that by which it was acquired I say in this our case there can be no doubt at all And yet it can much lesse be doubted whether a Soveraign Prince with a National Synod may remedy the incroachments and usurpations of the Roman Court within his own dominions or exclude new Creeds and new Articles of faith lately devised and obtruded contrary to the determination of the General Councel of Ephesus of which let us hear what is Doctor Holdens opinion Notum est inter Catholicos omnes tanquans axioma certissimum c. It is known that all Catholicks do hold this as a most certain axiome that nothing ought or may be maintained for a Christian revealed truth but that which was received by our Ancestors and delivered from one generation to another by continued succession from the times of the Apostles This is all that we have done and done it with due submission to the highest Judge of Ecclesiastical controversies upon earth that is a general Councel If the Court of Rome will be humorous like little children who because they cannot have some toy that they have a mind to do cast away all that their parents have given them we cannot help it Over and above all the former grounds which the Romanists themselves do in some sort acknowledge I propose this further that Patriarchal power in external things is subject and subordinate to Imperial When Mauritius the Emperour had made a Law that no Souldier should turn Monk untill his warfare were accomplished St. Gregory Bishop of Rome disliked the Law and represented his sense of it to the Emperour but withall according to his duty published it Ego quidem missioni subjectus eandem legem per diversas terrarum partes transmitto quia lex ipsa omnipotenti deo minime concordat Ecce per suggestionis meae paginam dominis nunciavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolvi qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro deo quid sensi minime tacui I being subject to your command have transmitted your Law to be published through diverse parts of the world And because the Law itself is not pleasing to Almighty God I have represented my opinion thereof to my Lords wherefore I have performed my duty on both sides in yeelding obedience to the Emperour and not concealing what I thought for God A most rare and Christian president of that great Patriarch and fit for our observation and imitation in these dayes He acknowledged the Emperour to be his Lord and himself to be subject to his commands And though no humane invention can warrant an act that is Morally evil in it self yet if it be onely impeditive of a greater good as that blessed Saint did take this Law to be the command of a Soveraign doth weigh down the scale and obligeth a Patriarch to obedience in a matter that concerns Religion How much more doth the command of the English Monarch and the English Church disoblige an English subject from a forrein Patriarch whose Original right is but humane at the most and in the case in question between Rome and England none at all But to come up yet closer to the question The general Councels of Constantinople and Chalcedon with the presence concurrence and confirmation of Theodosius the great Martian the Emperours notwithstanding the opposition of the Roman Bishop by his Legates did advance the Bishop of Constantinople from being a poore Suffragan under the Metropolitan of Heraclea to be the second Patriarch and equal in dignity power and all manner of priviledges to the first and assigned unto him for his Patriarchate Pontus and Asia the lesse and Thracia and some other countries part of which territories they substracted from the obedience of the Roman Bishop at least over which the Roman Bishops challenged Jurisdiction and part from other Patriarchs And the reason of this alteration was the same for which Caesarea of old was a long time preferred before Hierusalem and Alexandria before Antioch and Rome before all others to conform the Ecclesiasticall regiment to the Politicall because Constantinople was made of a mean City the seat of the Eastern Empire and had as many Diocesses and Provinces subject unto it as old Rome it self But lest it may be conceived that this was not done at all by Imperial power but by the authority of the Oecumenical Synods we may observe further that Iustiniâ—n the Emperour by his sole Soveraign Legislative power did new-found the Patriarchate of Iustiniana prima and assign a province unto it and indow it with most ample priviledges freeing it from all appeals and all acknowledgment of superiority giving the Bishop thereof equal power with that which the Bishop of Rome had in his Patriarchate The same priviledges and prerogatives were given by the same Emperour by the same Legislative authority to the Bishop of Carthage notwithstanding that the Bishops of Rome did alwayes pretend that Carthage was under their Jurisdiction I deny not that Vigilius and Gregory succeeding Popes did make deputations to the Bishop of Iustiniana to supply their places But this was but an old Roman fineness The Bishops of Iustiniana needed none of their Commissions Iustinian the Father and founder of the Imperial Law knew well enough how far his Legislative power did extend And though the Act was notorious the whole world and inserted into the body of the Law yet the Fathers of that age did not complain of any innovation or usurpation or breach of their priviledges or violation of their rights King Henry the Eight had the same Imperial power and was as much a Soveraign in his own Kingdomes as Iustinian the Emperour in his larger Dominions as William Rufus Son and successor of the Conqerour said most truly that the Kings of England have all those liberties in their own Kingdomes which the Emperours had in the Empire and had as much authority to exempt his own subjects from the Jurisdiction of one Patriarch and transferre them to another especially with the advise consent and concurrence of a National Synod So King Arthur his predecessor removed the Primacy from Caâ—rleon to Saint Davids and another of them to Canterbury for the advantage of their subjects according to the exigence of the times If the Pope had been the King of Englands Subject as former Popes were the Emperours he might have served him as they did some of his predecessours called a Councel regulated him and reduced him to order and reason or if he proved incorrigible have deposed him But the Pope being a stranger all that he could justly do was what he did rather then to see his royall prerogative daily trampled upon his Lawes destroyed his Subjects oppressed rather then to have new Articles of faith daily obtruded upon the English Church rather then to incur the peril of willful Idolatry against conscience and therefore formal to Cashier the Roman Court with all their pardons and
A IVST VINDICATION OF THE Church of England FROM The unjust Aspersion of Criminal SCHISME WHEREIN The nature of Criminal Schisme the divers sorts of Schismaticks the liberties and priviledges of National Churches the rights of Sovereign Magistrates the tyranny extortion and Schisme of the Roman Court with the grievances Complaints and opposition of all Princes and States of the Roman Communion of old and at this very day are manifested to the view of the World By the Right Reverend Father in God Iohn Bramhall Dr. in Divinity and Lord Bishop of Derry Pacian in ep ad Sempron My name is Christian my sirname is Catholique By the one I am known from Infidels by the other from Hereticks and Schismaticks LONDON Printed for Iohn Crook at the sign of the Ship in S. Paul's Church-Yard 1654 THE Contents of the particular CHAPTERS CHAP. I. THe Scope and summe of this Treatise Pag. 1. CHAP. II. The stating of the question what is Schisme who are Schismaticks and what is signified by the Church of England in this question p. 6. CHAP. III. That the Separation from the Court of Rome was not made by Protestants but Roman Catholicks themselves p. 31 CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdome of England in their Separation from Rome did make no new Law but vindicate the ancient Law of the Land pag. 54. CHAP. V. That the Britannick Churches were ever Exempted from all forreign Iurisdiction And so ought to continue pag. 87 CHAP. VI. That the King and Church of England hâ—d both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience from Rome p. 1â—6 CHAP. VII That all Kingdomes and Republicks of the Roman Communion Germany France Spain Portugal Sicilly Brabant Venice do the same thing in effect when they have occasion p. 160 CHAP. VIII That the Pope and Court of Rome are many waies guilty of Schisme and the true cause of the Dissensions of Christendome Pag. 229 CHAP. IX An Answer to the Objections of the Romanists p. 245 CHAP. X. The Conclusion of the Treatise p. 275. Courteous Reader BY reason of the Authour's Absence and difficulty of the written Copy severall Errata's have past the Presse which you are desired to amend and among the rest these following Page 7. in Margine Act. leg Art p. 13. line 17. Lyne leg kind p. 13. in marg Manrit leg Maurit p. 14 l 1 Schimse leg Schisme p. 15 l. 15 Creed leg Creeds p. 18 l. ult legemachies leg logomachies p. 21 l. 8. qui leg quis p. 22 l. 4. teach for touch p. 35 l. 8. these for those p. 39. l. 31. dele little p. 42 in margine modo for nodâ— p. 65 in margine 78 for 787 p. 67 Hesâ—is for Hosius in marg p. 74 l. 1 sepultura for sepulchra p. 79 l. 4 Asseâ—tie for Asserio p. 85 l. 30 the for his Legates p. 102 l. 25 as for or p. 113 in marg lais for Caiet p. 119 l. 2 novum for nonum p. 121 l. 11 no for had p. 140 for 138 p. 141 for 139 p. 144 for 142 p. 145 for 143 p. 914 for 149 p. 129 l. 23 chink for klink and l. 25 despensations for dispensations p. 130 l. 10 Simoniae for Simonia and l. 20 21 aliam and nummam for alium and nummum p. 131 l. 1 conscivit for consuevit p. 132 l. 16 singulta for singultu and lin 20 speculiem for speculum p. 133 l. 28 papale for papali l. 29 rigarâ— for rigore line 30 praecipient for praecipiente p. 138 l. 6. for then the oath read then that the oath p. 142 l. 5 sweare for sware And in the margent Hoops for Harps p. 153 l. 15 provisos for provisors And in the marg theops for the copy p. 164 l. 10 deest not p. 165 l. 30 thar for that p. 186 l 32 which leg wherewith p. 199 l. 14 Redimendum leg Redimendam p. 214 l. 4 leg Placaert l. 27 but for but p. 217 in marg Imprss. leg Impress A JUST VINDICATION OF THE Church of England CHAP. I. The Scope and summe of this Treatise 1. NOthing hath been hitherto or can hereafter be objected to the Church of England which to strangers unacquainted with the state of our affaires or to such of our Natives as have onely looked upon the case superficially hath more Colour of truth at first sight then that of Schisme that we have withdrawn our obedience from the Vicar of Christ or at least from our lawful Patriarch and separated our selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church A grievous accusation I confesse if it were true for we acknowledge that there is no salvation to be expected ordinarily without the pale of the Church 2. But when all things are Judiciously weighed in the Ballance of right reason when it shall appear that we never had any such forrein Patriarch for the first six hundred years and upwards And that it was a grosse Violation of the Canons of the Catholick Church to attempt after that time to obtrude any forrein Jurisdiction upon us That before the Bishops of Rome ever exercised any Jurisdiction in Brittain they had quitted their lawful Patriarchate wherewith they were invested by the authority of the Church for an unlawful Monarchy pretended to belong unto them by the institution of Christ That whatsoever the Popes of Rome gained upon us in after-ages without our own free consent was meer tyranny and usurpation That our Kings with their Synods and Parliaments had power to revoke retract and abrogate whatsoever they found by experience to become burthensome and insupportable to their Subjects That they did use in all ages with the consent of the Church and Kingdom of England to limit and restrain the Exercise of Papal power and to provide remedies against the daily incroachments of the Roman Court so a Henry the Eighth at the reformation of the English Church did but tread in the steps of his most renowned Ancestours who flourished whilest Popery was in its Zenith And pursued but that way which they had chalked out unto him a way warranted by the practise of the most Christian Emperours of old and frequented at this day by the greatest or rather by all the Princes of the Roman Communion so often as they find occasion When it shall be made evident that the Bishops of Rome never injoyed any quiet or settled possession of that power which was after deservedly cast out of England so as to beget a lawful prescription And lastly that we have not at all separated our selves from the Communion of the Catholick Church nor of any part thereof Roman or other qua tales as they are such but only in their innovations wherein they have separated themselves first from their Common Mother and from the fellowship of their own Sisters I say when all this shall be cleared and the Schisme is brought home and laid at the right door then we may safely conclude that by how much we should turn more Roman
