CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS Of present Concernment TOUCHING THIS REFORMED Church of ENGLAND WITH A particular Examination of AN CHAMPNY Doctor of the Sorbon his exceptions against the Lawful Calling and Ordination of the Protestant Bishops and Pastors of this Church By H FERNE D.D. LONDON Printed by J.G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1653. THE PREFACE HOw the several points handled in this Treatise concern this Reformed Church will be declared below when first we have taken notice of the causeless Aspersions and Reproaches which the Romanists cease not to cast upon is and against which these Considerations are purposely intended and opposed They think they have now a fitter oportunity by reason of the confusions of these Times to deal that way by Reproaches then as formerly by Arguments And it is no new thing for the enemies of Gods Truth to scoff at the afflicted condition of the professors of it The Ammonite is challenged for it Ezek. 25.3 Thou saidst Aha against my Sanctuary when it was profaned and so is Tyrus Ezek. 26.2 Thou saidst against Jerusalem Aha she is broken and laid wast I shall be replenished and so the Romanists looking now upon our disturbances say with those in the Psal 35.21 Aha we have seen it with our eyes and so would we have it Endeavouring by mocks and scoffs against the English Church to prevaile with ungrounded Protestants and all unwary ones that will be jeered out of their Religion One of their Pamphlets set out by a late Romish Convert the Reader must give me leave by the way to instance in for it gives us proof and example of what I said both wayes It shewes us a giddy unwary Protestant foolishly carryed away by the reproachful allegations of our Adversaries and having been a while among them presently instructed in this their way of scoffing at that Church and Religion he had forsaken Some of his wit he spends in a few Cursory animadversions as he calls them upon my former Treatise Those I let pass as inconsiderable and not fit to trouble the Reader with But the designe of his book was against that Learned and Solid piece of the University of Oxford set out by Act of Convocation 1647. against admitting of the Covenant He tells us there He is W. R. sometimes of Exeter Colledge but now a Convert of Rome and is not ashamed to profess that we may know his weaknes he had his impulsive cause of conjunction with Rome from that Act of the University pleading Tradition and the necessity of it as for Episcopacy so for other chief points of Faith But alas poor man he did not understand either what those Learned men said or what our Church allowes in the point of Tradition For however he pretend to Wit in reproving our Reformation and Religion yet in arguing when be ventures on it he behaves himself as a manforsaken of his Reason By his Titles prefixed to his book one may read what strein he meant to follow hold throughout his whole discourse for being not content to have at first entitled it An Examination of the Oxford Act he gives it two scoffing Titles more The Obit of Praelatick Protestancie and again The last dying words of Episcopacy faintly delivered in the Convocation at Oxford So he of the Modest and Sober Defence of those Learned Men against the then prevailing force And so might any Heathen Julian or Prophyry have derived the Apologies of the Ancients in the behalf of Christianity then under persecution and might have called them The last dying Words of Christian Religion So might the Arrians have termed the Defenses which Athanasius and others made The last dying Words of the Catholick cause and because Saint Hierom expresseth it dolefully with a Miratus ingemuit Orbis the whole Christian world wondred and sighed to see her selfe made Arrian Such a Reasoner as this might conclude the true Christian Faith was then groaning her last Now albeit there is nothing in this Pamphlet considerable either against our Church or against Episcopacy reteined in it yet did it give me occasion of further thoughts concerning them both and in order to the lawful Calling and Ordination of our Protestant Bishops to examine what Champny who professedly wrote against them hath alleged In the next place that I may give the Reader a better account of what was intended in the former and now pursued in this following Treatise He may please to take notice how the Romanists charge us with Schism in departing from their Communion upon our Reformation and reproach us with the Confusions of these Times as wrought under the like pretence of Reformation and defensible by the like principles upon which we stood in the work of our Reforming and to which we must hold in the defense of it To demonstrate the falshood of both Either that We who are now of a divided Communion from Rome are therefore guilty of Schism or that They who made the rupture in the Scottish first and then in the English Church can say justly for themselves against the former Doctrine and Government of those Churches what we can for our selves against the Church