or at least that year was pure again For it cannot be imagin'd the doctrine of that Council was pure but the beleefe of the Faithful in that Age taught by those Pastors which there resided must be pure also Far more consonant then to their grounds is the doctrine of the Puritans denying promiscuously all Antiquity than to pick and cull out at pleasure what serves their turn as doe the Protestants and to like and reject allow and disallow what makes for or against them without giving any evident reason why they put such a difference In vain therefore does the Doctor like a very Saint pretend in behalfe of their Church an unaffected ignorance though they should mistake being conscious to himselfe what pitiful shifts he makes use of in stead of grounds In vain does he hope that this ruliness as he calls it and obedience of theirs will render them approvable to God unless they can render God an approved reason why they will at pleasure hold his sacred Spouse the Church holy in one Age and adulterate in another and shape and fashion Christs seamless coat according to the mode of their ever-changing fancy Lastly most vainly doe they hope this ruliness in holding to the first 300. yeares will lead them into all truth unless they could shew that all the points of Truth between them and us were professedly treated and decided in those times and the decision on their side He ends in a preaching manner with extolling the humble and docible temper of his Church Truly Mr. Doctor it is a wonderful commendation to your Church that she is yet to bee taught Pray when will she be at age to leave going to School when will she be out of her prentice-like tutorage and set up for her selfe to professe truth as a Church should do I thought a Church should have been Columna firmamentum veritatis the Pillar and firm foundation of Truth but yours is like the hinge of a door or a weather-cock docibly turning with every wind of doctrine How doe you think the Puritans or any other Sect should in reason yeeld any Authority to your Church since she professes her selfe yet learning her Faith that is as yet knowes it not If it be such a commendation in your Church to be docible I suppose it is so in others and consequently in the whole Church and then I pâ—ay who must teach her or what greater Professor is there on Earth of the knowledge of Christs Faith to whom the Universal Church may submit her selfe as dociâ—le Perhaps you will say that one particular Church must sisterly and charitably assist and teach another that is though each be ignorant it selfe yet like the blind leading the blind they must all be supposed mutual Mistreâ—ses and consequently all learned But let us examine a little further this docible and humble temper of your youngling Church Is it dâ—ciblenesse or humility think you to forsake a Mistress who had all the qualities which could give â—er Authority and fall to teach your selves new reformed doctrines without any Authority at all Such is the humble dâ—ciblenesse of your Church Is it docibleness to cast off the Authority of 14. General Councils and the consent of Christendome for twelve hundred yeares and rely upon your own judgments to interpret the rest as you list This is the so much brag d on docibleness and humble temper of your Church Parallel to the former or rather far ouâ—vying them though of a contrary strain is that most heroick Act of your docible humility to be willing to hold things concerning your eternal salvation upon the Authority of the four General Councils or the Doctors and Church of the first 300. yeares which Drs. and Councils notwithstanding it is an Article of your Faith that they are fallible And as for the Church of those times that it was fallible your selfe grants for you confesse that the same Church erred in the fourth Age. Now to hold Articles or points of Faith upon that Authority which it is an Article of Faith may deceive me is such a magnanimous piece of docible humility as I dare be bold to say in the Doctors behalfe neither the Apostles nor any Saint in the succeeding Church durst ever own Neither can the present Catholikes whom some who neither understand their own nor Catholike grounds laugh at as blindly humble and obedient to the Church lay claim to such an incomparable degree of humility proper and peculiar to the Protestants onely For we pretend not Faith certain but upon a deemed INFALLIBILITY in the Authority assuring it so as though they may be supposed blameable by you for failing in their grounds that is in believing the Church infallible yet they cannot be condemned for proceeding inconsequently upon those groundâ— for an infallible Authority deserves a firm assent But to stand to the acceptation of matters of Faith which you pretend most certain upon an Authority confessed by your selves uncertain is such a condiscension of humility such a prostrating your proper knowledge as is not onely a blindly-capâ—ivating your Judgment but even an utter renouncing all judgment prudence and common sence not a submitting the reason by a voluntary winking at objections but a quite extinguishing and perfect putting out of the very Eye of reason it selfe and is all one as if a man should say For any thing I know such a one may lye in what he tells mee yet neverthelesse I will strongly perswade my selfe that all hee sayes is most certainely true Yet this humility the Doctor calls here a special mark of the Church of Englands Reformation And surely you have reformed well since you have not only reform'd the Unity you before enjoy'd into distractions the Faith you formerly profest into new-fangled misbeleefes but your former reason and judgment into present folly and fancy What is said of your accepting the four Councils c. may also bee apply'd to your private interpretitions of Scripture which found your Faith which Faith you will have to be certain and firm though the persons Interpretation it is built on be fallible and obnoxious to errour The pious words in your own behalfe with which you close up your Chapter spoken in an Elegiack tone are very moanfully moving words out of a pulpit rhetorical enough for women not rational enough to satisfie any prudent man You professe you would preserve the Unity of the Apostolical Faith and primitive practises as entire as Christs body or garments Good Mr. Hammond leave mocking your Readers and tell us why the Primitive times must needs just end then when the Church began to flourish and the Fathers to write against your doctrine And as for Christs body or garments I see no such great respect in you or your Churches doctrine allow'd towards holy Reliques that I should be willing to trust those sacred pledges to your unhallowed hands from whose rude usage his mystical Body his Church Faith its Rule
would not think he intended to treat the question in earnest seeing him begin with so serious a Preamble In the first five Paragraphs there is not a word concerning our question to be taken notice of in quality of a difficulty being nothing but a moral Preface indifferent to either side Only I desire by way of Memorandum that we may reflect well upon and bear in mind that vertue of ready and filial obedience of those under authority to their lawfully authorized Superiors mentioned by him and extolled for a vertue of the first magnitude And the indifferent Reader will aâ— once both easily discern hereafter whether the present Catholicks who hear the Church and believe her in her Lawfully authoriz'd Governors or the first Reformers who without any and against all Authority disobeyed and disbelieved her have the better title to that eminent vertue and he will also wonder why the Doctor should face his Book with the Encomiums of that Vertue the bare explication whereof applyed to the carriage of the first Reformers must manifestly condemn them and quite confute and disgrace all Doctor Hammonds laborious endeavours But a pretence to a vertue if confidently carried on seems to the vulgar an argument of a just claim and high commendations of it makes the pretence more credible For who willingly praises but what is either his own or his friends or dispraises but what is his enemies Which makes him in the next three Paragraphs proceed in the same tenor of Rhetorick and from Scriptures and Fathers paint â—ut the horrid vice of Schism in her own ugly shape as that it is carnality self-condemning contrary to charity bereaving one of the benefits of prayers and Sacraments as bad as and the foundation of all heresies that there is scarce any crime the place cited is absolute that there is not any crime though he mince it with scarce so great as Schisme not Sacriledg Idolatry Parracide that it is obnoxious to peculiar marks of Gods indignation Antichristianism worshiping or serving the Devil not expiable by martyrdom it being according to Iraenâ—â—s impossible though the Dr. mitigates the dangerous expression with very hard if not impossible to receive such an injury or provocation from the Governors of the Church as may make a separation excusable And lastly impossible according to St. Austin that there should be any just cause for any to separate from the Catholick Church Instead of which last words the Doctor full of jealousies and fears puts the Church truely Catholick as if there were much danger lest perhaps any should imagin Christs Church of which I conceive St. Austin meant it to be untruly Catholick And now what good honest well-minded Reader not much acquainted with the Doctors manner of Rhetorick would be so unconscionable as to think him guilty of that vice which he so candidly and largely sets forth in its own colours although in those expressions which might too directly prejudice his future work he seems something chary And indeed I wonder for whose sake he hath gathered such a bundle of severe rods out of the sacred Scriptures and the best Fathers to whip Schismaticks Such expressions as I hope will strongly incite the Protestant Reader whom a true care of his eternal good may invite to seek satisfaction in this point seriously to consider that the decision of no one controversie is more nearly concerning his salvation than this as appears by the abominable character of Schisme which the Doctor hath with so much pains deciphered to be an Abridgement of all the most hainons damnable inexcusable unexpiable vices that can be named or imagin'd Of which Augaean stable if Mr. Hammond can purge the Protestant Church he shall ever wear the most deserved title of the Reformers Hercules But I am sorry to foresee that the more he handles his work the more the dirt will remain sticking upon his own fingers He proceeds or rather infers from the former Premises an irrefragable Conclusion as he calâ— it that the examination of the occasion cause or motive of any mans Schism is not worth the producing or heeding in this matter This besides the manifest advantage it gives us of which hereafter is the preâ—tiest fetch to wave the whole question and whatsoever is material in it that I ever met with That you are excommunicated or separated from the Communion of our Church whence as you say the Schisme springs all the world sees and acknowledges What remains then to justifie or condemn you or us but that there was or was not sufficient cause to cast you out and deny you Communion For that our Church had authority to do it if you be found to deserve it being then her subjects or children none doubts If then there were no cause our Church was tyrannical If there were you are truely and properly Schismaticks first in giving just cause of your own ejection next in remaining out of our Church still and not removing those impediments which obstruct your return This is most evidently the very point of the difficulty which being in great haste to shorten your method you would totally decline Make what haste you please so you take the question along with you For assure your self however you would avoid it now you cannot possibly treat it without examining the causes and motives of breaking as de facto you do afterwards Although if you can evidence that there is actually no Schisme made between us then indeed I must confess there can be no need of examining the causes of a thing that is not But it is impossible to make this seem evident without putting out ours your own and the whole worlds eyes But you desire only that the truth of the matter of fact be lookt into whether the charge of Schisme be sufficiently proved c. It is proved Mr. Doctor if you be proved to have so misbehaved your selves within the Church that to conserve he Government inviolate she was forced to our-law you from her Communion These are the motives and causes which you conscious of and very tenderly sensible in those parts would have us leave untouch'd But on this we shall insist more at large when the very handling the question forces you though unwilling to touch the occasions or causes of Schisme at least such as you thought fit and seem'd most plausibly answerable by the notes you had glean'd up and down to that purpose SECT 2 Concerning his Notion of Schisme and the Excommunication of the Church HIs second Chapter begins with the distinction of Heresie and Schisme concerning which what he hath said is true but yet he hath omitted some part of the truth which was necessary to be told Wherefore let him but take along with him that not only Schisme is a dissenting from Authority and Heresie an introducing a false doctrine into the Church but also that all heresie which it concerns his cause to be willing to pretermit must necessarily include
sure if I be not mistaken Doubtless then a Schismatical rejecting their Decrees and Authority is more hainous grievous and more worthy to be ranked amongst his fellow-Schisms then any of the others Yet of this in this Chapter where he expresly undertakes and prosesses to enumerate all the several sorts of Schism we hear not a syllable Thirdly What is become of Schism against the Head of the Church Is not the Papal Authority greater then the Authority of any Patriarch Primate Arch-Bishop Bishop Dr. Hammond or a Deacon Surely all imagin so but Dr. Hammond and his fellows why is this over-slipt then as if it were a matter of nothing But Dr. Hammond will answer That the Popes is not indeed an Authority but an Usurpation and therefore there can be no Schism against it To which I reply That I expect not that he should grant it here but since he knows very well and grants that the Papal Authority was in a long possession of this Island held and acknowledged then and still pretended to be sacred and of divine institution nay more since it is confessed by them that they rejected this Authority and that this rejection of it is objected to them by us as a far greater Schism than any of the other he mentious he ought at least have taken notice of it and shown in what degree of Schism the casting off such an Authority was to be reputed as being Chief and instituted by Christ unless he could manifest the pretended Authority of the Hope to be null and an Usurpation Moreover since it is the use of the multitude which makes words signifie and that three parts of four of those who bear the name of Christians if taken in the double extent or space both of time and place have acknowledged and called it a main Schism and greater then any the Doctor here reckons up to reject the Supream Authority of the Bishop of Rome the Doctor could not in reason avoid the mention of this so-commonly-called Schism unless he had first manifested that it was none Again to state the matter indifferently to both sides let us take the word Head of the Church as abstracted from an Ecclesiastical or Secular Governor that is from both Pope and Emperor or King nay if he pleases let us take it only in the later sence which is his I desire to know since the Emperor or King is according to him Supreme in Ecclesiastical affairs Head of the Church or Churches in his Dominions above Patriarchs and Primates c. why is not the denying this Authority a greater Schism even in his own grounds than a Schism against a Patriarch Deacon c. For the Authority of the Head rejected what means possible remain to reconcile and unite the members In omitting this therefore the Doctor hath neither been true to our Question nor his own Grounds In sum So wise a Logician is this Doctor of Divinity That whereas the Members of the division should adequately comprehend all the several sorts of the thing divided he has onely omitted the three principal Schisms against Government and those not onely principal in themselves but also solely importing the present Controversie and onely mentioned those which were not objected and so nothing at all concerning our Question Where I desire the Doctor to remember That all those Testimonies he hath huddled here together out of the Fathers against Petty-Schismaticks will light far heavier upon him and his fellows if they be found to have separated from the incomparably greater Authority of the whole Church and that not onely by a bare Schism but also which you here acknowledge to adde very much to the guilt of the former by an open and most manifest Sedition The rest of your Chapter is taken up is things which tend not at all to the Matter you purposed to handle that is To defend your Church against the Schisms we object which makes you also so ample and large in handling them You show therefore with a great deal of pains the particular dignities of Deacons Priests Bishops Arch-bishops Primates Patriarchs you tell us many things of the Seven Churches of Asia c. I will onely glean what may seem worth Animadversion treating it briefly because you speak it as you say by the way in passing and the question is not much concerned in it and omiting those Testimonies which are slightly objected here and come over and over again afterwards First then you affirm That the Roman Patriarchy extended not it self to all Italy which though a known untruth and which I have heard learned and unpassionate men of your own side acknowledge yet you will needs evince out of the obscure Testimony of one Ruffinus a discontented â—illy and barbarons Writer and if you blame me for excepting against him one of your late most extolled Writers Monsieur Daille shall defend me who characters Ruffinus to be An arrant Wooden statue a pitiful thing one that had scarce any reason in what he said and yet much less dexterity in defending himself yet you account here his Testimony very competent But how small soever the Popes Patriarchy be what is this to his Papal Authority since even we our selves acknowledge him a Private Bishop of Rome which yet prejudices not his Publick Authority as the Churches Universal Governor Your Testimony alleaged out of the Council of Chalcedon shall be answered hereafter when we come to discuss the Question of the Popes Authority as also your other out of the Council of Ephesus in its proper place where it is repeated Your other claw against the Pope is That these was none antiently above the Patriarchs but the Emperor which you think to evince because the Emperor made use of his secular Authority in gathering Councils And who denies but however the intention and ordering that great Affair belonged to the Popes yet the Emperors as being Lords of the world were fittest to command the execution of it But ere you can conclude hence against the Popes Authority over the Church you must first evince That the Emperors and the like may be said of Kings did this without the Popes signifying such their desires to them Next That if they did it sometimes against the Popes will or pretending it their proper power such an action or pretence of theirs was lawful And thirdly had it belonged to the Emperors which yet none grants you yet how will your consequence hold good That therefore the Pope hath no Authority over the Universal Church As if there were no other acts of an Universal Authority but to gather Councils which is all one as to say That the Kings of England could have no Universal Temporal Command or Jurisdiction in England but onely to call a Parliament All your Marginal Testimonies therefore which you here bring signifying no more to us But that the Emperor executed that business are far from making good the Position you alleage them for to wit