swim in abundance were changed into a competent maintenance And lastly So as all opinion of satisfaction and supererogation were removed I do not see why monasteries might not agree well enough with reformed devotion So then Henry the eighth at the time of his secession from Rome and long after even so long as he lived was neither friend nor favourer of the ensuing reformation nor ordinarily of Protestants in their persons As may yet more manifestly appear by that cruel statute of the Six Articles which he made after all this in the one and thirtieth year of his raign as a trap to catch the Lives of the poore Protestants A Law both writ in blood and executed in blood But suppose that Henry the eighth had been a friend to Protestants what shall we say to all the Orders of the Kingdom what shall we say to the Synods to the Universities to the four and twenty Bishops and nine and twenty Abbats who consented to this Act were all these Schismaticks were Heath Bonner Tonstall Gardiner Stokesley Thurleby c. all Schismaticks If they were then Schismaticks were the greatest opposers of the reformation the greatest enemies of the Protestants and the greatest pillars and upholders of the Roman religion These were they that granted the Supremacy to King Henry the eighth Archbishop Warham told him it was his right to have it before the Pope These were they that preached up the Supremacy of the King at S. Paul's Crosse and defended his Supremacy in printed books These consented to the Acts of Parliament for his Supremacy and the extinguishing of the power of the Roman Bishop in England These were they who helped to make the oath of Supremacy and took it themselves and all others of any note throughout England except onely Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas Moor who were in prison before it was enacted for opposing the Kings Marriage and the succession of his Children to the Crown after it was ordained in Parliament And wise men have thought that the former had taken it if he had not been retarded by the expectation of a Cardinals hatt which was come as far as Calice Or rather what shall we say to the whole body of the Kingdome if we may believe the testimony of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester a learned person of very near relation to King Henry and in all other things a great Zelot of the Roman Catholick party in his book of true obedience published with a Preface to it made by Bishop Bonner Thus he No forrein Bishop hath authority among us All sorts of people are agreed with us upon this point with most stedfast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to do with Rome A full confession of an able adversary to which I see not what can be excepted unlesse it be said of him as it was of Aeneas Sylvius Stephanus probavit Wintoniensis negavit Doctour Gardiner approved it but the Bishop of Winchester retracted it Admit it were so as it was indeed what is that to the stedfast unanimous consent of the whole Kingdome which appears not onely from hence but from Tonstal's Epistle to Cardinal Pool and Bekenshaws Commentary of the Soveraign and absolute power of Kings As likewise of the difference between Kingly and Ecclesiastical power And lastly and principally by a book set forth by the English Convocation called The Institution of a Christian man And to shew yet further that Ireland was unanimoâ—â—â—â—erein with England we find in the three and thirtieth year of Henry the eighth which was before all thoughts of reformation not the Irish only as the O Neales O Relies O Birnes O Carols c. but also the English Families as the Desmonds Barries Râ—ches Bourks whose posterities do still continue Zealous Romanists did make their submissions by Indenture to Sir Anthony Sellenger then chief Governour of that Kingdom wherein they acknowledged King Henry to be their Soveraign Lord and confessed the Kings Supremacy in all causes and utterly renounced the Iurisdiction of the Pope So the Bishop of Winchester might well say that there was an Universal and stedfast consent in the separation from Rome The second exception weighes so little that it scarce deserveth an Answer Admitting but not granting that any or all the calumnies of that party against Henry the eighth were true whereof divers by their impossibility and by the contradiction of their authors do carry their own condemnation written in their foreheads And although Henry the eighth had been our Reformer as he was not yet all this would signifie nothing as to this present question God doth often good works by ill agents Iehu's heart was not upright towards the Lord yet God used him as an Instrument to reform his Church and to punish the worshippers of Baal We have heard of late of an aggregative treason not known before in the world But never untill now of an aggregative Schisme The addition of twenty sins of another nature cannot make that to be Schisme which is not Schisme in it self We are sorry for his sins under a condition that is in case they were true which for part of them we have no great Reason to believe But we are absolutely without condition glad of our own liberty The truth is God Almighty did serve himself of a most unlawful dispensation granted by the Pope to King Henry the eighth to marry his brothers Wife as an occasion of this great work I say unlawful because it was after judged unlawful by the Universities of England France Italy after mature deliberation and some of them upon oath and by above an hundred forrein Doctours of principal reputation for learning The coales of the Kings suspicion were kindled in Spain France and Flanders no enemies to the Pope and blown by Cardinal Wolsey for sinister ends But it was Cranmer that struck the nail home And God disposed all things to his own glory To their third exception That to withhold obedience is Schismatical as well as to withdraw it I answer first that they cannot accuse us as accessaries to Schisme until they have first condemned their own great Patrons Champions and Confessours for the principal Schismaticks Did Roman Catholicks themselves find right and sufficient reason to turn the Pope out of England at the foredoor in fair daylight as an intruder and usurper And do they expect that Protestants who never had any relation to him should let him in again by stealth at the back-door Turpius ejicitur quam non admittitur hospes It is true Queen Mary afterwards gave him houseroom again in England for a short time But he raged so extreamly and made such bonefires of poor innocent Christians in every corner of the Kingdome that it is no marvail if they desired his room rather then his company I have often wondred how any rational man could satisfie himself so as to make
flowers of the Crown so they might but hold the Diademe it self from their competitors Therefore our Ecclesiasticall law was called the Kings law because the edge and validity of it did proceed from authority royal our Ecclesiasticall Courts were stiled the Kings Courts by his Judges It is true the habitual Jurisdiction of Bishops flowes from their Ordination But the actual exercise thereof in Publick courts after a coercive manner is from the gracious concessions of Soveraign Princes In a word the law being meerly intended as a remedy against usurpation it cannot be a new Law but onely a Legislative declaration of the Old Common Law of England I will conclude this Chapter with the words of Bishop Bilson As for his Patriarchate by Gods law he hath nonâ— in this Realm for Six hundred years after Christ he had nonâ— for the last Six hundred years looking after greater matters he would have none Above or against the Princes Sword he can have none to the Subversion of the Faith or oppression of his Brethreâ— he ought to have none you must seek further for Subjection to his Tribunall This Land â—weth him none CHAP. V. That the Britanick Churches were ever exempted from forraign Iurisdiction for the first six hundred years And so ought to continue THirdly supposing that the reformed Church of England had separated it self from Rome and supposing that the municipal laws of the Realm then in force had not warranted such a separation yet the British Churches that is the Churches of the British Islands England Scotland and Ireland c. by the constitution of the Apostles and by the solemne sentence of the Catholique Church are exempted from all forraign Jurisdiction and cannot be Schismatical in the lawful vindication of a just priviledge so well founded for the clearer manifestation whereof let us consider First that all the twelve Apostles were equall in mission equall in commission equall in power equall in honour equal in all thingâ— except priority of order without which no Society can well Subsist So much Bellarmine confesseth that by these words As my father sent me so send I you Our Saviour endowed them with all the fulnesse of power that mortall men were capable of And therefore no single Apostle had Jurisdiction over the rest par in parem noâ— habet potestatem but the whole Colledge of Apostles to which the supream Mesnagery of Ecclesiasticall affaires did belong in common whether a new Apostle was to be ordained or the office of Deaconship was to be erected or fit persons were to be delegated for the ordering of the Church as Peter and Iohn Iudas and Sylas Or informations of great moment were to be heard as against Peter himself Though Peter out of Modesty might condescend and submit to that to which he was not obliged in duty yet it had not become the other Apostles to sit as Judges upon their Superiour placed over them by Christ. Or whether the weightier questions of the calling of the Gentiles and circumcision the law of Moses were to be determined still we find the Supremacy in the Colledge Secondly that drousy dream that the plenitude of Ecclesiastical power and Jurisdiction was given by Christ to Saint Peter as to an ordinary Pastour to be derived from him to his Successours but to the rest of the Apostles as delegates for tearm of life to die with themselves as it is lately and boldly asserted without reason without authority either divine or humane so it is most repugnant to the doctrine of the Fathers who make all Bishops to be the Vicars and Embassadours of Christ not of the Pope and successours of the Apostles indifferently Vicaria ordinatione who make but one Episcopacy in the world whereof every Bishop hath an equal share St. Peter was a Pastor and the Pastoral office is of perpetual necessity in the Church True But so were all the rest of the Apostles Pastors as well as he And if we examine the matter more narrowly cui bono for whose advantage this distinction was devised it was not for S. Peters own advantage who setting aside his principallity of order is confessed to have had but an equall share of power with his fellow Apostles but fo rs the Popes advantage and the Roman courts whom they desire to invest solely with the key of all originall Jurisdiction And if we trace on this Argument a little further to search out how the Bishop of Rome comes to be Saint Peters heire ex assâ— to the exclusion of his Elder Brother the Bishop of Antioch they produce no authority that I have seen but a blind ill grounded legend out of a counterfeit Hegâ—sippus of Saint Peters being about to leave Rome and Christs meeting him upon the way and admonishing him to return to Rome where he must be crucified for his name which reason halts on both sides The foundation is Apocryphal and the superstruction is weak and unjointed without any necessary connexion Thirdly it appeareth not to us that the Apostles in their daies did either set up any universall Monarchy in the Church or so much dilate the borders or bounds of any one mans single Jurisdiction as to subject so great a part of the Christian World as the Western Patriarchate to his obedience The highest that they went if any of those Canons which bear their names be genuine was to nationall or provincial Primates or Patriarchs for a Protarch or Primate and a Patriarch in the language of the ancient Church signified one and the same thing in whose praeheminence there was more of order and care then of single Jurisdiction and power Read their three and thirtieth Canon It behooves the Bishops of every distinct Nation to know him who is their first or Primate and to esteem him as their head And to do nothing that is of difficulty or great moment contrary to his opinion But neither let him do any thing without the opinion of all them This Nationall Primacy or Protarchatâ— or Patriarchate under which the Britannique Churches flourished for many ages is the very same which we contend for Fourthly it is worthy of our inquiry how in processe of time some Primates did obtain a much more eminent degree of honour and a larger share in the government of the Church then others And of this their adventitious Grandeur we find three principal fountaines First ancient customes Secondly the Canons of the Fathers And thirdly the edicts of Christian Princes First ancient customes Upon this ground the first generall Councel of Nice settled the authority and priveledges of the three Patriarchal Sees of Rome Alexandria and Antioch Let ancient customes prevail And these customes commonly proceeded either from the memory of the Apostles who had founded such Churches from whence as from Apostolical fountaines their neighbours did fetch sound doctrine and reciprocally paid to them due respect So
indulgences and other Alchymistical devices out of his Kingdoms until time should teach them to content themselves with moderate things which endure long Or untill either a free Oecumenical Councel or an Europaean Synod should settle controversies and tune the jarring strings of the Christian world In the mean time we pitty their errours pray for their amendment and long for a re-union Now the just grounds of such subduction or separation are of two sorts either the Personal faults of the Popes or their Ministers as in the case of Simony and Schisme which ought in justice to reflect upon none but the persons who are guilty Or else they are faulty principles and rules as well in point of Doctrine as of Discipline such as the obtruding of new Creeds the pressing of unlawful oathes and the palpable usurpation of the undoubted rights of others And these do justifie and warrant a more permanent separation that is untill they be reformed Wherefore having taken a view of the sufficiency of the authority of our Princes to reform In the next place it is worthy of our serious consideration what were the true grounds of the separation of the Kingdom and Church of England from the Court of Rome And secondly whether in the subduction or substraction of their obedience or Communion they observed due moderation The grounds of their separation were many first the intolerable extortions and excessive Rapine of the Court of Rome committed in that Realm by their Legates and Nuncios and Commissioners and Collectors and other inferiour Officers and harpies enough to impoverish the kingdom and to drain out of it all the treasure that was in it and leave it as bare as a Grashopper in winter by their indulgences and pardons for all kind of sin at a certain rate Registred in their penitentiary taxe Yea as Ticelius the Popes pardoner made his bragg in Germany though a man had ravished the Mother of God yet so soon as the money did but chink in the bottom of the Bason presently the soul flew out of Purgatory To these we may add their despensations of all sorts and Commutations and Absolutions and Contributions and Reservations and Tenths and first Fruits and Appeals and Palles and a thousand other Artifices to get money As Provisions Collations Exemptions Canonisations Divolutions Revocations Unions Commendams Tolerations Pilgâ—images Jubilees Nulla hic arcana revelâ— saith Mantuan Venalia nobis Templa Sacerdotes altaria Sacra coronae Ignis thura preâ—es coelum est venale deusqque Temples Priests Altars Myters holy Orders Prayers Masses Heaven and God himself are salable at Rome It is no marvel they that buy must sell And whilest I am writing these things comes fresh intelligence of a Book lately set forth de Simoniae praesentis Pontificis they say not penned but dictated by such as know right well the most secret Cabales and Intriques of the Conclave Nam propius fama est hos tangere Divos which I can easily impute more to the fault of the place then of the man The oblation of the body and blood of Christ is sold fastings and penitentiary works are sold qui non potest jejunare per se potest jejunare per aliam vel potest darâ— nummam pro jejunio The merits of the Saints being alive are sold their relicks being dead are sold Scapulars and Monastick garments are sold. The Iewes with their Oxen Sheep and Doves were but petty Merchants in comparison of these great bankers Did any man desire a pall the Law it self did direct them what to do pallium non datur nisi fortiter postulanti The Pall would not be given but to those that knocked hard with a silver hammer Was any man a Suppliant to the Court of Rome Matthew Paris puts him into a right way Tunc sedes clementissima quae nulli deâ—sse conscivit dummodo albi aliquid vel rubei intercedat prescriptos Pâ—ntifices Abbates ad pristinas dignitates misericorditer revocavit Then the most pittiful See which is not accustomed to be wanting to any suppliants so they bring white or yellow advocates along with them did mercifully restore the said Bishops and Abbats to their former dignities It is almost incredible what a masse of treasure they collected out of England in a short time onely from investitures and some other exactions from Bishops in foure years no lesse then an hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling as was â—ound by inquisition Archbishop Cranmer paid for his Bulles