a present Interest is the motive but it is a degree of impiety of which one would hope there are few men capable to lye so long and so solemnly both to God and man. But I come now to look a little more narrowly into the matter of this Treatise I will not at all engage my self to examine a great many Passages that are cited in it out of some of our Authors and in particular out of Dr. Heylin and Mr. Thorndike When we object to those of the Church of Rome some things out of Erasmus or Cassander or for Historical Matters when we cite P. Paul or Thuanus we know with how much neglect they put by these Authorities as if they were not concerned in them tho these Persons lived and dyed in the Visible Communion of their Church And I do not see why we may not take the same liberty with such Writers that tho they have been in Communion with our Church yet have it seems continued in it with some difficulty And it will not appear very strange if at the end of our civil Wars those Persons who saw the ill effects of some ill Principles very apparently were carried by the impressions which those Confusions made upon them to oppose those disorders by an over-bending of their notions to the other Extream For this is an excess to which the humane nature is so liable that it were a wonder if all Writers especially men of warm Tempers that had been sower'd by ill usage had been preserved from it so that I will wholly wave all that he cites from these or any others of our Authors and will come to the matters themselves CHAP. I. Of the Importance of those Matters Objected to the Reformation supposing them all true THE Disputes that we had with the Church of Rome were at first managed with more sincerity by our Adversaries than they have been of late They justified their Church in those Points for which we accused her and objected the strongest things they could to ours but when they felt their Cause too weak to be maintained by fair methods then they betook themselves to others that were indeed less sincere but yet were more apt to make impressions on weak minds In France and among us Three new Methods have appeared of late Years The First was to take off men from entring into the merits of the Cause and to prepossess them with such prejudices against the Reformation as might lead them to condemn it without examining To a discerning mind this method furnishes the strongest of all prejudices against those who use it this shews such a distrust of the Cause it self and it discovers it self so plainly to be a trick that it gives every man a just ground of indignation against those who fly to it Besides that it affords a good Plea to all men to continue in the Religion in which they were born and bred without hearkning to any new discoveries for if the Grounds upon which the Reformation was made were good it signifies little to an Enquirer into Truth whether this Work was set on foot and managed with all the exactness and regularity that might have been desired or not Truth is always Truth from what hand soever it comes and the right way to find it out is to free our minds from all prejudices that so we may examine matters with unprepossessed understandings A Second Method is to perswade the World that we have not yet understood one another that Popery hath only appeared odious because it was Misrepresented to the world in false colours but that it will be found to be quite another thing if it is truly represented The Bishop of Meaux had the honour to begin this piece of Legerdemain our men of the Mission here have too slender a stock of their own and therefore they give us the French Mode in Controversie as well as our Gallants do it in Cloaths so they have thought to do wondrous feats with this method of Representing but the want of sincerity of that Prelate in this as well as in other things hath been so evidently made out that if some men had not a secret that makes them proof against all discoveries he would be a little out of Countenance and our Representers here are so exposed that nothing is wanting for their conviction but a sense of that shame with which they have been covered it is indeed a strange piece of confidence in men to come and offer to convince the World That after Disputes of 150 years continuance neither side hath understood the state of the Controversie and tho the same Decrees of Councils and the same Forms of Worship are still received yet all these things must of a sudden so change their nature that in defiance of all that which upon other occasions they say in behalf of Tradition a new discovery should be made giving us new senses of all those things but whatsoever success that Book may have had where a plundering Army managed the Argument yet it is become now as ridiculous here as it is pretended to have been successful beyond Sea. A Third Method is the setting up the Credit of Oral Tradition not upon the Authority of some passages of Scripture but upon this general Topic that one Age must needs have delivered the same Faith to the succeeding Age that it had received from that which went before it and by consequence that we must have in the present Age the same Doctrine which the Apostles delivered at first 17 Ages ago It was found That the Authority of the Church could not well be founded on passages of Scripture for then we must be allowed first to believe the Scripture and its Authority and Genuineness and then to inquire into the meaning of those Passages and to examine