of Rome it was part of the work and purpose of the former book And it was demonstrable upon these grounds 1. There was a necessity of Reformation and we had just Cause for it by reason of the over-grown Papall power and the intolerable abuses in Doctrine and Worship 2. It was Warrantably done not only for the Cause of it but also for the Autority by which it was done whether we consider the Vote of the Clergy and the Iudgment of a Nationall Synod or the assent and command of the supreme and Sovereign power In which regard we see the Vanity of all that the Romanists allege from the Ancients concluding Schism Affirmatively or Negatively by Communion with the Church of Rome for however that Argument might be good when that Church stood right and held the Catholick Faith undefiled yet was it no more then they might and did conclude by Communion with other famous Churches confessedly Catholick No such conclusion can now be made upon holding or not holding Communion with the Romish Church since it gave such Cause of Reformation as abovesaid We see also the Vanity of their Reproaches that we leave every man to his privat Iudgment and Reason that we open a gap to all Sectaries to work confusion when they get force in any Church For however we leave men the use of their Reason and Iudgment in order to their own believing yet in order to Reformation we require not only just cause in regard of intolerable Error or Superstition but also due Autority for the carrying it on in the way of the Church These particulars were spoken to more or less in the first part of the former book Now for the further clearing of this point of the English Reformation and defending it so against the reproaches of Papists that no Sectaries
or forbear for Conscience sake 2. That such forbearance of any practice be an Act of simple and bare Omission without clamour and contempt of Autority without tumult or resistance with a readines to suffer rather then is there peaceable subjection when private judgment keeps within these bounds For such conscionable forbearance of many practices in the Church of Rome of high concernment and very evident they have good cause that are within her Communion Such practice is the exercise of Religious Worship many wayes applyed in that Church to the Creature such also are some superstitious Rites and Ceremonies having a kind of Sacramental vertue and real holiness affixed to them 18. In Matters of Ceremony or Discipline But as for Rites and Ceremonies in themselves indifferent and by the Church enjoyned only with respect to Order and Discipline there is no cause of inconformity or forbearance yet in these hath there been great opposition from privat Judgments that could not keep within their bounds and those places of Rom. 14. He that doubteth is damned if he eat and what is not of Faith is sin have been abused to maintain a dissenting from the Judgment of the Church and a forbearance of the Practice We say therefore those places are misapplyed to matters determined by publick Autority against which it is not doubting or want of Faith i.e. perswasion of the Lawfulness or indifferency of the thing so determined that can take place or bear out disobedience but evident demonstration of the thing out of Gods Word to the contrary and the Reason is plain the command of Gods Word for Obedience and Submission to them that are over us is evident and therefore against them we must have evidence from Gods Word to shew they are mistaken in their Judgment or determination of that particular Now when a Church professes the thing determined by her to be indifferent in it self or of a middle Nature neither commanded by God nor forbidden and that she neither affixes any Sacramental or Spiritual vertue or hollness to it nor enjoyns it as Worship but only out of respect to Order and Discipline no man can have any evident demonstration but only a doubting or mixt perswasion of the unlawfulness of such a thing and although a Man of doubting of a thing in it self indifferent but not determined or enjoyned by Authority may by reason of his doubting have cause to forbeare it yet not in this case of the supposed determination and injunction of Autority for he that will then urge He that doubteth is damned must remember that he that disobeyeth is damned too that former place of doubting having many exceptions of which this predetermination of Autority is one but this disobeying of Autority hath only one viz. when there is sufficient evidence of L. vine Autority against the thing determined by humane and so it becomes an Obeying of God rather then Man 19. Of Priests Celebacie enjoyned by the Church and how But it may be expected because I referred the injunction of Priests single life to matter of Discipline that I should speak particularly to the conformity of Judgment and Practice to it I referr'd it to Discipline because antiently enjoyned not in a disparagement to Marriage which the Apostle concludes Honourable in all men but in Order to their better discharge of their Duty and Priestlie or Ministerial