as well as others and more disturb'd than promoted the plantation of the Gospel amongst the Saxons carried on then by Brittish industry There St. Patrick and Palladius Sons of the Brittish Church and of contrary Doctrines and Customes to Rome as appeared in their plantations yet
had the name and imputation of being Missionaries of Rome for the Conversion of Ireland and Scotland say their Legends for Politicians love ever to have holy and good men for their tooles and instruments and pretences for so St. Peter and St. Paul their 's name are as often us'd and applyed in the Courts of Rome to countenance their carnal policies and designes as John Doe and Richard Roe in ours to vouch suites and though they make the cross of Christ their Antipodes and re-exalt the World with its pomp into its old zenith and meridian yet no where is the material cross adored and worship'd with that excess of Reverence as by these enemies of the Spiritual What gain'd our Saxon and Norman Kings by their generous respects towards them bearing then the name of a Church in chief but the exhausting of their Subjects and the clipping of their own Prerogatives and Supremacies and to be made their Engineers and Executioners to suppress and destroy the Ancâ—â—â—â— Church of Brittain its Metropolitan Sees of York and London by the means of the first and St. David of the last Neither will it suffice to plead the whole English Brittish Church was once under the yoak and Jurisdiction of Rome for a long space of a time and that it was Schisme therefore and rebellious disobedience in them to shake off their Government For this yoak and imposition was early protested against by the Brittains as unchristian and unjust and kept off with their utmost power as long as they could and the Nation made often entries in so many Statutes of provisors and premunire's against it and the endeavours of Wickleff and Lollards who could expect no other than ill names for it and they were fully evicted out of it at last in Henry 8. of Brittish descent by wonderful providence Was it a Schism against the Cromwellian party who pretended to as much holiness as Rome it self and more for our Soveveraign to return to his own Throne from whence he and his Father were so wrongfully kept out and so long If they know not Gods usual method to give his own people over into the hands of their enemies for their sins and to redeem them from them upon their repentance by miraculous deliverance they erre not knowing the Scriptures Mat. 22.29 nor the power and Discipline of God nor the patience and priviledges of his servants Their own Church of Rome lay in captivity under the Exarchs or the Constantinopolitan Emperours Vice-Royes residing at Ravenna from the year 568. to 743. and some of their Popes for their refractoriness have been coursely us'd by them in the Streets of Constantinople yet they held it no Schism to recover their Ancient liberty though by very ill means by dividing the Empire and hazarding Christendom and strengthning the Turk as the poor Greeks to this day complain And may not we without Schism enjoy our Ancient rights and freedom recovered by lawful means and in Gods time without wrong to any and with and not against the rights and wills of our Soveraigns as they by the contrary in all respects yet it was more excusable in them to gratifie the Turk and subvert Christendom to preserve their own Chair then joyn with Pagans to invade the Chaires of other Churches as a thief that steals for his necessity is more to be pardoned than an Adulterer that wrongs his neighbour for his lust but the Romish Popes shewed themselves devoid of all conscience and honour and fear of God in that they combin'd to deprive us of our liberty then about 596. when themselves lay groaning for the loss of their own being worse than robbers under the Gallowes or the thief that reviled our Saviour being himself under the same condemnation which together with the violation of the Canons is the reason the Brittains in Bede esteemed these Roman-catholicks and their Disciples no better than Pagans usque hodie moris est Britonum fidem Anglorum pro nihilo habere nec in aliquo communicare quam cum Paganis lib. 2. c. 20. Yea they were more reconcilable to the Pagan Saxons that rob'd them of their Countrey as appears by their leagues and friendships and intermarriages reproved as afore by Lupus and Germanus than with Inhuman Christians that us'd Pagan assistance to rob them of their Faith and tread down their Church for they valued Truth above their Territory And they would not admit any of the Romish into their Brittish communion Å¿ Usher Rell of the Ancient Irish c. 10. under 40 dayes pennance as the Romanists to serve their designes denyed the validity of the Brittish Ordinations as they do still that of our English so that the Church of England now as the old Brittish Church heretofore stand upon the same points of difference from Rome those of Mission and Superstition and Supremacy upon which three most of the rest depend which leads to give a more particular character and description of Augustine and his Roman Faith as it then stood in opposition that the state of the Controversy and the merit of both Churches and Causes may the more fully appear SECTION VIII The face of the Roman Church about the same time and of Augustin's Qualification and method for his pretended propagation of the Gospel amongst the English and that the Nation are under no Obligation to Rome for his work here but bound by their Christianity to abhorre and detest it TO this end I shall only briefly recount some passages out of Bede 1. Touching his qualification for the pretended Conversion of the Saxons 2. His method of propagating his Roman Faith amongst them That several of the English Nation as well Learned as Unlearned and Romanists as well as Protestants may review and consider how this Augustine can be ever own'd for an Apostle of the English without wrong and disparagement to Gods Church and the Truth and themselves 1. Touching his Qualification in respect of Learning and principles And his elocution and means of conveyance of the other to his Disciples It appears he was no great Clerk wherein yet he may far better be born with because of the rude Age he lived in not only by his insisting upon the Alexandrine Calender as afore not above an hundred years standing before his time as a Tradition of St. Peter so necessary to the right being of a Church that by Divine Revelation he prognosticated the destruction of the Brittish Doctors by hostile Arms for their dissent therein and the other two points about Baptism and preaching to the Saxons but also from his Questions and Scruples sent to his Pope Gregory much about the same size for parts though above for dignity Whose common character is that he was the worst that went before him and the best Pope of all that came after him His a Bede lib. 1. c. 28. eight interrogation and scruple is si praegnans mulier debet baptizari If a woman being with child might lawfully be baptized
furnish'd for Outward Appearance a true type of his Roman Church to this day gay without to the eye but naked and bare walls within to reason as appears from the Inventory of his furniture and Utensils c Bed lib. 1. c. 29. vasa sacra vestimenta altarium Ornamenta quoque Eeclesiarum Sacerdâ—talia Clericalia indumenta Sanctorum Apostolorum martyrum reliquias nec non codices plurimos in the last place and almost forgot and without the Epithite sacros to assure us they were Bibles Outward and decent Ornaments and Ceremonies in the worship and service of God cannot be justly tax'd or censured unless the whole stress and substance of Religion be placed therein and not in the heart which is much the humour of that Church and was so much the Principle and composition of our Augustine that though the Churches of Christ in Brittain were never so confessedly Ancient and Catholick as to all the Articles of their Faith or unblameable in their Discipline or eminent in their Clergy yet because they differed from Rome about Easter in the manner as before or in not using spittle or the like nasty Ceremony in Baptism perhaps as they do or had not their locks order'd after the like bald-pate manner for the pretence of not Preaching to the Saxons was but a meer artifice and colour nothing would serve the turn or allay his zeal and wrath but their total subversion and dissolution by the help of Pagan Arms and Gods name brought in to abett and countenance this Barbarâ— design and malice by Hypocritical Prophesies anâ— counterfeit Revelations If one using the name of the King of Spain should make an Embassy from that Crown to this now at peace with one another that if the English conform not forthwith to the Spanish mode not only in their habit but the cut of their Hair and the form of their mustachioes they must expect nothing less than the utter destruction of their Church and state from God and man though such a message might justly be look'd upon as the frensy of a mad-man would they be free from censure if they neglected their own security however if it was well known by experience that the like threats had been by dark means executed before their own doors within remembrance of their own History But the Learning and Doctrine of this Pretended Apostle was not more Weak and Rotten in the heart than the right means of propagating it with the mouth was proportionably defective and wanting and had it been sound and Christian if Faith comes by hearing how could he preach to English ears when neither understood the other no more than Duck-Chickens their Hen-dam recalling them from their connatural Element Neither is there any Sermon or Homily of his on record that might worthily entitle him to our conversion as is urg'd by the d Antiquitates Ecclesiast p. 35. learned and judicious in both particulars The guift of tongues and power of miracles here fail'd him where it was most requisite and necessary though else-where where they were frivolous and needless he abounded with them in so much that his careful Pope writes an Epistle to him on purpose not to be e Bed lib 1. c. 31. transported above