there are any other Inducements to keep them in it besides those of Conscience Only it may perhaps be fit to be consider'd whether it be prudent to trust such Persons with the Management of the Government of the Church who have no Obligation of Principles or Conscience to maintain it as an independent Society or to suffer for it that is indeed who are never likely to maintain it in that very Case which was most in our Saviour's and the Apostles View that is of a Persecution But when they actually divide that Communion which they were never obliged in Conscience to maintain if they took the utmost Liberty their Latitudinarian Principles would afford them and when their lax Principles are the very grounds of their dividing the Communion without any remorse of Conscience for doing so when they are hereby emboldned to do those things which inevitably cause a Breach from those who cannot follow them in these very Principles This is the Case wherein these Principles are Characters of a distinct Communion and therefore by the Reasoning now mentioned become Heretical Especially the Principles being withall false not only in the Opinion of those from whom they have divided themselves but also of our earliest purest Ancestors even those of the Apostolical Age it self Yet I deny not but that in this Case of Heresie there is also regard to be had to the Momentousness of the Opinion it self Whoever sets up or abets a Communion opposite to that of the Church on account of Opinions is as I have shewn in the Judgment of the Primitive Church an Heretick and is the more not the less so if the Opinions be also frivolous But for such Opinions the Church would never have driven him out of her own Communion if himself had been pleased to have continued in it Her Judiciary Censures ought no doubt to be confined to Opinions Fundamental and of great Importance especially if an internal Assent be required and that under pain of Excommunication CHAP. IV. That the Church of Christ is a Society independent on any of the Powers of the World and its Spiritual Rights derived immediately from a higher Authority subject to none of them according to the Doctrine of the Catholick Church in the earliest Ages EVEN in the Age of St. Cyprian which is the ancientest we know of that an Anti-Bishop was set up against a Bishop in the same See it is 1st very notorious that they then owned no such Power of the Secular Magistrate to deprive Bishops of their purely Spiritual Power and that the Church as a Society distinct from the State subsisted on their not owning it even as to a Deprivation of their particular Districts and Jurisdictions It is notorious and as notorious as any one Tradition of the Catholick Church in those Ages not excepting that of the Canon of the New Testament it self that Christians then and not only then but in all the former Persecutions that had been from the times of the Apostles to that very Age did own themselves bound to adhere to their Bishops when it was notorious withall that those Bishops were set up and maintained against the Consent of the Civil Magistrate It is as notorious also that this Adherence of theirs was not only Matter of Fact which is all our Adversaries pretend here but a Duty owned by them as obliging in Conscience and as the result of Principles This appears not only by the unquestionable Sincerity of the Christians of those Ages who were generously influenced by no Considerations but those of Conscience not only by their Suffering those severe Penances imposed on them in order to their recovering the Bishop's Communion even when the Magistrate was against him which no other Considerations could recommend but only those of Conscience but from the Principles themselves insisted on in the Reasonings of St. Cyprian Such were these That all hopes of Pardon of Sin of the Holy Ghost of Eternal Life on Performance of Duty were confined to the visible Communion of the Church that their visible Communion with the Church could not appear but by their visible Communion with the Bishop as the Head of that Church and the Principle of its Unity that who that Bishop was to whom any particular Person owed his Duty was not then any otherwise distinguishable but by the visible Districts in which themselves lived and to which he was therefore supposed to have a Title whether the Magistrate would or no. It is also as notorious that these Reasonings were not then the sense of private Persons but the received sense of Christians in general and indeed Fundamental to that Catholick Communion which was then maintained where-ever there were Christians Not only every particular Christian of a Diocess did thus assure himself of his Right to Ecclesiastical Privileges by his Communion with the Bishop of that particular District but he was intitled also to Communion with all the other Bishops of the World and consequently with the Catholick Church in general by the communicatory Letters of the Bishop of his own particular District For it was by the mutual Obligation all Bishops of the World had to ratifie the Acts of particular Districts that he who was admitted a Member of one Church was intitled to the Communion of all and that he who was excluded from one was excluded from all others also because no other Bishop could justifie his Reception of a Christian of another Jurisdiction to his own Communion if he had not the communicatory Letters of his own Bishop Thus it appears that the Obligation even of particular Districts without Consent of the Magistrate was then Catholick Doctrine Whence it plainly follows that this Lay-deprivation which is all that can be pretended in the Case of our present Bishops is in the Principles of the Catholick Church in St. Cyprian's Age a perfect Nullity and consequently that in regard to Conscience at least our present Bishops are still Bishops and Bishops of those particular Districts as much as ever and the Obligations of the Clergy and Laity in those Districts as obliging to them now as ever And it thence follows 2dly that Anti-Bishops consecrated in Districts no otherwise vacated than by the Power of the Secular Magistrate are by the Principles of that earliest Catholick Church no Bishops at all but divided from the Church It is plain that Novatian was disowned as soon as ever it appeared that Cornelius was canonically settled in Fabian's Chair before him and disowned universally so universally that who-ever did not disown him was for that very reason disowned himself This is as clear as any Particular mentioned in our Adversaries Collection But we do not satisfie our selves with that It is also further as notorious that he was disowned by Principles obliging them in Conscience to disown him and those again not private Opinions but Principles also Fundamental to the Correspondence then maintained in the whole Catholick Church as the other were that we mentioned under the