that concerned his Consecration and Pall nine hundred Ducats To such an height were the extortions of the Roman Court mounted Ex ungue leonem Judge by this what the Popes yearly income or revenue out of England might be by all these arts which we have formerly mentioned and many more Sometimes under pretense of recovering the holy Land Sometimes to relieve the poverty of the Roman Court Sometimes in palfries Sometimes in forged bills of Exchange Sometimes in extorted subsidies Sometimes to a certain summe Sometimes to the fift part of their goods Sometimes to the third part of Residents and the half of non-residents Sometimes in yearly revenues as two Prebends of every Bishop and the value of the maintenance of two Monks from every Abbat Sometimes out of the goods of rich Clergy men who died intestate Sometimes a years wages for paiment of Souldiers some five some ten some fifteen according to their estates Sometimes in Jewels of all which he that desires to be more fully informed needs but to read Matthew Paris who describes the abuses and extortions of the Roman Bishops Graphically throughout his History And in one place he bemones the condition of England in these words Erat igitur videre dolorem praecordialem genas sanctorum irrigare querelas erumpere suspiria multiplicare dicentibus multis cum singulta cruentato melius est nobis mori quam videre malagentis nostrae Sanctorum Vae Angliae quae quondam princeps provinciarum domina gentium speculiem Ecclesiae religionis exemplum nunc facta est sub tributo conculcaverunt eam ignobiles facta est in praedam de generibus c. Therrfore a man might see sorrow of heart water the eielids of holy men complaints break out and grones multiplied many saying with bloody sighs It is better for us to die then to see the misery of our Nation and of holy persons Wo be to England which once was the Princess of Provinces the Lady of Nations the glasse of the Church a pattern of Religion but now is become tributary Ignoble fellowes have troden her under foot And she is made a prey to base persons Neither was this the complaint of the Vulgar onely All conscientious men were of the same mind Who hath not heard of the bitter complaints and free declamations of Grosthead the learned and Religious Bishop of Lincolne against the Tyranny and Rapine of the Roman Courts both in
Bishop of the world Which sense was far enough from the intention either of Gregory the Great or Iohn of Constantinople who had both of them so many true Archbishops and Bishops under them But this sense agrees well enough with the extravagant ambition of the later Popes and of the Roman Court who do appropriate all original Jurisdiction to themselves So many waies is the Court of Rome guilty of Schismatical pravity Besides these branches of Schisme there are yet two other novelties challenged by the Popes and their Parasitical Courtiers But neither these nor the other yet defined by their Church both destructive to Christian unity both apt to breed and nourish to procreate and conserve Schisme An infallibility of judgment and a temporall power over Princes either directly or indirectly General and Provincial Councels are the proper remedies of Schisme But this challenge of infallibility diminisheth their authority discrediteth their definitions and maketh them to be superfluous things What needs so much expence so many consultations so much travel of so many poor old fallible Bishops from all the quarters of the world when there is an infallible Judge at Rome that can determine all questions in his own conclave without danger of errour Was Marcellinus such an infallible Judge when he burned incense to Idols Or Liberius when he consented to the Arrians and gave his suffrage to the condemnation of blessed Athanasius Or Honorius when he was condemned and accursed in the sixth General Councel for a Monothelite Or Iohn the 22th when he was condemned by the Theologues of Paris before the King with sound of Trumpets for teaching that the soules of the just shall not see God untill the general resurrection were those succeeding Popes Iohn and Martine and Formosus and Stephen and Romanus and Theodorus and Iohn and Benedictus and Sergius who clashed one with another and abrogated the decrees one of another over and over again such infallible Judges Neither is it meer matter of fact to decree the Ordinations of a lawful Bishop to be void To omit many others But howsoever they tell us That the first See cannot be judged I will not trouble my self about the credit of the authorities whether they be true or counterfeit Nor whether the first See signifie Rome alone or any other of the five Proto-Patriarchates Thus much is certain that by judgment of discretion any private man may judge the Pope and withdraw from him in his errours and resist him if he invade either the bodies or the soules of men as Bellarmine confesseth That in the Court of Conscience every ordinary Pastour may judge him and bind him and loose him as an ordinary man And by their leaves in the external Court by coercive power if he commit civil crimes the Emperour if Ecclesiastical a Councel or the Emperour with a Councel may judge him and in some cases declare him to be fallen from his Papal dignity by the sentence of the Law in other cases if he be incorrigible depose him by the sentence of the Judge But there is a great difference between the judgment of Subjects aâ— those Ecclesiasticks were and the judgment of a Sovereign Prince between the judgment of a General Councel and the judgment of an assembly of Suffragans and inferiours And yet the Roman Clergy are known to have deposed Liberius their own Bishop and justly Or otherwise Foelix their Martyr had been a Schismatick Their other challenge of temporal power whether directly or indirectly and in ordine ad spiritualia cannot chuse but render all Christians especially Sovereign Princes jealous and suspicious of their power and averse from the communion of those persons who maintain so dangerous positions so destructive to their propriety The power of the keâ—es doth not extend it self to any secular rights neither can Ecclesiastical censures alter or invalidate the Lawes of God and Nature or the municipal Lawes of a Land All which do injoyn the obedience of children to their Parents and of Subjects to their Sovereignes Gregory the seventh began this practice against Henry the fourth But what Gregory did bind upon earth God Almighty did not bind in heaven His Papal blessing turned to a curse And instead of an Imperial Crown Rodolph found the just reward of his treason The best is that they who give these exorbitant priviledges to Popes do it with so many cautions and reservations that they signifie nothing and may be taken away with as much ease as they are given The Pope say they is infallible not in his Chamber but in his Chair not in the premisses but in the conclusion not in conclusions of matter of fact but in conclusions of matter of faith Not alwaies in all conclusions of matter of faith but onely when he useth the right means and due diligence And who knoweth when he doth that So every Christian is infallible if â—e would and could keep himself to the infallible rule which God hath given him Take nothing and hold it fast So likewise for his temporal power over Princes they say the Pope not as Pope but as a spiritual Prince hath a certain kind of power temporal but not meerly temporal not directly but indirectly and in order to spiritual things Quo tencam vultus mutantem Protea nodo CHAP. IX An Answer to the Objections brought by the Romanists to prove the English Protestants to be Schismaticks BUt it is not enough to charge the Church of Rome unlesse we can discharge our selves and acquit our own Church of the guilt of Schisme which they seek to cast upon us First they object that we have separated our selves Schismatically from the communion of the Catholick Church God forbid Then we will acknowledge without any more to do that we have separated our selves from Christ and all his holy Ordinances and from the benefit of his Passion and all hope of salvation But the truth is we have no otherwise separated our selves from the communion of the Catholick Church then all the primitive Orthodox Fathers and Doctours and Churches did long before us that is in the opinion of the Donatists as we do now in the opinion of the Romanists because the Romanists limit the Catholick Church now to Rome in Italy and those Churches that are subordinate to it as the Donatists did then to Cartenna in Africk and those Churches that adhered to it We are so far from separating our selves from the communion of the Catholick Church that we make the communion of the Christian Church to be thrice more Catholick then the Romanists themselves do make it and maintain Communion with thrice so many Christians as they do By how much our Church should make it self as the case stands more Roman then it is by so much it should thereby become lesse Catholick then it is I have shewed before out of the Canons and Constitutions of our Church that we have not separated our selves simply and absolutely from the
as in justice he is bound he is not to be reputed a Schismatick If men might not be saved by a general and implicite repentance they were in a woful condition for who can tell how oft he offendeth Cleanse thou me from my secret faults And if by general and implicite repentance why not by general and implicite faith why not by general and implicite obedience So as they do their uttermost indeavours to learn their duties and are ready to conform themselves when they know them God looks upon his creatures with all their prejudices and expects no more of them then according to the talents which he hath given them If I had books for that purpose I might have cited many Lawes and many Authors to prove that the final separation from Rome was made long before the reformation of the Church of England But it is a truth so evident and so undeniable by all these who understand our affaires that I seem to my self to have done overmuch in it already I do expect that it should be urged by some that there was a double separation of the Church of England from Rome The former from the court of Rome The second from the Church of Rome The former in point of discipline The latter in point of Doctrine The former made in the daies of Henry the Eighth The other in the daies of Edward the sixth That if the Protestants were not guilty of the former yet certainly they were guilty of the later To this I give two answers first that the second separation in point of Doctrine doth not concern this question Whether the Church of England be Schismatical but another whether the Church of England be Haereticall or at least Heterodox for every error doth not presently make an haeresy which cannot be determined without discussing the particular differences between the Church of Rome and the Church of England It is an undeniable principle to which both parties do yeeld firm assent that they who made the first separation from the primitive pure Church and brought in corruptions in faith Leiturgy or use of the Sacraments are the guilty party Yea though the separation were not local but onely moral by introducing errours and innovations and making no other secession This is the issue of our controversie If they have innovated first then we are innocent and have done no more then our duties It is not the separation but the cause that makes a Schismatique Secondly I answer that as Roman Catholicks not Protestants were the authors of the Separation of England from the Court of Rome so the Court of Rome it self not Protestants made the Separation of England from the communion of the Church of Rome by their unjust and tyrannical censures excommunications and interdictions which they thundred out against the Realm for denying their spiritual Soveraignty by divine right before any reformation made by Protestants It was not Protestants that left the communion of the Church of Rome but the Court of Rome that thrust all the English Nation both Protestants and Roman Catholicks together out of their doores and chased them away from them when Pope Paul the third excommunicated and interdicted England in the daies of Henry the eighth before ever any reformation was attempted by the Protestants In that condition the Protestants found the Church and Kingdom of England in the daies of Edward the sixth So there was no need of any new separation from the communion of the Church of Rome The Court of Rome had done â—hat to their hands So to conclude my first Proposition Whatsoever some not knowing or not weighing the state of our affaires And the Acts and Records of those times have rashly or ignorantly pronounced to the contrary it is evident that the Protestants had no hand either in the separation of the English Church from the Court of Rome or in their separation from the Church of Rome The former being made by professed Roman Catholicks the later by the Court of Rome it self both before the reformation following in the dayes of Edward the sixth both at a time when the poor Protestants suffered death daily for their conscience upon the six bloody Articles CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdom of England in the separation from Rome diâ— make no new Law but vindicate their ancient Liberties THe second Conclusion upon examination will prove as evident as the former that Henry the eighth and those Roman Catholicks with him who made the great separation from the Court of Rome did no new thing but what their predecessors in all ages had done before them treading in the steps of their Christian Ancestors And first it cannot be denyed but that any person or Society that hath an eminent reputation of learning or prudence or piety or authority or power hath ever had and ever will have a great influence upon his or their neighbours without any legal Jurisdiction over them or subjection due from them Secondly it is confessed that in the primitive times great was the dignity and authority of the Apostolical Churches as Rome Antiâ—ch Ephesus Hierusalem Alexandria which were founded by the Apostles themselves And that those ancient Christians in all their differences did look upon the Bishops of those Sees as honourable Arbitrators and faithful Depositaries of the genuine Apostolical traditions especially wherein they accorded one with another Hence is that of Tertullian Constat omnem doctrinam quae cum illis Ecclesiis Apostolicis matricibus et originalibus conspi at c. Whatsoever doctrine agrees with those Apostolical original mother Churches is to be reputed true And in this sense and no other Saint Cyprian a great admirer and imitater both of the matter and words of Tertullian whom he honoured with the title of his Master doth call the Church of Rome a Matrix and a root But if the tradition varied as about the observation of Easter between Victor Bishop of Rome and Polycrates Bishop of Ephesâ—s the one prescribing from St. Peter and S. Paul the other from S. Iohn The respective Churches did conform themselves to their Superiours or if they were free as the Britannique Churches were to their own judgment or to the example of their neighbour Churches or kept them to the tradition delivered unto them by their first converters As in this very controversie about Easter and some baptismal rites the Brittish and Scottish Bishops alwaies adhered to the Eastern Church A strong presumption that thence they received the faith and were not subordinate to the Patriarchal See of Rome But yet all this honourable respect proceeded from a free prudential compliance without any perpetual or necessary subjection Afterwards some Churches lost some gained the place and dignity of Apostolical Churches either by custome so Ephesus lost it or by the Canons of the Fathers so Constantinople did get it or lastly by Imperial priviledges so Iustiniana and Carthage obtained it Thirdly it