measure with the many miracles he wrought which yet might be of the same nature with his own Divine Revelation f M. Westm An. 605. and Gods answer in a dream to his Prayer for Trajan to rescue him out of Hell which God had granted with this proviso that he should trouble him no more with his Prayers of that nature for Heathens and who were like to be his Interpreters whilst the Neighbouring Ministers of France were back-ward g Spelman Concil p. 77. in this work as Pope Gregory himself complains judging them unworthy of Christian Communion in the posture they stood to the Brittains that had hir'd them for Auxiliaries as is conjectur'd g Antique Eccles p. 35. by another the terms of repentance and restitution being like to be as much insisted by the one as rejected by the other therefore some French Merchants skill'd in the English through their commerce and Ignorant of the Canons or some mean Minister that might be won to Act for Gaine and Interest against the Rules of the Church and the Principles of his more conscientious Brethren must be the Interpreters and immediate Ghostly Fathers in the English conversion according to this state till in its proper place it shall be proved that the Brittains themselves who best could forgive their own injuries and the Disciples of their Institution were by a reconciling Providence Gods Instruments in this conversion and not our Augustine though it must needs have gone somewhat against the grain with their Chiefs to hold the Brittain's lands from them by the Sword and Heaven by their courtesie which the Intelligence and Avarice of Rome soon found out and is the true reason and not the Jingling Legend of the fair English Slaves sold at Rome in the market that some of the Haughty Saxon â—eptarchs when it was a shame to stand out while most of their subjects were converted and no less an Inconvenience to be introduc'd by the Brittains whom they forc'd from their Inheritances were first set on to send their desires to Rome to have it done by the Pope as appears by h Spelman Concil p. 77. Pope Gregory's Epistle to the King and Queen of France which he readily complied with aspiring to be Universal Bishop about this time by the help of i M. Westm A. 609. 605. Wheeloc in Bed lib. 2. c. 8. Tyrant Phocas and therefore sent Augustine in all hast hither both bethinking of the Worldly purchase of Supremacy and dominion that was to be gain'd right or wrong thereby according to the eternal principles and bent of that degenerate Church carnal ends requiring carnal means as suitable to promote them which is the second point to be cleared in this state 2. By what means our Augustine propagated his equivocal Gospel so far as it was propagated amongst the English It was not by the light of Gods word and the power and demonstration of the spirit approving it self to every ones Conscience which out of its eternal Allegiance to God admits of no Truth without it produce a Divine Ticket along with it which carnal Evangelists and selfish Apostles find too difficult exactly to coin and counfeit Neither was it with the enticeing words of human wisdom and eloquence whereof there was now little cause of fear from our Augustine the one being a Human the other the right Christian method of preaching the Gospel which St. k 1 Cor. 2.4 compared with 2 Cor. 4.2 Paul preferred But his method had several effects to prove it was rather Satanical and Antichristian being carried on with carnal Arts and Craft and Pride and Lying wonders and Blasphemies and Sacriledge and Robbery and Massacre and Murder which cannot be
but continued to stop their Ears and chose rather to be poison'd from abroad than heal'd by them at home and invited forreign Quacks to abuse their Souls as well as to combat and destroy their Brittish Church and Clergy it was time for charity it self to wax faint and weary Act. 13.46 and to resolve to put up its Pearls as conscience grows mute after long dis-regard But to hear our Augustine or any of the Romish Principle to tax them for it Vltra Sauromatas fugere hinc libet c. the detestable Hypocrisy is enough to make one burst with indignation that they should accuse whose frequent practice upon the least pretended violation of their usurp'd authorities was to suspend Cities interdict whole Kingdoms for a good part of an Age whose entire Religion and policy is to deprive Christian Souls of the Gospel and Bible and Religion and Knowledge and to stick a feather of an Ave Mary or Pater Noster to colour the stealing of the substance But it is alleadged it is not Augustin's charge alone but the crime of the Brittains urg'd by Bede out of their own Gildas i Bed lib. c. 22. Brittonas hoc facinus addere superioribus ut nunquam fidem Saxonibus praedicarent For an answer this is strongly to be suspected to be a Monkish forgery or an addition to the Text of Gildas because where better could such a calumnie with more probable success be inserted than to a Book which rip'd up all their Crimes and frailties Which perhaps is the reason that that Ancient Book alone was suffered to survive because the Clause is absolutely and notoriously false in fact And Gildas would never have been guilty to belye strangers much less his own Nation Or it is justly to be fear'd Bede took Gildas by the wrong handle k Gens non ex concione aestimanda H. Lhuyd Fragm p. 76. like such as would accuse and traduce a searching Preacher for a false accuser or defamer of most of his Parish making no distinction between Charge and Enditement or righteousness in the sight of God before whom none are just and righteousness before men where many are and ought to be unblameable which is the disingenuity of Milton likewise towards them like those that would measure the morality of the English Nation towards their neighbours from their humble and publick confession before God that they have no truth in them Gildas his reproofs are in the General and of none in Particular but their Princes out of his Christian zeal and courage and Paternal bowells to set them and their Countrey at Rights with God And though through the faults of the English or their own through prejudices and Hostilities in the one and passion or frailty or Cainish neglect of extending the Grace they had received to others round about in the other some might be too far guilty of Gildas his charge of Christian unnaturalness which is to be feard hath made far more Reprobates in the World than ever Gods Decrees did yet the whole Brittish Church could not be justly charg'd therewith though some should have peevishly denyed it to such as were willing to receive it whereof there is no instance for it was never any publick Resolution or agreement between them nor the particular perverse judgment of any that were chief in Authority for Learning and wisdom amongst them which bears some equivalence to publick Allowance as it was not of Gildas his own liking who mentions this possible default in some with very severe and bitter reproof which Bede had not the Nostril to distinguish perhaps from Approbation nor of those of the Brittish Clergy that concurr'd with Gildas in the like detestation of such a sin by whose prayers and examples he confesses he was much supported in evil times and declares he would not have his reproofs to be understood to reach them in the least For we shall find the contrary to what Bede affirms to be true all along of whom a great lover and an able and Impartial Judge of Truth for several such particulars gives this character l Usher c. 8. p. 192. p. 1112. Ex Anglo Saxonum gente fuisse considerandum qui Brittanicarum Antiquitatum inscii a Rebus Brittonum ornandis animo fuerunt alienissimo For to reserve the proof of the Gospel being planted amongst the English by the Ministry of the Brittains to its proper place The practice of St. Patrick and his followers preaching to the Irish his enemies who enslaved him likewise that of m Bed lib. 3.4 Nynias to the Picts who were Thornes in the sides of the Brittains while under the Romans and n Usher p. 686. St. Kentigern to the English under Octa and Ebyssa as before largely proves the contrary Neither was o De reb gestis Alfredi p. 13. Asserius Menevensis backward when desir'd to contribute his assistance to King Alfred to the erecting of the University of Oxford as a Nursery for the better propagating of the Christian Faith but left Illa tam sancta loca in quibus nutritus doctus fuit that holy place wherein he was bred up and taught under his Archbishop of St. Davids as he there stiles him to repair to be a Professor in that Univesity Where yet the story saith there was an old Academy continued by the Brittains time of out mind from the dayes of Gildas and Melkin and Ninnius first Teachers there about 200 or 300 years before But Kent it self had been as great an instance as any that our Augustin's charge was groundless to his own knowledge if Bede had added some more particulars touching the Church p Bed l. 2.27 Augustine found at Canterbury upon his first arrival built in the time of the Romans therefore not under 200 years but might be well 400 or 500 years before to which p Bed l. 2.27 Bertha Ethelbert's Queen of French descent and a Christian with her Chaplain Luidhardus did use to resort for Worship which Augustine repair'd and changed its name from St. Martins unto chist-Chist-Church making it his Cathedral Seat and the Metropolis of England and wherein King Ethelbert was Baptiz'd If he had likewise inserted who first built repaired and assembled in it all along at and before the arrival of Queen Bertha or Augustine what was the state of the Countrey and the Civil Rights and Priviledges of the Kentish Inhabitants which they retained after the change of their Governours who came not over them by storm but by guift and Articles and what was also the state and Government Ecclesiastical of those parts before Augustin's arrival for it appears by our Historians that the Archbishop of London under whom was Kent was not beaten and driven to quit his See and flee into Wales till the year 597. according to Vsher q Usher Index Chron. A. 597. being the next year with him after Monk Augustin's entrance or 586. according to r Math. Westm