by their own Act. And by this means it also appeared to have been more than a private Opinion in that Age when even no Bishop could be permitted in the Communion of his Brethren if he dissented from them in this particular Thus to make Application to our present Case all the Bishops will be involved who communicate either with the Principal Schismaticks or the Schismatical Consecrators And this will also take in by the same Principles all Communicants with such Bishops For when the Bishop was refused Communion the Effect of such refusal was that none should thence-forwards expect to be received to the Communion of those who had refused him on his communicatory Letters and no other communicatory Letters could be hoped for whilst they continued in Communion with him And then 5thly it is also as notorious on the same Principles of St. Cyprian's Age that such Schism from the visible Communion of the Catholick Church was also supposed to deprive the Person so divided of all the invisible Benefits of Church Communion God was supposed obliged to ratifie in Heaven what was done by those whom he authorized to represent Him on Earth He avenged the Contempts of his Ministers and would not be a Father to those who would not own his Church for their Mother by paying her a Filial respect They were not to expect any Pardon of their Sins They could not hope for the Holy Ghost who dissolved the Unity of the Spirit V. Cypr. de Unitate Eccl. Ep. 49. Edit Ox. Ep. 52 54 55. They were uncapable of the Crown of Martyrdom whatever they suffered in the State of Separation This is the result of many of St. Cyprian's Discourses on this Argument And indeed it is very agreeable with the Design of God that they who cut themselves off from the Peculium should by their doing so lose all their pretensions to the Rights and Privileges of it Not only so but that they should also incurr all the Mischiefs to which they were supposed liable who had lost their Right of being Members of the peculiar People Accordingly as they believed all Persons at their first Admission into the Church to be turned from Darkness to Light and from the Power of Satan unto God so upon their leaving the Church or their being cast out of it by the judicial act of their Superiors they were supposed to return into the State of Heathens to lose the Protection of those good Spirits who minister only to the Heirs of Salvation and again to relapse into their former condition of Darkness and being consequently obnoxious to be infested by the Devil and his Powers of Darkness And that this was so appeared by several ordinary Experiments in those earlier Ages not only of the Apostles but that also of St. Cyprian who has many Examples of it in his Book de Lapsis And this Confinement of the Spiritual Privileges of the peculiar People to the external Communion of the Church as it was Fundamental to their Discipline so it was rational consequently to their other Principles God was not thought obliged to confer those Privileges but by the Act of those whom Himself had authorized to oblige Him But Dividers were supposed not to belong to that Body to which the Promises were made and ambitious Intruders into other Mens Offices could not in any Equity pretend to have their Acts ratified by God from whom they could not be supposed to receive any Authority when they did not receive it by the Rules and Orders of the Society established by Him These things were then believed and believed universally Indeed nothing but an universal Belief of them would have maintained that Discipline which was then observed in the Church could have obliged them generally to suffer as they did then the severest Inflictions from the Magistrate rather than incurr the much more feared Displeasure of their Ecclesiastical Superiors When we are also of the same Mind and alike influenced by Principles and Regard to Conscience then indeed and then alone we may pretend to be a Posterity not degenerous from the great Examples of those glorious Ancestors Then it will not be in the Power of Acts of Parliament to drive us from our Principles and bring a Scandal on our Religion Then where our Bishops follow Christ we shall follow them and it will not be in the Power of the Worldly Magistrate or the Gates of Hell it self to prevail against our Church and to dissolve the Union between us Then Magistrates themselves will be more wary of involving Consciences on occasion of their little Worldly Politicks at least they will not pretend Religion and the Religion of that very Church which suffers by them for doing so May we live at length to see that happy day However it will hence appear how impossible it will be to excuse our Adversaries present Case from Schism if it be tryed by that Antiquity which we do indeed profess to imitate and alledge Now in this Case I am discoursing of I have purposely selected the Instances of St. Cyprian's Age rather than any other not only because they are the Ancientest indeed the first we know of of one Bishop's invading another's Chair not vacant but because we have withall in him the most distinct account of the Sense of the Church in his Age of such Facts and of the Principles on which they proceeded in condemning them He had occasion given him to be so distinct by two Schisms one of his own Church in Carthage where Felicissimus was set up against himself another that I have principally insisted on of Novatian set up against Cornelius in Rome On these Occasions he has written one just Discourse besides several Epistles But these Principles were not singular and proper to that Age they descended lower and are insisted on by Optatus and St. Augustine in their Disputes with the Donatists whenever they dispute the Question of their Schism without relation to their particular Opinions We have here given them the sense of the Church in an Age wherein her Testimony is every way unexceptionable wherein she had certain means of knowing the Truth and withall valued it as it deserved Even there we find the Principles now mentioned universally received and universally received as the Grounds of that universal Catholick Communion which she had received by an uninterrupted Tradition from the Apostles to that very Time Even there I say we find them received where nothing could have been received universally that had been an Innovation In so short a time it was hard to bring in Variations from the Primitive Rule and harder yet that all the Churches could have been unanimous in them if they had been Variations as Tertullian reasons in his Prescriptions especially when there was no Universal Authority received over the whole Catholick Church that could induce them to it From the Time of Trajan the Succession of our Saviour's Family failed in the Church of Jerusalem to which all