resolutely oppose so many Sentences and Messages from Rome and condemn him twice whom the Pope had absolved Consider that Wilfride was an Arch-Bishop not an inferiour Clerk And if an appeal from England to Rome had been proper or lawful in any case it had been so in his case But it was otherwise determined by those who were most concerned Malmesbury supposeth either by inspiration or upon his own head that the King and the â— Arch-Bishop Theodore were smitten with remorse before their deaths for the injury done to Wilfride and the slighting of the Popes Sentence Letter and Legates But the contrary is moâ—â— apparently true for first it was not King Alfrede alone but the great Councel of the Kingdom also nor Theodore alone but the main body of the Clergy that opposed the Popes Letter and the restitution of Wilfride in that manner as it was decreed at Rome Secondly after Alfrede and Theodoret were both dead we find the Popes sentence and Wilfrides restitution still opposed by the surviving Bishops in the Raign of Alfredes son To clear the matter past contradiction let us consider the ground of this long and bitter contention Wilfride the Archbishop was become a great pluralist and had ingrossed into his hands too many Ecclesiastical dignities The King and the Church of England thought fit to deprive him of some of them and to confer them upon others Wilfride appealed from their sentence unto Rome The Pope gave sentence after sentence in favour of Wilfride But for all his sentences he was not he could not be restored untill he had quitted two of his Monasteries which were in question Hongesthill deane and Ripon which of all others he loved most dearly and where he was afterwards interred This was not a conquest but a plain waving of his sentences from Rome and a yeelding of the question for those had been the chief causes of the controversie So the King and the Church after Alfredes death still made good his conclusion That it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councel of the English should be restored upon the Popes Bull. And as he did not so neither did they give any assent to the Popes Legation So unfortunate were appeales to Rome in those daies And as unfrequent as unfortunate for from that time untill Anselmes daies after the Norman Conquest in the Raign of Henry the first we do hardly meet with another appeal Then Pope Paschalis the second had devised a new Oath for Arch-Bishops when they received their Pall An oath much wondered at in all places as a strange innovation Significasti reges Regni majâ—res admiratione permotos c. You signified unto me that Kings and Nobles were moved with admiration that the Pâ—ll was offered unto you by our Ministers upon condition that you should take an oath which they brought you written from us c. This oath was that which animated Anselme to contest so hotly with the King The main controversie was about this very question of Appeales to Rome The King pleaded the fundamental Lawes and Customes of the Land consuetudo Regni mâ—i est à Patrâ— meo instituta ut nullius praeter licentiam Regis appelletur Papa Qui consuetudines regni tollit potestatem quoque coronam Regis violat c. It is a custome of my Kingdome instituted by my Father that no Pope may be appealed unto without â—the Kings License He that takes away the Customes of the Kingdome doth violence to the power and Crown of the King It is to be noted that the Lawes established by his Father that was William the Conquerour were no other then the Lawes of Edward the Confessor that is to say the old Saxon Lawes So he might justly say both that it was an ancient immemorial custome of the Kingdom and also that it was instituted or established by his Father So Hoveden tells us that at last he yeelded to the request of his Barons c. that was by his authority to confirm the Lawes of King Edward But the best was that though Anselme the Archbishop was obliged by oath to the Pope yet the Bishops were not so soon brought into the same bondage And therefore the former Authour tells us that In his exequendis omnes Episcopi Angliae Primati suo suffragium negarunt In the execution of these things all the Bishops of England did deny their suffrage to their Primate So unanimous were they in this point Which unanimity of the whole Realm both Clergy and Laity doth appear yet more evidently by the Statute of Clarendon made in the Raign of the grand-child of this King when all the Prelates and Peeres of the Realm did confirm the former ancient Brittish English custome not onely by their consents but by their oathes whereof we shall have occasion to speak more hereafter And upon this custome was that Law grounded which our Histories do make mention of Si quis inventus fuerit literas vel mandatum ferens Domini Papae c. capiatur et de eo sicut de Regis traditore regni sine dilatione fiat justitia If any one be found bringing in the Popes Letter or Mandate let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a traitor to the King and Kingdom And generally every man is interdicted or forbidden to appâ—al to the Pope And the Legations from Rome were almost as rare as appeals to Rome during the raigns of all the Brittish and Saxon Kings untill the Norman conquest As Gregory Bishop of Ostium the Popes own Legate did confess That he was the first Roman Priest that was sâ—nâ— into those parts of Bâ—iâ—tain from the time of S. Austin And those Legates were no others then ordinary messengers or Embassadors sent from one Neighbour to another Such a thing as a Legantine Court or a Nuncios Court was not known in the Brittish world in those ages and long after It is not enough to shew that one Roman Bishop did once send over one or two Doctors to help to propagate or confirm the faith or to lend their helping hands to Religion fainting This may well set forth their devotion and our obligation But further as to the present question it signifies just nothing Favours cease to be favours when they are done on purpose to deprive men of their ancient liberties The Brittish Bishops and English also have done as much for other Nations over whom they did never challenge any Jurisdiction The French Church sent over Germanus Lupus to help to root up the relicks of Pelagianisme in Brittain yet did never pretend thereby to any authority over the Brittaines Add to this that during all the time from St. Gregory to the conquest it was usual for the Brittish Saxon and Danish Kings with their Clergy or great Councel to make Ecclesiastical lawes and to regulate the external discipline of the Church within their
spare for Britain In the whole term of three hundred years there were few above two hundred Bishops Ordained at Rome Italy alone may brag well near of as many Bishops at one time as many succeeding Popes did ordain in all their ages Let them not tell us of the scarcity of Christians in those dayes The writings of Tertullian and Saint Cyprian and the Councels held within the time limited do evince the contrary No the first badge of their Patriarchal authority in Britain was sending of the Pall as the onely badge during the times of the Britons and Saxons And the first Pall that came into Britain was after six hundred years But this doth yet appear much more clearly from the answer of Dionothus the Reverend and learned Abbot of Bangor which according to the manner of those times was an University or Seminary of Learning and piety among the Britons and he the well deserving Rector of it made in his own name and in the name of the Britons when they pressed him to submit to the Romaen Bishop as his Patriarch that he knew no obedience due to him whom they called the Pope but the obedience of love And that under God they were to be governed by the Bishop of Caerleon Observe first what strangers the Britons were to the Papacy That man whom you call the Pope Secondly that they acknowledged no subjection or subordination no obedience whatsoever due from them to Rome but onely the reciprocal duty of love that was just the same that Rome did owe to them Thirdly that under God that is immediatly without any Forrein Prelate or Patriarch intervening they were to be governed by the Bishop of Caerleon as their onely Primate and Patriarch Which priviledge continued to the succeeding Bishops of that See for many ages afterwards saving that the Archiepiscopal Chair was removed from Caerleon to St. Davids in the Raign of King Arthur And lastly observe the time when this answer was made after the first six hundred years were expired So it is a full demonstrative convincing proof for the whole term prefixed But lest any man should cavil and say that Dionothus was but one man and that the body of the British Clergy might be of another mind that which followes strikes the question dead That Austin Saint Gregories Legate proposing three things to the Britons First that they should submit to the Roman Bishop Secondly that they should conforme to the customes of the Roman Province about the observation of Easter and the administration of Baptisme And Lastly that they should joyn with him in Preaching to the Saxons all the British Clergy assembled themselves together Bishops and Priests in two several Synods one after another to deliberate hereupon and after mature consideration they rejected all his propositions Synodically and refused flatly and unanimously to have any thing to do with him upon those terms Insomuch as St. Austin was necessitated to return over the Seas to obtain his own consecration and after his return to consecrate the Saxon Bishops alone without the assistance of any other Bishops They refused indeed to their own cost twelve hundred innocent Monks of Bangor shortly after lost their lives for it Rome was ever builded in blood Howsoever these words quamvis Augustino prius mortuo have since been forged and inserted into venerable Bede to palliate the matter which are wanting in the Saxon Copy The concurring Testimonies of all our Historiographers witnessing the absolute and unanimous refusal of the Britons to submit to Rome and the matter of fact it self do confirm this for an undoubted truth beyond all exception So clear a truth it is that the British Churches for the first three hundred years neither ought nor paid any subjection to Rome Whence might well proceed that answer of Elutherius to King Lucius if that Epistle be not counterfeit when he desired him to send over a Copy of the Roman Lawes That he should chuse a Law Ecclesiastical out of holy writ by the Councel of his Kingdom that is principally of his Bishops for saith he you are the Vicar of Christ in your Kingdom The same in effect which is conteined in the Lawes of Edward the Confessor Hence it is that both our Histories and our Lawes do stile our Archbishops Priâ—ates which in the Language of the Primitive times signifies as much as Patriarchs And sometimes call them expresly by the very name of Patriarchs it self Hence Vrban the second intertained and welcomed Anselm our Archbishop of Canterbury into the Councel of Barre tanquam alterius orbis Papam as the Pope of another world Or as others relate the passage as the Apostle of another world and a Patriarch worthy to be reverenced CHAP. VI. That the King and Church of England had both sufficient authority and sufficient grounds to withdraw their obedience from Rome and did it with due moderation SO from the persons who made the separation from the Lawes and Statutes of our Realm which warranted the separation and from the ancient Liberties and priviledges of the Britannick Churches I proceed to my fourth ground drawn from the Imperial prerogatives of our Soveraign Princes That though we should wave all the other advantages yet they had power to alter in the external discipline and regiment of the Church whatsoever was of humane institution for the benefit and advantage of the body politick Doctor Holden proposeth the case right by way of Objection But peradventure the Protestants will say that the King or supream Senate of every Kingdome or Common-Wealth have power to make Lawes and statutes by which either directly or at least indirectly as well the Clergy as the Laity of that Kingdom or Common-Wealth are bound to reject all forrain Iurisdiction superiority and dependance And that his Legislative power is essentially annexed to every Kingdom and Commonwealth seeing that otherwise they cannot prevent those dangers which may spring and issue from that fountain to their destruction and ruine The Protestants do say indeed without all peradventure upon that very ground which is alledged in the objection Neither do the Protestants want the suffrage of Roman Catholicks therein Because humane nature saith one cannot be destitute of necessary remedies to its own preservation And another To whom a Kingdome is granted of necessity all things are esteemed to be granted without which a Kingdome cannot be governed And a Kingdom cannot be governed unlesse the King enjoy this power even over Clerks c. Necessary remedies are no remedies unlesse they be just but worse then the disease And being just the Subject is obliged to active obedience But let us see what the Doctour pleads in answer to his own objection First he passeth by the native power of civil Soveraign Empire which ought not to have been omitted for therein consists the main force of the argument But as to the Ecclesiastical part he saith he could