e Bed l. 1. c. 26. Bertha had so prepar'd Luidhardus her Chaplain who attended her was well able to consummate and to Baptize the King whom he had no doubt instructed in the Faith before which he was far more qualified to do than Augustine was or could be having not the Tongue nor that guift of Miracle What came this Monk so many Miles hither for was it for the souls health of the Saxons and to Preach the Gospel to them in conjunction with the Brittains as he here pretends he should have us'd some likely means towards the attaining of this end better ingratiated himself with the Brittains than to pick quarrels about trifles and tonsures and inconsiderable Ceremonies against the General e Bed lib. 1. c. 28. Instructions of his Pope honoured them with his communion as did Bertha and Luidhardus hinder'd confederacies with Pagans against them as did f Antiyuitat p. 34. Palladius in Scotland or as Leland Roundly and solidly reproves this Italian Hypocrisie and zeal of him and his Pope in the judgement of the learned and eloquent f Antiyuitat p. 34. Arch-Bishop Parker supposed to be the Author of Antiquitates Ecclesiasticae debuerat Gregorius admonuisse Saxonas gentem perfidem ut si sincerè Christianismum admittere vellent Britanniae Imperium quod contra Sacramentum militiae per tyrannidem occupaverant justis Dominis as possessoribus restituerent Pope Gregory by his Augustine ought to have admonished the Saxons who were a perfidious Nation that if they intended to embrace the Christian Faith in sincerity and to any purpose they should restore the Scepter of Brittain to the right Lords and owners who had hir'd them for their service and defence from whom on the contrary they wrested it by force and perjury against the Faith and honour of Souldiers But Cressy objects quiet Possession for 4 or 5 descents fron Hengist as if Emrys or Aurelius Ambrosius and Vther Pendragon and Arthur as well as Young Vortimer had made no re-enties But this seemed as unsuccessful Divinity with Augustine as to desire the leave and liking of the Brittains to be Arch-Bishop of Canterbury over their heads or to be ordained and consecrated by the Brittish Bishops in order thereunto which he so far shunned that he went over Seas to France as far as Arles to g Bede lib. 1. c. 28. Etherius Arch-Bishop there to receive his consecration for Arch-Bishop of England and that saith Bede by the special directions of Pope Gregory which compar'd with the former passage of the same Pope concerning Brittain never having had a Pall from Rome and consequently never being Subject to or depending upon that See and their subsequent indefatigable Industry after Augustine's Plantation and succession was extinct of thrusting new Arch-Bishops from time to time and undervaluing all our Brittish consecrations manifestly proves the bottom of Romes design upon England that it was not Edification but Empire that was ever there aim though with the ruin of this Ancient Church if it could no other ways be compassed so Augustine had the face in a Synodical meeting of the Brittish Bishops near Worcester as before to require the Brittains to joyn with him assuming now to be an Arch-Bishop here against leave and Law and Canons to Preach the Gospel to the Saxons which was his pretext and Artifice to hook in their allowance and approbation of his unjust and Schismatical usurpation which subtile Proposal was difficult to be granted or denied but either with the Inconvenience of betraying their Church and Country and Christian communion by the Canons of the Church if they yeilded to joyn with him or having the odium of witholding the Gospel from the Saxon Pagans if they refus'd which is the true rise and State of this Infernal calumny rais'd again the Brittains of their denying to Preach the Gospel to the Saxons which induc'd the worthy and Reverend Author afore mention'd h Bed l. 2. c. 2 to conclude this meeting to have been contriv'd for a snare to get words of Indignation from them to provoke the Pagan Saxons to form a War against them to ruin the remainder of the Brittish Clergy in Wales and to cover the combination with Prophesie to Father the murder upon God to make it justice 3 And accordingly Ethelbert as Bede acknowledges h Bed l. 2. c. 2 provok'd Ethelfred King of Northumberland the chief Patron of Paganism and Enemy of the Christian Faith against them upon the score of the high words that passed between them and Augustine at that meeting and it is as easy to guess who informed and incensed his new convert King Ethelbert from his denunciation of War against them upon the place though in the form of Prophesie and Divine Revelation Si pacem cum fratribus accipere nollent bellum ab hostibus forent accepturi no small evidence with considering men i Antiquitates Ecclesiast p. 47. non conscius sed causa Belli p. 48. of this Apostles having a chief hand in the Barbarous ensuing murders and long and bloudy Wars and devastations that followed which he could so certainly fortell for these and other Saxon Kings coming with united forces against Brochwael Scythrawg Prince of Powys not so well provided for them and soon putting him to the rout at Legecestria saith Bede that is Westchester Wales being then larger than now it is and by the Brittains called Caerleon from a Roman Legion that quartered in that City sell in the next place upon the Monks that were with him in his Army and slew of them 1250. no more but fifty of them escaping Their assisting with their Prayers being made a pretence for this hostile usage by the Kings so saith Bede But the Norman Ancient M. S of Trivet in Spelman i Spelman Cnncil p. 112. saith that they were found in the City k Wheeloc not in c 2. l. 2. Bede and every one of them put to the Sword in cold bloud because they were Brittains the Latine copies of Bede add this to be done after the death of our Augustine but there is no such clause in any of the Saxon Manuscripts l Monachi pacem petentes crudeliter occisi H. Lhuid fragm Brit. p. 58. and Bishop Jewel finds Augustine's hand to several Charters signed some years after this Massacre committed in m M. Westm An. 603· 603. whereas our Augustine acording to our best Chronologers dyed not n Spelman Concil p. 93. till 613 so that He might well be present at the place of their slaughter o Jewel defense part 5. c 1. p. 438. If it was not according to some in 613. the same year that he dyed which was a bloudy Legacy encouraging their Executioners Whereby we have a tast of the Roman forgeries while they were masters of our Records and Manuscripts Nothing that seemed to make for their Church have they neglected to insert without either Art or Colour
force yet Theonus in that case could but resign his Term but not the rights of his Church forever and Augustine became thereby but a more lawful Brittish Bishop of an Intruding Roman Monk For such a settlement by the Principles of the Church of Rome and all common sence did not change the See to be Roman but constitute Augustine and his successors to be rather Brittish Bishops It 's a whole Kingdom that naturalizes one Forreigner and not one Forreigner a whole Kingdom for so at Rome let him that is Elected to that Chair be French or German or Greek or Barbarian or which were enough to stupifie and unsanctifie any head of a Church let him be a Witch or a Sodomite or an Atheist the vertue of the Roman Chair nevertheless shall naturalize and Purifie and Petrifie this strange man into a right Roman-Catholick Pope and successor of St. Peter Holy and Infallible notwithstanding those forreign disabilities Therefore by their own rule Augustine and his successors were frail Brittish Bishops at best and and hell'd all their Priviledges and Precedencies in that See in the right of their Brittish Chair and not their Roman Mission And what attempts soever they made de facto to erect and prefer that See in Roman Right before all the Ancient and standing See's of Brittain they were all Null and Void and of such Schismatical Malignity and impossibility as were the like Act of any French or Spanish Pope that should go about to raise the Chair of Paris or Toledo from whence he came above the See of Rome and Order appeals from this to those than which in their Principles nothing could be more Heretical and sinful saving perhaps the sin against the Holy Ghost If it be offer'd that the Superiority here acquir'd by Augustine was acquir'd for Rome from whence he came by the same reason the Supremacy at Rome was acquir'd for Jerusalem from whence St. Peter came and that Church to be reviv'd and Rome and all other Churches alike descending to be made subject to it and by consequence to be a Sister not a Mother to our Brittain and a younger Sister too under their common Mother of Sion But this point hath been solemnly determined by Popes themselves in the Controversy between Dole and Tours Which last from the beginning was the acknowledged Metropolis of Little-Brittain till Sampson Archbishop of York or St. David a Itinerar Cambr l. 2. c. 1. saith Cambrensis was driven thither for his refuge by the Saxons about the b Mat. Westminster 561. year 561. who being chosen Bishop of Dole rais'd that See not only to be an Archbishoprick but Superiour likewise to Tours the Original Primate whether by the Priviledge of the Ancient and Imperial See from whence he came and of the Pall he thence brought with him or as Pope Innocent judge afterwards in the Case suggests which makes this President more to fit because the Brittains having about that time erected a new King to themselves against France they took the occasion of Sampson's arrival to erect a new Archbishoprick likewise But this Vetustissima Controversia as d Hoveden Hist part 2. p. 453. Hoveden stiles it came at last to be decided before Pope Innocent the third who out his moderation first propos'd an expedient wherein we may be sure Rome was to be no looser That Dole should continue an Archbishoprick with two suffragans only and receive a Pall from Rome by the hands of Tours whose right it was to be Primate but the Dolensians refusing this offer the Pope in the second year of his