an indulgence or priviledge granted and given him by the Church in her Canons Which last is our tenet and most evidently visible in the very Testimonies alleaged against us His second Testimony for the two last were onely his over-sights or observations begins after the old strain thus And ACCORDINGLY the same Balsamon on Conc. Carthag Can. 16. doth upon that Canon professedly found the Authority of Princes 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to advance an Episcopal See into a Metropolis and a new to constitute Bishops and Metropolitans Thus far the Doctor Where he is over head and ears again in a grievous mistake for neither doth Balsamon found the Authority of Princes to execute such Acts as of their own power on that Canon there being not a word in it to that purpose Neither doth he PROFESSEDLY say any thing as of himself but that you are PROFESSEDLY mistaken And had he said it I conceive it no such strong Argument That a professed Adversary should speak so professedly against one But indeed neither he nor the Canon say any such matter The Canon not so much as names either Episcopal or Metropolical Seâ—s but the main business there treated is That Bishops and Priests should not live upon base occupations nor employ themselves in secular businesses Which Balsamon in his Scholion or Comment more elucidates from like prohibitions of other Patriarchs adding in the end out of other mens opinions and not his own profession these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But some say these Canons or Constitutions take place when any one who hath taken holy Orders shall exercise a secular Ministery without the command of the Emperor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. And they adde saith Balsamon that the King is neither under Laws nor Canons and therefore he may securely make a Bishoprick a Metropolis c. and anew constitute Bishops and Metropolitans Where the Reader may see he introduces this as a deduction of others and that from no other grounds then this A King is neither bound by Canons nor Laws that is his Will is his Law or he may do lawfully what he lists and then indeed these grounds supposed I blame not the inference that he should erect transplant nâ—y pull down not only Bishops and Patriarchs but the whole Hierarchy it self your present lot consequent to these your grounds Thus at length we have found the bottom-stone of the Doctors grounds Why Kings may erect Patriarchates by their proper power not to be Councils as he pretended but their own all-lawful inerrableness to do what they please let Councils Canons Parliaments and Laws say what they will to the contrary A foundation fitting indeed to build the Doctors Assertion upon but in all other respects able to ruine and overthrow both Laws Commonwealths Canons and Church In his fifteenth Section persisting still in his seigned supposal That the Popes power is onely Patriarchal he goes on to prove that the antiquity of translating Patriarchs and Bishops belongs to Kings as well as of erecting Of which he gives some instances in our Countrey of England By which what he means to prove I cannot easily conjecture If he intends that Kings did oft do such things I wonder who denies it but if they did it by their proper right without the order or consent either of the Apostolical See or the Ecclesiastical State of his own Bishops he brings not one word in proof but rather expresly manifests the contrary from the carriage of St. Anselm then Archbishop of Canterbury as learned and pious a Prelate as that age produced who as the Doctor confesses when the King would have cut off as much from the Diocess of Lincoln as would make a new Bishoprick at Ely Anselm wrote to Pope Paschalis desiring his consent to it assuring him he would not give his consent but salvâ authoritate Papae the authority of the Pope being secured Where you see plainly the Archbishops consent was necessary and that without it the Kings desire seemed controleable Next that the Archbishop himself even with the Kings authority to back him would not venture on it till the Pope's consent was asked Here then Mr. Doctor you have a positive Testimony of the gravest Prelate our Countrey hath ever been honored with refusing the sufficiency of the Kings sole authority to conclude such businesses without his and the Popes consent which therefore more justly challenges audience in the Court of Reason then all your dumb Negatives though they were a thousand more To conclude in what your Testimonies were Positive to wit that such things were done de facto so far we yeeld to them in what they are Negative tacitly inferring that because they were done and no mans right named therefore they were done de jure by the proper right of him that did them So far we allow them no credit at all First Because they might have been performed by the secular Authorities either with consent of the Bishops or some indulgent grant of the Church to pious Princes or by order from the Pope or else Concession of some former Council an example of which we had lately in the Council of Chalcedon Next because Histories intending onely to relate matters of fact mention rather those that put things in execution and more visibly appear in the transacting them such as are Secular Magistrates and stand not scanning or debating much by whose right things were done which belongs to Lawyers and would be but a by-discourse hindering the orderly process of their Narrative strain Thirdly because every one who hath the least smack of Logick knows A Negative Argument proves nothing such as are all yours here alleaged For this is the tenor of them Historians say Some Kings translated some Patriarchates and it is not mentioned they did it by the Churches power therefore they did it by their own which will be found in good Logick to fall very far short of concluding Lastly because the Church ever challenged as her own proper right asserted to her by the Canons the jurisdiction and power to intermeddle in businesses purely Ecclesiastical In his seventeenth Paragraph he proposes two other Objections of the same nature with the rest The first in common that the King could exempt from Episcopal Jurisdiction which he says is largely asserted and exemplified in Coudrayes case 5 Report 14. And truly the Doctor is to be commended for his fair and sincere expression For it is indeed meerly asserted and exemplified without the least shadow of proof In the first example there alleaged King Kenulphus is said to have exempted a Monastery Consilio consensis Episcoporum Senatorum Gentis suae which was no instance of power in him unless it was also in the Bishops and Nobles That he could not or would not do it without their agreement The exemption of Reading Abbey by Henry the First argues no authority he being the Founder of it and not bound to give his goods to the Church
who denies it Therefore what Ergo Kings are supreme in Ecclesiastical affairs How follows that since the onely word is wanting to wit supreme which can make good the inference The affairs of the Head depend on the Arms and Shoulders therefore will the Doctor infer they are supreme or highest as though dependence could not be both mutual and unequal It must needs argue a Soul very empty of reason to catch thus at every shadow of any aery word and think to deduce thence a full sentence The fourth is from Optatus noting it as a schismatical piece of language in the Donatists to say Quod Imperatori cum Ecclesiâ What has the Emperor to do with the Church citing for it his second Book But though perhaps I may be mistaken in not seeing so small a Testimony I finde no such thing in that place he quotes Indeed I finde that ancient Father arguing like a present Catholike calling the Doctor Schismatick and quite confuting and contradicting all his book saying Negare non potes scire te in urbe Româ PETRO PRIMO Cathedram Episcopalem esse collatam in quâ sederit omnium APOSTOLORUM CAPUT PETRUS Thou canst not deny that in the City of Rome the Episcopal Chair was given to PETER THE FIRST in which sate PETER THE HEAD OF ALL THE APOSTLES Then he proceeds to reckon up all the Popes of Rome successors of S. Peter till Pope Siricius who lived in his days Cum quo nobis totus orbis in commercio Formatorum in unâ Communionis societate concordat With whom the whole world agrees in one society of Communion by correspondence of communicatory Letters And afterwards probatum est nos esse in Ecclesiâ Sanctâ Catholicâ per Cathedram Petri quae nostra est per ipsam caeteras Dotes apud nos esse etiam Sacerdotium It is proved that we are in the holy Catholike Church by the chair of Peter which is ours what will become of the Doctor who can lay no claim nor hath any right to it nay hath disclaimed its right and who findes here a reason why we may justly be called Roman Catholikes It follows and by the chair of Peter other gifts are also with us even Priesthood Alas poor Doctor Hammond who having lost Communion with that Church hath lost also his Priesthood Mission and power to preach if this holy Father say true What hard fortune it was that Optatus lived not in the primitive times for then the Doctor had believed him and turned Papist but in regard he wrote after the three hundreth year the fatal period of any certain truth in Gods Church as the Doctor afterwards intimates he hath quite lost his labour and his Authority is invalid for writing Truth so late As for the Testimony it self which probably is this Fathers in some other place I see no difficulty at all in it For the Emperor being a nursing Father to the Church whose secular power she invoked to punish and repress such as were the Donatists none but Schismaticks would deny that power so granted to be sufficiently Authoritative to punish their pernicious Apostasie Then follow six Testimonies out of heathen writers all in a cluster that their Kings ought to be Priests and Augurs c. and the Doctor would have the example transfer'd to Christianity Indeed if Iesus Christ had not come from heaven to found a Church and besides what hath been said of St. Peters Primacy left it under the Government of Ecclesiastical persons the Apostles committing all jurisdiction in affairs of that nature to them without dependence of any secular superior then for any thing I know we might have come ere this to have been in statu quo prius that is Heathens again and so the Doctors Argument might have ta'ne place But if Christ founded a Church upon Apostles Ecclesiastical persons without the help of secular supports leaving all power both of Ordination and Iurisdiction to it the Doctor must either prove no disparity between the sacred oeconomy of Christs House and the Babel of heathenism or else grant his parity improper and absurd I never imagin'd there was any such extraordinary holiness in the heathenish Rites but a secular power might serve to perform and overlook them And as the reason why they were used by the Emperors was onely because their mock-Religion was nothing but a policy to delude and bridle the vulgar so if Christian Religion were nothing but a trick of State-policy it would do very well indeed in a secular Princes hands to alter and fashion it to the mold of the peoples humors But our all-wise God hath dealt more prudently with his Church encharging his sacred Mysteries and the Churches-Government to those persons whose very state of life being purely dependent on God and his service secures them from being cross-byass'd by worldly interests and secular pretences Yet the Doctor is so deeply immers'd in Schism that he relishes and fancies better the Pope-destroying example of heathen policy then the ever-sacred and heaven-instituted Government of Christianity His eleventh instance is from David who order'd the courses of the Priests and Solomon who consecrated the Temple but the Doctor may consider that David and Solomon were Prophets as well as Kings and so no wonder if according to the more particular prudence given them by God they did something extraordinary Neither doubt I but if nowadays any King were both a Saint and a Prophet it were very convenient he should assist and instruct the Church in a more particular way and yet not thank his Kingly Dignity for that Authority neither But indeed neither David nor Solomon shewed any strain of a higher Jurisdiction Their greater zeal might invite them and their exacter knowledge make their assistance requisite to order the courses of the Priests And as for Solomons Consecrating the Temple it was performed by offering Sacrifice which he himself offer'd not but the Priests so as his Consecrating it was nothing else but his causing them to Consecrate it A pittiful proof that Kings are over the Church in Ecclesiastical affairs His twelfth Testimony is of Hezekiah and Iosiah who ordered many things belonging to the Temple So wonderfully acute is this Doctor that no King can do a pious deed or even scarce say his Prayers but his honor-dropping-pen streight way entitles him Head of the Church His thirteenth is of St. Paul who saith he appealed from the judgement of the chief Priests to the Tribunal of Caesar. So as now Caesar a Heathen Emperor is become Head of the Church nay of two Churches according to Master Hammond the Heathenish and the Christian. But the good Doctor is most grievously mistaken here as he hath been almost in every place of Scripture he hath yet produc't I observe that though he be pretty good at mistaking all over his Book yet when he omes to alleadge any thing out of Gods Word he errs far more accurately For St. Paul appealed
Sacraments Government nor any thing though never so sacred left by our Saviour hath found any security SECT 3. An examination of some common notes produced by Dr. Hammond to particularize his Clients to bee no Schismaticks HIs 9th Ch. undertakes to clear his Church from the 2d sort of his Schism against mutual â—â—arity to wit from that Schism which is against extern Peace or Communion Ecclesiastical And first he alledges for his plea that they have retain'd the right form of Government c. So that now Schism against Subordination or Government for they are all one which was the first general Head of Schism and also comprehended under the first species of the second Head as appeares C. 8. S. 2. is by the Doctors accurate method come to be under the second species also of the same second General Head Which is all one as if dividing vivens into Sensitive and Insensitive and then subdividing the Genus of Sensitive into the two Species of Rational and Irrational or Man and Beast he should first treat of Insensitive the first Genus and that done fall in hand with Sensitive the second and then under each Species of that returne to treat professedly of Insensitive again that is to speak of Trees Shrubs and Herbs when he should speak of men and creatures endued with sence Surely Doctor Hammond is more methodical in his Sermons otherwise the World must needs look upon him as another S. Iohn Baptist because hee preaches in a Wilderness But let us follow him through all his Mazes distinguish't by no orderly path but what his own inconstant and desultorious track makes First then he tells us that they retaiâ— the Form of Government in and under which the Apostles â—ounded Ecclesiastical Assemblies or Communion viz. that of the Bishop and his inferioâ— Officers in every Church As if the Arian Hereticks who denied Christ to be God and almost all heresies that ever broke from Gods Church did not retain afterwards the Authority of their own Bishops But what availed it either them or you but to the greater danger of damnation if you adhered to those Bishops who had rejected the Authority of their former Superiours and taught you doctrines contrary to the Order of Gods Church without whose order much lesse against it they had no Authority to teach at all Again you tell us of one piece of your Government that of Bishops constituted indeed by the Apostles but you tell us not of the main hinge of your Churches Government which is of the King being its Head and Supreme in Ecclesiastical matters This is the sum and top of your Churches Government put us not off with an odd end of it This is that for substituting which in stead of the Ecclesiastical Head you rejected wee charge you of Schism and breach of Communion Ecclesiastical for in so doing you cut Gods Church into as many single headed and consequently diverse-bodied and disparate Congregations as there are Kingdoms in Christendome Shew us that this your Novelty in Government was practised by the Apostles in their Assemblies or instituted by them or their Blessed Master and then you will say something to the point Remember your purest times of the first 300. yeares shew us that all that time the Church was ordered by the Emperours Presidency or that this Government was instituted by Christ and his Apostles If you cannot then tell us how comes it to be held now as a chief point of Faith You may not in reason think to uphold your self your by testimonies out of the following ages unles you wil disavow your own grounds for those ages were as you say all impure Lay your hand then on your heart Mr. Hammond and tell us in good sadness if you be not gravell'd in your own doctrine while you maintain this new Lay Ecclesiastical Government His second plea is that as they maintain the Order of Bishops so they submit to the exercise of it acknowledging the Authority of those Governors In answer to which no new thing is to be said this being the very same with the former only First changed into Secondly For the obeying submitting to and acknowledging the due Authority of Governours is the very formal maintaining and accepting the Government which was his first branch So as this is another orderly production of the Drs. methodical Head which vents it selfe in first secondly thirdly c. upon all occasions though both his first second and third bee the selfe-same formal thing His third plea is that they observe the circumstances necessary to the assembling themselves for publick worship First that of place Churches Secondly that of time the Lords day primitive Festivals As if all Schismaticks in the World doe not meet at some set times and in some appointed and set places Thirdly Formes of prayer and praises almost all out of our Mass and Breviary Celebration of Sacraments onely five of them being quite abolish't and three quarters of the sixth Sacramentals Copes and Surplisses which you might by the same principles call rags of Rome Preaching against Christ and his Church such doctrine as none ever sent you or your first Fore-fathers to preach Cathechising infecting and imbuing tender and easie minds with your tainted doctrine Fourthly that of Ceremonies such as the practice of the Primitive Church hath sent down recommended to us Pray by whom did she send them down and recommend them to you Examine wel and you shall find that the same authority recommended to you many more as from her though you only accepted of what you thought convenient Lastly that of discipline to binde all to these performances Doubtlesse all Sects in the world impose some obligation upon their subjects to keep them together else they could not bee a Sect. Yet that your tie either to that or any thing else concerning Government is as slack as may be is manifest out of the slender provision made against Schism according to the Protestant grounds See Part 3. Sect. 1. as I have shewn in my answer to the fore-going Chapter Neither are you beholding to your doctrine for any discipline sufficient to hold you together in Unity a professed fallibility is too weak for that but to the secular Power the threat of whose sword held you in awe for a while but as soon as that Power was dissolv'd your slack-sinew'd Church which no tie either in Reason or Conscience held together bewrayed its composition and like the statue seen by Nabuchadonosor fell all to pieces It were not amiss ere I leave these three pleas already mentioned to take a second survey of them that the Reader may visibly perceive how less than nothing this Doctor hath said either to his or indeed any purpose To make this discovery sincere we must mark his intent and scope in this Chapter which is to free or clear their Church from the breach of Commmunion Ecclesiastical which he makes to consist in such and such things Now