demonstrate clearly if it were needful that the dependence of Bishops and other Orthodox Christians upon the Pope being rightly conceived as it is and as it is really necessary according to the certain and true princâ—ples of Catholick Religion doth not bring any the least shadow of danger to the Common-Wealth though in hostility with the Pope or of a different communion from the Pope If we lived in Plato's Common-Wealth where every one did his duty this reason were of more force Far be it from us to imagine that the right exercise of any lawful power grounded upon the certain and true principles of Catholick Religion should be dangerous to any Society But this is not our case What if the Bishops and Court of Rome have swerved from those certain and true principles of Catholick Religion or have abused that power which was committed to their trust by Christ or by his Church Or have usurped more authority then did belong unto them Or have Engrossed all Episcopal Jurisdiction to themselves leaving the Bishops of the Land but Cyphers in their own Diocesses Or have hazarded the utter ruine and destruction of the Church by their Simony extortion provisions reservations and exemptions Or have obtruded new unwarrantable Oathes upon the Subjects inconsistent with their allegiance Or have drained the Kingdome of its treasure by pecuniary avaricious arts Or have challenged to themselves a negative voice against the right heir of the Crown Or authority to depose a crowned King and absolve his Subjects from their Oathes and allegiance to their Soveraignes And have shewed themselves incorrigible in all these things This is our case In any one of these cases much more in them all conjoyned it is not onely lawful but very necessary for Christian Princes to reform such grosse abuses and to free themselves and their Subjects from such a tyrannical yoke if they can by the direction of a general Councel if not of a Provincial And it is not Schisme but Loyalty in their Subjects to yeild obedience The same Author proceeds That no civil power how Soveraign soever can correct the fundamental articles of Christian faith nor pervert the order of sacred rites received by universal tradition as instituted by Christ nor justifie any thing by their Edicts which is against Christian charity To all this we do readily assent and never did presume to arrogate to our selves or to exercise any such power But still this is wide from our case What if the Bishop of Rome have presumed to coyn and attempted to obtrude upon us new Articles of Faith as he hath in his new Creed and to pervert the sacred rites instituted by Christ as in his with-holding the Cup from the Laity Then without doubt not we but he is guilty of the Schisme Then it is lawful to separate from him in his innovations without incurring the crime of Schisme This is laid down by the Author himself as an evident conclusion and we thank him for it That it is necessary for every Christian to acknowledge no authority under heaven either Ecclesiastical or Civil that hath power to abrogate those things that are revealed and instituted by Christ or to determine those things which are opposite unto them quod Schismatis origo foret which should be the original of Schisme But where that Author infers as a corollary from the former Proposition That no Edict of a Soveraign Prince can Iustifie Schisme because all Schisme is destructive to Christian charity I must crave leave with all due respect to his person to his learning to his moderation and to his charity to rectifie that mistake If by Schisme he understand criminal Schisme that which he saith is most true That were not onely to Justifie the wicked which is an abhomination to the Lord but to justifie wickednesse it self But every separation or Schisme taken in a large sence is not criminal nor at all destructive to Christian Charity Sometimes it is a necessary Christian charitable duty In all the cases that I have supposed above and shall prove hereafter they that make the Separation continue Catholiques and they that give the cause become the Schismatiques But it may be urged That this proceeds from the merit of the cause not from the authority of the Soveraign Prince I answer It proceeds from both Three things are necessary to make a publique reformation lawful Just grounds due moderation and sufficient authority There may be just grounds without sufficient authority and sufficient authority without just grounds and both sufficient authority and just grounds without due moderation But where these three things concur it justifies the reformation before God and man and renders that separation lawful which otherwise were Schismatical Lastly it is alledged That the power of the Soveraign Magistrate is not so absolute that he can command any thing at his pleasure so as to oblige his Subjects to obedience in things repugnant to the Law of nature or the positive Law of God No Orthodox Christian can doubt of this truth The authority of the inferiour ceaseth where the Superiour declareth his pleasure to the contrary Da veniam Imperator tu carcerom ille gehennam minatur Pardon me O Emperour thou threatenest me with imprisonment but God Almighty with hell-fire But this is nothing to our case neither the Law of Nature nor the Law of God doth injoyn Brittish Christians to buy pardons and indulgences and dispensations and Bulls and Palls and priviledges at Rome contrary to the fundamental Laws of the Realm Boniface the eighth by his Bull exempted the University of Oxford from the Jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury whereupon did grow a controversie between Thomas Arundel Archbishop and the University And the said Bull was decreed to be void by two succeeding Kings Richard the second and Henry the fourth in Parliament as being obtained in praejudicium Coronae suae Legum consuetudinum Regni sui enervationem to the prejudice of his Imperial crown and to the weakning of the Lawes and Customes of his Realm But this disobedience to the decrees of Soveraign Princes must be joyned with passive obedience it must be onely when and where their commands are evidently unjust such as Phaâ—aohs commanding the Hebrew Midwives to kill all the Male children or Sauls injoyning his guard to slay the Priests of the Lord or like Nâ—buchadnezzars idolatrous edict charging all men to fall down and worship his golden Image For otherwise if the case be doubtful it is a rule in Case divinity Subditis tenentur in favorem Legis judicare Subjects are bound to judge in favour of the Law Otherwise they run into a certain crime of disobedience for fear of an uncertain A War may be unjust in the Prince and yet the Souldier be guiltlesse Nor is the Subject obliged to sift the grounds of his Soveraigns commands too narrowly It happens often that reum facit Principem iniquitas
under pain of Excommunication or suspension or degradation or any spirituall punishment But to affirm that they cannot make Ecclesiasticall constitutions under a civill pain or that they cannot especially with the advise and concurrence of their Clergy assembled in a National Synod reform errours and abuses and remedy incroachments and usurpations and innovations either in faith or discipline and regulate the new Canons or Customes of Intruders and Upstarts by the old Canons of the primitive Fathers is contrary to the sense and practise of all antiquity King Solomon deposed Abiathar from the high Priesthood and put Sadoc in his place Nor want we Presidents of Popes themselves who have been convented before Emperours as Sixtus the third before Valentinian though Platina mince the matter a little too much damnatur Bassus calumniator iniquus annuente Valentiniano c. Leo the third before Charles the great That have been banished by Emperours as Liberius unjustly banished by Constantius and more unjustly restored Sylverius justly banished by Iustinian That have been imprisoned by Soveraign Princes as Pope Iohn the first by Theodoric That have been deposed by them As Iohn the twelfth by Otho the great and Gregory the sixth by Henry the second Henricus secundus in Italiam cum magno exercitu veniens habita Synodo cum Benedictum novum Sylvestrum tertium Gregorium sextum tanquam tria teterrima monstra abdicare se magistratu coegisset c. Henry the second coming into Italy with a great army having convocated a Synod when he had compelled Benedict the Ninth Sylvester the third and Gregory the sixth as three most filthy monsters to quit their government he created Syndeger Bishop of Bamberge afterwards Clement the second Pope Of old when any Schisme did infest the Roman Church as I think no See in the World hath been oftner rent asunder by pretenders to the Papacy the Emperours when they pleased did assume unto themselves the cognisance thereof and determine the succession either by themselves or by their Exarch or Delegates as Honorius between Boniface the first and Eulalius Theodoric the King between Symmachus and Laurentius The Exarch of Ravenna between Sergius the first and Paschalis Otho the third between Iohn the Seventeenth and Gregory the fifth But when these imperiall acts are done in Synods they are more authentique and more conform to Antiquity Thirdly our learned and ingenuous countryman Davenport under the name of Franciscus à Sancta Clara far be it from me to censure Christian charity and moderation for lukewarmnesse or Atheistical neutrality like those whose chief religion consists in crying up a faction I rather wish he had been more universally acquainted with our English Doctrine in his paraphrastical exposition of our English Articles to this question How and whether it be lawful in points of faith to appeal from the Pope and to decline his Iudgment cites the resolution of Gerson in these words following Hoc etiam practicatum est per quoscunque Reges et Principes c. This also hath been practised by all Kings Princes who have withdrawn themselves from the obedience of those whom such or such did Iudge to be Popes which substractions neverthelesse were approved by the sacred Councell of Constance some expressely some implicitly The most Christian King Lewis the twelfth convocated a Nationall Councell of the French Church at Towers wherein sundry Articles were proposed deliberated of and concluded touching these affaires The third Article was that if the Pope should invade another Prince in an hostile manner and excite other Princes to invade his territories whether that Prince might not lawfully withdraw himself from the obedience of such a Pope where observe that though this case alone be specified as being fitted to that present controversy between the King of France and the Pope yet all other cases of the same nature or consequence are included And conclusum est per Concilium principem posse ab obedienâ—ia Papae se subducere ac substrahere non tamen in totum et indistincte sed pro tuitione tantum ac defensione jurium suorum temporalium It was concluded by the Councel that the Prince might withdraw himself from the obedience of the Pope yet not totally nor indistinctly but onely for the defence of his temporal rights The fourth proposition was when such a substraction was lawfully made what the Prince and his subjects more particularly Prelates and other Ecclesiastiques ought to do in such things for which they had formerly no recourse to the Apostolique See And conclusum est per concilium servandum esse jus commune antiquum et pragmaticam Sanctionem regni ex deeretis Sacro-Sancti concilii Basiliensis desumptam It was concluded by the Councell that the ancient common right was to be preserved and the pragmaticall Sanction of the Kingdom taken out of the Decrees of the Sacred Councell of Basil. The eighth proposition was if the Pope proceeding unjustly and by force should pronounce any censures against such a Prince whether they ought to be obeied And conclusum est unanimiter per concilium talem sententiam nullam esse nec de jure vel alio quocunque modo ligare It was concluded unanimously by the Councell that such a Sentence was of no force not binding in law or any other way which opinion or resolution of theirs the above-menâ—tioned Authour saith he ought not to condemne whilest the Church doth tolerate it Behold a principall cause of the separation of the English Church from the Pope the usurpations and incroachments of the Roman Court upon the Politicall rights of the Crown which they would not let go until they were quite shaken off Anthonius de Rosellis a zealous assertour of the Papall authority concludes that the Pope being an heretick or an Apostate though but in secret it is lawful without any sentence or declaration preceding for any of his Subjects that know it Especially for Kings and Princes to depart from him and withdraw themselvs from under his power by that naturall right which they have to defend themselves This may well be doubted of in the case of private persons before sentence by those who believe him to be constituted by Christ the Soveraign Monarch of the Universall Church But in the case of Soveraign Princes with Provincial Councells when Generall Councells cannot be had and much more when General Councells have given their sentence formerly in the case as the Councells of Constance and Basil have done concerning the Papacy And with us who are sufficiently resolved that St. Peter had no preheminence above his fellowes but onely principality of order and the begining of unity And that whatsoever power the Bishop of Rome hath more then any other Bishop it is meerly from the customes of the Catholique Church or from the Canons of the Fathers or from the Edicts of Princes and may be taken away upon sufficient grounds by equall authority to
were untrue That Henry the second never made any such accord with Alexander the third for ought that he could ever read in any Chronicle of Credit Then the oath which Henry the second did take for himself not for his heires was this that he would not depart from him or his successours so long as they should intreat him as a Catholick King That the fact of King John is of more probability but of as little truth which he confirmes by the testimony of Sir Thomas Moore a Lord Chancellour of England a man of Extraordinary learning of great parts of so good affections to the Roman See that he is supposed to have died for the Popes Supremacy and is commended by Cardinall Bellarmine to Mr. Blackwell as a Martyr and a guide of many others to Martyrdom cum ingenti Anglica nationis gloria certainly one who had as much means to know the truth both by view of records and otherwise as any man living Thus writeth he If he the author of the beggars supplication say as indeed some writers say that King John made England and Ireland tributary to the Pope and the See Apostolique by the grant of a thousand Markes we dare surely say again that it is untrue and that all Rome neither can shew such a grant nor ever could And if they could it were nothing worth For never could any king of England give away the Realm to the Pope or make the Land tributary though he would As to that of Henry the second without doubt the Archpriest had all the reason in the world for him Cardinall Allen did not write by inspiration and could expect no more credit then he brought authority There is a vast difference between these two that no man shall be accounted King of England untill he be confirmed by the Pope And this other that the King in his own person would not desert the Pope so long as he intreated him like a Catholick King The former is most dishonourable to the Nation and Diametrally opposite to the fundamental Lawes of the Land The later we might take our selves without offence to God or our own consciences But to make our Kings their vassals aud their slaves to impoverish their Realm and to commit all those exorbitant misdemeanours against them which we have related in part and shall yet describe more fully was neither to intreat them like Catholick Kings nor like Christian Kings nor yet like political Kings And for his Saint Thomas of Canterbury we do not believe that the Popes Canonisation or to have his name inserted into the Calender in red letters makes a Saint We do abhominate that murther as Lawlesse and Barbarous to sprinkle not onely the pavements of the Church but the very altar with the blood of a Prelate And we condemn all those who had an hand in it But we do not believe that the cause of his suffering was sufficient to make him a Martyr namely to help forraignâ—rs to pull the fairest flowers from his Princes Diadem by violence and to perjure himself and violate his oath given for the observation of the Articles of Clarendon All his own Suffragan Bishops were against him in the cause and justified the Kings proceedings as appeareth by two of their letters one to himself the other to Pope Alexander the third The Barons of the Kingdom reputed him as a Traitor quo progrederis Proditor Expecta et audi judicium tuum Whither goest thou Traitor stay and hear thy judgment This is certain The first time that ever any Pope did challenge the right of investitures in England was in the dayes of Henry the first and Paschal the second was the first Pope that ever exacted an oath from any forraign Bishop above Eleven hundred years after Christ. Before that time they evermore swore fealty to their Prince de Homagiis de Feudis de sacramentis