function and I do not now dispute the difference of that antient injunction from the now Roman exaction of single life nor question with what fulness of Autority it was enjoyned or how far or how long binding which I shall have more fit occasion to touch a little Num. 25.26 below and more largly against Champny in the sixth Chapter but only speak to the point of Submission and conformity to such judgment or determination of the Church supposing it fully concluded and binding Therefore I cannot but say while it was so binding every Clergy-man had cause to Judge the Governors of the Church saw reason to enjoyn it was bound to endeavour conformity in Practice i.e. to use such means by Temperance Fasting Prayer as conduce to preserve that continency of Single life but if after due use he found himself not answerable to that state but in the condition to which S. Paul prescribes the use of that remedy which God had ordained Marriage against Burning he was bound notwithstanding the Church-Ordinance to take to it and this as it hath direct Warrant from Gods Word so is it not a direct opposition to the Church Ordinance which was but conditional as in the prohibition of Marriage to Fellows of Colleges under the pain of loss of their Fellowships Only in this point of Priests Marriage the condition is of greater concernment the loss of Clergy or quitting the Ministerial function which if happened to him that hath dealt conscionably as above in the business the Church must answer for it 20. Thus have I endeavoured as neer as I can to discover and fixe the bounds of Submission of Privat Judgment and Practice according to the several condition of the matter wherein it is shewn and according to the divers extent and manner of performing or shewing it either to a direct conformity and compliance with the publick or if dissenting yet to a yeilding of all possible peaceable Subjection and that if need be to a suffering under Autority If Privat Judgment keep it self within the former bounds of Submission there can be no harm to the Church 21. I should now speak the respect Passages out of 8. Augustine touching Autority and Reason which every National or particular Church ought to bear to the Universal in this point of Submission but before we go farther it wil be worth our pains to take a short view of some passages of S. Aug. appliable to the business in hand concerning Autority and Reason I calld them Autority and Evidence or demonstration of Truth in his Books de verâ Relig. and de Vtil tate credend It is his purpose there to shew how Autority goes before Reason in our believing or receiving the Christian Faith which by the Romanists is sometimes misapplyed to the purpose of that Church requiring belief to rest upon her Autority We may therefore take notice that the writing of those books was occasioned by the Manichees who reproached the Catholiques for requiring belief of their Scholars or Auditors before they shewed them reason and boasted Se terribili Autoritate separatâ c. that laying aside all supercilious Autority they would by simple and plain reason bring Men to God cap. 1. de util cred Had this Romish Infallible Autority which exacts belief simply and finally been then pretended to in the Church they might well have call'd it terrible Autority and S. Augustine could not but have spoken to it Whereas it is his only work in both books to shew that Men are first moved by Autority to a belief of things before they see
the Reason of the things themselves Now the belief upon this Autority is but previous and preparatory as I call'd it in order to that which S. Augustine calls Reason or evident knowledg of the truth For he tels us this Autority viz. of the Church proposing the Catholick Faith stands upon Miracles confirming that Faith and Multitude of believers that have embraced it and this indeed is the first motive to induce a Man to seek and believe he may have the true Faith and Religion in such a Church such a company of Relievers Again he pleads for belief due to the Autority of Pastors and Teachers of the Church whom he cals Antistites Dei whom God hath set in his Church as Governours and Teachers cap. 10. de Vtil Cred. and this is but according to the Rule common to the teaching of other Sciences Oportet discentem credere He that is taught must give credit to him that teacher him Lastly we find him every where speaking the end of that Autority and teaching in the Church it is praecolere procurare animum or idoneum facere percipiendae veritati to mould and fit the mind for perceiving and embracing the Truth and preparare illuminaturo Deo to prepare it for the enlightning of Gods Spirit which he calls sometimes the punging of the mind viz. from Natures ignorance self-conceit love of Worldly pleasures that it may be fit to behold the clear Truth and this is it which he calls Reason and gives it the chiefest Authority Summa est ipsius veritatis jam cognitae perspicuae Autoritas cap. 14. de verâ Relig. this was calld Evidence above or Demonstration of Truth and cap. 25. of the