a man that goes about to clear another of an imputed fault should as I conceive propose the objected fault with the presumptions of the defendants guiltiness and then diluere objecta wipe off the stain of the accusations and clear his innocencie What does the Dr he takes no notice of what is objected but in stead of that onely reckons up some few indifferent things which their Church hath not rejected and sure it were a hard case if they had rejected all which their Forefathers taught them and then thinks the deed done In particular he tells us first that they retain the Government of Bishops but why they have innovated a new Church-government making the King Head in Ecclesiastical matters or why they obey those Bishops who can derive their mission of doctrine from no former Church or Authority which only are the things objected to them as schism of these two points hee sayes nothing That they now obey their Bishops he tells us but why they obey'd not him or why they cast out his Authority whom they held before to bee the Chief-Bishop that 's a matter not worth clearing The Pope's Antichrist and ther 's an end Then he clears his side from Schism because they assemble in Churches but he never considers that wee charge them with plain Sacriledge for meeting there and deatining those places anciently ours and built by us out of the true owners hands and applying them to prophane uses All that with him is very laudable and needs no clearing either from injustice or sacriledge He clears their Church of Schism because they observe yet some Festivals and the like may bee said of Sacramentals and Ceremonies but considers not that the schism consists in this that they at their own voluntary pleasure refusing some and admitting others denied consequently obedience to that Authority which recommended both unto them and which disobedience their own grounds condemnes as shall presently bee shewed He cleares his Church of Schism by alledging they observe some form of Prayer but never takes notice that the crime wee object to them is this that they ruin'd Religious houses to build dwelling Halls so they mangled our Holy and ancient Service-books to patch up their reformed piece of the book of Common-prayer leaving out all the most sacred parts of it to wit Canon Missae and what ever concerned the Heaven-propitiating Sacrifice that highest and soul-elevating Act of Religion and onely taking out of it those sleighter things which might satisfie the lowersiz'd devotion of their reformed spirits and was enough to serve them to cry Lord Lord. He brings as a proofe of their innocencie from schism that they have celebration of Sacraments Preaching and Catechizing c. But thinks it not worth clearing that of seven Sacraments they have retain'd onely the substance of one and the shadow of another Nor ever considers whether their doctrine be true or false All is one for that with the Doctor if they doe but preach pray and catechise let it be what it will it is a certain note that they are no schismaticks Lastly hee puts as an argument to cleare them from schism that they have some Discipline to bind to these performances c. that is they use some little wit or meanes to maintain their schism and hold their tribe together but he waves that for which onely we accuse them of Schism to wit that they utterly renounced all the discipline and even all ground of it in that Church of which theirs was once a member and fancied to themselves a new one without any ground of Authority and with direct opposition and contempt of the former discipline Nor hath he onely in this present endeavour to clear his Church of Schism omitted the very mentioning those matters which were to be cleared but even the things he alledges as whose retaining hee makes account frees their Church from schism are such pitifull ordinary businesses so indifferent to all or most schismaticks and hereticks that they can no way particularize them to be none or exempt them from the common crue of their fellowes For what schism ever arose but had some kind of government or discipline had their meetings in some set places at some set times pray'd in their own new way preach't taught and catechiz'd their own doctrine So as the Doctor might with â—ar better Logick have concluded the Protestants no schismaticks because they have all noses on their faces this being common to Catholikes as well as Schismaticks and so might seem partly to excuse them whereas the other of admitting such points and no more which are the Doctors notes of his Church are disclaimed by all Catholikes and common to almost all Schismaticks Nay some schismaticks and hereticks have retained much more of what their Ancestors taught them as Lutherans some almost all points as the Greeks and the old Arians the latter of which excepting their one heresie against Christs divinity had twenty times more markes of a Church in all other things than the Drs could ever pretend to Fourthly hee assures us that the Popes Authority is an usurpation and the use of more ceremonies and Festivals an imposition of the Romanists How so Mr. Doctor if the Supremacy of the Bishop of Rome was brought in 900. yeares agoe when Pope Gregory sent to convert our Forefathers to Christs faith as your selfe and your followers grant then how is it an usurpation of the present Romanists Were wee who now live alive 900. yeares agoe or are they who lived 900. years ago alive now But in regard you onely say it and bring no proof I shall not trouble my self in vouchsasing you an answer As for the imposition of more ceremonies which you say the present Romanists used towards you without any authority from the Primitive Church it is so silly so contrary both to our grounds and your own also that you make your selfe ridiculous to any man that understands either one or the other For since the institution of Ceremonies is one of the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or things indifferent left to the ordering of Gods Church as both the 20th Article of the new English Creed expressely determines and all moderate Protestants hold I wonder why our Church should not when she saw convenient ordain new Ceremonies and the like may bee said of new Festivals which are things indiferent also and recommend the observation and practice of them to you who were then members of that Church her subjects and children Most lawfully then did our Church even in your own grounds in imposing new Ceremonies on you her then-subjects and if so as unlawfully did you in spurning against her Ordinances Neither consequently can those few you retain upon your own head and not her Authority excuse you from Schism Equally absurd is your zealous profession of conforming your selves in ceremonies to the Primitive times for if the Church hath Authority upon emergent conveniences and difficulties to institute new Ceremonies and
have omitted the two chief branches of Schism and most of all made use of by us against you to wit Schism from the whole body of the Church and from its highest Tribunal The General Councils which wee as freshly and more chiefly charge upon you than any of the â—est The Last SECT Our Objection that the pretended Church of England is now invisible maintained and asserted to be just SChism being thus establish't as legitimate and laudable the Patron of it resolvs to prosecute his Project home and therefore strives in this last Chapter to wipe off any prejudice arising from their present distractions and persecutions the proper effects of their Schism The occasion seemes taken from some of our side calling them The late Church of England as if now a FUIT were put to their former being by their present misfortune Our advantage offer'd from thence hee formes and that rightly in to this objection that it is absolutely necessary to communicate with some one visible Church that now the Church of England is not such and consequently the Church of Rome so illustriously visible must be taken up in stead of it Thus far abstracting from the partiality in his manner of expression wee both agree In answer to which the Doctor alledges first That a member of the English Church was not under this guilt of not communicating with some one visible Church twenty yeares agoe and consequently unlesse he have contracted this guilt since by commission or omission of something hee can no more bee charged with the Crime now than formerly All this while the Doctor is in a mistake and runs on very currantly but quite out of his way For we doe not object this present condition to them as a crime or guilt rather that which was twenty yeares and more ago was their crime and this their punishment but as a different state from the former or indeed more truly the want of a State For twenty yeares agoe though they wanted the substance yet they had at least a shadow or Ghost of a Church which might delude the eyes of the simple but now even that has disappear'd and vanish't into Aire Our advantage not taken but offer'd from thence is this that as before they had a shew of a Church so their adherents whose weaker eyes could not distinguish substance from shadow might have then some shadow of motive or excuse for remaining in it and not returning to us but now this fayery apparition being gone not even so much as the least resemblance of a motive is left to lead them through the wayless path of their dark doctrine or hinder them from returning to the common beaten road of their Ancestors The objection of this then is not vain as the Dr. imagins since a new and stronger motive offer'd deserves in reason a new distinct and fresh proposal I grant therefore Mr. Dr. that it is not your choice crime or offence to bee in this misery though it bee your fault that you were brought into iâ— it bring a connatural punishment orderly subsequent to the vice of Schism as shall afterwards be shewn And the present invisibility of your Church is never the lesse true and real though we admit it be your misfortune not your crime since a ship may as well bee cast away in an unavoydable storme as by the negligence of the Pilot Neither doe I take it to be the saddest part of your infelicity as you call it but rather the greatest happiness that Gods sweetly-chastising mercy could have sent you that by weighing your present dissolution and the causes of it you may retrive your wandrings and recollect all your scatter'd and distracted members into the ever-firmly United Body of the holy Catholike Church Thirdly for the Doctor was so eagerly zealous to clear his twenty-years-ago Protestant that hee put first and thirdly but quite forgot secondly he runs on in his errour that wee impute this state of their Church to the Protestant as a guilt from which he goes about to clear him For if he hath contracted this guilt saies the Dr. it must be by some irregularity of actions contrary to the standing Rule Canons of this Church whereas I conceive it very regularly consequent to your new Canons that you should fall into this very condition you now groan under For your Rule and Canons granting the Authority of the Secular Power to be the BASIS of your Reformation Head of the Church-Government Supreme in Ecclesiastical matters and your onely defence and excuse when wee ask you upon what Authority you left us it is natural and imbred in the very primogenial Constitution of your Church that it should be dissolvable at the pleasure of the same power which set it up It is not therefore the standing to the Rule and Canons of your Church which secures you in a firm and immutable perpetuity but those very grounds are they which engage you in a fleeting and perpetual mutability You applaud with your Encomiums the Protestant that hath actually lost his possessions liberty c. rather than depart from his rule which truly I conceive a very irrational action in him and deserving more pity than commendations For the 39. Articles being the most distinct Rule Protestants have one of which defines that General Councils both can Erre and have erred whence follows a fortiori that their own Meeting where these Articles their Rule were made being at most but a Provincial Assembly is much more lyable to errour I see no reason why hee shold lose the certain possession of present goods for maintaining an uncertain opinion especially since hee holds salvation can bee had in other Sects as appeares by Dr. Hammonds admitting all whom hee calls Christians to his Communion And if the Doctor reply it was their conscienciousness to hold what they supposed true I answer their conscience is imprudently govern'd whilst it instigates them to professe with their own so great disadvantage and loss what they had no obligation to hold for none can be oblig'd to the beleef of a point which himself those who propose it are uncertain whether it be true or no. Though if I be not misinform'd the greater part of your suffering-fellow-Protestants have had more wit and most commonly were put out upon other pretences than their Religion Thus far the Doctor hath proceeded clearing himselfe from the want of a visible Church imagining we object it a guilt or crime whereas we only propose it and more urgingly press it to the consideration of the misled Protestants as a decay corruption annihilation of the former visible shadow of a Church and the occasion of a new fault in them that having lost their own they return not to ours out of which they confesse they came and of which they protested theirs to be a member In the next place hee tells us that as yet Blessed bee God the Church of England is not invisible it is preserved
in Bishops and Presbyters rightly ordained and multitudes rightly baptized none of which have fallen off from their profession Where the last words are most certainly true if he means that none of those who yet stand have as yet fallen off which I conceive is his meaning for all these who have not stood have fal'n off which are enow to shew of what mettal their Church was made and whether more have fal'n or stood let the Doctor judge But as for the rest of his selfe-congratulation it is a miserable piece of self flattery and which his own grounds quite discountenance For if a Church be a Congregation of the Faithful and Faith as S. Paul argues comes by hearing hearing from preaching preaching from mission or being sent which mission is an Act of Iurisdiction it follows that if their Bishops and Presbyters have now no Iurisdiction then the Protestants have neither lawful mission preaching hearing faith nor consequently Church Now that they can claim no Iurisdiction followes out of their own grounds for when we urge them upon what Authority they cast off the former Ecclesiastical Superior governing Gods Church in chief they run for their defence to the secular Power to which they attribute supreme Iurisdiction in matters Ecclesiastical within this Island It is acknowledg'd saith the Dr. C. 7. S. 2. that the Papal Power in Ecclesiastical Affaires was both by Acts of Convocation of the Clergy and of Parliament cast out of this Kingdome Thus you see he recurs to a power meerly secular in the Parliament for renouncing and abolishing a spiritual power and Jurisdiction held before greater than ever the Protestant Prelacy was imagin'd Meerly secular I say for the Doctor confesses here that it is easie to believe that nothing but the apprehension of dangers which hung over them could probably have inclined the Clergy to that their first Act And how great influence this apprehension of danger might have over the secular part of the Parliament is easie to be determined since they saw the gravest Patriot in the Kingdome in danger of death for holding against the Kings new pretended Title and many others for the same respect most cruelly persecuted A Parliament therefore meerly of Seculars and those such as can in no wise be presum'd free was held by you of sufficient Authority to renounce a Jurisdiction deemed formerly much higher and known to bee almost ten times longer setled in possession than your Prelacy I see not therefore why a secular power should not bee in your grounds sufficient to abolish a jurisdiction which onely leaned and relied on a secular support But what was done in King Henry's dayes being disannul'd again by both the spiritual and secular power in Queen Maries Reign must necessarily bee held of you invalid if you will goe consequently to your own grounds Let us then examine the resurrection of your Church by a Parliament held in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth In which Parliament to omit the small title the Queen had to the Crown being born of a second bedfellow whilst King Henry's former Wife was yet alive and declared illegitimate both by the whole Parliament and her own Fathers Act were wanting the spiritual Lords the Bishops who were for their Religion kept at that time in prison For which reason when a Quere was raised about the beginning of the late long Parliament whether Acts made without Bishops were valid it is said to have been resolved affirmatively upon this ground because otherwise the Protestant Religion voted by a Parliament in which was no Bishops would be invalid also I see not then what great advantages could be in that Parliament to Vote out the greater Authority of the Pope or give your new-made Bishops ordained God knowes how Iurisdiction but the same may be pretended by a succeeding Parliament to deprive them and set up a new Form of their own Certain it is that you acknowledge the Secular Power for the Source and first Fountain of your Iurisdiction Since then the present Secular Power has put a stop to your father Ordination and disannul'd your former Iurisdiction your own grounds conclude you de facto no Church for if you have no Iurisdiction you can have no influence of power over the Layity and so no spiritual Common wealth made up of Bishop as Head and Pastour and of the Layity as body and flock And as for the present this general suspension should we say no more of your Ecclesiastical power makes you de facto no Church so in time the very inward right it selfe which you pretend may be justly extinguish't For since your Jurisdiction confessedly depends on the secular Authority it followes if this be suspended or abolish't that must needs share in the same fate Now all the world agrees that not onely the possession of a secular power may be interrupted by force but the Right it selfe in time be absolutely lost and the new Government however at first introduc't be at length purged of its original blemishes into a clear and unquestionable Title In which case certainly your Church would be no more visible in England than it is now at Geneva Which sufficiently differences your condition from that of the Primitive Christians or the present English Catholikes they claiming a Jurisdiction underived from the secular power In vain therefore would it be to tell us their Character remains and therfore they are stil Bishops and Presbyters since the character can only entitle them to a name the thing being gone to wit their power of Iurisdiction and consequently their Mission For if they have no Authority to teach and preach more than the Layity they are level'd into an equal pitch with them so as now they cannot bee said to bee a body but a company of mutually distracted parts not an orderly Church or Congregation but a rude and indigested Chaos of Confusion It is not then Mr. Doctor your serving God in private Families which wee object to you for being an invisible Church which you run upon in your 5. Sect. but that which your self confesse here that Now all Order Form Bishops and Liturgy is thrown out of your Church together It is your want of Pastoral and Episcopal Authority which makes us conclude you no Church Yet so good is your Logick that in the next paragraph you think though Bishops be abolish't yet in case this come not through your fault it cannot be charged against you so as though all Prelacy and Superiority be taken away that is though there be none that have power to preach and teach and all be reduc'd into an equally-level'd Anarchy yet as long as it happens not through your fault yen are still a Church As if Doctor Hammond should say though his body were cut into millions of incoherent Atomes yet as long as this happens not through his fault it is still a well-ordered Body ID EST it is still Hammond The parts of Gods Church are compacted into a