particular Churches paid a Deference From the Time of Hadrian there could be no pretence for that Church above others when it consisted not of Jews but Greeks and Romans What was there therefore that could make them unanimous in Variations and Variations of such Importance as this had been They had then no General Councils And the absolute Supremacy of particular Bishops in their proper Districts is by none maintained more expressly and more zealously than by St. Cyprian with particular regard to all other Powers that in later times have pretended to oblige Bishops that is to Councils and the Bishop of Rome This Catholick Communion grounded on the common Interest of all the Bishops to have all their Acts of Discipline in their particular Districts ratified over the whole World might have brought in other things that were consequential to these common Interests But there was nothing antecedent that can be imagined that could have brought in this Catholick Communion of those times among such a multitude of absolute and independent Societies as the Churches were then if it had not been brought in from their very first Originals And yet these Notions we were speaking of were Fundamental to that Catholick Communion it self as managed in those earlier Ages CHAP. V. That Intruders or Anti-Bishops by Lay-Authority cannot be defended but by Principles fundamentally destructive of the Church as a Society distinct from the State in time of Persecution IF those Errors that destroy the very Being of the Church as a Society be Fundamental I cannot for my part see how such Anti-Bishops and all that own them can be excused by Principles from Erring fundamentally Their being Bishops supposes such Doctrines as if they be once admitted make it impossible for the Church to subsist as a Spiritual Society whenever the State is pleased to persecute it They cannot possibly be supposed Bishops of those Dioceses to which they are consecrated till it first be supposed that their Predecessors are validly deprived and consequently that the Sees are vacant in Gonscience If it should prove otherwise the Clergy and Laity of those same Jurisdictions will still be obliged in Conscience as much as ever to adhere to their Canonical Bishops till they be Canonically deprived and to disown such Intruders as are put over them not only without any Canonical Procedure but without any Authority also that can oblige in Conscience The only Principle therefore on which they can pretend that their Rival Bishops have lost their Right as to Conscience must be the Power that even the Lay-Magistrate has to deprive Bishops even with regard to Conscience If therefore they will defend their Schism by Principles it will be necessary that they defend this Principle also without which it is not possible that it should ever be defended They have no Ecclesiastical Judicatory Just or Unjust that they can so much as pretend in this Case And the defending this is that which will increase their Guilt and will add to their charge of Schism the aggravation of Heresie also For in order to the asserting such a Right as this to the Secular Magistrate it will be necessary to assert that the Authority of the Church even as to Spirituals is in Conscience the Right of the Civil Magistrate If it should not be so then the Subjects of the respective Dioceses may still be at liberty in Conscience to adhere to their deprived Bishops And if they may they must because then all their former Obligations in Conscience will still hold as obliging in Conscience to it is impossible that those antecedent Obligations in Conscience to adhere to their spiritual Superiors can be dis-anulled or diminished by a Power that can pretend no Right in such Matters with regard to Conscience But if we grant this Power to the Magistrate this will perfectly overthrow the Church as a Society distinct from the State and perfectly disable it to subsist as a Society in a time of Persecution For when the Magistrate persecutes it it cannot then subsist as a Society without a Government and a Government obliging in Conscience and not derived from the persecuting Magistrate But if the Right of that spiritual Government be in Conscience the Magistrate's Right it must be an invading the Magistrate's Right to pretend to it when he expressly forbids it And if so how can spiritual Governours in such a Case pretend to it How can they pretend to a Right that is none of their own consistently with Conscience How can their pretending to it with ill Consciences oblige their Subjects to adhere to them on account of Conscience Nay how can it even excuse them in Conscience for not adhering rather to him whose Right it is supposed to be and that even in Conscience No Necessity whatsoever can excuse a Sin much less lay an Obligation in Conscience on Subjects to abet it least of all lay an Obligation on God to ratifie such Acts of Authority as must be supposed no better than Usurpations And yet all Acts of Ecclesiastical Authority in a time of Persecution can signifie nothing if they be not such as may oblige in Conscience and such as God as well as Men is obliged to ratifie Thus it had been Sin in the Romans to set up Cornelius as plainly they did not only without the Consent but against the Will of Decius It had been Sin in him and not in him only but in all the Bishops of his Age to pretend to any Districts in the Roman Empire It had been Sin in them to exercise Authority in Districts not belonging to them Thus the Church had been perfectly dissolved as a Society at least within the Roman Empire unless we can suppose a Notion of a Society without Governours without Districts without any lawful Exercises of Authority And yet the Bishops of those Ages never thought themselves obliged in Conscience to go out of the Roman Empire to retrieve the Power which is pretended to belong to them as Bishops of the Catholick Church And very probably it had signified nothing to have done so They could have gone into no civilized inhabited Countries but they must have expected Magistrates who could pretend to the same Right as well as Decius and who were as much disposed as he to use their Right to the Prejudice of the Christian Religion What therefore would our Adversaries have advised the Christians of those Ages to have preserved themselves in a Society Would they have had them retired into unoccupied Wildernesses But how could they make Societies there where there were no Numbers of Subjects requisite to make a Society Plainly therefore the Catholick Church had then been dissolved as Societies if these New Principles had been maintained in those earlier Ages And these same Principles do still put it as evidently in the Power of the Civil Magistrate to dissolve the Church as a Society within his own Dominions For how can a Church continue a Society where Bishops are in Conscience deprived