same book Purgatioris animae rationi quae ad veritatem pervenit nullo modo preponitur humana Autoritas Humane Autority must give way to Reason and Evident truth which a Soul purified by Faith knows and believes Thus much in reference to that which had been spoken above of preparatory conditional belief due to and beginning from Autority but finally resting in the Evidence and Demonstration of Truth Like as the belief of the Samaritans given first to the Testimony of the Woman that had been with Christ brought them out unto him but stayed at last upon Aâ—divimus ipsi we have heard him our selves S. John 4.42 22. Pride makes men pass the bounds of peaceable subjection Now in reference to that which was spoken of Submission of privat Judgment keeping within bounds of peaceable subjection hear what S. Augustine subjoyns immediately upon the former words cap. 25. de Verâ Rel. ad hanc nulla humana suPerbia producit To this viz. the reason and belief of a purified minde pride brings no man quae si non esset nec Haeretici nec Schismatici essent but for this Pride and self-conceit the cause why privat Judgments do not keep within bounds there would be no Hereticks or Schismaticks for it comes not to this but when nimiâ levitate as he speaks sometimes through too much lightness of judgment they are driven tanquam palea vento Superbiae as chaff by the puff of their own pride from the Lords floor or Visible Church 23. Vnjust excommunication and want of the Communion of the Church upon it But what if Privat Men for a peaceable dissenting in judgment or practice from the Visible Church of which they were Members in points of high concernment for Belief or Worship be censured and driven from the communion of it They are not for all that driven from the Communion of the Catholick Church but their condition is not unlike the case of those good men which S. Augustine speaks of cap. 6. de verâ Rel. Divine Providence saith he suffers sometimes Viros bonos per turbulentas sed tiones carnalium hominum expelli de Congregatione Christianâ Good men to be cast out of the Communion of the Visible Church through the turbulent Seditions of carnal Men How such if private men must behave themselves declaring also how they ought to behave themselves in that condition patiently constantly by charity to those to whose Violence they gave way and perseverance in the Faith of the Catholike Church sine Conventiculorum segregratione without making Conventicles apart testimonio suo juvantes eam fidem quam in Ecclesiâ and by their witness and profession helping that Faith which they know is still taught in the Church These saith he thus serving God in secret Pater viaens in occulto coronat their Father which sees in secret crowns and rewards Observe he speaks here of privat Men and so do we hitherto but he supposes them cast out of the Church in which the Catholick Faith is truly professed with due Christian Worship and therefore saith Examples of such expelled good men are rare Whereas we supose such to be cast out from the Visible Communion upon the cause of Faith and Worship and those turbulent persons to be the chief Rulers casting them out upon that account and therefore with more advantage may conclude it is well with such in the sight of God that sees in secret Indeed the condition of the Catholick Church being such as it was in S. Augustine his dayes it could not but be rare to find such examples but if he had seen these latter Ages and the corruption of Faith and Worship upheld by pride and Tyranny of the chief Rulers especially within the Communion of the Romish Church he might have seen examples great store of good men and pious for peaceable dissenting or desiring Reformation cast out and persecuted 24. Now in the last place Submission of National Churches to the Vniversal of the respect which National Churches have and ought to have to the Universal as to this point of submission we need not say much 1. Several National Churches being parts as it were and Members making one whole Church called the Catholic in some proportion ought to bear like respect to the Definitions and practises of the Catholick Church as Inferior or privat persons to the particular National Church of which they are Members in some proportion I say as also it was said Sect. 9. of the former book but with advantage to a National Church in this point of Judgment above what is allowed proportionable to privat persons for they have only Judgment of discretion in order to their own believing whereas a National Church hath publick Judgment both in receiving the Decrees of the Universall Church or in making some her self and in proposing them to others whom she is to guide and answer for and so can make publick reformation when there is cause for it and constitute a Visible Church in depending in point of Government of any other Visible Church or rather can continue a Visible Church as it was before but with this difference from what it was before that now it stands reformed or purged from many errors and freed from the Tyranny of forrein