not onely overthrown ours but all Religion not onely acquitted your self of Schism but also quite taken away all possibility of being a Schismatick since no Authority can with any face or conscience oblige to a belief of which her self is not certain But I doubt not you make your self sure of the conquest not apprehending any but Saints and Angels in Heaven and God himself to be infallible To which you adde of your own invention impeccable as your custom is never to speak of our Tenet without the disgraceful addition of some forged calumny or other imposed upon us But that none else should be infallible except those you mention I much wonder I thought the Apostles had been also infallibly assisted when they pen'd the sacred Writ and peach'd the Gospel I thought also our Saviour when he sent them to teach and promised them his assistance had said He would remain with them always even till the end of the world that is with the succeeding Church I thought there had been some means to be infallibly-certain that such and such Books were Gods Word and genuine Scripture without an Angel Saint or Christs coming from Heaven or the Doctors private-spirited opinion which he will call God Neither do I doubt but the Doctor himself will grant it impossible That all the Protestants in England should be fallible or mistake in witnessing whether twenty years ago there were Protestant Bishops or no and that such was the Tenet and Government of their Church at that time Yet a thousand timeâ— greater evidence have we of the indefectibility of the Churches Faith and her infallibility As you may to your amazement see if you will but open your eyes in that incomparable Treatise of Rushworth's Dialogues vindicated from all possible confute by that excellent Apology for it writ by the learned Pen of Mr. Thomâ—â— White in his Friends behalf whose Dialogues he set forth enlarged and defended against your acute Friends Faulkland and Digby Persons who did not use to treat Controversies iâ— such a dreaming shallow way as it hath been your misfortune to do here nor stand Preaching to their adversary when they should Dispute To these Dialogues and their Apology I refer you that you may know what to do if you confute them solidly and demonstrate plainly That our Church is liable to Error you will eternally silence us and clear your selves But take heed you bring not whimpering probable may-be's and onely-self-granted suppositions for proofs These might serve your turn in your first Book which might hope for the good fortune to scape without answering but in your second and after you are told of it it will fall short of satisfactory Remember Mr. Hammond that you granted â— cheerful obedience and submission of your judgments and practices to your Superiors under penalty oâ— not being deemed true Disciples of Christ. If this be real as I wish it were then what easier condescension and deference to the judgment of Superiors can be imagined then to submit oneâ— private judgment when he has onely probability to the contrary Evidence therefore demonstrable evidence you must give in of the Churches erring ere your pretence that you were obliged by her to subscribe to Errors can take place and so excuse you from Schism But as your profession of the obligation you have to submit your judgment to the Church renders your probable Reasons insufficient to fall to judge her so God be praised your own self acknowledged fallibility will secure us from the least fear of your Demonstrations Yet unless you do this you undo your cause for if the Church could not erre she could need no reforming So that your Preaching of Reformation is vain your Faith vain and by consequence your selves Schismaticks and an Ace more SECT 4. Concerning the ground of Unity groundlesness of Schism and of Dr. Hammonds manner of arguing to clear himself of the later ALl that is material in the Doctors second Chapter is sum'd up in these two heads that the Church does ill in obliging men to subscribe against their present perswasion and That the Church which they left was erroneous and so obliged them to the subscription of Errors Upon these two notes as on a base-ground he runs division all along this Chapter repeating them so often in each Paragraph that I was forced to omit my intended method at present not making a Countet-sermon to each in order but bringing together his dispersed Doctrine into Heads and then confuting them not doubting but the Leaves and Branches which counterfeit some small flourish of devotion will quickly fade into Hypocrisie when the sapless roots are pluckt up from their rotten ground The former of them hath been discovered in the former Section to be worse then weak his manner of arguing from the second shall be laid open in this But because I perceive Mr. Hammond very much unacquainted with our grounds why our Church obliges her sons to rest in her belief and continue in her Communion thinking her doubtless very discourteous that will not leâ— her subjects in civility as the modest and moderate Church of England does hold and do what they list I will at present undeceive him somewhat in that point having a better occasion to do it more largely hereafter First The Doctor stumbles much and as Ignorance iâ— ever the Mother of admiration thinks Master Knot 's Inference very strange that the Church iâ— infallible otherwise men might forsake her Communion Whereas on the contrary I not onely think it strange to infer otherwise but as great an absuâ—dity as can be imagined for why may not meâ— forsake the Communion of the Church if they may forsake her Doctrine since it is impossible to preserve the former if he renounce the latter and why may they not forsake her Doctrine if she have no Power nor Authority â—o tie them to the belief of it and how can she have any Authority to binde them to the belief of it if she her self knows not certainly whether it be true oâ— no that is be not infallible Or what man living who hath so much wit as to raise or understand the difficulty can possibly so degenerate from Reason which is his nature as to submit it in believing things above his Reason and which concern his eternal Salvation upon such an Authority as may perhaps lie and so damn him for believing her since Without true Faith it is impossible to please God Hence follows by an inevitable consequence that since the Church pretends and hath ever pretended to have a Promise from Christ of a perpetual assistance from Error if Christ have made good that promise that is if she be infallible then her obliging her sons to rest in her Faith is most plainly evidenced to be charitable just and necessary because in that case it were both mens obligation and also their greatest good to believe so qualified a Mistress Whereas on the other side any other Congregation
be wiser in interpreting Scripture then all the world besides and who will not stick when they want better shifts to delude your eyes with obtruding their own forgeries and sillilycritical explications as doth this Doctor for most absolute EVIDENCES Awake then as you tender your Souls endless good or misery awake and let these gross-absurdities with which they impose upon you rouze you from the Lethargy of such an easie credulity Wisely bethink your selves in time how unsafe it is to relie on the bare Authority of their slippery interpretations and relinquish the sence of the whole Catholick world Which both possesses a thousand Motives they dare not lay claim to and even in their own pretence which is the right interpreting of Scripture ought in all reason to have infinite advantages Of this dear Reader I thought good to admonish thee by the way in which if I may seem to have said too much the Doctor will make my words good in the process of this work and if I have now complain'd for nothing he will give me cause ere he ends this Chapter to complain for something But ere I proceed I desire the Reader to heed attentively what is in question and what is granted It is granted that Saint Peter preach'd to those of the Circumcision or Jews and for the more particular fruit which by Gods especial assistance he found and the more pains he took amongst them was called their Apostle As also that St. Paul preached to the Gentiles and for the greater cooperation he experienced of Gods assistance in that work which made him more particularly addict himself to them he thence had the appellation of the Apostle of the Gentiles as he himself clearly explicates himself in the place the Doctor alleages Gal. 2. 7 8. where he gives the reason why the Jews more particularly belonged to St. Peter and the Gentiles to him in these words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 For he that wrought with Peter for the Apostleship of the Circumcision wrought with me also â—…mongst the Gentiles Where the particle Forâ—… manifestly renders the reason why these tâ—… Apostles were more properly particularized 〈◊〉 these two parts of the world to wit by 〈◊〉 other designation then the more especial câ—â—operation of Gods efficacious assistance as 〈◊〉 yet more plainly shown in the ninth Verse 〈◊〉 the same Chapter This therefore is evideâ—… and out of question That St. Peter more peculiarly applied himself to the Jews and St. Paul to the Gentiles at least in the beginning of the Church That which is in question thâ—… is whether the Jews were so particularly St. Peters Province that his Authority was limited to them so that he neither did nor coulâ—… intermeddle in the conversion of the Gentileâ—… that is had no jurisdiction over them anâ—… the contrary of St. Paul This is the Doctoâ—… Position from whence he takes his first Evidence against St. Peters Universal Pastorship That this Apostle was Apostles of the Circumcisiâ—… or Iews Exclusively to the Uncircumcision or Gentiles Which Assertion is so shamelesly false sâ—… expresly-opposite to all Scripture and ancient History that it was not possible for a man to invent a Paradox so totally unwarrantable and improbable as this Nay more I promisâ—… the Reader and Mr. Hammond too That if amongst those many Testimonies he produces to prove it there be but found any one sentence line word syllable or letter which excludeâ— St. Peters Authority from the Gentiles more then what this man puts in his of own head I will be content to yeeld him the whole Controversie And may not a Doctor of Divinity be asham'd such a proffer should be made him in those very proofs of his which he would bear the Reader in hand are most perfect Evidences And first his pretended place of Scripture â—al â— 7. which we have before explicated â—nely says That the Apostleship of the Iews or Circumcision was committed to St. Peter but â—hat it was of the Iews onely or none but them â—o as by the particular Commission to convert â—â—em he lost or was excluded from any jurisdiction over the Gentiles which is the Doctors â—ffertion and can onely advantage his cause â—…ere is neither in that place nor any where â—…se the least syllable Whereas it is impossible 〈◊〉 should not see that the contrary to wit that 〈◊〉 Peter both had Authority and did preach 〈◊〉 the Gentiles was as manifest in Scripture as 〈◊〉 Sun at Noon-day half the eleventh Chapâ—… of the Acts being employed in a most exâ—…ss Narration of St. Peters vision exhorâ—…ing â—…n to preach to the Gentiles which he accordingly did and went immediately by an espeâ—… Mission of God to convert Cornelius a Genâ—… where he preached to him and his whole â—…se As also St. Peter in the Council at Ieruâ—…m affirmed saying 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 God hath chosen amongst us that the Gentiles should hear the â—…d of the Gospel by my mouth and believe What 〈◊〉 we think now of this Doctor who puts â—…vident out of Scripture that St. Peter had no authority to preach to the Gentiles where as the Scripture expresly says He was chose out of the rest and particularly authorized so that end Is this man fit to be accounted 〈◊〉 expounder of Gods Word who thus wilfull perverts and purposely contradicts it Besides if St. Peter were made Apostle 〈◊〉 the Jews Exclusively to the Gentiles by the same reason St. Paul was made Apostle of 〈◊〉 Gentiles Exclusively to the Jews For the woâ—… alleaged Gal. 2. 7. The Gospel of the uncircumcision was committed to me as the Gospel of 〈◊〉 Circumcision was to Peter upon which onâ—… the Doctor builds this Tenet equally inserâ—… Exclusiveness of jurisdiction in one as in 〈◊〉 other over his fellow Apostles Province as 〈◊〉 Particle As signifies and the Doctor himâ—… confesses Section seven unless the word peculiar must lose its signification Yet it is 〈◊〉 evident that St. Paul where ever he caâ—… preached first to the Jews as appears most evidently Acts 13. 5. 14. 1. 17. 1 2 3. whâ—… it is said That it was St. Pauls manner or câ—… to go into the Iews Synagogue and preach Châ—… Faith Also Acts 20. 18 21. where St. Paul sâ—… of himself That ever since he came into Asia witnessed both to the Iews and Grecians the 〈◊〉 pentance towards God and Faith towards Châ—… Likewise Acts 19. 8. 21. 21. where the formation against St. Paul was That he tâ—… all the Iews such and such things that follâ—… there So Acts 22. the whole Chapter alâ—… being a Sermon of his to the Iews Again 〈◊〉 24. 24. 28. 23. where we finde that 〈◊〉 at Rome St. Paul preached to the Iews 〈◊〉 And now let the Reader judge if this be â—… most steel'd impudence thus point-blank and diametrically opposite to the whole stream of Scripture and onely upon his bare word to impale and confine the Authority of the Apostles to mutually-exclusive
greater Authority in Iames did St. Peter vote the contrary and St. Iames his sentence oversway or would not the advice of commanding them to abstain from the things there prohibited have been voted and accepted of by the Council though the proposition had been made by one of inferior dignity unless perhaps the Doctor imagines the Apostles and Elders of the Church assembled in the Council were such weak passionate and partial men that they did not decree things because they were reason and fitting but because St. Iames spoke them whose greater Authority the Doctor seating him in the principal place they were you must think somewhat afraid of But any thing serves this Doctor for an Evidence His all swallowing faith makes that seem a demonstration against the Pope which to us poor men because of our unbelief bears not so much as the least show of a probability And he imagines from the particle Then in the two and twentieth verse which he misunderstands that he who gives his sentence after another hath an Authority above him Though in reason one should rather think after such debate as had been concerning this matter Verse 7. it argued some greater Authority in him who should first break the Ice and interpose his judgment in such a solemnly-pronounced Oration as did St. Peter But the Doctor will have the contrary a demonstration and who can help it The up shot then of this Paragraph is that the Doctors concluding against St. Peters Primacy from St. Iames his being first named is a prejudice to his own cause from his principal place in the Council the Doctors own fiction from his giving the sentence and on it grounding the Rescript two fine little diminutive frauds and abuses of Scripture from his instalment a frivolous peece of affected ignorance and thus you have a perfect account cast up of the Doctors sixth Paragraph in his fourth Chapter of Evidences Ere I remove to another I desire the Reader whose little curiosity has not invited him to look into languages not to be amazed at the large Greek citations which here swell the Margin I can assure him they are nothing at all to the Question but of indifferent matters acknowledged by our selves And I will be bound both at this time and hereafter for the Doctors innocency in this point That he is never tedious nor over large either in Citations or Reasons which tend directly to the thing in controversie as hath heretofore in part been declared and shall more particularly be manifested hereafter In the seventh Paragraph to omit what hath been answered already he tells us That St. Paul had no Commission received from nor dependence on St. Peter citing for it Gal. 1. 