Episcoporum Laicis antea exhibitis There was great consultation about the homage and Fealty and oaths of Bishops in former ages sworn to Lay-men These new articles of faith are too young to make Martyrs Concerning the secoÌ„d instance of King Iohn though I attribute much to the authority of Sir Thomas More in that case who would never have been so confident unlesse he had supposed that he had searched the matter to the bottom yet his zeal to the Papacy and his unwillingnesse to see such an unworthy act proceed from that See might perhaps mislead him for I confesse sundry authours do relate the case otherwise That there was a Prophesie or Prediction made by one Peter an Hermite that the next day to Ascension sunday there should be no King in England That Pope Innocent the third being angry with King Iohn excommunicated him interdicted the Kingdom deprived him of his Crown absolved his subjects from their allegiance animated his Barons and Bishops against him gave away his Realm to Philip King of France sent Pandolphus as his Legate into England to see all this executed The King of France provides an Army accordingly But the crafty Pope underhand gives his Legate secret instructions to speak privatly with King Iohn And if he could make a better bargain for him and draw him to submit to the sentence of the Pope he should act nothing against him but in his favour They do meete King Iohn submits The Pope orders him to resign his Crown and Kingdomes to the See of Rome so they say he did and received them the next day of the Popes grace as a feudatary at the yearly rent of a thousand Marks for the Kingdoms of England and Ireland And did homage and swear fealty to Pope Innocent But whereas the Cardinal adds upon his own head that this was done at the special request and procurement of the Lords and Commons it is an Egregious forgery and well deserves a whetstone for all the three Orders of the kingdom Bishops Barons and Commons did protest against it in Parliament notwithstanding any private contract that might be made by King Iohn And that they would defend themselves by arms from the temporal Jurisdiction of the Pope But the other answer of Sr. Thomas More is most certain and beyond all exception that if either Henry the second or King Iohn had done any such thing it was not worth a rush nor signified any thing but the greedinesse and prophanenesse of these pretended vicars of Christ who prostituted and abused their Office and the power of the Keies to serve their base and avaritious ends and lets the world see how well they deserved to be thrust out of doores What That no man might be crowned or accounted King of England untill he were confirmed by the Pope By the Law of England Rex non moritur the King never dies And doth all acts of Soveraignty before his Coronation as well as after They robbed the Nobility of their patronages Those Churches which their Ancestours had founded and
respect of their errours and especially their tyrannical exactions and usurpations but unwillingly and with reluctation in respect of their persons and much more in respect of our common Saviour As if we were to depart from our fathers or our brothers house or rather from some contagious sicknesse wherewith it was infected Not forgetting to pray God daily to restore them to their former purity that they and we may once again enjoy the comfort and contentment of one anothers Christian Society We pray for their conversion publickly in our Letany in general And expressely and solemnly upon Good Friday though we know that they do as solemnly curse us the day before If this be to be Schismaticks it were no ill wish for Christendome that there were many more such Schismaticks Thirdly we do not arrogate to our selves either a new Church or a new Religion or new holy orders for then we must produce new miracles new revelations and new cloven tongues for our justification Our Religion is the same it was our Church the same it was our holy orders the same they were in substance differing onely from what they were formerly as a garden weeded from a garden unweeded or a body purged from it self before it was purged And therefore as we presume not to make new Articles of faith much lesse to obtrude such innovations upon others so we are not willing to receive them from others or to mingle Scholastical opinions with fundamental truths Which hath given occasion to some to call our Religion a negative religion Not considering that our positive articles are those general truths about which there is no controversie Our negation is onely of humane controverted additions Lastly we are ready in the preparation of our mindes to believe and practise whatsoever the Catholick Church even of this present age doth universally and unanimously believe and practice Quod apud multos unum invenitur non est errâ—tum sed traditum And though it be neither lawful nor possible for us to hold actual communion with all sorts of Christians in all things wherein they vary both from the truth and one from another yet even in those things we hold a communion with them in our desires longing for their conversion and re-union with us in truth CHAP. VII That all Princes and Republiques of the Roman Communion do in effect the same thing when they have occasion or at least do plead for it SO we are come to our fifth Conclusion That whatsoever the King and Church of England did in the separation of themselves from the Court of Rome it is no more then all Sovereign Princes and Churches none of whatsoever communion excepted do practise or pretend as often as they have occasion And first for all Protestant Kings Princes and Republicks it admits no deniall or dispute Secondly for the Grecian and all other Eastern Churches it can be no more doubted of then of the Protestants since they never acknowledged any obedience to be due from them to the Bishop of Rome but onely an honourable respect as to the prime Patriarch and beginning of unity Whose farewell or separation is said to have been as smart as ours and upon the same grounds in these words We acknowledge thy power we cannot satisfie thy covetousnesse live by your selves But my aim extends higher to verifie this of the Roman Catholick Princes and Republicks themselves as the Emperour the most Christian and Catholick Kings the Republick of Venice and others To begin with the Emperours I do not mean those ancient Christian Primitive Emperours who lived and flourished before the daies of Gregory the Great Such a Court of Rome as we made our secession from was not then in being nor the Colledge of Parish Priests at Rome turned then into a Conclave of Cardinals as Ecclesiastical Princes of the Oecumenical Church So long there was no need of any separation from them or protestation against them But I intend the later Emperours since Gregorie's time after the Popes sought to usurp an universal Sovereignty over the Catholick Church and more particularly the Occidental that is to say the French and German Emperours Yet the Reader may be pleased to take notice that the case of our Kings is much different from theirs in two respects First they believed the Roman Bishop to be their lawful Patriarch whether justly or not is not the subject of this present discourse But we do utterly deny his Patriarchal authority over us And to demonstrate our exemption do produce for matter of right that famous Canon of the General Councel of Ephesus made in the case of the Cyprian Bishops and for matter of fact the unanimous Votes of two British Synods and the concurrent testimonies of all our Historiographers Some have been formerly cited We might adde to them the ancient British history called by the Author thereof Brutus wherein he relates this answer of the British to Augustine Se Caerleonensi Archiepiscopo obedire voluisse Augustino autem Romano Legato omninâ— noluisse nec Anglis inimicis paulò antè Paganis à quibus suis sedibus pulsi erant subesse se qui semper Christianifuerunt voluisse That they would obey the Archbishop of Caerleon that was their British Primate or Patriarch but they would not obey Austine the Bishop of Romes Legate Neither would the Britanes who had evermore been Christians from the beginning be under the English who were their enemies and but newly converted from Paganisâ—e by whom they had been driven out of their ancient habitations The same history is related by sundry other very ancient Authours A second difference between our English Kings and the later German Emperours is this that our Kings by the fundamental constitutions of the Kingdome are hereditary Kings and never die So there is an uninterrupted succession without any vacancy But the Emperours are elective and consequently not invested in the actual possession of their Sovereignty without some publick solemnities Whereof some are essential as the votes of the Electours some others ceremonial as the last Coronation of the Emperour by the Bishop of Rome which was really and is yet titularly his Imperial City But the Popes who had learned to make their own advantage of every thing sacred or civil took occasion from hence to make the world believe that the Imperial Crown was their gift and the Emperours their Liegemen So Adrian the fourth doubted not to write to Frederick Barbarossa the Emperour Insigne corona beneficium tibi contulimus which was so offensively taken that as the German Bishops in their letter to the same Pope do affirm the whole Empire was moved at it the eaâ—es of his Imperial Majestie could not hear it with patience nor the Princes endure it nor they themselves either durst of could approve it Whereupon the Pope was forced to expound himself that by beneficium he meant nothing but bonum factum a good deed and by contulimus
nothing but iâ—â—posuâ—mus that he had put the Crown upon him So the Emperour complaines in his letter to the Bishops A pictura coepit à pictura ad Scripturam processit Scriptura in authoritatem prodire conatur c. It began with paiuâ—ing from painting it proceeded to writing And at last they sought to justifie it by authority We will not said he suffer it we will not indure it we will rather lay down our Imperial Crown then suffer the Empire it self to be deposed with our consent Let the pictures be defaced let the writings be retracted that perpetual monuments of enmity between the Sâ—â—pter and the Miâ—er may continue Thus Pope Adrian failed of his design But his successour Iohn the 22. renewed the Papal claim against Ludovicus the fourth in higher termes as appeareth by his own Bull wherein he affirms that after the translation of the Roman Empire from the Grecians to the Germans by his predecessours the Popes summus ille honor beneficium Pontificis Maximiesse solet the Empire used to be the Popes gift Adding that the elections of the German Princes were invalid unlesse the Pope universi orbis Christiani Pater atque Princeps Dei Optimi Maximi Legatus suo numine faveat aspiret should approve it And finally commanding the Emperour to quit his Crown and Imperial dignity and not to reassume them but by his command nisi jussu mandato nostro But the Emperour appealed the Electours and other Princes protested against the Popes pretended power And the Emperour and all the States of the Empire made a solemn constitution against it This was the second repulse yet the Popes were not so easily shaken off It fortuned about the year 1400 that the Electoral Colledge deposed Wenceslaus from the Empire and chose Rupert Prince Palatine in his place communicating the whole businesse whilest it was in agitation to the Pope to have his spiritual advice and the countenance of the Apostolique See but yet reserving the power entirely to themselves Howsoever Pope Boniface the ninth layes hold of this opportunity and declares by his Bull that the Electours did it by his authority authoritate nostrâ suffulti And confirmes the said deprivation as good and lawful This incertainty of succession and this Papal pretension made sundry Emperours more fearful to grapple with the Popes or to right themselves from their grievous exactions and usurpations In the year 1455. after the death of Nicholas the fifth the Germans bewailed their condition to Frederick the third and sought to perswade him that he would no longer obey the Roman Bishops unlesse they would at least give way to a pragmatical sanction for the maintenance of the liberties of the German Nation like that of the French Kings for the priviledges of the Gallicane Church They shewed thar their condition was much worse then the French and Italians whose servants especially the Italians without a change they were deservedly called Rogabant urgebant Proceres populique Germaniae gravissimis tum rationibus tum exemplis tum utilitatem tum necessitatem Imperii c. The Princes and people of Germany intreated and pressed both the advantage and necessity of the Empire They implored his fidelity they prayed him for his Oathes sake and to prevent the infamy and dishonour of their Nation that they alone might not want the fruit of their National decrees that he had as much power and was as much obliged thereunto as other Kings c. Nec certè procul abfuit c. It wanted not much saith Platina Molinaeus goes further His rationibus victus permotus Imperator c. The Emperour being overcome and moved with these reasons was about to make as full a Sanction for his Subjects as the King of France had done for his What hindered him Onely the advice of Aeneas Sylvius who perswaded him rather to comply with the Pope then with his people upon this ground that Princes disagreeing might be reconciled but between a Prince and his people the enmity was immortal Motus hac ratione Imperator spretâ populorum postulatione Aeneam Oratorem deligit qui ad Calistum mitteretur The Emperour being moved with this reason despising the request of his people sends the same Aeneas as his Ambassadour to Calistus The truth is this The Emperour feared the Pope and durst not trust his own Subjects Whence it proceeded that seven years before his death he not onely procured his son Maximilian to be crowned King of the Romans but also took him to be his companion in the Empire ne post obitum suum ut factum fuisset transfereretur imperium in aliam familiam lest the Empire after his death as without doubt it had come to passe should have been transferred into another family Yet notwithstanding these barres or remora's the uncertainty of succession and Papal pretensions the Emperours have done as much in relation to the Court of Rome as the Kings of England First Henry the eighth within his own Dominions did exercise a power of convocating Ecclesiasticall Synods confirming Synods reforming the Church by Synods and suppressing upstart innovations by ancient Canons The Emperours have done the same Charles the Great called the Councel of Franckford consisting of 300. Bishops Witnesse his own letter to Elipandus Iussimus Sanctorum Patrum Synodale ex omnibus undique nostrae ditionis Ecclesits congregari Concilium VVe have commanded a Synodical Councel to be congregated out of all the Churches within Our Dominions Neither did he onely convocate it but confirm it also Ecce ego vestris petitionibus satisfaciens congregationi Sacerdotum auditor arbiter adsedi Discernimus Deo donante decrevimus quid esset de hac inquisitione firmiter tenendum Behold I satisfying your requests that is of the Elipandians and Foelicians who made Christ but an adoptive son of God did sit in the Councel both as an hearer and as a Iudge VVe determine and by the gift of God have decreed what is to be held in this inquiry And it is very observable how he disposed the resolutions of this Councel into four Books The first book contained the sense of the Roman Bishop and his Suffragans The second of the Archbishop of Millain and the Patriarch of Aquileia with the rest of the Italian Bishops The third the votes of the German French and British Bishops The last his own consent The Romans had no more part therein then others to set down their own faith and to represent what they had received from the Apostles Neither did they onely convocate Councels and confirm them but in them and by them reformed innovations and restored ancient truths and Orders So did the same Emperour By the counsel of our Bishops and Nobles we have ordained Bishops throughout the Cities and do decree to assemble a Synod every year that in our presence the Canenical decrees and lawes of the