no Churches or not to belong to the Church of Christ because of that want or defect in the Vocation or Ordination of their Pastors 17. Those companies indeed of Christians who believed in India upon the preaching of Frumentius belonged to the Church of Christ before they received Pastors from the Bishop of Alexandria and that multitude which believed in Samaria upon the preaching of Philip and were baptized by him were indeed of the Church and a Church of Christ though not completed til Peter and John went down with due Autority to set all in order there Accordingly we may account of those Reformed Churches which have not their Pastors sent and ordained as from the beginning as of Congregations not regularly formed as Churches not completed not indeed without Pastors altogether as those of India and Samaria at the first were but having such as they can viz. such as have if we wil speak properly the Vocation on Election of their respective Churches which is one thing in the calling of Pastors but not due Ordination which is the main thing in impowering them to the exercise of the office and so are Pastors by a moral designation to the Office rather then any real or due consecration which only is by those hands that have received the power of sending or Ordaining Pastors from the Apostles 18. It must be granted that the Vocation of such Pastors is deficient and their Ordination irregular and that not only by the Ecclesiastical Canons in that behalf but also by Apostolical Order and practice Yet because they hold the Faith which is the chief point in the constitution of the Church and have not wilfully departed from that Apostolical Order and way of the Church by the breach of Charity in condemning and rejecting it but do approve of it where it may be had we cannot say that irregularity or deficiency infers a plain Nullity in their Pastors and Churches as Champny will have it but stands in a condition of receiving a supply or completion and is in the mean time so far excusable as the want or not having of that Supply is of Necessity and not of Choice 19. But Champny will admit of no excuse either of irregularity confessed in the calling so their Pastors or of Necessity pleaded as the cause enforcing it But proceeds to prove such a nullity in their Ordinations that it concludes them to have no Pastors at all and no Church This argument he pursues chiefly against Doctor Field Distinction of the power of Bishops and Presbyters as to Ordination who in the 3. book of the Church cap. 39. had endeavoured in behalf of the Reformed Churches that have not Bishops to shew that their Ordinations though not regular according to the way of the Church yet were not simply invalid and that by the Doctrine of the best Schoolmen who held the Office of a Bishop to be not a distinct Order or to imprint a distinct Character from that of the Priestly function which also they proved by this instance A Bishop Ordained per saltum i. e. who was not first made Presbyter cannot either consecrate the Sacrament or Ordain others but a Priest or Presbyter ordained per saltum may execute the office of the Deacon by reason that the Superior Order conteins in it self the Inferior whence Doctor Field would have it concluded That Bishop and Presbyter differ not in Order or in the very power of Order but in eminency and dignity of an Office to which Ordination and other performances as Confirmation public absolution c. are reserved also that when the antient Church declared Ordination by Presbyters to be void and null it is to be understood according to the rigour of the Canons not that all such Ordinations were simply null ex naturâ rei and in themselves or not to be born with in any Case 20. See we now what Champny replies to all this and then consider what may be reasonably allowed and said as to this point His answer is to this purpose That those Schoolmen if they hold not Episcopacy to be a distinct Order yet say it is a distinct power if not a different Character yet a new Extension of the former Sacerdotal Character and that the Argument from Ordination per saltum doth not disprove the latter way Lastly that such Presbyterian Ordinations were in the judgment of the Ancient Church Null ex naturâ rei and not by the Ecclesiastical Canons only for that judgment or sentence of the Church was not a Constitutive decree for then the beginning of it would appear in the Canons of the Ancient Councels but only Declarative of what was so in it self from the beginning of the Church This he in his 7. Chap. 21. Here something is doubtful and questionable something clear and apparent That Bishops had a power or faculty to do something which Presbyters could not namely to ordain is clear in Schoolmen and Fathers but whether that power make the Episcopal function a distinct Order from the Priestly or imprint a different sacramental character we leave it to the Schoolmen to dispute Also we grant that Bishops receive and exercise that power as Champny saith truly not by a Moral designation only as Judges and Officers in a