12 17. Which words may import a double sence either that the manner of conferring upon him the power of an Apostle was not by means or dependence on St. Peter and so far indeed the Scripture is clear and we acknowledge it or else that this power given him was not dependent on or subject to St. Peter as the cheif of the Apostles which is the question here treated denied by us nor contradicted at all by the place alleaged But he proceeds in his fundamental absurdity that those two great Apostles wherever they came the one constantly applied himself to the Iews the other to the Gentiles Where if by constantly he means most commonly or even always yet so as they retained jurisdiction over the others Province then to omit that it hath been shown contrary to Scripture it makes nothing against us But if it signifie exclusively or so That neither had any Authority over the others Province in which sence onely it can limit St. Peters Universal Authority which as he expresses Section six is his aim then I refer the Reader to my eighth Section of this Chapter where he shall see the contrary manifested to the eye by nine or ten most express places of Scripture yet the Doctor goes on to evidence it by Testimonies which obliges us to address our selves with new vigor to bear the shock of so terrible an encounter His first testimony is his own knowledge Thus we know saith he it was at Antioch where St. Peter converted the Iews and St. Paul the Gentiles But puts down no testimony at all to confirm the weaker ones of his own We know which yet had been requisite that we might have known it too But he tells us that certainly St. Paul was no ways subordinate to St. Peter as appears by his behavior towards him avowed Gal. 2. 11. that is From his withstanding him to the face Yet wiser men then Mr. Hammond to wit St. Cyprian and St. Austin thought otherwise who interpreted St. Peters bearing it so patiently not as an argument of his less or equal Authority but of his greater humility that being higher in dignity he should suffer so mildly the reprehensions of an inferior Quem saith St. Cyprian quamvis Primum Dominus elegerit super eum aedificaverit Ecclesiam suam tamen cum secum Paulus disceptavit non vindicavit â—ibi aliquid insolenter aut arroganter assumpsit ut diceret se Primatum tenere obtemperari à novellis posteris sibi potiùs oportere nec despexit Paulum quod Ecclesiae priùs persecutor fuisset sed consilium veritatis admisit c. Whom though our Lord chose to be the first of the Apostles and upon him built his Church yet when Paul contended with him be did not challenge and assume to himself any thing in an insolent and proud manner as to say That he had the Primacy and so should rather be obeyed by newer and later Apostles neither did he despise Paul because he had formerly been a persecutor of the Church but admitted the councel of Truth Thus that ancient learned and holy Father St. Cyprian yet Mr. Hammond hath certainty of the contrary SECT 10. The Examination of ten dumb Testimonies which Dr. Hammond brings to plead for him THe next Testimony begins thus ACCORDINGLY that is to the Doctors own WE KNOW in Ignatius his Epistle to the Magnesians We read that the Church of Antioch was founded by St. Peter and St. Paul After which follows another of the same Author in his Epistle to the Antiochians 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You have been the Disciples of Peter and Paul What then These Testimonies are stark dumb in what concerns the Doctors purpose for the founding the Antiochians Church and teaching them might have been done by the promiscuous endeavors of those Apostles Here is not the least news of distinction much less exclusion of Authority and Jurisdiction True indeed the Testimonies are defective and to blame but the Doctor knows how to mend them by his Interpretation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 You have been the Disciples of Peter and Paul ID EST saith the Doctor converted and ruled by them the Iewish part by one and the Gentile by the other Was ever such an ID EST
readest this Answer whether thou be'st Catholick Protestant Puritan nay even the Doctor himself it is impossible but thou shouldst manifestly see that the Doctor hath not said one syllable to the purpose there being neither in any of the former nor following Testimonies either out of Scriptures Fathers or Histories any the least restrictive or exclusive sentence particle or syllable for him To say nothing that all both Scriptures Fathers and ancient Histories are most expresly against him What a most unfortunate man is this Doctor to vent these for EVIDENCES and how unfortunate they who hazard the eternal loss of their Souls upon such mens writings But to return to our six Testimonies By what means think you does he make them speak to his purpose Not by torturing and screwing the words to confess what they never intended that were impossible in such stubborn allegations and perfectly-silent in what concerns him Nor by intermingling words of his own to prompt them and make them speak out which is the old and often-discover'd trick of his fellows nor by criticizing his former unsuccessful art but by pinning a Paper of his own forging to the Testimony alleaged and gulling the Reader to his face that the Author sayes it So as the device is the same onely the method altered for the said necessary Paper-which he used to pin behinde the Testimony now he pastes before it beginning the ninth Paragraph which introduces the formerly-recited Testimonies thus The same is as EVIDENT at Rome where these two great Apostles met again and each of them erected and managed a Church St. Peter of Iews and St. Paul of Gentiles Hold Doctor the Testimonies should have told us that why do you forestal them And then as in the eight Section after his own bare WE KNOW he used the transition of ACCORDINGLY to bring in his Authors So now after he had straw'd the way with his own evident as he pleased himself he ushers in the modest Testimonies with so many Soe 's So Irenaeus so Epiphanius so the Inscription so Gaius whereas indeed the following Testimonies are no more So or like his Preface to them and to the question they are produced for then as the Proverb says the running of the Wheel-barrow is to the owing of six pence The Doctor shall put the Similitude in form and the Reader shall judge Just as I say saith the Doctor That St. Peter and St. Paul each of them erected and managed a Church one of Iews the other of Gentiles with exclusion of St. Pauls authority over St. Peters and St. Peters over St. Pauls Congregation Even SO St. Irenaeus says That they built the Church there St. Epiphanius That they were Apostles and Bishops there c. The Reader may perceive the fitness of the rest by applying them at his leasure Onely ere I take my leave of these Testimonies I would gladly learn of the Doctor why in his preamble to them he maintains a distinction of Churches belonging to St. Peter and St. Paul and then brings in St. Prosper with a So to witness it whereas himself in the nineteenth Section of this very Chapter makes the same St. Prosper testifie the quite contrary and a promiscuous Jurisdiction over the Gentiles saying expresly That Peter and Paul at Rome Gentium Ecclesiam Sacrârunt consecrated the Church of the Gentiles Were ever such mistakes incident to any other man as are natural to this Doctor But it seems he wants a good memory a necessary qualification for him that says any thing at random without ground authority or reason to maintain a false cause or rather indeed foreseeing the danger he made the Testimony whisper softly in English lest it might be taken notice of translating Ecclesia Gentium The Church of the Nations because the word Gentiles would be too much reflected on being that which throughout this whole Chapter he hath absolutely interdicted St. Peter to have any thing to do with Alas poor man SECT 11 The Examination of Dr. Hammonds Irrefragable Evidence and other silent Testimonies produced by him BUt now we are come to his EVIDENCE of EVIDENCES the Seals of the Popes which the Doctor here calls an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE I know the Reader will expect some most express and unavoidable Testimony out of some ancient Writer beyond all exception and of the first Class witnessing as the Faith of that Age the contradistinction and contralimitation of St. Peter and St. Pauls Jurisdiction The Testimony is out of Matthew Paris which I will transcribe word by word together with the Doctors Comment upon it In the Bull of the Pope stands the Image of St. Paul on the right hand of the Cross which is graven in the midst of the Seal and the Image of St. Peter on the left And this onely account saith the Doctor given for St. Pauls having the nobler place Quia c. because he believed in Christ without seeing him Here on Earth addes the Doctor in a Parenthesis Here is all that belongs to this Testimony transcribed to a word without any more either Explication or Application to the matter before or after than is here put down And now for Gods sake Reader tell me what canst thou discern here of St. Peters being Apostle of the Iews onely and exclusively to the Gentiles which may deserve it should be called an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE My eyes are dazel'd it seems with striving to see a thing at such an unproportionable distance for I can espie nothing at all in it Had the Question between us been Whether St. Paul believed on Christ without seeing him or no it might have served to some purpose but to our case it hath no imaginable relation Yet this Eagle-ey'd Doctor in the bare pictures of St. Peter and St. Paul on a Seal can discern clearly an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE that their Authorities are exclusively-limited St. Peters to the Iews St. Pauls to the Gentiles which none living could see without his colour'd and insincere spectacles to wit blackest hatred and rancor against the Pope While he looks through these any thing appears an IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE which may seem possible in his perverse imagination to be detorted to the Popes prejudice and to wound him though through the sides of St. Peter After this Testimony or IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE follows immediately in the Doctor And all this very agreeable to Scripture which onely sets down St. Peter to be the Apostle of Circumcision and of his being so at Rome saith he we make no question What means his All this For neither in any Testimony nor yet in the Popes Seal is there any the least expression of St. Peters being onely the Apostle of the Circumcision save in his own words onely yet he says that all this is in that point agreeable to Scripture it is then of his own words he means which how disconformable and totally repugnant they are to Scripture hath already been shewn Nor are they less dissonant in this
very place to Sacred Writ for neither doth the Scripture onely set down Saint Peter as Apostle of the Circumcision but James and John also Gal. 2. 9. Nor is St. Peter any where exprest as Apostle of onely the Circumcision but expresly particulariz'd the contrary as hath been manifested out of Acts the fifteenth and seventh So as that ONELY is your own forgery pin'd here to the Scripture as before to your too sober Testimonies Neither your Authors then nor Scripture speak a word of Saint Peter being at Rome the Apostle of the Iews onely The onely proof of it is your own unquestionable certainty of it exprest here that of his being at Rome you make no question So that your onely grounds and proofs of your position is WE MAKE NO QUESTION and WE KNOW And I here again confirm my former promise to you That if you can shew me the least syllable either in Scripture or your other Testimonies expresly and without the help of your ID ESTS and scruing deductions restraining St. Peters Jurisdiction to the Iews onely and exclusively to the Gentiles I will yeeld you the Laurel and quit the Controversie His twelfth Testimony for his IRREFRAGABLE EVIDENCE from the Popes Seal was the Eleventh is brought in with another So. So the Scripture affirms of St. Paul that he preached at Rome in his own hired house receiving them which came unto him Acts 28. 30. which the Doctor most fitly applies to the Gentiles of thâ— City the Iews having solemnly saith he departeâ—… from him Vers. 29. But looking into the Teâ—… I finde no such word as solemnly which he after his accustomed manner pinâ— to the Testimony nor any sign of a solemnity of departure buâ—… rather the contrary there being in that placâ—… no expressions either of absolute relinquishing him nor pertinacity nor contempt but onely that after he had spoken They departed and hâ—… much discourse or debate amongst themselves which is rather a sign of hoveringness and unsetledness in the business not indisposing them tâ—… a return then of a fixed and solemn rejectioâ—… of his society and rather a solemn disputeâ—… whether they should return or no than so solemn a departure as Master Hammond imaginâ—… Next the Doctor might have seen in Acts 13 46. both Paul and Barnabas tell the Jews boldly saith the Text That they would turn to the Gentiles and depart more solemnly shaking off thâ—… dust of their feet against them Vers. 51. Another manner of parting then this was and yet many times afterwards did they preach to the Jews notwithstanding their so solemn departure Lastly What became of the Jews which aâ—… is manifest in this eight and twentieth Chapter and twenty fourth verse were converted by St. Paul Must they necessarily quite fall ouâ—… with St. Paul and never see him more because he had perswaded them to believe in Christ. Yet the Doctor upon authority onely of the word solemnly which was of his own coyning thinks he hath evidenced that St. Paul at Rome treated with none but Gentiles the Text it self not admitting so much as a probability of it But all is good Corn that the Doctors Mill grinds His fourteenth Testimony is out of St. Ignatius I will first cite the words as I finde them in the Author in the place quoted by him and then let you hear the Doctors Comment upon them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith St. Ignatius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 What are Deacons but imitators of the Heavenly Powers exhibiting to him the Bishop a pure and blameless Ministery as holy Stephen did to blessed James Timothy and Linus to Paul Anacletus and Clement to Peter This is all And now good Reader pardon me that I am forced to trouble thee so often I intreat thee as thou lovest truth and honesty to take this Testimony and sift it well over and over and then give in thy verdict what thou canst discover in it which in the most far fetcht construction can be said to evidence That St. Peter was onely over the Iews and St. Paul over the Gentiles Here to an ordinary eye nothing seems to be said but onely that St. Peter had such two Deacons and St. Paul other two which are there named wherefore I say sift it well and that with the disquisitive exactness as men do Riddles and when thou hast spent all thy industry in vain I will bring thee Doctor Hammond who will cure both thine and my blindness by his Exposition beginning his eleventh Section thus ACCORDINGLY observe the old transition in Ignatius Ep. ad Trall we read of Linus and Clement that one was St. Pauls the other St. Peters Deacon both which afterwards succeeded them in the Episcopal Chair Linus being constituted Bishop of the Gentile Clement of the Iewish Christians there And there he stops Where all that any way makes to the purpose is subjoyned by the Doctor out of his own head There is no dealing with such a terrible adversary who though he should chuse out his Testimonies blindfold and at all-adventures yet hath such a perilous faculty that nothing can come wrong to him but he will ere he hath done with it make it speak pat to his purpose What follows in this Section is onely a vain-glorious conceit that he hath found out a way to enucleate a difficulty in History concerning Linus and Cletus which all the Historians in the world never dream't on before and this onely forsooth out of his own wrong laid erroneous grounds But because the Doctor says that this rare and unheard-of discovery or as he calls it his Scholion is UNQUESTIONABLY true as also because it is built onely upon the slippery sand of his own saying already proved to be false I will forbear to vex him or trouble my self unnecessarily by vouchsasing it any farther confute His twelfth Section proceeding upon the grounds of his own Scholion lately brought to light to teach the world new History never heard of before tells us That in Pope Clemens the Union of the Iewish and Gentile Congregations was first made and not in St. Peter So that the Doctor first upon his own giddy imagination â—ancied them distinct and now because he saw no more but one Bishop succeed in the Roman Chair fancies them united without any word from History to countenance the former or any thing but his own Scholion to make good the latter And surely it were very strange that whereas the difficulty about the succession of Clemens was so ventilated and the opinions so various amongst the ancient Fathers Ignatius Tertullian Ierome c. no man could ever understand the business aright till this happy age in which Dr. Hammond was born whose Glow-worm fancy evidenced more then all the former lights of the Church could discover Many evasions they found out to solve the difficulty As that Anacletus and Cletus were the same that Clemens who as Tertullian says â—ate