of their Spiritual Authority and where Subjects are also absolved from their Obligations in Conscience to obey them And this is also a dissolving the Catholick Church as to such as live in such Dominions and as to any Benefits they can derive from the Catholick Church also For Subjects of particular Districts are no otherwise received into the Catholick Church than as they derive a Right to Communion with all the Churches in the World by their being admitted Members of the Churches of their particular Districts And they are also deprived of their Right of Catholick Communion when they are Excommunicated by the lawful Authority of their particular Districts I cannot therefore see how our Adversaries can excuse themselves herein from Erring fundamentally if the Church's being a Society be admitted for a Fundamental CHAP. VI. Arguments and Objections against this Doctrine from Instances of Fact and Publick Good answered AGAINST this truly Catholick Doctrine two things were opposed by the Adversaries The one a Collection of Eighteen Instances of Bishops who being deprived and not for Heresie did not insist on their Right or were not seconded by their Subjects in the History of 900. Years Which way of Reasoning he shews is neither Conscientious nor Prudent For if Matters of Fact so nakedly related without Evidence of the Principles on which they were acted be urged as Precedents barely because done and no Opposition against them it will be impossible to make any thing of such arguing from History For what History is there that in a Succession of 900. Years does not afford Examples against Examples And how easie were it for an Historian by this way of Reasoning to justifie the Wickedest things that can be § 9. And in this case are divers circumstances which not appearing in any of the Instances make them insignificant § 10-14 Nor do the Instances produced prove the Sense of the Catholick Church but only of the Greek and especially of Constantinople nor even of that Church in the first and earliest Ages § 15. but most of modern barbarous and divided Ages § 22. and in different cases Part 2. § 1. and the Deprivations either by Synods or disagreeable to the Canons of that very Church § 8 9 11. and no such Power so much as pretended by the Lay-Magistrate § 3. but the Emperors indeavouring to obtain their Wills by Authority of Synods or by gross Violence murdering disabling or banishing the Incumbents The other their great Plea of the Publick Good § 47. which he well retorts upon them That the Eternal Interests of Souls and of Religion are more to be valued in a Publick Account than Worldly Politicks That it is more the Publick Good of the Church and of Religion that Subordinations be preserved than that any particular Person be made a Bishop by offering Violence to them That the Glorious Passive Doctrines of the Church be maintained in opposition to Worldly Interests than seem prostituted to serve them That the Credit of the Clergy be maintained than that they enjoy the Benefits of Worldly Protection And that the Independency of that Sacred Function on the State be asserted by challenging the Right than that by yielding the Lay-Power should be owned to have any Power of Depriving us of the Comfort of Sacraments in a time of Persecution And that this is more for the Interest of the State even of the Civil Magistracy than what is like to obtain upon the Cession Even the State cannot subsist without Obligations of Conscience and the Sacredness of Oaths * This hath respect to with he said before of the Sacred Vows of Canonical Obedience for securing that Right and Duty where no Worldly Power can force them to it which no other Power in the World can dispence with but that for whose Interest they were imposed and the dreadful Imprecations implied in them as an Obligation for Performance which can signifie nothing for the Security of any future Government if they must signifie nothing for the time past It is not for the Interest of the Publick to secure ill Titles in their Possession and thereby to incourage the Frequency of ill Titles and frequent Subversions of the Fundamental Constitutions and all the Publick Miseries that must follow on such changes But these things are more largely treated and very solidly in the Defence of the Vindication upon a farther occasion For the Adversaries being so home pressed with this that they had little to reply were forced to seek for new Arguments And first without any Answer to his Argument and granting the Proposition of the Invalidity of Lay-Deprivation the Lawfulness of Submission in the Ecclesiastical Subjects to Intruders is only insisted on and only from other Later Facts and pretence of Peace and Tranquility of the Church To which it is replied that such Submission is Sinful by the Law of God makes the Subjects Accomplices in the Injustice and moreover in the Clergy on account of their Oaths of canonical Obedience c. and That turning the Dispute to later Facts draws it from a short and decisive to a tedious and litigious Issue with which there is no reason to comply And concerning the Case of Abiathar he shews That the Fact is not commended in the Scripture as a Precedent That the Magistrate could not by the Doctrine of that Age have any direct Power over the Priesthood That in the Apostle's Age the Priesthood was expressly owned to be far more Honourable than the Magistracy it self and That Solomon's Act was only of Force and what God had threatned against the House of Eli Nor was Abiathar then the High-Priest properly so called but Zadoc c. Moreover That Christian Bishops are properly Priests and the Gospel Priesthood more noble than that of Abiathar and that these Principles and Inferences were admitted in the Apostolick Age c. by Clemens Romanus c. But the Principal Pretence of all is proposed by another Author That tho' the Argument holds where the State are Infidels and so the Church and State distinct Bodies yet not so where the State professes the Christian Religion And That the Benefits of Protection of Honor and Profit of Security and of Assistance which the Church receives from the State require in Gratitude a compensation To which is replied That more is required for such a Power than meerly being Christian which gives no Title to any Spiritual Authority That the same Persons may be of distinct Societies That the Church's Obligations are more necessary for the Subsisting of the State than those she receives from the State for hers That the Benefits also received from her by the State are greater than what she receives from it That a Pious Magistrate would not desire such a Recompence if she could grant it But it is not in the Power of Ecclesiastical Governours to make such Contract Nor is it agreeable to the Mind of God that the Church should so incorporate with the State To which