added further That they were but granted for a certain term which was effluxed The hundred Grievances rest not here but say moreover that they were but deposited at Rome to be preserved faithfully for that use And lastly Charles the fifth in his Rescript tells the Pope That other Kings do not suffer the spoyles of the Churches and Annates to be transported out of their Kingdoms to Rome so universally and so abundantly Seventhly to draw to a conclusion Henry the eighth imposed an oath of fidelity or allegiance upon his Subjects Ecclesiastical as well as temporal So did Frederick the first Emperour of that name I swear that from henceforth I will be faithful to my Liege Lord Frederick the Emperour of the Romans against all men the Pope is included or rather intended principally as by Law I am bound And I will help him to retain his Imperiall Crown and all his honour in Italy c. Henry the eighth took away Popish pardons and indulgences and dispensations The German Nation likewise groaned under the burthen of them Among their hundred grievances that of dispensations was the first And that of Papal Indulgences the third either for sins past or to come modo tinneat dextrâ it is their own phrase They call these artifices meer impostures by which the very marrow of Germaâ—y was sucked up their ancient liberty was enervated and the merit of Christs passion became sleighted Lastly Henry the eighth abolished the usurped jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome within his Dominions The Emperours did not so whether they thought it not fit to leave an old Patriarch Or because they did not sufficiently consider the right bounds of Imperial power especially being seconded with the authority of an Occidental Councel or because they did not so clearly distinguish between a beginning of unity and an universality of Jurisdiction or because they had other remedies wherewith to help themselves I cannot determine But this we have seen That the Emperours have deposed Popes and have appealed from Popes to General Councels And have maintained their Imperial prerogatives against Popes and made themselves the last Judges of the liberties and necessities of the whole body Politique Frederick the third in the Dyet of Nurenburg sequestred all the moneys that should be raised in three years from Indulgences and absolutions whether Papal or Conciliary towards the raising of twenty thousand men for defence of the Empire against the Turk The resolution of the Elect Arch-Bishop of Trevers against Gregory the 7th was this Ne plus per hunc Sancta quae modo extremum traâ—it spiritum periclitâ—tur Ecclesia ex me dicâ— quod nullam ei posthac obedientiam servabo c. Lest the holy Church which is now brought to the last gasp incurre more danger by his means I speak of my self that hereafter I will perform no obedience to him that is Pope Hildebrand Neither was this his resolution alone All the German Bishops were of the same mind Because thy entrance into the Papacy was begun with so great perjuries And the Church of God is brought into such a grievous storm through the abuse of thy innovations and thy life and conversation is soiled with so manifold infamy As we promised thee no obedience so we let thee know that for the future we will perform none unto thee Et quia nemo nostrum ut publice declamas tibi hactenus â—uit Episcopus ita nulli nostrum â— modo eris Apostolicus And as thou hast reputed none of us for Bishops hitherto So hereafter none of us will esteem thee for the Successour of Saint Peter Which sentence was confirmed by the Emperour Ego Henricus Rex cum omnibus Episcopis meis tibi dico Deseâ—nde descende The first Councel of Pisa did not onely substract their obedience from Peter de Luna calling himself Benedict the 13th and Angelus de Gorario calling himself Gregory the 12th But they decreed that it was lawful for all Christians and accordingly did command them to substract their obedience from them Of which Councel the Councel of Constance was a continuation The second Councel of Pisa suspended Iulius the second from the Papacy and commanded all Christians to withdraw their obedience from him The former had the consent of the Emperour The later his assistance and protection as appeareth both by the solemn promise of the Emperours Ambassadours made in Councel and the acknowledgment of the Councel it self I will conclude this first part of my parallell concerning the Empire with two answers of German Bishops The first of the German and French to Anastasius the second wherein they tell him plainly that they did not understand that new compassion which the Italian Physicians used to cure the infirmities of France They â—axe them for seeking to restrain the absolution of souls to Rome They require that Italian Bishop that is without sin to cast the first stone at them They advise them not to use their pretended authority against their Bishops lest the blow should recoile upon themselves for that theirs had not learned to fear above that which was needfull they tell them that surely they in Italy think that the Galles had lost all these three Verbum ferrum ingenium their tongues their wits and their weapons And so they conclude Etiamsi inclinata esset arca testamenti nostri nostrorum Episcoporum esset non illorum inclinatam relevare Although the arke of their Covenant was falling yet it belonged to their own Bishops and not to them to lift it up again The other answer was of the Archbishops of Colone and Triers with the Synod of Coloegne to Nicholas the first Wherein after many bitter expressions they have these words His de causis nos cum fratribus nostris collegis neque edictis tuis stamus neque vocem tuam agnoscimus nequo tuas bullas tonitruaque tua timemus For these reasons we with our brethren and collegues do neither give place to thy edicts nor acknowledge thy voyce nor fear thy thundring bulles I expect that some will be ready to object that these substractions were but personal from the present Pope not from the See of Rome which is true in part But the same equity and rule of justice which warrants a separation from the person of the Pope for personal faults doth also justifie a more durable separation from the See of Rome that is from him and his Successours for faulty rules and principles either in doctrine or discipline untill they be reformed From Germany our passe is open into France where the case is as clear as the Sun how their Kings though acknowledged by the Popes themselves to be most Christian the eldest Sons of the Church and otherwise the great Patrons and Protectours of the Romane See with their Princes of the blood their Peers their Parliaments their Ambassodours their Schools and Universities have all of them in
all ages affronted and curbed the Roman Court and reduced them to a right temper and constitution as often as they deviated from the Canons of the Fathers and incroached upon the liberties of the Gallicane Church Whereby the Popes jurisdiction in France came to be meerly discretionary at the pleasure of the King Hincmare had been condemned by three French Synods for a turbulent person and deposed Pope Adrian the second takes Cognisance of the cause at Rome and requires Carolus Calvus the King of France to send Hincmare thither with his accusers to receive justice The Kings apologetick answer will shew how he relished it Valde mirati sumus ubi hoc dictator Epistolae scriptum invenerit esse Apostolica authoritate praecipiendum ut Rex corrector iniquorum districtor reorum atque secundum leges Ecclesiasticas atque mundanas ultor criminum reum legaliter ac regulariter pro excessibus suis damnatum sua fretum potentia Roman dirigat We wondered much where he who dictated the Popes Letter hath found it written as commanded byâ— Apostolical authority that a King who is the Corrector of the unjust the punisher of guilty persons and according to all Lawes Ecclesiastical and Civill the revenger of crimes should send a guilty person legally and regularly condemned for his excesses to Rome He tells him that the Kings of France were reputed terrarum Domini not Episcoporum Vice-Domini or Villici Lords paramount within their Dominions not Licutenants or Bayliffes of Bishops Quis igitur hanc inversam legem infernus evomuit quis tartarus de suis abditis tenebrosis cuniculis eructavit What hell hath disgorged this disorderly law what bottomlesse depth hath belched it up out of its hidden and obscure holes The Kings of France have convented the Popes before them So Charles the Great dealt with Leo the third and Lotharius with Leo the fourth The Kings of France have appealed from Popes to Councels So Philip the 4th with the advise of all the orders of France and the whole Gallicane Church appealed from Boniface the eighth and commanded his appeal to be published in the great Church at Paris So Henry the great appealed from Gregory the 14th and caused his appeal to be affixed to the gates of Saint Peters Church in Rome So the School of Sorbone appealed from Boniface the eight Benedict the eleventh Pius the second and Leo the tenth The Kings of France have protested against the Popes decrees and sleighted them yea in the very face of the Councel of Trent Witnesse that protestation of the Ambassadour of France made in the Councel in the name of the King his Master We refuse to be subject to the commands and disposition of Pius the fourth we reject refuse and contemn all the judgements censures and decrees of the said Pius And although most holy Fathers your Religion Life and Learning was ever and ever shall be of great esteem with us Yet seeing indeed you do nothing but all things are done at Rome rather then at Trent And the things that are here published are rather the decrees of Pius the fourth then of the Councel of Trent we denounce and protest here before you all that whatsoever things are decreed and published in this Assembly by the meer will and pleasure of Pius neither the most Christian King will ever approve nor the French Church ever acknowledge to be decrees of a General Councel Besides this the King our Master commandeth all his Archbishops and Bishops and Abbats to leave this Assembly and presently to depart hence then to return again when there shall be hope of better and more orderly proceedings This was high and smart for the King and the Gallicane Church so publickly to reject refuse and contemn all Papal decrees and to challenge such an interest in and power over the French Archbishops and Bishops as not onely to license them but to command them to depart and leave the Councel whither they were summoned by the Pope The French Kings have made Lawes and constitutions from time to time to repress the insolencies and exorbitances of the Papal Court so often as they began to prejudice the liberties of the Gallicane Church with the unanimous consent of their Princes Nobles Clergy Lawyers and Commons As against their bestowing of Ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in France and their grosse Simony and extortions in that way against the payment of Annates and tenths to Rome and generally for all the liberties of the Church of France Against reservations and Apostolical graces and all other exactions of the Court of Rome Charlâ—s the seventh made the pragmatical Sanction to confirm all the Acts of the Councels of Constance and Basâ—l against the tyranny and usurpation of the Pope It is true that Lewis the eleventh by the flattering perswasion of Aeneas Sylvius then Pius the second did revoke this Sanction But the Kings Proctour and the Rectour of the University of Paris did oppose themselves formally to the Registring and Authorizing of this revocation Whereupon the King desired the advise of his Parliament in writing which they gave to this effect That the revocation of that Sanction tended to the confusioâ— of the whole Ecclesiastical order the depopulation of France the exhausting and impoverishment of the Kingdom and the total ruine of the French Church Hereupon the King changed his mind and made diverse declarations and edicts conformable to and in pursuance of the pragmatical Sanction After this the three Estates assembled at Towers made it their first and instant request to Charles the 8th that he would preserve inviolable the pragmatical Sanction which they reputed as the Palladium of France And in the National Councel assembled by Lewis the 12th in the same City it was again confirmed But the Pope stormed and thundered and excommunicated and interdicted Lewis the 12th Francis the first and the whole Realm and exposed it as a prey to the first that could take it And gave plenary Indulgence to every one that should kill a Frenchman King Francis fainted under such fulminations and came to a composition or accommodation with Leo the tenth which was called conventa or the concordate On the one side the Popes friends think he wronged himself and his title to a spiritual Sovereignty very much by descending to such an accommodation And exclude France out of the number of those Countries which they term pays d' obedience As if the French were not loyal obedient Subjects but Rebels to the Court of Rome On the other side the Prelates the Universities the Parliaments of France were as ill contented that the King should yeeld one inch and opposed the accord Insomuch as the University of Paris appealed from it to a future Councel and expedited Letters Patents sealed with the Universities Seal containing at large their grievances and the reasons of the appeal which after were published to the world in print I cannot here omit