expresly manifests a jurisdiction over the Gentiles in all the before-limited Apostles nay even in all the rest The words are these as himself cites them In ipsâ Ierusalem Jacobus Joannes apud Ephesum Andraeas caeteri per totam Asiam Petrus Paulus Apostoli in urbe Româ GENTIUM ECCLESIAM pacatam unamque posteris tradentes ex Dominica pactione sacrârunt James in Ierusalem John at Ephesus Andrew and the rest of the Apostles throughout all Asia Peter and Paul at Rome consecrated the Church of the GENTILES c. Where though the Doctor would blinde the Reader with Englishing GENTIUM ECCLESIAM The Church of the Nations yet it is most notorious That that word in the plural denotes particularly the Gentiles in opposition and contradistinction to the Jews as is evident Matth. 10. 5. In viam Gentium ne abieritis c. Go not into the way of the Gentiles but rather to the lost sheep of the house of Israel The same is manifest Matth. 1. 4 15. 6. 32. 10. 18. 12. 21. Mark 10. 33. Luke 2. 32. Acts 1. 4 25. 11. 1. and in almost innumerable other places both in the Old and New Testament Thus the Doctor by this his strongest Testimony which he had laid up in store to conclude with a plaudite his foregoing proofs hath quite invalidated all the rest and so ha◠brought his EVIDENCES at length to a fair market which as before they were shewn to be but feeble props to support his partition-wall of Schism which he is about repairing and daubing or playstering over so now by an unluckily-lavish Testimony of St. Prospers which told more then he would have had it he hath made clean-work and quite razed down his former crazy tottering structure and that from the very foundation ID ESTS and all SECT 13. Doctor Hammonds second General Evidence against St. Peters Supremacy from the Donation of the Keys found to be obscurer then the former THe second quarrel the Doctor hath against St. Peter which he calls his second Evidence is That no power of the Keys was given especially to St. Peter and therefore no Supremacy But before we come to scan the Doctors pretended Evidences it were not amiss to advertise the Reader first what an Evidence is that this notion being set as it were in the confines and mid-way between the past and following proofs he may at once and with a readier glance of his judgment examine the strength and validity both of those the Doctor hath already produced and those he shall produce for the future An EVIDENCE therefore is that which is so clear and manifest a representation of a thing to the eye of Reason as unless we should with a wilful blindness shut those discerning powers it is impossible not to see it This clear and undeniable manifestation in Arguments drawn from Reason must be both of the verity of the promises in themselves and also of the necessary and immediate sequel of the Conclusion out of the Premises thus evidenced and if Evidence in either of these be wanting then that Argument cannot in true Reason be styled an EVIDENCE But now a proof from Authority is then call'd an Evidence when both the Testimony it self is authentick beyond dispute and also the words alleaged so directly expressing the thing to be proved that they need no Additions nor Explications to bring them home to the matter but are of themselves full ample and clear nor possible without manifest wresting to bear any other interpretation and in a word such as the alleager himself were he to express his own thoughts in the present Controversie would make choice of to use This presupposed as a certain rule as no man of Reason can or will deny it both to judge the Doctors former Evidences by and also these in question we will now fall to examine them But first we charge the Doctor with prevaricating against his pretended promise For whereas he begins as bearing us in hand he would bring Evidence that St. Peter had not the Keys given to him in particular he brings not one express proof for the Negative but goes about onely to solve our Testimonies for the Affirmative which is not to produce Evidences of his own but to endeavor an answer to our strong Allegations for it And this is a quite different thing for he who undertakes to Evidence sustains the part of the Opponent but he who strives to evade anothers objected Testimonies manages the part of the Defendant whose offices as appears are opposite and contradistinct Neither indeed is this to bring Evidence but rather Obscurity for though he should obtain his purpose he can onely shew by this means that such or such Arguments do not conclude but not that the thing it self is untrue the evidence of which must depend on the strength of the grounds and goodness of the deductions out of which and by which the contrary is inferred Secondly We charge him with a palpable injuriousness in making the answering our Testimonies out of Scripture the sum of his first proofs and yet omitting our chiefest strongest and most important place of all Iohn 21. 15 16 17. Thirdly We charge him with manifest calumniating in saying We pretend this Donation of the Keys as a peculiarity and inclosure of St. Peter and impugning it accordingly whereas he cannot be ignorant that the Catholick Church holds no such thing but that each Apostle enjoyed an Universal Commission of Jurisdiction and Power to binde and loose which yet debars not St. Peter from being the Head of them and having an especial Authority or Primacy These things premised to shew the Doctors false manner of proceeding we buckle close to the Question The first place which the Doctor cites as alleaged by us for the particular Donation of the Keyes to St. Peter in particular is Matth. 16. 19. I will give unto thee the Keyes of the Kingdom of Heaven and whatsoever thou shalt binde on Earth shall be bound in Heaven Which the Doctor acknowledges a promise to St. Peter yet thinks to defeat it with other two places Iohn 20. 21. and Matth. 28. 19. where they are delivered in common and in the plural to them all Indeed if we pretended out of the former Testimony a peculiarity and inclosure of St. Peter so that he onely and not the others had power to binde and loose then the Doctor had by the following places extending it to all concluded strongly against us But we never pretended any such thing so that the Doctors own calumny is the onely ground of inferring his Conclusion and solving the objected Testimony All therefore that we intend to deduce out of this place in St. Matthew is That whether those words be the Instrument of Christs Donation as the Doctor calls it or no yet something was said to St. Peter in particular and by name which was not said to any other Apostle in particular and by name as is most
but upon the conditions which pleases himself Which answer likewise serves for all Hospitals and such like pious Houses founded by the King The third example of the Abbot of Buries exemption by the King is Recorded without particular circumstances and so must stand for an example of the Kings execution or command to the secular Magistrate to proceed accordingly but proves nothing That the King did it without consent of the Bishop under whom it was These are all the cases of secular exemptions produced by that learned Lawyer which you see are pure examples of the Kings exempting either with the Bishops consent or by title of asking what conditions he thought fit to annex to his own Liberalities as every private person may or at most alleaged so abstractedly that any of these or many other causes may justly be supposed to have intervened But I mistake there is yet one more to which the Doctor thought good to give a particular efficacy by citing the very words of the Charter which are these Hoc regali authoritate Episcoporum ac Baronum attestatione constituo I appoint this by my royal Authority with the attestation of my Bishops and Barons But had the Doctor remembred he had named this King before William the Conqueror he would have understood that Regali Authoritate signified as much as in the first of Kings doth that famous phrase Ius Regis that is the power of the sword the power of taking away any mans goods and giving them to another the power of doing all wrong as is not onely known of the Conquerors other proceedings but even out of this fact taking the goods of a Bishop and the provision ordained for Souls and attributing them to an Abbey And this by the very words of the Charter without any course of Law or consent of any Justice or power in the Commonwealth So that our Doctor has brought us in a very special example for Henry the Eighth the worst of his Successors to imitate and justifie his Spiritual Authority by To that which he affirms of the Chatholick German Emperors the Kings of France and England that they claimed to be founders of all Bishopricks in their Dominions and Patrons of them to bestow them by investiture I answer they did very well to found as many as they pleased that is to enrich and enlarge the Church with Episcopal Revenues by their pious Donations and when they have done to claim deservedly the Advowsons and present whom they please to be invested by the Church whom yet if they be found unworthy the Church rejects notwithstanding the Kings presentation and authority and consequently this is done by the consent of the Church Neither is this annexed to the Kingly dignity onely as a particular badg of his Authority over the Church but even private Subjects when either themselves or their Ancestors have founded some Ecclesiastical Benefice challenge to themselves the Advowsons without any prejudice to the Church who allows it reasonable that the Friends of the Donors should rather enjoy that benefit then others Unless perhaps the persons be found unfit which in that case obliges the Church to use her Authority by interposing her resusal This therefore private persons can do as well as Kings and yet I hope the Doctor will not say That all those are Lords and Heads of the Church Lastly he might as well have made mention of the Pope and Clergies ressistance to Kings that usurped the investitures as of the others claiming of them both being equally notorious in History and the Princes in the end having yeelded that their pretence was unjust Next he tells us the Kings of France and England claimed a just right that no Legate from Rome could use Iurisdiction here without their leave What a terrible business is this Or what follows hence None can imagine but the Dr. himself who certainly had some meaning in it or other They did so indeed and so do Catholick Kings sometimes to this day who yet communicate with the Church and are accounted obedient sons as long as they proceed with due moderation But that they did it in disacknowledgment of the Popes Supremacy or that the Legate brought not his Jurisdiction with him from Rome but was glad to receive it of the King ere he could use it this the Doctor will never be able to make good Nay they were so far from denying the Popes Authority even in this kinde That our Kings of England procured of the Pope that the Archbishop of Canterbury should be Legatus Natus But now the Doctor hath resolved me of my former doubt which was with what art possible he could make these imperfect Testimonies serve his purpose adding here immediately these words All these put together are a foundation for this power of the Princes to erect or translate a Patriarchate As if he should have said Though there be not one word in any single Testimony expresly manifesting That it is principally the Kings power or excluding the Churches yet I have produced many things little to the purpose if considered in their single selves which notwithstanding I would intreat you to believe that ALL THESE PUT TOGETHER ARE A FOUNDATION c. Where note that here again also he observes his former invincible method of reserving his strongest Arguments till the last putting immediately before his Conclusion That the Legates were often not admitted in England so as out of the very non-admission of the Legates the Doctor infers an absolute power in Princes to erect and translate Patriarchates Besides were all this granted what is it to your or our purpose since we accuse you not of Schism for breaking from the Popes subjection as a private Patriarch but as the chief Pastor and Head of the Church But because the Doctor could not handsomly transfer this Primacy from Rome to Canterbury to secure him from the subjection to Antichrist therefore he was pleased to mistake it all along this Chapter for a Patriarchate and then undertakes to shew from some few Testimonies de facto That it was not the Churches but the Kings Authority to erect and translate them Whereas besides the answers in particular already given no prudent man can doubt but in the process of fifteen or sixteen hundred years and in such a vast extent as the Christian world there may be found twenty or thirty matters of Fact if one will take Histories to collect them either out of ambition ignorance rebellion or tyranny against the most inviolable right that can be imagined Besides many things might often be mentioned by Historiographers as done without particularizing the Authority by which they were done Especially in our case where by reason of the connexion between the Soul and Body of the politick world the Ecclesiastical and Secular State they seem to act as one thing The Temporal Authority most commonly putting in execution the intentions of the Church And this also makes them appear more visibly
not from the Tribunal of the Jews much less their Synagogue representing their Church as the Doctor would perswade us but from the Tribunal of Portius Festus a Roman Governor under Caesar to Caesar himself I will onely put down the words as I finde them in their own Translation and so leave the Doctor to the Readers Judgement either to be accused for willfully abusing or ignorantly mistaking them But Festus willing to do the Iews a pleasure answered Paul and said wilt thou go up to Ierusalem and there be judged of these things before me Then said Paul I stand at Caesars judgement-seat where I ought to be judged c. Act. 25. 9 10 c. And now is not this Doctor think you the fittest man among all the sons of the Church of England to have a Pension for writing Annotations in folio on the Bible His last proof is that Iustinians third Book is made up of Constitutions de Episcopis Clericis Laicis Bishops Priests Laymen First we answer and the same may be said of the Theodosian Code that all the Laws found there must not necessarily be Iustinians since the Keepers of the Laws use not onely to put in their Law-books those Constitutions themselves made but also those they are to see observed among which are the Canons and Laws of the Church made before by Councils and other Ecclesiastical Powers Secondly We grant Iustinian may make Constitutions of his own concerning Bishops and Clergymen in what relates to temporal affairs or as they are parts of the civil Commonwealth And lastly If he shall be found to have made any Laws concerning them and without the Authority of the Church entrenching upon Ecclesiastical businesses let the Doctor prove he had power to make such and he will in so doing clear him in that part from that note of Tyranny which is objected against him What you say concerning the Canons of Councils that they have been mostly set out by the Emperors It is very certain you might if you had pleased instead of your Mostly have put Always the causing them to be promulgated belonging to the Office of the supreme secular Powers whose obligation it is to see that the Churches decrees be received and put in execution What you clap in within a Parenthesis as your custom is to intermingle truth with falshood that Canons of Councils received their Authority by the Emperor In the sence you take it is a great error For never was it heard that an Emperor claimed a negative voice in making a Canon of a Council valid which concerned matters purely Spiritual nay nor disaccepted them decreed unanimously by the Fathers but all the world lookt upon him as an unjust and tyrannical incroacher They receive indeed Authority from the Emperor in this sense that his subscription and command to proclaim them makes them have a more powerful reception and secures them from the obstacles of turbulent and rebellious spirits But this will not content you your aym is that they should not have the Authority or validity of a Canon without the last-life-giving-hand of the Emperors vote which is onely a strain of your own liberality to him or rather of your envy towards the Church without any ground of his rightful claim to any such Jurisdiction over Councils SECT 7. Other empty Proofs of this pretended Right confuted THese rubs being removed it will be our next sport to address an answer to his nineteenth Section it self where omitting his ten Parenthesisses which contain nothing but either sayings of his own or Greek out of Strabo's Geography That the Romans kept their assizes at divers places or Testimonies from the Council of Chalcedon already answered omitting these I say I will briefly resume the whole sence of the Paragraph as well as I can gather it out of the some-thing-more Lucid intervals of his mad Parenthesisses And this I take to be the sum of it That Kings should according to emergent conveniences change their Seats of Iudicature and that the same reasons may require a removal of Ecclesiastical Seats wherefore there being nothing to the contrary constituted either by Christ or his Apostles it follows That Kings may when they please erect and consequently remove Primacies and Metropolitans I answer That Secular Courts may be removed upon good occasions is so evident to every Fool that it needs neither Greek nor Strabo to prove it That Ecclesiastical Seats for greater conveniences of the Church be also subject to removal is likewise evident and constituted by the Council of Chalcedon Can. 17. But his inference That it belongs to the right of Kings to erect and transfer them is weaker then water nor has the Doctor infused into it the least grain of Reason to strengthen it Yet first to prove it he says Nothing is found either by Christ or his Apostles ordered to the contrary Which is a most pitiful Negative proof as indeed the greatest part of his Book iâ— and supposes to make it good That neither Christ nor his Apostles said did or ordered any thing but what is exprest in Scripture which is both expresly contrary to Scripture it self and to common reason also Besides this wise proof is both most unjust towards us and silly in him to expect unjust towards us ingaging us to prove out of Scripture That Kings cannot erect Primacies and Patriarchates whereas there is no such word there as either Primate or Patriarchate which he would have us shew thence not subject to Kings Nor is it less silly in him to expect That the Scripture should make mention of the erection or not erection of Primacies and Patriarchates by Secular Powers since the Secular Powers when the Scripture was written being most bloody Tyrants and Persecutors of the Church were more likely to hang up all Primates and Patriarchs then either erect or remove their Seats to a more convenient place Yet if you would see something to the contrary why Kings should not use Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction I can produce you the sence of the Catholick Church the best Testimony that can be alleaged for the meaning of Gods Spirit but because this weighs little with you I shew you next the Testimony of common sence and reason which tells you Faber fabrilia tractet and that those whose education institute of life particular designment to and total dependence on any course of life makes them more strongly addict all their thoughts to perfect themselves knowingly and magisterially in that their proper profession are fitter by far for such an employment then those whose diversly-distracted studies render them half-knowing or half-careful in such performances How much then is it more convenient that Ecclesiastical persons should manage the affairs of the Church then Secular Princes whom partly their necessary Temporal occasions partly voluntary Recreations Court attendances and entertainments so quite take up that they can have but saint and weak reflections either of knowledge or care in comparison of the others upon