State do for the time of their office or as those among the Presbyters seem to do who are assigned to ordain others but by Real consecration or sacred devoting them to that office or work of ordaining and sending others Which consecration though it imprint not a Sacramental Character on the Soul as the Romanists express it yet it gives to the Person so ordained devoted such a faculty or habitude to that action or work as cannot be taken from him the reason of which we shall enquire below where occasion is given to speak more of that which the Romanists call Character indelible in this point of Holy Orders Furthermore whether this office of Ordaining imply a power wholly superadded to the Priestly function Two wayes of conceiving the power of Ordination in Bishops Ordaining imply a power wholly superadded to the Priestly function which is one way of conceiving it or a faculty of exercising that power supposed to be radicated or founded in the Priestly Order and diffused with it by restraining it to certain persons consecrated for that performance it may be questioned Doctor Field seeme plainly to conceive it this latter way and so do the Schoolmen alleged by him and Champny's expression of their sense by extention of the Sacerdotal Character if it have any sense speaks as much viz. the dilating of that which was before in the Sacerdotal Order radically by extending that Radical power unto a proxima potentia or immediat faculty in certain persons consecrated to the exercise of it and keeping it restrained in all others of that Order who are not so consecrated and devoted to that great work of Ordaining and sending others Lastly whether we conceive of it as
determinatly in Councels Statutes and Laws in this clause relate to those of this Land those especially that concerned this business CHAP. I. Of submission of judgement and externall peaceable subjection due to the Church Nationall or Universall from the respective Members thereof WHat relation this point hath to the peace and unity of a Church in preserving it from Error and to the Reformation of a Church when Error hath prevailed upon it was insinuated in the Preface and in those respects there was occasion in the former Treatise Of the Division of English and Romish Churches upon the Reformation Sect. 9 10 13. to touch upon it 1. There Limits of submission fâ—om the Autority to which and matter in which however a possibility of just dissenting from the publick could not be denyed a due Submission with all peaceable external subjection was required and so it was a Limited not Absolute submission which we required the limits of it arising from the condition and concernment of the Autority to which and of the Matter in which this Submission is to be yeilded The Autority is publick and though not Infallible yet guiding others by an Infallible rule and most highly concerned to guide them accordingly as being answerable for their souls The condition of the Matter also was observed to be diverse according to the difference of Belief and Practice and in each kind to be of more or lesse concernment according to the Nature of the things propounded to us to be believed or practised by us The generall result was that we ought to yeild all the Submission of Judgment and peaceable subjection which such Autority may require and all that the condition of the matter will admit of Thus much was insinuated in the former book 2. Now to make a supply to that Difficulty in fixing those Limits which was briefly couched there and to discover more particularly the hounds and limits of this Submission which to fixe precisely is no easie matter For this Submission must be carryed even between God and Men such Men as God himself hath set over us in his Church and commanded us to hear and obey them Yet such as possibly may entrench upon his right in taking to themselves a dominion over our Faith and if we follow them in a blind obedience and resignation of judgment wholly we are sure to transgresse in giving to them what is due to God So also must this Submission be carryed even between Man and Man by declining the Romish excess of arrogating too much to the publick Autority and avoiding the other extreme of giving too much Liberty to Private Judgment into which Anabaptists and other Sectaries run and thereby make void the Autority and Office of the Pastors of the Church 3. Therefore that we may better discover the bounds of due Submission we must take aim as abovesaid from the consideration First Generall considerations of the Autority and the Matter of the Autority to which the submission is yeilded That we finde seated in the Church Nationall or Universall and justly requiring submission from the respective Members The Church we hear speaking her judgment by the Bishops and Pastors of it either in or out of Councel and whether it do speak either way secured from possibility of Error will be considerable in the yeelding of our Submission to it Secondly of the Matter or things in which this Submission is yeilded These we finde as was said to be of