Papacy Anno 1199. determin'd for the Ancient Right of the Native against 600 years prescription and above back'd with Princely Authority for the Forreigner So that if our Holy Bishops of Rome would suffer themselves to be guided either by that Golden Rule of doing as they would be done by whereby all reasonable and good men are governed or stand to their own Principles and Decisions whereby the worst and most unreasonable are concluded they would no longer own this so weak and infirm pretence for Supremacy over our Brittish Churches but suffer the Consciences of their obedient Catholicks to be undeluded from this Imposture forever But they ought to be told that the Church of Brittain hath propagated the Faith over more Kingdoms and States of Europe by her own or by Disciples of her own School and Institution than c Usher p. 530. ever Rome did yet never pretended as before was Intimated to any claim of Ecclesiastical Supremacy over other Churches much less Temporal over any Crowns in order to the other upon that account but only maintained her own Soveraignty within her own Province under her own Rightful Governours for the peace and order of her own people that she is Mother Church to Scotland and Ireland is apparent and confessed and no less to England or to the English or Saxons prevailing in Lhoegr was sufficiently proved And it is as manifest she is Mother Church to Germany both High and Low and Grand-Mother to the Churches of its Propagation by consequence What Bede affirms of e Bede l. 3. c. 4. St. Egbert and St. Willibrord f Idem l. 5. c. 10 11 12. both from our Brittish g Usher p. 398. p. 730. Bede l. 5. c. 10 Irish Schools to have first planted the Gospel over Holland and Frizeland and Low Countries acknowledged by the Historians of those parts out of their own h Ubbo Emmius lib. 4. 124. l. 3. p. 99. Usher 398. Annalls and Records For England was the Academy and Nursery of the Gospel to Holland as Vtrecht afterwards by that means to the rest of Germany For hither at there need they sent for a supply of Teachers i Idem p. 127. Quae tum saith Vbbo Emmius of England propter excitata illic Literarum studia viris doctis abundabat ob nuper rcceptum Christi cultum ceu fieri solet caeteris ferè provinciis vicinis in Pietatis zelo erat ferventior quod plurimum hanc ad rem pertinebat eadem fere cum Frisiis adhuc linguâ utebatur Which then abounded with learned men because of the several Schools of Learning there set up and encouraged and were more zealous and Industrious in propagating Piety as is usual than the other neighbouring Provinces because they had then but newly received the Christian Faith themselves and which was very Material to help on their work spoke the same Language with the Frizelanders at that time which we observ'd before to be a great bar and exception throughout against the Legend of the Conversion of the English by Monk Augustine and his Italian followers And in another l Ubbo Emmius l. 3. c. 109. place Religio nova studium literarum c. The English people who before were Barbarous and skilful only in Armes when upon their embracing the Faith they addicted themselves to the study of Learning
Malmsb. de Gest Angl. c. 3. beholding to Oswi for Theodore and his Roman successors entrance into it yet more to Eanfled his Queen who perverted him and brought up Wilfrid to be the principal Instrument of this Combustion early pointed out by the finger of Providence amongst the other bad Signes and Omens attending this fatal change that lay long and heavy upon our Church his Fathers house being all on flame to mens thinking and the Neighbours crying fire fire when all the fire that was was his d Idem de Episc Occident l. 3. Mother at that point of time being in labour and delivered of this Firebrand of Brittain 3. By their known useful Engine of Ignorance they have greatly establish'd their Temporal Interest in our Brittish Churches though to the great impair and ruine of mens Spiritual and the contradiction of their own first pretences by after policies For their zealous Propagation of their Catholick Faith ends in an ignorance at last worse than Heathenish or the meer state of Nature which yet shall be stil'd a Catholick state of Grace and Salvation because accommodate to their temporal rule and domination I will assign but two Instances of this their Black-Art that the difference may the better appear between the Brittish propagation of the Christian Faith and that of the Roman and then proceed to shew the Influence of their dark light to help on their Impostures and encroachments Rome was so zealous to enlighten the Saxon Infidelity that the Brittains were adjudged to Massacre and ruine for a pretended denyal of their assistance Sure then in time the Saxons became a knowing people in the Roman School it appears by King Alvred or Alfred's Testimony how Learned the English Clergy in his time were about the year 840. whereby conjecture may be made of the Adeptions of their Roman-Catholick Laity Paucissimi e Spelm. Concil p. 167. citra Humbrum fluvium c. There are very few saith he on this side the River Humber who understand their Breviary in English or can render a Latine Epistle into their vulgar Tongue There are yet fewer beyond Humber not one could I find on the South side of Thames We found out the reason of this strange Ignorance out of f M. Westm Anno 727. M. Westminster before and the benefit redounding to our Nation from the English Colledge at Rome and the Tribute of Peter Pence But it was a Goshen in the Archbishoprick of St. Davids as yet unreduc'd by Rome perhaps whither King Alfred as our most Generous Victorious Kings in England ever car'd least for Rome sent for help and Assistance an Instance of the Amicable correspondence between the West Saxons and the Brittains both to settle his University in Oxon and to translate Boethius De consolatione and other Latine Books for his use saith Malmesbury and to inform him in the right Faith we may be sure The Brittains being skill'd not only in the Latine but in the Greek and Hebrew through their Eastern Communion which caus'd neighbouring Clergy to resort to their Scripture Exposition for so the Isle Hy which was the Seminary of Religion in the North came to be named Jona from St. Columban's g Usher p. 84. p. 696. name in the Hebrew 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 both signifying a Dove so Teilaw or Teilaus St. Davids Successor was also call'd Elius or Eliud and Sampson because of his illuminating wisdom and Doctrine g Usher p. 84. p. 696. Haul in the Brittish and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signiying the same that is the Sun The other is a Modern Instance sufficiently obvious for the like example of an Irish Attendant to a Person of Honour in Wales whom visiting in his troubles for his Loyalty in the late times I desired this Irish Servant appointed to accomodate me for to compare the Irish and Brittish to say the Lords Prayer in Irish but he replyed he could not as neither the Ten Commandments nor the Creed where were you bred and born But I can say them all in Latine And repeated and pronounc'd every word as exactly as the best Critick or Professor but did not understand the meaning of scarce a word in its reference and signification This case which I fear is and hath been too general amongst the Irish Laity since they left their first Brittish Church to stick to Rome suggested to me these considerations That his Ghostly Father or Catechist whose pronunciation he so exactly imitated like a Parrot had more of exact Learning than of Fatherly natural affection or fidelity to this soul under his charge that the Irish laity are deluded out of all Religion and conscience by their Priests which is the highest Cheate and Robbery that can be imagin'd or conceived by such Latine forms and charms and their confidence in their Confessor and the Confessors Implicit obedience to his Superiour and so on to the Pope whereby the Popes will and holy lust and pleasure becomes the Soveraign Law of their hearts and consciences instead of the Law of Christ and the fear of God And no check of conscience or private judgement within must controle or withstand the Counsel or the Command of their spiritual guides whatever it be though it may be a suddain Massacre of Hereticks they prescribe No Minister that belongs to God or owns and fears a Deity would receive or put up such absolute obedience and confidence without renting his cloathes for fear of being guilty of receiving divine honour from the Ignorance of his charge and denying God his Glory No right Disciple of St. Patrick trained up in the holy Scriptures would put such a cursed trust and confidence in any Son of man whatsoever who is a Creature and not God It is as great an Idolatry provoking Gods displeasure against a Nation to change their God for a Priest or a Pope as heretofore in others for the Sun or Moon He that measures good or evil Murder or service done to God by the Doctrines of men and guides more than by the dictates of conscience with Gods Law where God is more surely present doth renounce and change his God for man and is to be renounced for it by all Christians were he our Father or our Brother for we must leave Father and Mother and our dearest friends and our greatest guides to cleave to God Yea it is our safety as well as duty to shun and renounce such Idolaters for who is sure of his life in such company and Principles who take the conclave and its ungodly designs for the rule of conscience Thus are the poor Irish blindly misled by the perfidiousness of their inconsiderate Priests to serve the lusts of men to their misery instead of Christ and his Truth to their Salvation and the Pope is made Christ of Ireland And the poor sincere People are to be pittied and bewail'd who though they be led to Idolatry and Murders by overmuch