and Schism And though the Doctor excuses the imputation of King Henries Sacriledge saying That Sacriledge is no more Schism then it is Adultery yet it is enough if he grant as he must That both his Sacriledge and his Schism were born of the same mother-occasion the Kings lust and so though the Doctor say That facies non omnibus una Yet I answer Nec diversa tamen qualem decet esse sororum their faces not the same Nor different yet as sisters well became Neither is this all to shew that the first occasion of the breach was not Conscience The King himself desired oftentimes afterwards a reconcilement which being not possible without revoking all he had done despair made him resolve Over shooes over boots to make the rupture still wider while he lived though at his death when it was no time to dally the care of his Soul now out-weighing the pleasure of his Body he with extream grief of heart repented him of his Schism By this one may see how justly the Doctor pretended Pag. 18 19 as an excuse of his Schism The care of their Conscience and the not-admitting any sin which the Church may oblige them to subscribe to whereas if the original of the breach be this as it most evidently is then I cannot conceive the Church obliged the ring leader of it to any sin in bidding him keep his own wife But if you pretend another which by the whole scope of this Chapter you seem not to do it will be found to have no nobler an extraction then the former onely perhaps the carnal sin in him may be changed into a spiritual one in you that is King Henries lust into your self-conceited pride and refractory disobedience which may indeed outâ—vy and excel him though not excuse you But perhaps your grounds which before absolved the Rebel Out law and Anabaptist will absolve him too by saying it was King Henries present perswasion that his wife was to be put away and then comes in the whole eighth Paragraph of the second Chapter to plead for the adulterous King thus Nay though the error be really on his side yet if the doctrines so proposed that he ought to keep his wife as the condition of Communion be indeed agreeable to truth but yet be really apprehended by him to whom they are thus proposed to be false and disagreeable it will even in that case be hard to affirm That that man may lawfully subscribe or Kâ—-Henry lawfully keep his wife contrary to his present perswasion Thus much for the first thing I undertook to shew that the original of this breach proceeded not from Conscience the second will also appear no less manifest That the progress and promoting of it was altogether as unconsciencious The second consideration which renders this Schism more inexcusable in the now Protestants is That when it first was brought into this Kingdom it was no free choice of the Ecclesiastical State which could the Doctor prove he would think it perhaps of some weight The King using all means both by perswasions and force to make men subscribe persecuting continually those that refused and putting to death many upon the same score among the rest those two Lights of our Nation for learning and piety Bishop Fisher and Sir Thomas Moor most intimate with the King and in the sincerest loyalty addicted to him till their knowing conscienciousness made them refuse to subscribe lest they might at once prejudice Loyalty and Religion by a preposterous obedience But what need more proofs since the Doctor grants here Section five That it is easie to believe that nothing but the apprehension of dangers which hung over them by a Praemunire incurred by them could probably have inclined the Clergy to subscribe thus he Though blowing and supping both at once he striaght-way addes That the Reasons or Arguments offered in debate were the causes as in all charity we are to judge of their decision Whereas I cannot see any reason why the Doctor should be so uncharitably charitable as to judge them not onely weak but to have been hardned and lost for the future all feeling of Conscience for their lapse since the fore-going fear bears the weight of a strong prejudice against the clear Verdict of Conscience and the future recantation of all the Bishops who then subscribed in Queen Maries time and their persisting in Queen Elizabeths days rather evidences That the curb being removed which misled them it was Conscience which made them return and strength and force of Conscience which made them afterwards persevere in the same judgment The third thing I am to prove and make the Doctor confess is That there was a breach made which denominates them truly and properly Schismaticks The first part is so clear that it needs no proof since the very deed bears witness For first your self acknowledge you renounced the Authority of the Roman See and cast it out of this Iland Which Authority yet you must acknowledge likewise That all the whole World which before the breach you held the onely good Christians submitted to as sacred and descended from Christs institution which Authority was known and held both by them and your selves till then to be over both you and your King in Ecclesiastical matters and had enjoyed the possession of that Claim confessedly eight or nine hundred years nor this upon title onely of a Patriarchate your Conversion or Grant of Kings but of an Universal Primacy and Pastorship over the whole Church by Christs grant and before your conversion was dream'd on Lastly The Government of the Church thus established was held by all those whom before that day you accounted the onely Faithful as of Divine Right and a point of Faith and that the denial of it twisted into one crime both Heresie and Schism A manifest breach then and Schism there was made by you first from that supreme Ecclesiastical Governor under whom both you and your Ancestors till that time had ever-continued and next from the Universality of Christians by erecting to your selves a new structure of Church-Government which all the vast Congregation of these from whom you broke detested and abhorred as Sacrilegious and Schismatical Singularity therefore most clearly manifested it self in your new Church-Government and if singularity be opposite to a community of which Communion is the Form it follows evidently That your singularity destroyed Communion and so was formally Schism Again if multitudes of things of the same species cannot be made one otherwise then by the unity of order it follows That what dissolves this order dissolves the unity and so causes a breach or Schism But you manifestly unravelled all the then constituted order of Gods Church by casting out of the Kingdom the supreme Authority in which as in a knot the other several ends were sum'd and tied up therefore you also unravelled and broke asunder its unity This then as it is acknowledged by you so in it self is
was invalid If it were then either the same power remaines still in the King to dispose of it to some other or else it does not remaine in him and then is his power diminish't and so the Act is againe invalid I answer the Authority of the Pope was never held by concession of our Kings in any other sence than this that our Kings as all other Christian Kings did yeelded him what they held as of Faith to be due to him that is Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters and therefore that they not onely lawfully granted it but could not deny it except most unlawfully Therfore their act of yeelding to it was not invalid but very valid for what it was intended which was to expresse their obligation in deferring to the Head of the Church what was his due Wherefore he cannot dispose of it to any other or remove it since the Papacy which is the thing in question was never imagin'd at any private Kings disposal till Doctor Hammonds time Again his inference that if it were in the Kings Power the same Power remaines still in them to dispose of it is as groundless as the former for we see by experience that Kings often diminish their power by yeelding sometimes Forts sometimes an Island or Country to an over-powering enemy and yet that act of theirs held valid notwithstanding Then to prove this assertion as the fellow that put foure kinds of men that pray some that pray for others and not for themselves othersome for themselves not others some for themselves and others but some neither for themselves nor others or the Preacher upon the Text seek and you shall finde put four kinde of seekers some that seek and finde not others that finde and seek not others that both finde and seek but others that neither seek nor find So the Doctor tells us here that there are two sorts of gifts one that is so given that it is given another that is so given that it is kept with the giver that is not given And then brings for an instance this curious peece of Philosophy Thus the Sun communicates his beames and with them his warmth and influence and yet retaines all which it thus communicates and accordingly withdraweth them againe This Book as the Reader must conceive is the Doctors Enâ—yclopoedia encompassing at once the whole world of Sciences He hath before given us notice of Scriptures Fathers Councils History Law Greek Hebrew Grammar and Criticismes now he gives here a proof of Philosophy and knowledge of Nature and lets thee understand so strange a truth as no man unlesse he were out of his wits could imagine to wit that the very beames sent hither by the Sun are notwithstanding retain'd there still and therefore are in more far-distant places at the same time so granting that the ordinary course of Nature performes more in a creature than he will grant Gods omnipotency can work in the glorify'd body of our Lord Creator in the ever-blessed Sacrament Nay more he assures us that the Sun ACCORDINGLY withdraweth them again What he meanes by ACCORDINGLY in that place I cannot tell lesse can I understand how the Sun withdrawes his beames again I see indeed effects in Nature of warmth witnessing that they remain here incorporated in other bodies but I see no natural causes to bandy the Suns beames back to him much lesse pullyes and long strings in the Sun to withdraw them as the Doctor expresses it accordingly too But the Doctor had fram'd his observation from the accesse and recesse of the beames of a candle in his own eyes when he was drowsie and dreamt it seemes â—â—at night that the eye of Heav'n had the like faculty Your next parity from God Almighty shoots beyond the mark No bargain can be made with him by reason of his Universal Dominion over his creatures by which they may challenge a proprietary right to his gifts therefore none with Kings over their fellow-creatures that is something impious unless you had moderated the harsh-sounding expression Neither are we properly our own for so we might dispose of our own life at pleasure and the Book of your Donne holding selfe-murder lawful might pass as allowable whose wit knew better how to maintain a Paradox and with more plausible grounds then you doe your Faith But the truth is that God never takes away what he gives but is then said to take away any thing when he withholds his bountifull hand from a further bestowing it This supposed he tells us the King retaines yet the power granted to the Pope and so may dispose of it to a Bishop of his own and that the Kings power frees them from that obedience and cleares the whole businesse of Schism Alas what a weak reed you catch at to secure you from falling into the gulfe of Schism Huic ipst partono opus est quem defensorem paras Your Patron the King needs a Patron himselfe You should first evidence that the King might lawfully renounce the so long possessed so universally acknowledg'd authority over himselfe as well as his subjects in Ecclesiastical matters ere you lanch forth into such selfe-said and selfe-authoriz'd Conclusions otherwise to run widly forwards on your own seign'd and false suppositions first that his title of Universal Pastor comes by Concession of our Kings next that our Kings were not found subject to that Authority and thirdly which is yet higher that our Kings are over that Authority and can dispose of it at pleasure such voluntary talking as this I say is better for a Sermon to your good women where all Coine goes currant than for a controversie where no progress is allowable but what is already made good by undeniable testimonies and well-grounded Reasons He shuts up the Paragraph with talking of the Popes willingness to enlarge his Territory True Sir the Church is his Territory which he is dayly both willing and industrious to enlarge by converting barbarous Nations to Christs Faith as he did once ours amongst the rest for which you are so thanklesly disacknowledging This Territory we hope and pray may be enlarged beyond the envy of all maligners till all the Ends of the Earth and plenitudo Gentium the whole company of the Gentiles shall see the salvation of God Among whom the Church that Heaven-planted Tree which beares folia ad saâ—itatem Gentium is even at this day spreading out her sacred branches and the Authority of her Head goes on not intensively but extensively enlarging while your poor broken bough rootless and sapless shrinks dayly into nothing resolved already into its first principles of a few seditious disobedient spirits whom at first common hatred and then fragrant factiousness against the Church held together now that being a far off and such a common interest not so necessary the spirit of Schism kept in a while by humane policy begins at length to work and like a swelling torrent scornes to be held in by a weak bank
in the Doctors judgment Not considering which yet any prudent man would that the whole world whom before they accounted onely Catholick and in which had been hundreds of Kings Queens and Bishops nay perhaps thousands for one of theirs had ever condemned by their contrary beliefe these Votes and Acts to bee scismatical and heretical Besides this King before the breach acknowledging himselfe subject to that Authority in Ecclesiastical matters as all Catholick Kings now doe and as all his Ancestor-Kings ever since Englands conversion had done it must be as I have told you often most apparent evidence and such as greater cannot be imagin'd which may warrant him to exalâ— himselfe above the Popes Authority so long setled in possession and that in those very things in which before he was acknowledgedly under him especially the contrary verdict of such an universality as I have before mention'd with its weight not to be counterpois'd preponderating and mightily prejudicing any pretence of Evidence Again if the thing were evident how happened it that no Christian King till the time of King Henry the eighth and in his time none but he should discern this clear evidence unless perhaps though they say love is blind yet his desire to Anna Bullen did open his eyes in such miraculous manner that he saw by the heavenly light of her bright star-like eyes that the Pope was Antichrist his Authority unlawful and himselfe who was then found under it in Ecclesiastical matters to be indeed above it in case the Popes spiritual power should cross his carnal pleasure To conclude my answer to this Chapter I would ask two things of Mr. Doctor one is in case a King should have broke from the Church and brought in Schism into his Country whether it could probably be perform'd in any other manner than the very method by which their Reformation was introduced The other is whether the Reformation be yet perfectly compleat or rather that Queen Elizabeth swept the Church indeed but left the dust sluttishly behind the door if it be not yet compleat I would gladly know how far this Reformation and Receding from Rome may proceed and what be the certain stints and limits of this rowling Sea which it may not pass For I see no reason in the Doctors grounds but if the secular powers think it convenient they may reform still end wayes as they please nay even if they list deny Christ to be God an acute Socinian will solve very plausibly all the objections out of Scripture and produce allegations which I doubt not he will make far stronger than the Doctor doth his against the Pope nor will there want some obscure testimonies out of Antiquity and express ones from the Arrian Hereticks to evince the Tenet if this then were voted by a King some of his Bishops and a Parliament the Doctor must not disobey and hold Christs Divinity since the thing was done by them to whom as the Doctor sayes rightfull power legally pertain'd They having no infallibility then may happen to vote such a thing and the Doctor having no infallible certainty to the contrary ought not recede from his lawful Superiours so as upon these grounds all religion may be reformed into Atheism and the infallibility of the Church once denied the temporal Power hath no reason to have his rightful authority stinted but at pleasure to make Reformation upon Reformation from generation to generation per omnia saecula saeculorum THE THIRD PART Containing the answers to the foure last Chapters of Dr. Hammonds Schism SECT 1. Doctor Hammonds second sort of Schism and his pretence that they retain the way to preserve Unity in Faith refuted MAster Hammond hath at length finish't his greatest task and done preaching of the first species of Schism as it is an offence against the subordination which Christ hath by himselfe and his Apostles setled in the Church and is now arrived to the second sort as it signifies an offence against the mutual unity peace and charity which Christ left among his Disciples This Schism against Charity for methods sake as he tells us he divides into three species The first is a Schism in the Doctrine or Traditions a departure from the unity of the Faith once delivered to the Saints from the institutions of Christ of the Apostles and of the Universal Church of the first and purest times whether in Government or practises c. Where first this methodical Dr. makes Faith and Charity all one putting his Schism against Faith for the first species of his Schism against mutual Charity Next he ranks also the rejecting Christs Institution of Government under this second species of Schism against Charity which most evidently was the first General Head of Schism hitherto treated of that is of the Offence against Subordination setled by Christ in the Church For Christ could not settle such a subordination in the Church but he must at the same time institute the Government of the Church since there can be neither subordination without Government nor Government without subordination So as now the Schism against Government is come to be one of the Schisms against mutual Charity and to mend the matter comprehended under the same Head with Schism against Faith Was ever such a confusion heard of And yet all this is done saith the Doctor for methods sake But to proceed the second species of his Schism against mutual Charity is an offence against external peace and Communion Ecclesiastical Where I find as much blundering as formerly For these words must either signifie an Offence against Superiors and Governors of the Church and then it is again co-incident both with the first general Head of Schism which dissolves the subordination of the Churches subjects and also with the first particular species of Schism against mutual Charity which according to the Doctors method included a breach from the Government instituted by Christ. Or else they must signifie an Offence against the mutually and equally-due correspondence and Charity which one fellow-member ought to have to another and then it falls to be the same with his third and last species which he calls The want of that Charity which is due from every Christian to every Christian. So that if the jumbling all the Bells together in a confused disorder may be called musical then the Doctors division may be styled methodical After this he subdivides this first species to wit Schism against Faith into A departure from those Rules appointed by Christ for the founding and upholding truth in the Church and into The asserting particular doctrins contrary to Christs and the Apostolical pure Churches establishment But first he cleares himselfe of the former of these by answering our suggestion as he calls it that in casting out the Authority of the Bishop of Rome they have cast off the Head of all Unity To which he tells us the answer is obvious First that the Bishop of Rome was never appointed by