severall sorts Some are onely in Opinion or belief which being inward need not happily discover it self Some are in Practice as Worship Discipline Rites Ceremonies which being outward must needs appear Now in reference to both Autority and Matter we shall have occasion to consider the Extent of Submission from Judgment and belief which begin within to external compliance and conformity of Practise and accordingly in the Manner of performance this submission either stayes our judgment and belief within when it dissents or discovers it without but so as not to a disturbance of peace 4. Judgment and Reason is that Light which he that lighteth every one that comes into the World Joh. 1.9 puts into the minde of Man in order to his yeilding assent and belief to that which is propounded This light as it shines inwardly to the aforesaid purpose may not be put out by absolute submission or resignation of judgment to Man or any company of Men but as it is a light to shine outward for direction of others so it may be concealed For though a Man doth not acquiesce inwardly to that which is propounded yet may he be silent in some cases and forbear to publish his judgment to others These things being premised come we to some conclusions touching this submission 5. From the consideration of Autority to which submission is due we may say I. Pastors of the Church singly taken have a publik Authority Seeing the Church speaks her Judgment by the Pastors and teachers in it every such Pastor is a Publick Person and by his Office and Commission for teaching guiding ruling others hath in regard of all them Autority publick Judgment to which there is a submission due They sit in Moses chair and He that despiseth you despiseth me saith our Saviour Submit and obey saith S. Paul Heb. 13.17 All which is spoken of the Pastors and Teachers of the Church not as joyned in Councel but severally taken and so teaching what the Church has learnt of Christ and what it declares and commands agreeable to the voice of the great Pastor speaking in the Word This Conclusion is against Anabaptists and Sectaries that make void the Office and Authority of the Pastors of the Church and against all others that acknowledging the Office do too much weaken the Autority receiving what they teach and declare with little or no other respect then if the same were spoken to them by any other Men. They of the Romish Church as they are not behind hand in giving Autority to their Priests or Pastors so do they acknowledg it not secured from error and the submission due to it not to be absolute but limited We need not therefore quarrel with them here Al the business wil be to conclude upon that submission which is due to the Pastors of the Church joyned or met in Councel to give out the Judgment of the Church 6. II. Pastors or Bishops met in Councel Therefore we cannot but say If they that meet either in a Provincial or National much more in a General Councel be gathered together in the Name of Christ they have the promise of his presence among them which is by the assistance of his Spirit S. Mat. 18.20 This is the onely place as it seems to me which delivers a promise immediately appliable to Councels though not to them only other places so much beaten upon by the Romanists I am with you to the end S. Mat. 28. Tel the Church S. Mat.
will not trouble the ingenuous Reader any farther with them Only one thing I must take notice of which he speaks positively That the Queen had no power to dispense in rebus Ecclesiasticis and after sets it on thus She had no more power to dispense in such things then her Subjects had to dispense with her Laws pag. 451.455 And there he requires One approved example for 1500. years to justifie such a power Though we extend not this power to all Ecclesiastical things or Canons yet say we truly that a Soveraign Prince hath power to dispense in and about Ecclesiastical things yea hath power to forbid the Popes Law to be received or obeyed within his Dominions If Champny as he shews himself in the next Chap. to be well acquainted with Tortus or Bellarm. so had looked into the Answer to Tortus he might have seen examples brought there by B. Andrews of Councels submitting their decrees to the Emperors Autority that he would be pleased ea corrigere supplere perficere to correct or supply them Now what power the Emp. had in Orbe Romano that every Soveraign Prince hath in his own Dominions But Champny me thinks should not be such a stranger in France as not to hear or so forgetful as not to remember how many years the King kept out the decrees of the Trent Councel and when the Clergy by the mouth of the Archbishop of Tours petitioned the King 1598. to admit them they did it with restriction and modification of them to the privileges and Laws of the Land and what did that want of a dispensation It need not therefore seem strange that the Qu. should use her power in dispensing against any Papal Canon that however hitherto obteining should any way contrary the Laws established concerning Ordinations 18. Presumption against