wherewith they are Intrusted by God for the defence of his and their People than Popes ever could or can unsheath their Spiritual Weapons in defence of Pride and ambition and scandalous Encroachments Excommunication being intended by Christ and his Apostles to better ends than they apply it to separate between the precious and the vile between scandalous and holy Christians and to cut off putrid parts with grief and compassion to preserve the Communion of Saints and the health and honour of the whole and not to defend proud and ambitious heights and sacrilegious invasions and Usurpations over Churches more Orthodox and more ancient than themselves with Unevangelical revenge and recalcitration after fair eviction Which is the abusing of Christs Ordinance to ends contrary to what he intended and the taking of Gods name in vain for which they will not be held guilt-less yea to have Excommunicated themselves rather by humble acknowledgements and reparations to their power for their wrongs and oppressions to Christ and souls and Churches had been the right Catholick use of their keyes and the surest sign of Salvation to the best and chiefest of their Church Neither is it needful by our Hypothesis and state of our case to defend the Reformation from the charge of Schism and departure from the Catholick Church thereby as they suppose and cry aloud against us for the alteration made by Henry the Eight cannot be called the Reformation of a Religion we derived from Rome by Inferiour Authority against superiour by the daughter correcting the Mother Church Irregularly but our lawful Restoration rather to our Ancient Rights and possessions from which we were wrongfully disseis'd and barr'd The deliverance of our Brittish Church after long captivity and disfiguration to its primitive liberty and health and beauty by just means from the violent hands and Spiriting Arts of Rome much Junior to it in faith and much impurer and unsounder than the true Church of Rome for these last thousand years Our Case I say is not so much Reformation as Restoration which no man of sence or honesty or conscience can find fault with and much less they at Rome who are pleas'd with their deliverance from the long Tyranny of their Exarchs though procur'd by unlawful and pernicious means as before but we had ours through lawful Authority without any wrong or hurt to others or our Superiours and with much right to our selves much less can we be tax'd or blam'd by any at home that have been long kept out from their own rights by Tyrants or Rebels or Oppressors who are bound in all Equity and Honour and Compassion to espouse rather and Assist so just a Cause before any others whatsoever according to Dido's temper in the Poet making the Case of Aeneas in Exile her own Haud ignara mali miseris succurrere disco The Pope had no more Original right and title to our Brittish Sees how long soever Usurped than Cromwell had to the Brittish Crown Whoever else may envy or hinder or undermine our recovery of our just freedom and liberty they that through Gods mercy have had the like Restoration and deliverance ought not either in Honour or Civility or Humanity to do it nor if themselves appear to have the greatest share and benefit therein without manifest hazard of their Judgement for by revolt to Popery Princes quit no less their external Supremacy in holy Church the choycest Jewel in their Crown than by Apostacy to Heathenism not more by the parity of the Idolatries than by their own Act and Resignation For they cannot longer hold the same in the Catholick-Roman without being Excommunicate as undutyful and they let go their hold thereof in the Protestant Christian by Excommunicating themselves as unkind and unwise Nor if after all this they be found to Act both against Gods revealed will and fate therein or the secret Decrees and discernable purposes of his Providence against it whereof the one was made as clear as the Sun before and the other will afterwards appear as clear as the Moon which is next unto it can they ever be thus unnatural to their own Church and Nation out of vain glorious kindness to forreign cheats without fighting against God as well as their friends to the certain overthrow and ruin either Temporal or Eternal or both of the weaker side Therefore the sharp and searching judgement of the great Arch-Bishop Bramhal could soon espy that the plea of the Antiquity and Independancy of our Brittish Church in the Controversy between us and Rome strikes the cause dead forever at one blow Not that being exempt from the pretences of a Junior Church once animated with Empire to step before her betters we are not bound nevertheless to hold Communion with every good Church of Christ where and when we may yea with Rome it self if it return'd to its Ancient purity and subjection to our Saviour as on the other hand to shun others as we do Rome that were guilty of the like Corruption and Apostacy which flight and distance we are wont to observe in our moral and natural Communion and converse as well as Christian embracing or shunning good or evil Company for our safety or credit as wholesome or Pestilential Air for Health as well as sound and unsound Churches out of Allegiance to Christ our common Lord or fear of scandal and partaking in their sins and judgments by our Complyance For our Communion though it be our great duty as Schisme is a great sin yet it is not in our absolute power and dispose in the general without any other Rule or reason to incline us to be of this or that Church but our own fancy and humour no we are acted by necessity in great part therein for it is a necessary tye upon us to embrace good and relinquish evil and corrupt Communion and to be guided by Christs will and not our own as our rule and standard and to shun all whom his word Excommunicates and to communicate with all whom his word approves For to approve whom Christ condemns or condemn whom Christ approves is not in the power of any Christian that ownes Christ for his Soveraign All the part that we have in our own power is the exercise of every mans Conscience and private judgment under the guidance of Christs rule which they hate the least mention of at Rome as impious and Haeretical and leading to a private spirit the root of all evil errours in the Church and comparing the lives and state of Christians and Churches by this general rule of Christ and this particular eye of our Souls to put our Communion in execution according to Christs mind and to embrace his friends and to shun his enemies and to like and dislike as we are to do all our other Affairs in him from our hearts according to my Text. For let there be no private judgment to distinguish between private good or evil or between the guides themselves we are
make no other account of the King of kings and of every thing that is called God who by their Principles and Practices shall be reduc'd to serve their private ends which are with them Superiour to them all The fate of the Church may be observ'd to follow that of the Crown and Empire it rose and fell of late years with the fall and Restoration of our last Kings we observed the like Sympathy in it towards the Brittish Crown heretofore Therefore all good Christians ought by their lives and Prayers to support our Brittish Monarchy that the Church and Religion may ever prosper in its safety 2 Tim. 2.12 The Civil Regality of our Kings cannot be destroyed but by a stronger Forreign Power or Domesticks broyls which God prevent And nothing ever hath and doth promote our divisions and rents and broyls more than the cherishing of Popery within our state which engenders Jealousies foments our Sects and sets on dissenters to affront and trouble our Church and Government and fits us for Invasion by division neither can their Ecclesiastical Regality be any way more Eclips'd or extinguished than by vitious scandalous living or Antichristian errours for how can he be a Head or Primate in Christ's Church who stands condemn'd and Excommunicate by its Laws from being a Member Truth and Holiness being as essentially requisite to the Church which is the ground and Pillar of truth 1 Tim. 3. and to every Member thereof as his being a Christian The neglect whereof destroyed our Brittish Church in Vortigern and its corrupt Princes heretofore as Subjection to the Pope depraved and enslaved the Conquering English and their Church all along Invasion and Captivity are best kept off by bolting out Popery and Debauchery A Prince that is Orthodox and Vertuous and Vigilant and Valiant a Quod pulchrius manus Deorun quam castus Sanctus diis similimus Princeps Plin. Paneg. is the greatest pledge and sign from Heaven of good weather in Church as well as State in such a Reign which therefore ought to be as it is order'd by the Church the daily Prayers of all good Christians throughout their lives The second point is how these Primacies or any of them ceased and discontinued and how Canterbury came to be erected and confirm'd in stead And first of the Imperial Primacy of York The See of York is conceived to have continued from Faganus or Wogan f being used for v by the Brittains the first Archbishop thereof in the time of King Lucius about 160 after Christ to the departure of Sampson about the year 500. from the Saxon fury into Armorica or little Brittain b Usher p. 74. 