AN ABSTRACT OF Common Principles OF A Just Vindication OF THE RIGHTS OF THE Kingdom of God Upon EARTH Against the Politick Machinations of Erastian Hereticks Out of the Vindication of the Deprived Bishops c. By a very Learned Man of the Church of England LONDON Printed Anno Domini 1700. THE PREFACE THE Kingdom of God upon Earth is in its Institution and in its own Nature really a Glorious Kingdom tho' through the ill Administration of those to whom it hath been committed it hath never yet appeared in its true and proper Lustre and at present not only seems to be but really is in a divided shattered and dejected condition God in great Wisdom doth very often with great Bodies of Men as he doth with particular Persons put them to School to the Mistress of Fools leave them to eat the Fruit of their own doings and to learn Wisdom by their own Experience to experiment and even feel the Insufficiency of Humane Powers the Deceitfulness of Humane Wisdom the Malice Subtilty and Power of their Invisible Adversaries and the Abundance of his Goodness the Infallibility of his Wisdom and the Irresistibility of his Power and their own intire Dependance upon Him and absolute need of continual Supply of all these from Him and of constant Subjection and Conformity thereunto If Men would therefore at last after so long Experience open their Eyes lift up their Heads and well consider the Admirable Wisdom of his Divine Institution the Excellent Accommodation of it for the Good and Benefit of Mankind and of all Degrees Orders States and Conditions amongst them and how and by what Ways and Means it hath come to pass that the World hath been so little sensible of and received no more Benefit from so powerful and effectual a Divine Favour as the Institution of this Kingdom is and would have produced long since had it been improved as it ought and lastly consider every one in his place but especially they who are in chief Places in Church or State what the Interest of this blessed Kingdom and the glorious King thereof do require of all and of themselves in particular for their own Good and the common Good of all and then without more a-do apply themselves with full Resolution to order all their Actions in Conformity thereunto and to approve their Fidelity to their Soveraign and his Interest as becomes Good Subjects they would soon perceive and receive the Benefit thereof and behold it in its Glory And tho' there is at present little appearance of any such Disposition in those who are first in place that they will be forwardest in such Actions yet whoever will heartily do their part in this as there is none but may do something so there is nothing that they can do so mean if they do all they can but will obtain a Glorious Reward far above all this World can afford But it will require no little Courage Generosity Magnanimity and Constancy to perform it for such is the Nature and Terms of true Loyalty in this Kingdom as will shake off Multitudes of Pretenders when they come for Admittance Yet it is in short but first to dispose themselves for the receiving of Truth and then when fairly proposed cordially imbrace it own and profess it stick to it and act accordingly For the first of these there is lately printed a short Recipe and some of the most important and fundamental Truths for this purpose are here treated in the following ABSTRACT by a very Learned Man of the Church of England established by Law and a great and zealous Champion for it It is true it is but an Abstract but an Abstract of what is very hard to be met with and of the very Marrow of it the rest being only critical Learning of little or no use to the greatest part of even intelligent Readers but only for Scholars and such as are curious in Matters of little moment And for such as desire to see more to this purpose they may have recourse to a Learned Book of the Sinfulness and Mischief of Schism in 40. and another in 8vo of One Altar and One Priesthood besides a special Learned Defence of this Vindication much more common to be had than the Vindication it self More was intended concerning this Kingdom and the true Subjects of it for the proper Use and Application of this Catholick Doctrine but because it may be more seasonable when the Doctrine hath been received and digested it may be sufficient here to add only this Admonition That Separation from Separatists is no Separation from the One Body and Unity of this Kingdom Nor is Visible or Episcopal inconsistent with Schismatical but a Schismatical Communion may be really both and hath been heretofore nay most visible in the same City or Country and truly Episcopal tho' what is not so cannot but be Schismatical and besides all this Established by Law Common Principles Of a just Vindication of the Rights of the Kingdom of God Upon EARTH c. CHAP. I. That for Clergy-Men to appear in a Cause destructive of the Interest of Religion in general and of their own Function in particular is inexcusable THAT the Laity should be favourable to Mistakes derogatory to the Sacred Power cannot be thought strange in an Age wherein they generally use so little Diligence to inform themselves or to receive Information from those who are qualified to inform them concerning the Rights of the Clergy Their own Interests are alone sufficient to make them partial in affairs of this nature tho' they were more sincerely influenced by Considerations of Religion than we generally find them But that Clergy-Men should also favour them in Incroachments on their own Function that they should professedly patronize Doctrines tending to lessen the Esteem of that greatest and most valuable of all Authorities wherewith God has honoured and intrusted none but them that they should make it depend on the Pleasure of the Magistrate which was designed for greater and more noble Ends than the Magistracy it self that they should put it in his Power to destroy the very Being of the Church as a Society by a secular Deprivation that they should not only Own but Teach That none are obliged to adhere to themselves in such a Case wherein the Magistrate is against them no not so much as in regard of Conscience that they should by this means make the greatest and most momentous Concerns for Souls subordinate to Worldly Carnal Politicks and the far less weighty Interests of Worldly Prosperity and of particular Societies that they should hereby make it least capable of subsisting under a Persecution which was the Case most obvious in the View of our Blessed Saviour and his Apostles and therefore most particularly provided for if they took care for any thing beyond their own time These things I say would not be very credible if they were not very notorious One would think none who valued the general good of