to which of all the different Churches that are in the world they do belong Now it was apparent That if it were once allowed that we may carry our enquiries so far as to be able to settle our selves in these points then this Infallible Authority is not so necessary to us as they would make us believe since we are supposed to have found good Proofs for believing the Scriptures and for discovering the true meaning of the hardest passages in them without its help Now this would spoil all and throw out those Arguments that perswade us of the necessity of an infallible Judg both for our finding out and for our expounding the Scriptures they are now sensible of all this and see that it is a very false Method of arguing to prove the Scriptures by the Church when the Church must be first proved by the Scriptures and therefore they do betake themselves to the Infallibility of Oral Tradition founding it upon this General Topic That all the men of one Age must needs have instructed the following Age in the same Faith that they had received from the former Age and upon this a great many imaginary Impossibilities are
to have troubled him much The Explanation made by Q. Eliz. is so express that even our Author cannot find any advantage against the Words themselves but acknowledges that they are such general Terms that the Article it self may be subscribed by all sides Since then the declared Sense of those general and extended expressions that are in some Acts of Parliament is such that there lies no just Exception against it and since this Sense was not only given by Q Eliz. who allowed such as took the Oath to declare that they took it in that sense but it was afterwards enacted both in Convocation and in Parliament and put into the Body of our Confession of Faith. This Explanation must be considered as the true measure of the Kings Supremacy and the wide expressions in the former Laws must be understood to be restrained by this since posterior Laws derogate from those that were at first made So that according to all this the Kings Supremacy doth not give to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments But that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is That they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and the evil-doers This is all that Supremacy which we are bound in conscience to own and if the Letter of the Law or the stretches of that in the Administration of it have carried this further we are not at all concerned in it But in case any such thing were made out it could amount to no more than this That the Civil Power had made some Encroachments on Ecclesiastical Authority but the submitting to an Oppression and the bearing it till some better times may deliver us from it is no Argument against our Church on the contrary it is a proof of our Temper and Patience and of that Respect we pay to that Civil Authority which God hath set over us even when we think that it passeth its bounds But all that we are bound to acknowledg in the Kings Supremacy is so well limited that our Author hath nothing to object to it Our men of the Mission have always made a great noise of the Kings Supremacy as if it were the most absurd thing that can be imagined without considering that as the Supremacy is explained by the Article of our Church it is practiced by almost all the States and Princes of Europe It hath been clearly made out by many of our Writers that the Kings of England before the Reformation were in possession of his Supremacy and that they really exercised it even before they pretended so formally to it I will not enter into this Enquiry which is so well laid open by Sir Roger Twisden that a man must have a great stock of Confidence to deny it after he hath read him In France all Ecclesiastical Causes are carried before the Courts of Parliament by Appeals from the Ecclesiastical Courts and are finally judged there Now the Supremacy is always where the last Appeal lies and we may see both in Godeau and many other modern Writers how much they complain of this as a servitude under which their Church is brought and as an infraction of all the Ancient Canons The Court of Parliament at Paris examines all the Bulls that come from Rome and condemns and tears them as oft as they see cause So that tho all the Bishops of France are bound by Oath to obey all the Popes Decrees and Ordinances yet this can take no effect till the Parliament hath confirmed them How easie were it to carry this matter far and to shew that by this the Popes Power either as he is St. Peter's Successor and thereby vested with a Universal Authority over the Flock of Christ or as he is the Patriarch of the West and the Center of the Catholick Unity is subjected to the Judgment of a Secular Court who will not suffer the Sheep to hear his voice till they have first examined it And what is the whole Concordat but a bargain made between the Popes and the Crown of France to divide the spoils of that Church and its Liberties between them for whereas the Pragmatick Sanction had established the Clergy in the Possession of its Ancient Rites Lewis the 11th and after him Francis the 1st saw well how much this lessened that unbounded degree to which they intended to carry their Authority and therefore they consented to give the Popes their share so they would warrant their enslaving that Church It is known what Complaints and what opposition the French Clergy have made upon this matter yet at last