75. with Six or Seven of his suffragan Bishops with him whom after Ages called there the Seven Saints of Brittain whereof Maclovius was one who gave name to c Usher 533. Sâ— Maloes who were there received and preferr'd and Sampson made Bishop of Dole and Primate of little Brittain and above Tours as before But the Imperial Pall in time came to be over-rul'd by the Papall King Arthur recovering that Territory shortly after from the Saxons settles Pyramus his Chaplain Archbishop there about 522. whose successors there continued till Thadioc the last Archbishop was driven into Wales together with Theonus the last Archbishop of London about the time or little before the Arrival of Augustine the Monk as before an Argument of Romish foul play About the year 601. Pope Gregory takes order with Augustine to make d Bede lib. 1. c. 29. lib 2. c. 4. York with London Archbishopricks a new with dependance upon Rome Ad Eboracum civitatem te volumus Episcopum Mittere c. We would have you send a Bishop for the City of York whom you shall think fit to ordain but with this proviso that if that City and its Neighbourhood shall receive the word of God He may ordain 12 Bishops under him and enjoy the honour of a Metropolitan for We intend if God lend life to send him a Pall likewise by the help of God Neither shall he be any way Subject to the jurisdiction of the See of London the Priority of the one to the other shall be according to the Seniority of their Consecration When Edwin King of Northumberland in the year 627 after the death of Gregory and Augustine made Paulinus who Converted and Baptized him Archbishop here he was Ordain'd by Justus Archbishop of Canterbury with this Memorandum e Antiquit Eccles p 14. as Canterbury is Subject to Rome whence it had its Faith so is York to be Subject to Canterbury which sent to it its Bishops and Teachers thus they agreed to divide the spoyls But Paulinus was soon routed out of all the North by Cadwalhan upon King Edwins overthrow in 633. And the See manag'd afterwards by Bishops of Brittish Ordination and Principles Aidan Finan c. for 30 years who were f Usher p. 78. ex Sâ—eephan qui Aeddâ— Bedae â—quali â—im Dunelmenf Metropolitan Bishops of York yet had no Pall and chose to reside at Lindisfarne And Ceadda who was rightly Consecrated Archbishop there by Brittish Ordination was insolently and illegally laid aside by Theodorus as before whereby that Church recovering its Pall in Egbert became Subject to the Roman and so continued untill the time of our Protestant Restoration Conquests and Invasions of Countreys being common and tolerable amongst the Captains of the World and especially Heathen But the subduing and stealing of one another's Churches and Diocesses by Christians and Catholicks not so in the Church of God London continued a Metropolitan Church for 400 years and above from the time of King Lucius g Usher p. 69. ex Simonis Baldoc Episcopi Londinensis Chronico tabula pensili Ecclesiae St. Petâ—i in Cornhill to the Arrival of Augustine who Translated that its dignity to Canterbury against Law reason and the Canons of the Church Thean or Theonâ—s being her first Archbishop who is said to have built the Church of St. Peters Cornhill g Usher p. 69. ex Simonis Baldoc Episcopi Londinensis Chronico tabula pensili Ecclesiae St. Petâ—i in Cornhill in the time of King Lucius by the help of Cyranus the Kings chief Butler and Elwan her second before Embassadour with Dwywan and Medwin from the King to Pope Eleutherius who built a Library adjoyning to the said Church which continued for many Ages to the time of Leland who saw it And her last Brittish Bishop being Theonus likewise who was driven with Thadioc into Wales by a New Roman-Heathenish Persecution as afore Pope Gregory h Bede lib. 1. c. 29. c. 33. Antiq. Eccles p. 34. intended to settle his Romish Primacy at London where the Brittish was before as appears from his own Epistles to Monk Augustine and Mathew Westminster and Malmesbury and Polydor Virgil. But what induc'd Augustine to Translate it to Canterbury against the first Orders of his Pope or what
Nice upon which the Rights of London stood founded when they were Schismatically Invaded by a high hand from Rome and for many years wrongfully detain'd and usurp'd Or 2. to cut off all pretence and colour of subjection or dependance of this Church upon Rome and all occasion of stumbling to the weak Sons of the Church of England and Ignorant in History who are misled to believe that Rome is the Mother Church of Brittain because it was undoubtedly of Canterbury which is now the reputed Mother Church of all England And by consequence that our Reformation was Schismatical and scandalous the Daughter judging and rejecting the Mother the Inferiour the Superiour and of ill consequence to be approved by Princes Whereas Rome Originally never came to be a Mother to our Brittain so much as in pretence but only by Schisme and incroachment most fit and just to be remedied by Princes in discountenance of wrong and disobedience Because 3. The Learned of the Church of Rome dayly hit our Prelates of that See in the Teeth and the Unlearned likewise harbour evil opinions and surmises concerning them and forbear not to vent and utter them as if they were Vngrateful and Parricidial in their Actings against their first Founder and Maintainer whereby some of themselves also might be discourag'd and cool'd in their zeal against the Romish Vsurpation to which their honour'd predecessors owed Allegiance Whereas Augustine the first founder had his maintenance and dignity and ways of acquisitions from the Brittish See of London whereof Canterbury is parcel or the same and owed Canonical obedience and the rights and fortunes of his Successors to the Brittish Church to whom they are ultimately to refund if these are to refund to them as to the right and first owners Because 4. it would be a great strength and but a due and just vindication of Protestantism or the Apostolical Ancient Brittish Church after such long abuse and wrongful suffering by Rome and a New face and reviving glory to old Brittain to recover its Pristine right and condition in Church as well as State and Name and worthy of a share in those Solemn Consultations appointed as it were by providential instinct for its further Union in Laws and Government to the everlasting honour of that Prince in whose Reign it should be recorded to be accomplished Or 6. to make our chief See in Brittain hold some better proportion with the like in Neigbouring Kingdoms as Remes or Toledo whom in Universities and Colledge Endowments we far exceed to our Glory to be a fit preferment for some of our Princes or chiefest Nobles hereafter for the great support of the Church Or at least 7. that the name and memory of Monk Augustin the first Author of this disorder by his Infamous Schisms and murders which Reign'd so many hundreds of years in such glory under the darkness of Popery should set at last in due obscurity under the Sun-shine of Protestantism Which considerations are recounted not out of any design or desire of Innovation though into a Pristine right or to restore the bone into its due place with pain and danger that hath been so long out of joynt and well serves for use though not rightly set Though the whole design and plea of the Church of Rome be that a bone rightly set and settled and fully useful ought to be dislocated to the hazard and cripling of the whole to be in the wrong posture it once was for a time for their advantage and benefit But to solve scruples and unravel scandals and pluck up all misapprehensions by the roots whereby any might be deluded by any pretences of Equity or conscience or filial Reverence for a Mother-Church into a favourable opinion of Romish slavery Or if any be prick'd in conscience for the wrong done to Rome at the Reformation let the same prick reach to the wrong done before to Brittain by Romes Schismatical Invasion which no prescription of time or years could give right to and then all will be in right order as at first they were and ought to be and the first right owners shall have their due and old Trepassers their censure and rejection yea as by good providence they now are and stand for it ought to be well known and understood that the See of Canterbury as it stands Established is not a Roman but a Brittish See and consequently Exempt from all Romish Superiority or dependance by an Original Birth-right and Immunity and therefore forbiden by our Laws and Synods to use or wear any Pall or Liâ—â—â—y or Legatine power of Rome's bestowing and settled by our Brittish Soveraigns in Christ-Church Canterbury as effectually and Canonically as at St. Pauls in London which all Christians of Brittain whether of Protestant or Catholick stamp and Character may now with a safe and good conscience pay due submission and obedience to as they ought without Schism or scandal or forfeiture of their Christian Dignities and Orders and Communion by the Canons of the Universal Church hereafter to be recited which before they could not For though Schism be objected by the Romanists to the Episcopals as by the Episcopals to the Presbyterians and Non-conformists yet the Pope in Brittain and his Romish Convâ—â—â—clâ—s set up by craft or â—iolence over our Churches which lay out of his Jurisdiction ever were the Original Schismaticks and the first Patterns and ill examples of disobedience against Right Superiours against so many good Laws of the Catholick Church that do Excommunicate and depose them for it And nothing in all likelyhood hath or doth more foment and châ—â—ish our remaining divisions in the Land and Sâ—â—â—s in the Church than Jealousie of Popery and it spâ—â—ted hankerings and designs to reduce men again under the old yoak of Rome so much dâ—restâ—â— and justly abhorr'd by the whole Nation If All in Trust and Eminency could fully satisfie men's fears and Suspitions of their unfeigned adherence under God and the King to their Brittish Mother-Church in opposition and detestation of all Forreign Corrivals for Superiority It were strange and justly unexpected if all parties throughout this miserably divided Nation would not soon joyn hearts and hands and Church-meetings with one another in an entire and indissolvable Union and Brotherhood to the Infinite joy and happiness of Prince and People SECTION XIV That the Primacy of Canterbury as by the Pope and Monk Augustine is Schismatical and against the Canons of the Vniversal Church and of the several Nullities of the Church of Rome in England And how their Clergy Intruding here stand depriv'd of their Orders by the Canons of all the Ancient General Councils and their Laity that abet them of their Christian Communion by the same Authority BUt the Supremacy of the See of Canterbury by the Popes Authority alone as our Romanists would have it without the Authority of the Kings of England is Infamously Schismatical and irregular and against the Canons of the universal