as clear as the most palpable matter of Fact can make a thing visible to the eyes of the World that there was indeed at least a material breach or Schism by you made from that Body which communicated with the Church of Rome and of which Body you were formerly as properly and truly a part as a Branch is of a Tree To which adde your proofs out of the Fathers in your first Chapter affirming No just cause can be given for a Schism and it will follow that your own words clearly convince and your own proofs evidently conclude you to be formally Schismaticks I will put the Argument in form to make it more plain onely premising That material Schism as far as it concerns us at present is the extern action of breaking from a community Formal the causlesness or unjustifiableness of that material Fact which must needs be criminal because it admits no just excuse to plead in its behalf Then thus No Separation from the whole Body of Christians can possibly be justified say the Fathers by you alleaged Chap. 1. Sect. 8. But your Separation was from the whole Body of Christians Therefore impossible to be justified Where all the evasion I can imagin in your behalf is to distinguish the Major That the Fathers meant Criminal Separation or the Crime of Schism could have no just cause given for it not the material and external fact of Schism But first this makes the Fathers very shallow to go about to shew That no just cause can be alleaged for the crime of Schism since every one knows there can be no just excuse possible for any crime Next the Fathers there alleaged pretend to particularize some special viciousness in Schism and are to that end produced by the Doctor But there is no speciality in Schism above other sins to say That no just excuse can be given for the crime of it since the like may be said of all sins as well as it The fact of Schism therefore it is which they call unjustifiable the same fact which with a large narration you here set down and acknowledge that they said it voted it swore it taking a great deal of pains to prove those whom you undertook to defend to be voluntary deliberate and sworn Schismaticks Now all the Testimonies alleaged by your self against Schism come in troops bandying against you and your cause as strongly as if they had been expresly gathered to that purpose As that a Schismatick is à semet-ipso damnatus self-condemned which you have here very learnedly performed as I lately shewed That ultrò ex Ecclesia se eâ—icerent they cast themselves voluntarily out of the Church c. Quomodo tâ— Ã tot gregibuâ— scidisti Excidisti enim teipsum How hast thon cut off thy self from so many flocks For thy self hast cut off thy self of which accusation your fifth Paragraph infers the confession Your own voluntary recession from us and our Government by your self here acknowledged is an indelible token and as it were a visible ear-mark that you are a stray sheep and a run-away à toâ— gregibus from the flock This badg of a Voluntary Recession your Church must always necessarily carry about her Nor will you ever be able to wipe it off with all the specious Id Ests or Criticisms your wit can invent SECT 9. The nature of Schism fetch t from it's first grounds and the material part of it fastened upon the Protestants TO lay this charge of Schisme yet more home to the Protestants we will open more clearly the nature of Schism and describe it more exactly that the Reader may see how perfectly the Protestant Church is cast in the mold of it For the better conceiving of which it will be necessary to shew first what it is which makes the Sons of the Catholike Church like brethren live together in Unity and this will lead us into the consideration first of the formal Unity it self and secondly of the Reason and Ground of this Unity The Unity it selfe consists in two things one is the submitting to and communicating in one common Head or Government the Authority of which if it be establish't in an undoubted possession as it was at the beginning of Mr. Drs Reformation is as necessary to the Ecclesiastical Community as the acknowledgement of the Undoubted Supreme Magistrate is necessary for the Unity of any temporal Common-wealth The second is the communication of the member-churches with one another consisting in the acknowledging the same Articles of Faith and using the same Sacraments c. To these was added anciently communicatory letters which afterwards by reason of the perfect colligation of the several members with their Head was neglected as unnecessary And these two Unities may be conceived again either negatively or positively By negative Communion in the same Head I mean a not disacknowledging only of the supreme Pastor or at least such an indifferent acknowledgment as having no tie upon it may be at pleasure refused and the Authority rejected As likewise negative communication between the member-Churches imports either a â—leight not denying of communion or such an acceptance and embracing of it as having no obligation may at pleasure be turned into disacceptance and disavowing On the contrary these two communications are then called positive when there is a positive obligation to acknowledge that Head and communicate with the other Churches And this is that which can only make a Church and found Church-government Or rather indeed there can be no Government imaginable either spiritual or corporal without such positive communion for a company of men without an expresse and positive obligation to obey their Superiors and comport themselves towards their fellows according to the laws may indeed be called a multitude such as is aâ—eâ—vus â—apâ—dum an heap of stones but not an Army City Commonwealth or Church which imply connexion and order Neither is the obligation of only Charity sufficient though in it selâ—e a great Ciment of Unity but it must be a visible one resulting out of the very Nature of Government which is visible and exterior Besides Charity extends universally to all even those out of the Church and therfore cannot be that proper peculiar and sole tie which unites the Faithfull as they are a Common-wealth of Beleevers The second thing is the Reason of this double Union or rather of this double positive obligation of Unity in the Church which to conceive more clearly the Reader may please to consider that a Christian is a Christian by his Faith and so a Congregation of Christians is a Community of the Faithfull Whence it followes that the Unity of the Faithfull as such being in Faith their faith must be one the ground therefore of the Unity of their faith is the ground of the Unity of the faithfull but the infallibity of the Church is the ground of the Unity of faith Therefore the same Infallibility is the reason of the Unity or positive
that the Scripture grants to S. Peter some Primacy of Order or Dignity If so Mr. Hammond then for any thing you know it may be a Primacy of Iurisdiction And it stands onely upon the certainty of your and our interpretation of Scripture whether it signifie such a Primacy or no. Neither indeed could it be any other if any hold may be taken from your words For S. Peter as you grant and as the words 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Simon the first of the Apostles plainly evidence had some kind of Primacy then given him and if it were then given him he then had it that is he had it in our Saviours life time but you told us before that S. Iohn had the dignity of place which is the same with Primacy of Order before all others in Christs life time even before S. Peter himself The Primacy then which S. Peter had in Christs life time must be some other Primacy and what Primacy could this be but the Primacy of Iurisdiction Again if by this Primacy he allows S. Peter he means such a precedency as hath any effect or efficacity in the Church according to the nature and degree of a Primacy this is all the substance of the Popes Authority and all that is held by us as of Faith but if he means by Primacy there a meerely inefficacious and dry Presidency and Precedency of Order such as is with us the walking on the right hand or sitting first at a Table without any superiority more than a courteous deference of the rest then the Doctor must imagine our Blessed Saviour had no better thing to do when he made S. Peter the first but to take order for feare the good Apostles should fall to complement who should sit go or speak in the first place and consequently this tenet being an Act of our Saviours register'd in Scripture must bee a courteous point of Faith obliging all the Apostles under pain of damnation to be civil and make a leg to S. Peter In the next paragraph the Doctor is full of feares and jealousies and makes a great doubt that the subjection of this Church to the Authority of the Bishop of Rome will never be likely to tend to the Unity of the whole And why think you so Mr. Doctor doe you not find evidently that the Church before Luther and K Henry renounced the said Authority enjoy'd most perfect peace and tranquillity as those who are under that government doe most blessedly now and on the contrary that after that Authority was rejected nothing has succeeded the rejecters but perpetual turmoiles schisms divisions and subdivisions into Sects and daily mutations in Faith and Government as far as the temporal sword did not hinder them Is not this as evident as all History and even our very eyes can witnesse a truth Lastly doe not the present distractions you now groan under awake you to see that the source of all your misery springs from the leaking Cistern of Schism you have digg'd for your selves Did your Ancestours find so little Unity under the Government of the Roman Catholike Church or have you found such a constant Unity since you left it that you can presume the re-admitting that Government is never likely to tend to Unity Yet you cannot think otherwise unlesse all other Churches of Christians paid that subjection too Do you your obligation why should their backwardnes in their duties make you deny yours Besides whom doe you call Christians all that cry Lord Lord that is professe the name of Christ but deny the onely certain Rule to come to the knowledge of his Law such as were the Gnosticks Carpocratians Donatists Socinians and all the heresies that ever arose since the infancy of the Church or doe you mean by the word Christians onely those qui faciunt voluntatem Patris doe the will of our heavenly Father that is all that hear the Church or have a certain and common Rule to know what Christs Law is if so all these acknowledge subjection to the Head-Bishop of Rome never denied by any but those who at the same time they denied it cast themselves out of the Church refusing to hear her You say the Eastern Churches had not acknowledg'd it ere your departure Admit they had not can their pattern warrant you more than it can warrant the Arrians Nestorians Eutychians c. unless you be certain they did well in it They rejected it indeed and for their reward were by all the Christian world till you falling into the same fault began to call them Brothers and by all your Ancestours justly held and called Schismaticks Yet when they were in their right mood they admitted it as much as any Roman-Catholike as appeares in the Acts of the Florentine Council to which they subscribed nay even when they were disgusted and refused Unity they acknowledged the power of the Bishop of Rome as appeares by a testimony of Gerson cited by your friend Bishop Bramhall against himselfe in his just vindication of the Church of England p. 101. which witnesses that the Greeks departed from the then-Pope with these words Wee acknowledge thy power we cannot satisfie your covetousness live by your selves His second doubt is that the Bishop of Rome is not able to administer that vast Province I wonder how he did of old and why he may not do the same again as well as formerly But the Dr. calls it a politick probleme whether hee can or no and would have it judged by those who are by God entrusted with the Flock Id est saith he by the Princes the nursing Fathers in every Church It is indeed a politick probleme that is a question concerning Government but since it concernes Government Ecclesiastical it falls not under the scanning of temporal Politicians The Christian Common-wealth would be brought to a pretty pass if the Government of Gods Church so long acknowledged as left by Christ and continued in the Church 300. yeares by their own confession ere there were any Christian Princes should anew be call'd into question by humane policy But these two words of Scripture Nursing Fathers make it plain to the Doctor satisfy'd with any thing himself fancies that the Government and Jurisdiction over the Church belongs to Kings as if to nurse cherish and foster were to rule order govern and command or as if Ioseph who was Foster-father to our Saviour was as good as or the same with God Almighty who was his true Father And I wonder where this Doctor ever read that our Saviour entrusted the Government of his Church and Ecclesiastical affaires to any but the Apostles Ecclesiastical persons or that any held Nero the Heathen Emperour to have right and title o be Head of the Church Again if our Saviour left that authority with his Apostles I would gladly know by what new Orders from Christ it came to be transfer'd from their Successors into the hands of secular Princes But the Doctor has
by his former words brought the matter at length to a finall decision The question is whether it be sitting the Pope should rule over the whole Church which none denies but a few schismatical Princes he comes to take up the controversie and tels us those very Princes for all Catholike Princes have already determined the contrary must decide the truth of the businesse As if an Umpire being to arbitrate a quarrel about the Authority of the Vice-chancellour of Oxford opposed by the Major his Competitor should take up the businesse by saying it was a politick probleme belonging to the Government of the University and so ought to bee decided by none but the Major SECT 2. Of Dr. Hammonds evasion in recurring to the first 300. yeares and concerning the humble and docible temper of his Church HAving thus cleared the Protestants for renouncing the Rules of Faith which was part of his well-divided Schism against mutual Charity as far as it concernes Faith he is come to treat next of the second part of that first species of mutual Charity which concernes Faith to wit of the particular doctrines in Faith in which he sayes he doubts not but to approve himselfe to any that will judge of the Apostolical Doctrines and Traditions by the Scriptures and consent of the first 300. years or the four General Councils c. which is a very plausible and pithy piece of shuffling expressing a plain tergiversation from approving himselfe willing to do any thing but to wave and shift the Question For first we must judge of Apostolical doctrines and Traditions by Scripture I ask are those doctrines clearer exprest in Scripture than they are in the depositories of the Churches by which he told us before they were brought down to us or no If they be clearer in Scripture what needed we those depositives at all and to what end does that Apostolical Providence serve If not how can we judge of them by Scripture which speakes more obscurely of them Again since we must judge of Apostolical doctrines by Scripture what rules does the Doctor give us to settle our judgement when things are cleare in Scripture and when not for we see many men who govern themselves by fancy think that evident which another judges to have no apparence of truth And for my part I even despair of bringing clearer proofes from Scripture than that S. Paul converted Iewes and S. Peter Gentiles which yet you saw could give the nice Doctor no satisfaction Another tergiversation is his standing onely to the first 300. yeares where the Authors being scarce by reason of the Churches obscure state under persecution and hardly any occasion to speak of the late risen controversies between us he hopes no great matter can be concluded against him thence where scarce any thing is found that concernes our quarrel As if being to fight a Duel with an Adversary he would stand to the appointment of no place and time but onely in a wildernesse and a dark night where they might be sure never to meet or being met never see one another No better is his standing to the four first Councils onely which were all call'd upon other occasions and so touch not any point of debate between us except onely on the by and therefore obscurely the best testimonies out of which have been already objected by him and solved by us But why onely foure since all Councils are of equal Authority there being nothing found to authorize the first foure but was found in the fifth sixth c. So that this challenge of the Drs. is all one as if an Arian Heretick would be judged by no place in Scripture whether Christ were God or no but out of the Proverbs of Solomon where nothing is found concerning that point dilating much upon the praises of Solomon and what a most pure and uncorrupted piece of Scripture that Book is but producing no Evidence in the world why the other Books of Scripture were not as pure and sacred as it But the Doctor escapes not so he has engag'd himselfe by this as he thought secure grant further than he imagines His allowing of foure Councils to examine his Faith by is an acknowledgement that he admits the Authority of Councils as sacred and binding He must either then shew EVIDENCE that the 5th Council erred or that the Church and her Pastors had declined from the faith of the foregoing Age or else he is obliged to accept it and so the rest under the penalty of forfeiting the title of a good Christian for no lesse blot will fall to his share who rejects an Authority held sacred by himselfe without most clear Evidence of a just exception As he who acknowledges the Authority of Parliament by admitting the Acts of some as valid Lawes is bound by the very acknowledgment of some to accept all the rest unless an open Evidence convince their Votes not to have been free or that there was some other known defect in the managing of them Onely in this latter a far lesse Evidence will serve the turn the Authority of Parliament being but humane whereas the other was held and acknowledged to bee sacred But indeed the truth is hee accepts not even of those four because he thinks Councils to be of Authority but because he thinks there is no doctrine in these against his Fancy or Faith or if any he hopes he can make a shift to shuffle it off In the mean time gaining a very great patronage and countenance to his cause in pleading it relies on such highly authoriz'd supports No candider than the former is his evasion of being judged by the purest Ages which in reality signifies onely such times wherein nothing was treated against those heresies which afterwards cling'd together to compound Protestantism This is manifest by his admitting 300. yeares next after Christ no more by which he excludes the fourth and fifth Ages yet at pleasure admits the fourth General Council held about the middle of the fifth Age. So that the whole Church must be imagin'd to be first pure then impure afterwards pure again according as the supposition of it suits best for the Doctors purpose If none of their particular heresies were rife and therefore not condemned in the first obsure 300. years presently the Dr. cries up those Ages for pure But the Church in the next Age having now got rid of persecution became pester'd with home-bred factions and heresies which made the Fathers of the Church take pen in hand vigorously confuting them and some of the Doctors tenets among the rest Hereupon the Doctor presently decries that Age as impure popish corrupted But then in the middle of the fifth age was call'd a Council which chanced to treat nothing professedly of the errours afterwards embraced by the Protestants nay more had a certain passage in it which I have before cleared serving them to blunder in against the Pope Immediately that Council was sacred and that age