Religion and the Catholick Church and the Souls of Mankind before the temporal Prosperity of any particular State and it is hard to conceive how any good Man can do otherwise could even wish such Opinions true tho' his Wish alone were sufficient to make them so How then is it agreeable that Clergy-Men of all Men should be the most favourable and zealous Advocates for such Opinions so manifestly destructive of those greatest Interests which they of all Men ought best to understand and to be most zealously concerned for How is it agreeable that they of all Men cannot be content to let the Memory of ill Presidents die but that they must alarm us with future Fears of having them acted again by not only Abetting but also Justifying them How is it agreeable that they should do this in a Prospect such as ours is of a Laity so little concerned for the Good of Religion and the Church when even they who have any Principles have such lax ones and so very little obliging them even in Conscience to venture any thing for any particular Communion That their preferring their Worldly Concerns depending on the Pleasure of the Magistrate before the greater Concerns of Souls and Eternity is the true Cause of it is not to be believed while there are any Reasons that might induce them to it Yet little Reasons cannot in Equity excuse when the Consequences ought to be so very valuable on that very account of Mens being either Good or Religious Much less when the Consequences of the Principles on which they proceed are such in respect to the Publick Interests even of their own Church as put it in the Power of a Popish or Schismatical Prince and even of a secret Infidel or Apostate to dissolve it when they please Suppose a Popish Prince with a Popish Parliament should turn their Principles that is the Principles of these Men against themselves and deprive all our Bishops with one Act of State I cannot see what these Fathers can pretend to secure their Church as a Society and as a Communion in Opposition to them They must ho longer pretend to Diocesses in England They must not pretend to any Obligation of their Protestant Clergy and Laity to stand by them even in Conscience They must therefore never pretend to Communions in those Diocesses which are plainly Exercises of Spiritual Authority in them Nor can they then justifie or even excuse any Assemblies for Religion when forbidden by the Civil Magistrate who is only supposed by these Principles to have also the Right to that Spiritual Authority by which alone they can be justified And are these the ways to secure our Religion against Popery No open Persecutions whatsoever can ever ruine us so effectually as these Doctrines will if ever we receive them Doctrines of our own will break our Vnion among our selves more than any of our Adversaries open Violencies CHAP. II. That the Church of Christ is not to be considered meerly as a Sect but as a Sacred Society and that its being a Society is a Fundamental Doctrine MEN amongst us in this and the last Age have hitherto considered the Church rather as a Sect than as a Society and have therefore usually had no regard to the Doctrines Fundamental to it as a Society if they did not withall concern it as a Sect and Antecedently to its being a Society But there seems very little Reason for their doing so if they will be pleased impartially to reflect on it It is very true its Notion as a Sect is antecedent to its being a Society because it is a Society into which Men find themselves obliged to enter by the Doctrines they must be supposed to believe if they own it as a Sect. But even thence it appears that the Doctrines which concern it as a Sect do withall make it necessary it should be a Society These two Considerations therefore are by no means to be separated Nay it hence appears that the Doctrines constituting it as a Sect do also by a near and unavoidable and evident Consequence make it a Society Thus therefore the Fundamentals of its being a Society will be included in that System of Doctrines which concern it as a Sect. And then what Matter is it that one of these Notions is antecedent and the other consequent Thus much at least will follow that there is no subverting it as a Society without subverting it also as a Sect because those very Doctrines which make it a Sect do also consequently oblige it to be a Society For my part I believe those Doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation which all who believe any Fundamentals proper to the Christian Religion as Revealed by God do reckon among Fundamentals not to have been revealed for Speculation only but purposely to oblige Men to unite in it as a Society The Vnity in Trinity which is the principal thing insisted on in the Doctrine of the Trinity as revealed in the Scripture was purposely to let Men see the Extent of the Mystical Vnion to which they were intitled by the External Vnion with the visible Church that by partaking in the Orthodox Communion the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 mentioned by St. John they had also a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 with the Father and the Son 1 John 1.3 For it was manifest they must also partake of the Spirit because he who had not the Spirit of Christ was none of his It was therefore supposed that by partaking of the Trinity we are made one Mystically and that by being united visibly to the Church we are intitled to that Mystical Vnion So whoever is united visibly to the Church is thereby if he be not wanting to himself in due Conditions united also Mystically to the Trinity and that whoever is divided externally from the Church is thereby also dis-united from this Communion and Vnion with the Trinity And what more prevaeiling Inducements could be thought of to oblige Men to keep in a Society So also the design of the Incarnation was by Christ's taking upon him our Body and our Flesh to make us also one Body and one Flesh with Him thereby to entitle our Bodies to a Resurrection but then our being one Body and one Flesh with Him depended on our being Members of the Church which is called his Body his Flesh his Bones We were to be Baptized into this one Body and become one Body by partaking of one Bread Which plainly shew that all the Benefits of the Incarnation are derived to us by our partaking of the Sacraments and therefore by our adhering inseparably to them who alone are authorized by God to administer them Thus plain it is that those very Fundamentals of our revealed Religion as revealed are revealed and designed for this purpose of making the Church a Society How can therefore our Adversaries make these Doctrines Fundamental if this be not Fundamental also that the Church was by God designed to be a Society This