Church and their own rules and principles first it is several wayes against the Canons in respect of their Invasions of the rights of other Metropolitans which was adjudg'd a Photii Nomoc. Tit. 1. p. 20. infamous and mulctable before that in the Council of Chalcedon and in Trullo power was yielded to the Emperours to erect or to translate Metropolitical Chaires and also against the Canons in respect of many Illegal Ordinations which made the Romish Church null in Law in England several wayes besides those nullities in fact and event we have before instanc'd Many are the Canons of the best and Ancientest Councils and the most general and Oecumenical that the Church of Christ ever had which condemn the first Entrance of Augustine and his Pope Gregory and the Re-entrance of Archbishop Theodore and his Successors upon our Brittish Church and Provinces under no less penalties than deposition or degradation of their Clergy from their several States and Dignities and Excommunication of their Laity from Christian Fellowship besides the making all their Ecclesiastical Acts and Ordinations to be utterly void and null to all intents If this were of any value or moment with them of the Church of Rome who boast and crack of a great respect they have above others for Fathers and Councils and Ancient Traditions but experience too much discovers it is all with Reservations and Provisoes that they offer not to touch or reflect upon their Church in any of its grossest errours or most enormous misdemeanours for if they do it in the lest the Canons of the Universal Church shall have no more respect at their hands than the Canonical Scriptures which are not allowed to have any sound or sense where they cross and disagree from the private interpretation of their Church I say private and suspicious because notoriously savouring of private ends and carnal designes and Worldly ambition and self-love above any Church or Haeresie whatsoever in all their Commentaries and Expositions and every point and Article of their Faith and Government wherein they differ from us Or they shall be openly disown'd and rejected for no lawful Councils either in whole or in part according to their liking or disliking of particulars who yet call for implicit obedience to their own petty Authorities and decrees how contrary soever to Common sense or reason while themselves dispute and contradict the power and jurisdiction of far greater Superiours acting and decreeing with the special assistance of the Spirit of God So that as to such Roman-Catholicks who are wedded and guided by their wills and Idols more than Truth or Conscience the Testimonies and Canons I shall produce will prove but Pearls ill cast yet with this advantage and satisfaction that they shall drive and force them either to submission or to rebellion either to confess and acknowledge themselves to be convict Schismaticks and Sacrilegious Robbers and Oppressors and their Popes and Missionaries depos'd and condemn'd in all their Titles Holy Orders and pretences by the Holy solemn Laws and Canons of the Universal and undoubtedly Catholick Church of Christ or manifestly detect themselves to be Antichrist in this as in their other practices and the Invaders of Gods Regiment and power in all its formes and varieties of of appearance as of God the Creator in disposing the Kingdoms of the World of God Redeemer in Lording over Souls and Consciences so of God the Holy Spirit and Sanctifier in slighting Scriptures and General Councils Which last part it is to be fear'd they 'l chuse to take as being thereto too much inclin'd by their Principles being one main cause if not perrhaps the principal that the spirit of truth and concord hath withdrawn it self in lamentable manner from Christian Churches and Councils these several last hundreds of years in whose Assemblies it cannot well appear with liberty and without diminution of its Divine Honour and Glory when its promis'd assistance to Gods Church gathered together in his name must be eftsoons check'd and controll'd by the Negative will and lust of one man that sets up himself above Both and the Interest of Rome made the mark to steer by instead of Truth and Holiness and Gods holy spirit thereby necessitated either to countenance Errour and Tyranny by its presence or to stand out whereby is left but a Carcass of a Church and not a Church for a Church without Gods spirit is but as the body without the Soul the one as ready moulders into errour and corruption as the other into stench and rottenness as is the condition of the Modern Roman Church too visibly The first Canon I shall instance in shall be the third General Council held at Ephesus than which hardly any president can be more apposite to the Case of Rome and Brittain and that Councill's determination upon the complaint of Cyprus against Antioch where three points may be observ'd 1. The state of their case and grievance 2. The sense and resentment of the Council 3. The decree and redress 1. Their complaint to the Council by Declaration and the Affirmation of their Bishops then and there present was that the Bishop or Patriarch of Antioch did send and Consecrate Bishops for the Isle of Cyprus in violation of their Ancient Rights and Customes The occasion of this encroachment was as is noted by Balsamon and Zonaras 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Upon a pretence and imitation of the Duke of Antioch under the Romans sending thence a Deputy Governour for this Isle The plea of the Cypriots was as is imply'd in the Canon an Ancient immemorial right of chusing and consecrating their own Bishops among themselves On the other hand the Bishop of Antioch had his Patriarchal dignity and the Supremacy of St. Peters Chair to insist on from whom he deriv'd by undoubted Lineal Succession Now if this Controversy had come before the Pope of Rome and his Conclave or Lateran or Tridentine Council it is easie to coniecture who had gone by the worst but not so easie to know whom the prey should have been adjudg'd to whether to Antioch or rather to Rome her self although the other were the acknowledg'd Chaire of St. Peter establish'd for 7 years at Antioch at the lest before ever he arriv'd at Rome 2. But the sense and resentment of their wrong by this great Council is very remarkable who took this matter into their cognizance and Judicature though no lesâ— than the Patriarch of the East and as great as the Pope takes himself to be was one of the parties to aâ—ide their censure 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 And thus they represent the mischief and consequence of this encroachment 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 A new kind of Schismatical attempt in defiance of the Apostolical Laws of the Church and Canons of the Holy Fathers and striking at the common Liberty of Christendom yea the Spiritual Spiritual Liberty of men Souls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 which Christ himself by his bloud hath purchas'd for us
blessed Apostles St. Peter and St. Paul and Divine Truths to the contrary reproached as Heresies and all wayes and Arts yea fire and faggot us'd to â—ar them out least their slaves and captives should be undeceived and set free by them and so become unmanageable whereby their Conquest over Souls shall be at peace and the misery and slavery of mens immortal Spirits turn to account and the enriching of their Holy Church A provocation against Heaven of long continuance enough to raise new Goths and Vâ—â—â—â—â—s against their Church and State but that the prosperity it enjoyes is a greater plague and desolation than the Sword can bring The Spiritual servitude of the Soul under Idols far exceeding the outward slavery of the body under Conquerors as much as Apoplexy exceeds sleep or the pangs of Conscience the pain of the Teeth To live in the causes of damnation being a greater misery in reason than to endure the execution there being nothing of Gods hand or justice in the one being our own mala culpae as there is in the other being Gods mala penae or the correction which he sends and inflicts and therefore the less tolerable evil of the two if properly evil Further correction therefore can do little good upon them It must be the Infinite mercies of God and the zeal of Christian Princes that must do good upon them against their wills as it is expected by diligent a Divine Dialogues p. 226. searchers into Divine Prophecies that some great Prince will be shortly rais'd by God to cast a Vial of wrath upon their glory And they have a common Tradition in France saith b Review of the Council of Trent by W R. a French Roman-Catholick Writer that some of the Carolingians of the Race of Charlemaigne shall have an Emperour of France Charles by name who shall be Prince and Monarch over Europe and shall reform the Church and State But the Glory of such a Cure and Deliverance being as it were the Redemption a new of those whom Christ redeem'd from Spiritual slavery seems more probably reserv'd for this Isle above any other whatsoever as before And so since our Island is become Great Brittain again and the true Religion is recovered with our Brittish Line and Monarchy which were fallen together it is to be conjectured from foregoing Instances of Providence upon this Monarchy that such of our Princes as will appear favourers of Popery are like to be the most unfortunate and inglorious and unbelov'd acting therein against the grain and fate of this Empire as those of the contrary design and activity as having Providence of their side the most successful and renowned and the darlings of God and men SECTION XVI What the Roman-Catholicks truly mean by the term Heretick they so liberally bestow on others And that none are greater Hereticks in Truth and reality than themselves and of their Title Roman-Catholick which they so well like And Old Rome and Brittain both Heathen and Christian compar'd with the Modern And that the yoak of Rome is not better to us than our present condition BY their condemning Protestants so confidently for Hereticks because they believe not after the manifest errours of their single Church though they profess to believe after Christ and his Scriptures and his true and purest Catholick Church they do but call others such what they make and convict themselves to be thereby It hath been ever the Custom or craft of men when sin or Satan or any vile design hath possess'd the Throne of their