they bear it and submit to it so that here the last Appeal the Check upon the Papal Authority and the nomination of all the Bishops and Abbots of France are wholly in the Civil Courts and in the King. If it is said that in some particulars the Supremacy of our Kings goes further tho that were acknowledged to be true yet since the more or the less does not alter the nature of things it must be confessed that according to our Author's Principles the whole Gallican Church is in an Uncanonical State as well as we are But tho they do not stick to confess that they are in a state of oppression by reason of the Concordat and of the unbounded Authority of their Parliaments yet they do not think that this makes them irregular or uncanonical as to the Constitution of their Church I might upon this likewise shew how not only the Republick of Venice but even the Crown of Spain notwithstanding all its Bigotry exercises still so great a Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Matters that there is only some difference of degrees between that which belongs to the Crown of England by Law and that which is practiced elsewhere The Court of the Monarchy in Cicily is well known in which by virtue of a forged Bull which is made out to be a Forgery beyond all contradiction that declares the Kings of Cicily the Popes Vicars there is a Lay-man that is the Kings Vicar-General who is the Judg of that Court and to whom all Spiritual Causes are brought and who judges them all as a spiritual Person and that hath the Titles and outward Respect that is given to the Pope likewise paid to him This is the carrying an Imposture very far yet since it is done in the Virtue of a pretended Bull which the Crown of Spain will still maintain to be a true one none hath ever opposed this to such a degree as to pretend that the whole Clergy of Sicily are become irregular because they submit to this Court and appear before it So that upon the whole matter If the great and unmeasured Extent of the Papal Authority made our Princes judg it necessary to secure themselves from those Invasions by
well as their Goods and Chattels to the King. These were the true Motives of repealing those Bloody Laws which our Author ought to have mentioned if he had not designed to deceive his Reader but when he comes to examine the matter of Burning Hereticks he does it so softly that it is plain he would rather lay us asleep than quiet us First he begins with that trifling Answer That the Secular Laws and not the Ecclesiastical do both appoint and execute it but if the Secular Arm is threatned by the Ecclesiastical not only with lower Censures but even with Deposition and that by a Council which he acknowledges to be General in case they do not extirpate Hereticks then this Extirpation is still the Act of the Church enforced upon the Civil Power with a dreadful Sanction which the Church was Able to execute in those Ages of Superstition and thus the Guilt of all the Blood-shed upon the account of Heresie lies at the Door of that Church In the next place he reckons up several Instances of severe Executions against Hereticks both in England and elsewhere which were practiced not only in Henry the Eighth's time but also under Edward the Sixth's and were carried on chiefly by Cranmer's Authority Executions made under Queen Elizabeth and King Iames are also mentioned to which is added a Law made by King Iames adjudging men Traytors for being reconciled to the Pope or See of Rome which is putting men to Death for pretended Heresie and to a Death worse than Burning But to all this I will only say That the Reformation being a work of time as men did not all at once throw off all the Corruptions of the Church of Rome so this being the received Doctrine of the Western Church for many Ages that all Hereticks ought to be extirpated if our Reformers did not so soon as were to be wished throw of this Remnant of Popery it is rather to be excused and pitied in them than to be justified their Practice Cranmer did also soften the Notion of Heresie as much as he could by reducing it to a plain and wilful Opposition to some of the Articles of the Apostles Creed and if the constant Clamours that the men of the Church of Rome raised against the Reformation as a Subversion of the Christian Religion because some that had been among the Reformers advanced some monstrous Opinions if these I say carried our Reformers to such a way of justifying themselves of this Imputation by some publick Executions they who gave the occasion to this severity which I do not pretend to justifie ought not to reproach us for that to which they drove our Ancestors As for King Iames's Law I will not examine whether the Death of Traitors or the Burning of Hereticks is the more dreadful it is certain Fire especially when it is slow is the most terrible of all deaths and that which gives the most formidable Impression but if the Provocation given to the King and Parliament at that time by the Gun-powder Treason be considered it will not appear strange if the King and Parliament after they had escaped so narrowly the greatest of all dangers took a little more than ordinary Care to secure themselves against the like Attempts in time coming And if the severe Canons of the Council of Lateran against Hereticks had lain as so many dead Letters in the Body of the Laws of their Church as that Law hath done in our Book of Statutes they had had much less Blood to answer for and less