at least is certain that we are intitled to all the Benefits of our Religion by our owning the Church not only as a Sect but as a Society also and that tho' we believe all its Doctrines as it is a Sect yet if we be divided from it as a Society that Belief alone will not secure us a Title to any of the Benefits of our Religion Excommunicates however Orthodox in their Opinions were never suppos'd in the Discipline of the Church to have any actual Title to the Benefits of Religion if they persisted wilfully in that State of Excommunication The same is to be observed concerning the Case of Schismaticks on the Principles of the early Age of St. Cyprian Hence therefore it appears that this Notion of the Church as a Society whatever it be in its self is at least Fundamental as to us in order to our partaking of any of the Benefits of Religion That is indeed it is Fundamental to all intents and purposes that we can think worthy our Enquiry Without this the other Notions if any be will never be beneficial to us So that whatever those other Notions may be in order of Reasoning yet this Notion of the Church as a Society must be Fundamental to them in order to their being beneficial that is as far as we have any reason to concern our selves for them These things ought certainly to be taken for Fundamental as to the Discipline and Censures of the Church She ought certainly to be most concerned for those things that are most influential on the Interests of Souls and those are so whose Belief is most beneficial and their Dis-belief most hurtful to those most valuable Interests I cannot therefore see why she should not think Doctrines of this kind Fundamental and reckon them among those Fundamentals on which she ought to lay out her principal Care If therefore she ought to excommunicate for any Errors at all certainly she ought in the first place to do it for Errors so destructive of all Obligation to her Communion it self and of her Authority of Excommunicating that is indeed so destructive to all that Power she has either for the Preservation of Truth or the Prohibition of Error in general And if she ought not to inflict her Censures at least these highest of them for any Errors but those which are Fundamental it will plainly follow that Errors of this kind must be reckoned for Fundamental ones Our Adversaries would have Errors in Fundamentals published and punished as a Spiritual Crime by a purely Spiritual Authority but they do not in the mean time seem to be aware how Fundamental this very Notion of the Church as a distinct and spiritual Society is to its having any Authority or Power to punish so much as Spiritually All they can do as a Sect is only to reason with Hereticks concerning their Errors and all the Means to reduce them are those reasons which can no farther prevail with them than as they may seem convictive in the Judgment of the Hereticks themselves But on that account they stand on even Terms with the Hereticks whose Reasons ought also to take place with the Ecclesiasticks so far as they are also in Conscience convinced by them A true Authority and a Power of punishing refractory Persons by excluding from Communion do Fudamentally suppose a spiritual Society over which they are to exercise this Authority and from which Delinquents are to be excluded by spiritual Censures and Excommunications How can they therefore avoid reckoning those Errors from being Fundamental ones as punishable by a spiritual Authority which ruine Fundamentally that very Authority by which such Errors are to be punished which destroy the Society on which that Authority is grounded Fundamentally If there be degrees of Fundamentals I should think the Fundamentals concerning the Church as a Society to be of the greatest consequence and therefore Fundamental in the highest degree The Church is indeed obliged to keep the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Heb. 5.11 1 Tim. 1.16 the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 These are the Expressions by which our Adversaries themselves I believe conceive the Articles themselves call Fundamental to be signified But she is obliged to keep them as a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Tim. 6.20 as a Trust committed to her How so by avoiding Disputings by stopping the Mouths of Hereticks by rebuking them with all Authority by rejecting and avoiding not their Doctrines only but their Persons also when they prove incorrigible Now these things plainly suppose Governors invested with Spiritual Authority and a Communion from whence incurable Hereticks are to be rejected So that in order to the keeping these other Fundamentals the Church as a Society is supposed antecedently as a Condition that alone can qualifie her for having such a Trust committed to her This Notion therefore as antecedent must be Fundamental to those other Fundamentals and therefore Fundamental in a higher sense than those things can be whose Security is superstructed upon it And accordingly the Damage of the Publick in subverting these Notions of the Church as a Society is proportionably greater than that which follows from the denial of other particular Articles which are commonly taken for Fundamental He that denies one of the other Articles may yet believe all the rest and zealously defend them and that by Principles too against all other Hereticks But he that denies the Church as a Society invested with a spiritual Authority does as effectually contribute to the Ruine of all the other Fundamentals at once as he does to the Ruine of a House who subverts the Foundations of it It brings in Impunity for Heresie in general and suffers Hereticks still to hope as well in their separate Sects as if they were in the Orhtodox Communion It leaves them destitute of even any Presumptions that might oblige them to judge in Favour of the Church's Doctrine as the safest Error if it should prove one It does by this means reduce the trial of the Cause to the Reasons themselves and their native Evidence and puts it in the Power of assuming Men to pretend greater Evidence than either they have or they really believe And things being reduced to this pass it is more God's Providence than the Security of Principles that hinders any Heretick who disputes any one of the other Articles from questioning all the rest CHAP. III. That the contrary Doctrine is a Fundamental Error and obstinately asserted Heresie very pernicious to the Church of Christ and to the Assertors of it themselves ST Augustin observes that Schisms generally end in Heresie That is the natural consequence of Defending it as our Adversaries do by Principles A single Act of Vndutifulness to Superiors will in course pass away with those who are guilty of it so that Posterity will not be concerned in it But when it is defended by Principles it turns into false Doctrine and Doctrine of that pernicious Consequence that the Church is