heart instead of Christ to imploy his Name and Laws and Power against not the enemies of Christ and the truth but the opposers of that lust or private Interest which succeeds him Upon which score the Soberest and Holiest Protestants though Catholicks with God are Hereticks with the Pope for opposing his Christ that is his Carnal Will and Grandeur which rules his heart instead of its right Soveraign For if Christ and his mind did reign therein such Hereticks as right Protestants are would soon be embrac'd for Christian Brethren And he that judges of Heresie contrary to Christs mind and will finds the first Heretick in himself The right method heretofore to judge of Heresie was the Holy Scriptures for a rule and holy Churche's Authority proceeding by such a rule or Scriptura animatae or Christ himself speaking in men But with some now a dayes one mans absolute will and pleasure and his worldly concerns and acquisitions a Haereticus arguitur qui monitus non restituit bona Ecclesiae Spondan Anno 794. n. 6. whether just or unjust or Libido Sainct fiâ—ata or a speaking Antichrist is the only rule and touchstone for to run cross to the one out of Allegiance to the other shall more involve in Rebellious Heresie than the other Install in Orthodox Loyalty and this in uniform agreeableness to the Hypothesis touching the right and wrong Soveraign we are upon And the reason in Scripture why a Heretick is to be finally avoided is 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Tit. 3.11 or the condemnation of his own heart in changing his Soveraign which is manifestly discernable in his Conversation by all Christians that hold to their Heart-Loyalty and by the sleepy Intoxicated party it self if of a loyal inclination after two or three admonitions or else belike never The Portuguees General us'd the like Divinity in the Field in a passion as these do in their Schools and Pulpits who when the Auxillary English too tamely suffered as he conceived the advance of the Enemy towards them cry'd out in indignation the English Hereticks have betrayed us But when after a suddain Volley three stories high they clear'd the field with but-end he then confessed and vowed with as great content that the English Hereticks were excellent Christians So that Protestants by dexterous application are not out of hope but that they may retain their Heresies and be Catholicks nevertheless upon an Orthodox Tribute to an indulgent Pope who is not averse to tolerate publick Stews and License Incest c. upon the like terms But in several respects and considerations none are gâ—eater Hereticks in all desert and reason than our Roman Catholicks who are first at criminaâ—inâ—â— who in the first place slight the whole Canon of Scripture and forbid it to several as a dangerous book next to Heretical which no Father 〈◊〉 â—he Church oâ— any Council ever did and the gâ—eatest Hereâ—icks that ever were have been bâ—â—ded and condemned for no more but clashing against a few certain Texts and parcells thereof Who next renounce the whole Catholick Church which all Christians in their Creed profess to believe saving that degenerate rump and shadow thereof they at Rome have to shew Allowing none to be Metropolitans without their Palls c Concil Lateranens Can. 18. none to be Bishops or Ministers any where without Ordination deriv'd from them c Concil Lateranens Can. 18. none to have Authority to
succeeded the Roman should be Antichrist yet none must be Catholicks and right Christians but they alone How far they may prevail on any of our Great ones with their tale and story I cannot tell yet the generality of the Nation God be praised are not so forsaken by him as to love to be so deluded but are as deaf as Vlysses against such charms what attempts soever have been used to prepare and mollifie them by debauchery for the Imposture and ready to answer these Impostors as did the Neighbour-hood in the fable the beggar at Towns-end with his counterfeit Lame legg Quaere Pergrinum vicinia tota reclamat go to Japan or Hispaniola to set up your Stage and boast your receipts In England mens eyes are open and the mystery too well known yea the Wisest and Stoutest and most Prosperous of our Kings and Princes in former Ages our Renown'd Edwards and Henries and Elizabeth have sufficiently unkennel'd these Foxes and hunted them and their craft and their stink and their fire-brands and their trouble far out of our Church and State But when ever by a Judgement upon a Nation they light upon any that are more tractable and credulous their first attempt will be immediately like that of a Crow setting upon a young Lamb for prey to play first at the eyes to peck them both out to sink and fix Implicit Faith and blind obedience like two hollow pits instead And then the rest of the design shall be finish'd with less disturbance and every blow and Inconvenience never seen till it light and then also Conscience and Honour and Publick Peace and Truth and the Allegiance of the soul to Christ must make no objections after the Judgement is once Idolatrously resign'd yea should they offer to draw back when they see their errour and danger for to err is human to recover is Angelical to persevere is Diabolical How will these false guides grinne and shake their heads if not brew worse things in them at their departure or their return from Forreign cheats to God and their Country and the Truth How will they rip up and wound his name and honour with the Imputations of Inconstancy Weakness Apostacy Perjury and what not as the unclean Spirit tore the man in the Gospel when he was to quit possession for doing no more but what themselves as they are men and Christians ought to do in point of duty and safety upon the Eternal Allegiance of their Souls to Christ and the Truth and count it high honour and glory in great ones to lead It being in reason a greater Arrival and perfection to be wise and holy against the deceitfulness of sin and Satan than to be couragious amidst dangers Scipio and Alexander being more admir'd in Story for their Continence than for their Conquest for their Victories over Beauty than over Enemies If our Romish Pretenders had any the least descent or resemblance in bloud or temper or Spirit with the Ancient Roman Worthyes or any drop of Camillus or Scipioes bloud in their Veines who valued the honour and Sanctity of their false Gods above their lives and Empire could their great and clear Spirits thus descend to pervert the Gospel into matter of Trade and Merchandize or truel and plaister their mean and unworthy ends with the bloud of the Son of God And make his Glorious Resurrection and Ascention a Varnish for their secular usurpations And his chief Apostles and Holy Catholick Church complices and Vouchers of all their Frauds and Tyrannies and Treasons Which is manifestly done when any wrong to men or Churches as the Case was made plain in our Brittish are palliated with their Sacred Names and Authorities as the practice is as plain and common in their Romish Church towards us and all Christendom besides If it be counted miserable Ignominious Harlotry corpore questum facere how much more abominable is it to make the like Trade and sinful gain of the Gospel and Christ and their own Souls as well as those of their Brethren It were far more fair and generous in them and the lesser of the two evils to renounce and deny Christ and his Religion outright than so to profess it and to spit in the face of their Redeemer than thus to kiss him and to abuse without ceasing his most Holy Name and Faith to â—oâ— and deal and cheat and disturb the World as it were a less indignity to a person of honour to be denyed Quarter than preserv'd alive to tread Morâ—eâ— or to gâ—ind in a Mill. Tolerabilior esâ— qâ—â— morâ— jubet quam qui turpiteâ— vivere Can any sort of Christians be more realâ—y Heathens saving such Ambidextrous Protestants who for their present advantage and Interest can promote Popery in their Countrey though they believe it to be a false and a dead Religion and betray their own which they possess and know to be most Orthodox and sound preferring madly a superlative Carnal self before both Religions and their own truth But though those of Rome are far from Old Romans either in Faith or Fame or Bloud yet so are not we in England from the Old Brittains in either of these respects But far ouâ—â—oing both in another good quality of containing our selves within the bounds of our Isle without great and just cause to sally out and not coveting turbulently other mens rights or their Kingdoms or Churches which is true past doubt of the Brittains in Wales and was prov'd before at large as to the English In the great and as it were second Deluge of Christendom for their Gygantick sins by Goths and Vandalls and Normans and Saxons for inundations of Nations in Mystical Scriptures are compar'd to those of Waters Rev. 17.15 wherein most other people were swept away and drown'd and their Languages and names obliterated and Scepters and Churches overturn'd our Brittains alone charg'd through and surviv'd the brunt of all Invasions and swame to Land through all those Billowes alive and safe with their Bibles in their hands and their Creed in their hearts and their own Language in their mouths living to see their Church restor'd to its old liberty and purity their Crown to their own Flesh and Bloud and the divided Island to great Brittain again Before their nunc Dimiâ—â—is and dissolution by Incorporation with the English Nation or rather Re-union with their Loeâ—â—â—a Brethren recovering themselves through Gods wonderful mercies and Resurrections to innocent and long sufferers and his blasts and periods upon Lines of Bloud and violence in 〈◊〉 Princes and Nobles and Generality into Oâ—a 〈…〉 again as was prov'd before diâ—â—câ—ing perhaps in names and Dialect but not in Nature and Humour and Succession to the like generous defence of their Faith and Glory being â—oth observâ—d in their Dispositions for the most part to be alike Fearless and Harmless and Warlike and Liberâ—l and Religious and subject to Indignation and neither the one nor the other our Modern or Middle or most