guilt than lies upon them at present After these softnings our Author comes to pass his own Censure on the Burning of Hereticks but the common Rules of Prudence should have led him in the present juncture of Affairs to have condemned it roundly and so to have laid our apprehensions a little yet he saw so plainly that this was a practise so clearly authorized both by Law and Custom in their Church that he durst not disown it in express words and indeed he understands so little how a tender point ought to be touch'd that by all the Rules of Prudence he ought not to have medled with it His Discourse in this is an Original and because I 'le do him no wrong in the manner of Representing it I will set it down in his own Words But whether this Law in it self be just and again if just whether it may be justly extended to all those simple People put to death in Queen Maries days such as St. Austin calls Hereticis Credentes because they had so much Obstinacy as not to recant their Errors for which they saw their former Teachers sacrifice their Lives especially when they were prejudiced by the most common contrary Doctrine and Practice in the precedent Times of Edward the 6th and had lived in such a condition of Life as neither had means nor leasure nor capacity to examine the Churches Authority Councils or Fathers ordinarily such Persons being only to be reduced as they were perverted by the contrary fashion and course of the times and by Example and not by Argument either from Reason or from Authority and the same that I say of these Laity may perhaps also be said of some illiterate Clergy whether I say this Law may justly be extended to such and the highest suffering Death be inflicted especially where the Delinquents are so numerous rather than some lower Censures of pecuniary Mulcts or Imprisonment these things I meddle not with nor would be thought at all in this place to justifie Here is a long Period of 208 Words before the Verb comes to close it but there is small comfort in all this for even after our Author hath put the Case with all possible Abatements and as soft as may be of the ignorances the strong prejudices and the numbers of the Delinquents and intimated his merciful inclinations only towards the Laity and some of the illiterate Clergy and that only with relation to Death Fines and Imprisonments being left out of the Grace that he would shew us yet in conclusion he only tells us He will not meddle with this matter nor would he be thought at all to justifie it in this place for he is only concerned what we think of him and whether he justifies it or not he only tells us he would not be thought to do it and yet lest that seem too much he adds a further Qualification that he would not be thought to justifie it in this place So that he hath fully reserved all his Rights entire to a fitter opportunity and then he well may without the least Reproach justifie that in another place which he doth not think fit to do at present Yet it seems he hath a very narrow heart in matters of Grace for this same scanty measure of Favour that he had clogg'd with so many Reserves is yet retrenched considerably in the following Words Tho some among those unlearned Lay-people I confess to have
been extremely arrogant and obstinate and zealous beyond knowledg and tho they had suffered for a good Cause yet suffering for it on good or reasonable grounds as neither themselves being any way learned nor pretending the Authority of any Church nor relying on any present Teachers but on the certainty of their own private Judgment interpreting Scripture as you may see And here some Instances are given but if this Period will close it self it may for our Author who seldom takes care of such small matters leaves it in this unfinished condition I will not examine the truth of this Maxim but will only take notice that since all Protestants agree in this that the Ground of our Faith is that which appears to us to be the Sense of the Scripture our Author hath by this Limitation of his former gentleness towards us delivered us all over to the Secular Arm and so God have Mercy on our Souls for it is plain he will have none upon our Bodies XI He quarrels with the Privy-Council for imprisoning of Bonner because he said he would observe the Injunctions that were sent him if they were not contrary and repugnant to Gods Law and to the Statute and Ordinance of the Church the fault imputed here to him I suppose being that he refused to obey any Injunctions of the King when repugnant to the Statute and Ordinance of the Church But since he had a mind to blacken that time he might have as well said that they found fault with him because he promised to obey the Injunctions if they were not contrary to Gods Law and that thereby it appeared that they preferred their Injunctions to the Laws of God as well as to the Laws of the Church and by our Author 's taking no notice of the first Branch of Bonner's Exception it may be inferred That all his Concern is about the Laws of the Church and so they be secured he troubles himself little what becomes of the Law of God But if he had weighed this matter as he ought to do he would have found that this Exception is very ill grounded When a Form of a Subscription is demanded there is no Government in the World that will accept of one that indeed signifies nothing at all for it is visible that a Subscription made with those Reserves signifies nothing therefore if Bonner had acted as