the racords weak One Argument more he adds upon the strength of presumption not only against the Validity of the Form of Ordination but against the Truth of the Tables or Records that witness the Ordination of our Bishops This presumption he raises chiefly upon Bishop Jewels silence in answering of Harding when he put him to it to make good his Ordination Of this from pag. 457. to the end of his 13. Chap. Harding in his first reply had told the Bishop that he was neither Bishop nor Priest put divers interrogatories to him concerning his Ordination The Bishop briefly answered his impertinent Adversary as he saw fitting Harding replyes again with the like or greater importunity and because the Bishop did not enter here a dispute with him and satisfie all his questions in particular and withall produce the Records therefore Champny according to his wonted presumption concludes the Ordination of our Bishops could not be maintained and the Records were justly suspected for who could better defend the lawfulness of their Ordination or better know those Records if any such had been then Jewel who was one of those pretended Bishops To this purpose he There is a time when as the wise man tells us some men are not to be answered in their folly Half of M. Hardings importunity came to this why Jewel being no Priest medled in Holy things and how could he be a Priest that could not offer Sacrifice This the Bishop well knew to be fully answered in disproving their Sacrifice of the Mass which he largely and solidly did and consequently evinced that we may be Priests in the Gospel sense without taking to our selves such a power and that they are no Priests indeed but Sacrilegious Impostors in assuming to themselves such a power The rest of M. Hardings importunity questioned his being Bishop and because he enters not a dispute about the Form by which he was consecrated why should Champny conclude he could not defend it when as Harding said not so much against it as Champny himself hath done to invalidate it and what that was we heard above and found it too weak to disprove this our Assertion That the form we reteined doth contein all that essentially belongs to Ordination and that which we cast out was either superfluous addition or superstitious abuse Lastly as for producing the Records to justifie his consecration he knew it was to little purpose having to deal with Master Harding who had often in this Reply call'd him a Forger and Falsary and would certainly have accounted him so in producing the Records 19. But he tells us farther Not only Master Harding but many other English Catholicks objected to those pretended Bishops the defect of Lawful calling and Ordination and yet were not the Records produced by any of them nor by any other in their behalf till Mason now after 50. years gave us a view of them So he p. 47â— Naming their Catholic Writers that objected this Bristo Sanders Stapleton Rainolds The objections of those Writers and generally of those Times chiefly touched the Form of Ordination to the answering of which the producing of the Records had not been proper But Champny as he brought Rainolds objecting so he might have met with Rainolds answering as to that point if he had thought fit to take notice of that which Mason in the conclusion of his third book relates from Doctor Rainolds himself who told him that in his conference with Hart he satisfied him concerning our Bishops by Authentick Records in so much that Hart would needs have that whole point viz. touching the Ordination of our Bishops left out of the Conference confessing he thought no such thing could be shown and that he had been born in hand otherwise Born in hand by such Objectors as these whom Champny named Now had the Romanists that Candor and Conscience which Hart shewed who indeed seemed to be one of the most ingenuous of that Society as appears by many passages of the Conference they would also receive satisfaction and not thus contend to make good such foolish reports by opposing such far-fetcht surmises and presumptions against publick Records Champny also might have taken notice how in that very Statute of 8. Eliz. which he so narrowly sifted there are Records spoken of that declare the due consecration of the Bishops made in her Time Every thing requisite and material for that purpose viz. the Elections Confirmations and Consecrations of Bishops hath been done as precisely and with as much care and diligence as ever before her Majesties time i. e. since the time the Papal Autority was cast out as the Records of her Majesties Father and Brothers time and also of her own time will plainly testifie and declare These are the Words of that Statute and do expresly as we see witness there were Public Acts which did shew the Elections and Consecrations of the Bishops made from the beginning of the Queens reign as of those Bishops which were made before CHAP. VIII Of Archbishop Parkers Ordination and of the pretended defects from the New Form and the incapacity of his Ordainers IN his 14. Chapter he begins with