may be added That the Catholick Church and particular States are by order of Divine Providence of different unequal and inconsistent Dimensions and That Particular States are many intire independent Bodies but all Particular Churches Members of One great Body and subject to the Supream and Vniversal Authority thereof Nor ought any State Prince or Emperor be admitted or reputed Christian who will not submit all their Authority to the Authority of Christ in his Kingdom upon Earth Which being the Chief of all Powers who-ever resists resists the Ordinance of God and shall receive to themselves Damnation Rom. 13.2 CHAP. VII Of the Authority of the Church of England and that the Authority of the Primitive Catholick Church is greater than that of any Modern Particular one and to be preferred before it THE last Refuge is Argumentum ad hominem a poor Cause indeed that is reduced to that which tho' tolerable as an Adjective with others more substantial yet cannot stand alone much less support such a Cause as this Two things are alleadged the Oath of Supremacy Deprivation of the Bishops in Q. Elizabeth 's time for refusing that Oath for Proof of the Doctrine of the Church of England in this case To all this in general our Author opposeth the Authority of the Church of Christ the Catholick Church of the Primitive Ages which the Church of England it self admits and having set out the Objection fully makes this Reply I should most heartily congratulate the Zeal of these Objectors for our Church were it really such as it is pretended to be But I can by no means commend any Zeal for any particular modern Church whatsoever in Opposition to the Catholick Church of the first and purest Ages We cannot take it for a Reformation that differs from that Church which ought to be the Standard of Reformation to all later degenerous Ages at least in things so essential to the Subsistence and Perpetuity of the Church as these are which concern the Independence of the Sacred on the Civil Authority Nor is it for the Honor of our dear Mother to own her Deviation in things of so great Importance from the Primitive Rule much less to pretend her Precedent for over-ruling an Authority so much greater than hers so much nearer the Originals so much more Universal so much less capable of Corruption or of Agreement in any Point that had been really a Corruption It is impossible that ever the present Breaches of the Church can be reconciled if no particular Churches must ever allow themselves the Liberty of Varying from what has actually been received by them since the Ages of Divisions the very Reception thereof having proved the Cause of those Divisions If therefore our modern Churches will ever expect to be again united it must be by Acknowledgment of Errors in particular Churches at least in such things as have made the Differences and which whilst they are believed must make them irreconcilable Such things could never proceed from Christ who designing his whole Church for One Body and One Communion could never teach Doctrines inconsistent with such Unity and destructive of Communion And why should a Church such as ours is which acknowledges her self Fallible be too pertinacious in not acknowledging Mistakes in her self when the Differences even between Churches which cannot all pretend to be in the Right whilst they differ and differ so greatly from each other are a manifest Demonstration of Errors in Authorities as great as her own Nor can any such acknowledgments of actual Errors be prejudicial to Authority where the Decisions of the Authority are to be over-ruled not by private Judgments but by a greater Authority And if any Authority be admitted as competent for arbitrating the present Differences of Communion between our modern Churches I know none that can so fairly pretend to it as that of the Primitive Catholick Church Besides the other Advantages she had for knowing the Primitive Doctrines above any Modern ones whatsoever she has withall those Advantages for a fair Decision which recommend Arbitrators She knew none of their Differences nor dividing Opinions and therefore cannot be suspected of Partiality And it was withall an Argument of her being constituted agreeably to the Mind of her blessed Lord that she was so perfectly one Communion as he designed her And the Acquiescence of particular Churches in her Decision is easier and less mortifying than it would be to any other Arbitrator To return to her is indeed no other than to return to what themselves were formerly before their Divisions or dividing Principles So that indeed for modern Churches to be determined by Antiquity is really no other than to make themselves in their purest uncorruptest Condition Judges of their own Case when they have not the like Security against Impurities and Corruptions I cannot understand therefore how even on account of Authority our late Brethren can excuse their pretended Zeal for even our Common Mother the Church of England when they presume to oppose her Authority to that of the Catholick Church and of the Catholick Church in the first and purest Ages I am sure we have been used to commend her for her Deference to Antiquity and to have the better Opinion of any thing in her Constitution as it was most agreeable to the Pattern of the Primitive Catholick Church CHAP. VIII Arch-Bishop Cranmer 's Opinion perfectly destructive of all Spiritual Authority and his Authority in these matters none at all FOR more particular Answer he first shews the Author and Original and so the Novelty of these pernicious Opinions in England and then answers to both the Allegations aforesaid the first not being very long and therefore recited in his own Words at length is as followeth In Henry the Eighth's time under whom the Oath of Supremacy was first introduced the Invasions of the Sacred Power were most manifest Yet so that even then they appear to have been Innovations and Invasions But who can wonder at his Success considering the violent ways used by him So many executed by him for refusing the Oath The whole Body of the Clergy brought under a Premunire for doing no more than himself had done in owning the Legatine Power of Cardinal Wolsey and fined for it and forced to Submissions very different from the sense of the Majority of them He did indeed pretend to be advised by some of the Ecclesiasticks as appears from several of their Papers still preserved But they were only some few selected by himself never fairly permitted to a freedom and majority of Suffrages And when even those few had given their Opinion yet still he reserved the Judgment of their Reasons to himself And to shew how far he was from being indifferent those of them who were most open in betraying the Rights of their own Function were accordingly advanced to the higher degrees in his Favour and were entrusted with the Management of Ecclesiastical Affairs None had a greater share in his