became his Character he should have directly refused the Subscription of such Injunctions as he found to be contrary to the Laws of God or to such Laws of the Church as he thought bound his Conscience But the Protestation he made gave a very just ground to the Government to proceed against him according to Law. XII Our Author intending to aggravate the Proceedings against Gardiner shews his great Judgment in setting down the Article relating to the Kings Supremacy at full length whereas he had only named the others for he could have invented nothing that must needs render all his Exceptions to the King's Supremacy more visibly unjust than this doth which is in these Words That his Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church of England hath full Power and Authority to make and set forth Laws Injunctions and Ordinances concerning Religion and Orders in the said Church for repressing all Errors and Heresies and other Enormities and Abuses so that the same Alteration be not contrary or repugnant to the Scriptures or Law of God. This was no other than what Gardiner had over and over again both by his Oaths and his Writings advanced and the restriction set on it was so just that one would think there lay no possible Exception to it Here there is no claim to the declaring what were Errors and Heresies but only to the repressing them and this is done by the Secular Arm even where men are burnt for Heresie Besides the Power that according to our Author belongs to the Pastors of the Church is either founded on the Scriptures or it is not if it is not founded on the Scriptures there is no great regard to be had to it but if it is founded on it then it it clearly excepted by the words of this Article so it is hard to see of what use this is to our Author unless it be to shew him his Injustice XIII He tells us That all that which had been done under King Henry and King Edward was Annulled by an equal Authority under Queen Mary But tho I acknowledg he was both the Soveraign and the Parliament yet there was neither Justice nor Moderation in the Charge now made equal to what had been done before A great deal might be said concerning the Election of the Members of Parliament and the Practices upon them and of the turning out a Multitude of the Clergy before the Laws were changed The Disorders and Irregularities in the Disputes had nothing of that fair Dealing in them that had appeared in King Edward's time and whereas all the Severity of King Edward's days was the Imprisoning of three or four Bishops and the turning out some of the other Clergy he knows well how matters went under Queen Mary So that we cannot be denied this Glory that a Spirit of Justice and Moderation appear'd at every time that the Reformation prevail'd Whereas things went much otherwise in this sad Revolution in which our Author Glories so much So that if the good or ill Behaviours of the several Parties as they had their turns in the Administration of Affairs furnishes a just Prejudice even in favour of the Cause it self we have this on our side as fully as we can wish for XIV He tells us That the Bishoprick of Durham was first kept void in King Edward's days and last of all it was by Act of Parliament dissolved to increase the Kings Revenue If our Author had examined the Records of Parliament he would have found that the Act that related to the Bishoprick of Durham did not at all propose the Increase of the Kings Revenue but the dividing of one Bishoprick into two and the raising and endowing of a new Cathedral Church all which must have risen to about Four thousand Marks of old Rents which considering how long Lands were let near the Borders did certainly very near exhaust the whole Revenue of that See. This is indeed of no great Importance to the main Cause For if sacrilegious Men went into the Reformation hoping to enrich themselves by it this is nothing but what falls out in all great Revolutions And it is plain our Author took up general Reports very easily that so he might make a Clamour with them against our Church But if some that gave an outward compliance to the Doctrine of our Church were really a Reproach to it he of all Men for a certain Reason ought not to insist on it Since we are no more accountable for the Duke of Northumberland's Actions than we are for his own XV. He tells us That the Bishops turned out
stretching their Jurisdiction a little too much on the other hand those who have submitted so tamely to the one have no reason to reproach us for bearing the other Servitude even supposing that we granted that to be the Case And if in the time of our Reformation some of our Bishops or other Writers have carried the Royal Supremacy too far either in Acts of Convocation or in their Writings as those things are personal Matters in which we are not at all concerned who do not pretend to assert an Infallibility in our Church so their excess in this was a thing so natural that we have all possible reason to excuse it or at least to censure it very gently For as all Parties and Persons are carried by a Bias very common to Mankind to magnify that Authority which favours and supports them so the extreams of the Papal Tyranny and the Ecclesiastical Power that had formerly prevailed might have carried them a little too far into the opposite Extream of raising the Civil Power too high But after all we find that when Theodosius came to the Empire he saw the Eastern half of it over-run with Arrianism and as the Arrians were in Possession and were the more numerous so they had Synods of Bishops that had met oft and in vast numbers and had judged in their favours Their Synods were both more numerous than that of Nice and were a more just Representative of the Catholick Church since there were very few of the Western Bishops in that which was held at Nice And as for the Frauds and Violences that were put in practice to carry Matters in those Synods it is very like the Arrians both denied them and were not wanting to recriminate on the Orthodox So when there was a pretence of General Councils on both hands here was a very perplexed Case But Theodosius found a short way to get out of it and therefore instead of calling a new General Council or of examining the History of the several pretended Councils which ought to have been done according to our Authors System he pass'd a Law which is the first Law in Iustinians Code by which he required all Persons to profess that Faith which was profess'd by Damasus Bishop of Rome and Peter Bishop of Alexandria and yet this Law which was a higher Invasion on the Ecclesiastical Authority than any that was committed in our Reformation was never so much as censured on the contrary Theodosius was highly magnified for it There is no reason to imagine that he paid any particular Respect to the See of Rome in this for his joining Peter of Alexandria with Damasus shews that he made the Faith of these Bishops the measures of that Doctrine which he resolved to protect not because of the Authority of their Sees but because he believed their Faith was Orthodox The Case was almost the same in England in which it was pretended that the Independent Authority of our Metropolitans ought to be asserted which was established by the Council of Nice and that many Corruptions in the Worship as for instance the Worship of Images that was condemned by two very numerous General Councils one in the East at Constantinople and another in the West at Francfort ought to be reformed If upon all this the Supreme Civil Authority of this Nation had enacted such a Law as Theodosius had done commanding all to follow the Doctrine profess'd by the two Arch-Bishops of this Church it had been no other but a copying after that Pattern which Theodosius had set us with the Approbation of all Antiquity and yet it cannot be pretended that our Kings and Parliament acted in so summary a way For they went much more slowly and maturely to Work. Upon the whole matter the Civil Authority hath a Power to command every thing that is just and lawful and in that Case the Laws that flow from it ought to be obeyed And if the matter of the Laws is sinful we must not indeed obey in that case but we must submit and bear what we do not like and suffer where we cannot obey So that lawful or unlawful seem to be the only measures that ought to govern our Obedience And as in the matters of natural Religion and Morality no Body can deny that the Civil Authority hath a full Scope tho that is still limitted by this that there ought to be no Injustice Immorality or Turpitude in the Actions that are commanded but where this is not we are bound to obey all the Laws that relate to those matters and where it is we are bound to submit and to bear our burden without giving our selves the trouble to enquire how far the Civil Authority ought to be carried in such matters We set the same measures to our Obedience in matters of revealed Religion If the King passes Laws contrary to Scripture we cannot indeed obey them because of that higher Authority to which we are subject and in Obedience to which we pay all Submission to those who God hath set over us but if they are lawful and conform to the Scripture we ought to obey them without examining whether the King hath proceeded in the passing such Laws by the Rules that become quiet and regular Times And if a Hezekiah or a Iosias should rise up and finding the greater part of his Subjects the Priests as well as the People engaged in Idolatry if he should reform them and suppress that corrupt way of Worship we ought instead of examining critically the method or steps by which he had brought about that change rather to rejoyce in the goodness of God for blessing us with such a Prince So that let men men write and dispute as long as they will on these matters the whole Cause must be brought to this short Issue Either the things that our Princes and Legislators enacted at the Reformation were in themselves just and good and necessary or not if they were then they having an Authority over us in all lawful things as they did well to enact these Laws so we do well to obey them But if they were neither just nor good nor necessary then we acknowledg that as it was a Sin in them to enact them so it were a Sin in us to obey them And all other reasonings upon this Subject are but Illusions by which weak minds may perhaps be wrought upon but they will appear to be such evident Fallacies to men of Sense that without entring into a strict enquiry of what may be alledged for them they will easily shake them off In short if the Reformation appears to be a good thing in it self then all arguing against the manner of it is but meer trifling and looks like men who lie in wait to deceive and to mislead People by false Colours of Truth CHAP. IV. Reflection on the eight Theses laid down by our Author UPon the Grounds that have hitherto been opened it will not be hard to make a very clear