the free and just speech of a French Bishop When Henry the fourth had in a manner ended the civill Wars of France by changing from the Protestant to the Roman Catholique Communion Yet the Pope who favoured the contrary party upon pretence of his dissimulation and great dangers that might ensue thereupon for a long time deferred his reconciliation untill the French Prelates by their own authority did first admit him into the bosome of the Church At which time one of them used this discourse Was France all on fire and had they not Rivers enough at home but they must run as far as Rome to Tybur to fetch water to quench it Since that in Cardinal Richlieu's daies it is well known what books were freely printed and publickly sold upon pont neuf of the lawfulnesse of erecting a new or rather restoring an old proper Patriarchate in France as one of the liberties of the Gallicane Church It was well for the Roman Court that they became more propitious to the French affaires Take one instance more which happened very lately The Pope refused to admit any new Bishops in Portugal upon the nomination of the present King because he would not thereby seem to acknowledge or approve his title to the Crown in prejudice of the King of Spain whereby the Episcopal order in Portugal and the other Dominions belonging to that Crown was well near extinguished and scarcely so many Bishops were left alive or could not be drawn together as to make a Canonical Ordination The three Orders of Portugal did represent to the Pope that in the Kingdomes of Portugal and the Algarbians wherein ought to have been three Metropolitans and ten Suffragans there was but one left and he by the Popes dispensation non-Residenâ— And in all the Asâ—atique Provinces but one other and he both sickly and decrepit And in all the African and American Provinces and the Islands not one surviving But the Pope continued inexorable whereupon theyâ— present their request to their neighbours and friends the French Prelates beseeching them to mediate for them with his Holinesse And if he continue still obstinately deaf to their just petition to supply his defect themselves and to Ordain them Bishops in case of necessity The French did the Office of Neighbours and Christians The Synode of the French Clergy did write to the Pope on their behalf in April 1651. But that way not succeeding they sent one of their Bishops as an expresse Envoié to his Holinesse to let him know that if he still refused they cannot nor will be wanting to themselves to their neighbours but would supply his defect what the issue of it is since I have not yet heard But to leave matter of fact and to come to the fundamental Lawes and Customes of France Every one hath heard of the liberties of the French Church but every one understands not what those liberties are as being better known by their practice at home then by Books abroad I will onely select some of them out of their own authentique authorities And when the Reader hath considered well of them let him judge what authority the Pope hath in France more then discretionary at the good pleasure of the King or more then he might have had in other places if he could have contented himself with reason Protestants are not so undiscreet or uncharitable as to violate the peace of Christendom for a primacy or headship of order without superiority of power or for the name of his Holinesse Or for a Pall if the price were not too high Or for a few innocent formalities 1. The Pope cannot command or ordain any thing directly or indirectly concerning any temporal affairs within the dominions of the King of France 2. The spiritual authority and power of the Pope is not absolute in France but limited and restrained by the Canons and Rules of the ancient Councâ—ls of the Church received in that Kingdom Where observe first that the Pope can do nothing in France as a Sovereign Spiritual Prince with his non obstantes either against the Canons or besides the Canons Secondly that the Canons are no Canons in France except they be received This â—ame priviledge was anciently radicated in the fundamental Lawes of England This priviledge the Popes indeavoured to pluck up by the roots And the contentions about this priviledge were one principal occasion of the separation 3. No command whatsoever of the Pope can free the French Clergy from their obligation to obey the commands of their Sovereign 4. The most Christian King hath had power at all times according to the occurrence and exigence of affairs to assemble or cause to be assembled Synods Provincial or National and therein to treat not onely of such things as concern the conservation of the Civil estate but also of such things as concern Ecclesiastical order and discipline in his own dominions And therein to make Rules Chapters Lawes Ordinances and pragmatique sanctions in his own name by his own authority Many of which have been received among the decrees of the Catholick Church and some of them approved by general Councels 5. The Pope cannot send a Legate à latere into France with power to reform judge collate dispense or do such other things accustomed to be specified in the authoritative Bull of his Legation except it be upon the desire or with the approbation of the most Christian King Neither can the said Legate execute his charge untill he hath promised the King in writing under his oath upon his holy orders not to make use of his Legantine power in the Kings Dominions longer then it shall please the King And that so soon as he shall be admonished of the Kings pleasure to forbid it he will give it over And that whilest he doth use it it shall be exercised conformably to the Kings will without attempting any thing to the prejudice of the decrees of Generall Councels or the liberties and priviledges of the Gallicane Church and the Universities of France 6. The Commissions and Bulls of the Popes Legates are to be seen examined and approved by the Court of Parliament And to be registred and published with such Cautions and modifications as that Court shall judge expedient for the good of the Kingdome and to be executed according to the said cautions and not otherwise 7. The Prelates of the French Church although commanded by the Pope for what cause soever it be may not depart out of the Kingdom without the Kings Commandment of License 8. The Pope can neither by himself nor by his Delegates judge of any thing which concerneth the state preheminence or priviledges of the Crown of France nor of any thing pertaining to it Nor can there be any question or processe about the state or pretensions of the King but in his own Courts 9. Papal Bulls Citations Sentences Excommunications and the like are not to be executed in France without the Kings
Command or permission And after permission onely by authority of the King and not by authority of the Pope to shun confusion and mixture of Jurisdictions 10. Neither the King nor his Realm nor his Officers can be excommunicated or interdicted by the Pope nor his Subjects absolved from their Oath of Allegiance 11. The Pope cannot impose Pensions in France upon any benefices having cure of soules nor upon any others but according to the Canons according to the expresse condition of the resignation or ad redimendum vexationem 12 All Bulls and Missives which come from Rome to France are to be seen and visited to try if there be nothing in them prejudicial in any manner to the estate and liberties of the Church of France or to the Royal authority 13 It is lawful to appeal from the Pope to a future Councel 14 Ecclesiastical persons may be convented judged and sentenced before a secular Judge for the first grievous or enormious crime or for lesser offences after a relapse which renders them incorrigible in the eye of the Law 15. All the Prelates of France are obliged to swear feaâ—ty to the King and to receive from him their investituâ—es for their fees and manours 16. The Courts of Parliament in case of appeales as from abuse have right and power to declare null void and to revoke the Popes Bulls and Excommunications and to forbid the execution of them when they are found contrary to sacred decrees the liberties of the French Church or the prerogative Royal. 17. Generall Councels are above the Pope and may depose him and put another in his place and take cognisance of appeals from the Pope 18. All Bishops have their power immediately from Christ not from the Pope and are equally successours of Saint Peter and the other Apostles and Vicars of Christ. 19. Provisions reservations expectative graces c. have no place in France 20. The Pope cannot exempt any Church Monastery or Ecclesiastical body from the Jurisdiction of their Ordinary nor erect Bishopricks into Archbishopricks nor unite them nor divide them without the Kings Licence 21. All those are not hereticks excommunicated or damned who differ in some things from the doctrine of the Pope who appeal from his decrees and hinder the execution of the ordinances of him or his Legates These are part of the liberties of the Gallicane Church The ancient British Church needed no such particular priviledges since they never knew any forreign Jurisdiction The English British Church which succeeded them in time in place and partly in their members and holy orders ought to have injoyed the same freedom and exemption But in the daies of the Saxon Danish and Norman Kings the Popes did by degrees insinuate themselves into the mesnagery of Ecclesiastical affaires in England Yet for many ages the English Church injoyed all these Gallicane priviledges without any remarkable interruption from the Roman Court. As in truth they do of right by the Law of nature belong to all Sovereign Princes in their own Dominions Otherwise Kingdomes should be destitute of necessary remedies for their own conservation And in later ages when the Popes having thrust in their heads did strive to draw in their whole bodies after the whole Kingdome opposed them and made Lawes against their several grosse intrusions as we have formerly seen in this discourse And never quitted these English as well as Gallicane liberties untill the Reformation But perhaps we may find more loyalty and obedience to the Court of Rome in the Catholick King Not at all Whatsoever power King Henry or any of his Successours did ever assume to themselves in England as the Political Heads of the Church the same and much more doth the Catholique King not onely pretend unto but exercise and put in practice in his Kingdome of Sicily both by himself by his Delegates whom he substitutes with the same authority to judge and punish all Ecclesiastical crimes to excommunicate and absolve all Ecclesiastical persons Lay-men Monks Clerks Abbats Bishops Archbishops yea and even the Cardinals themselves which inhabit in Sicily He suffers no appeals to Rome He admits no Nuncio's from Rome Atque demum respâ—ctâ— Ecclesiasticae Iurisdictionis neque ipsam Apostolicam sedem recognoscere hâ—bâ—re superiorem nisi in casu praevenâ—ionis And to conclude he acknowledgeth not any superiority of the Sâ—e of Rome it sâ—lf but onely in case of prevention What saith Baronius to this He complains bitterly that praetensa Apostolica authoritate contra Apostolicam ipsam sedem grande piaculum perpetratur c. Vpon pretence of Apostolique authority a grievous offence is committed against the Apostolick See the power whereof is weaknâ—d in the Kingdome of Sicily the authority thereof abrogated the Iurisdiction wronged the Ecclesiastical Lawes violated and the rights of the Church dissipated And a little after he declaimes yet higher Quid in ad ista dixeris lector What wilt thou say to this Reader but that under the name of Monarchy besides that one Monarch which all the faithful have ever acknâ—wledged as the onely visible Head in the Church Another head it risen up and brought into the Kingdome of Sicily for a Monster and a prodigy c. But for this liberty which he took the King of Spain fairly and quietly without taking any notice of his Cardinalitian dignity caused his books to be burned publickly It will be objected That the King of Spain challengeth this power in Sicily not by his Regal authority as a Sovereign Prince but by the Bull of Vrbanus the second who constituted Roger Earl of Sicily and his heires his Legates à latere in that Kingdome whereby all succeeding Princes do challenge to be Legati nati with power to substitute others and qualifie them with the same authority But first if the Papacy be by Divine right what power hath any particular Pope to transfer so great a part of his office and authority from his Successours for ever unto a Lay-man and his heires by way of inheritance If every Pope should do as much for another Kingdom as Vrbanus did for Sicily the Court of Rome would quickly want imployment Secondly if the Bull of Vrbanus the second was so available to the succeeding Kings of Sicily which yet is disputed whether it be authentick or not whether it be full or defective and mutilated why should not the Bull of Nicholas the second his predecessour granted to our Edward the Confessour and his Successours be as advantagious to the succeeding Kings of England why not much rather seeing that they are thereby constituted or declared not Legates but Governours of the English Church in the Popes place or rather in Christs place seeing that without all doubt Sicily was a part of the Popes ancient Patriarchate but Britaigne was not And lastly seeing the situation of Sicily so much nearer to Rome renders the Sicilians more capable of receiving Justice from thence then the English
communion of any particular Church whatsoever even the Roman it self so far forth as it is Catholick but onely from their errours wherein they had first separated themselves from their predecessours To this I adde that it was not we but the Court of Rome it self that first separated England from the communion of the Church of Rome by their unjust censures excommunications and interdictions which they thundered out against the Realm for denying their spiritual Sovereignty by Divine right before the Reformation made by Protestants Secondly we are charged with Schismatical contumacy and disobedience to the decrees and determinations of the General Councel of Trent But we believe that Convent of Trent to have been no General nor yet Patriarchal no free no lawfull Councel How was that General where there was not any one Bishop out of all the other Patriarchates or any Proctours or Commissioners from them either present or summoned to be present except peradventure some tltular Europaean Mock-Prelates without cures such as Olaus Magnus intituled Archbishop of Vpsala Or Sir Robert the Scottish-man intituled Archbishop of Armagh How was that Generall or so much as Patriarchal where so great a part of the West was absent wherein there were twice so many Episcopelles out of Italy the Popes professed Vassals and many of them his hungry Parasitical pensioners as there were out of all other Christian Kingdoms and Nations put together How was that general wherein there were not so many Bishops present at the determination of the weightiest controversies concerning the rule of faith and the exposition thereof as the King of England could have called together in his own Dominions at any one time upon a moneths warning How was that general which was not generally received by all Churches even some of the Roman Communion not admitting it We have seen heretofore how the French Ambassadour in the name of the King and Church of France protested against it And untill this day though they do not oppose it but acquiesce to avoid such disadvantages as must insue thereupon yet they did never admit it Let no man say that they rejected the determinations thereof onely in point of discipline not of doctrine for the same Canonical obedience is equally due to an acknowledged General Councell in point of discipline as in point of Doctrine And as it was not General so neither was it free nor lawfull Not free where the place could afford no security to the one party where the accuser was to be the Judge where any one that spake a free word had his mouth stopped or was turned out of the Councel where the few Protestants that adventured to come thither were not admitted to dispute where the Legates gave auricular Votes where the Fathers were noted to be guided by the spirit sent from Rome in a male where divers not only new Bishops but new Bishopricks were created during the sitting of the Convent to make the Papalins able to over-vote the Tramontains Nor yet lawfull in regard of the place which ought to have been in Germany Actor debet rei forum sequi A guilty person is to be judged in his Province And the cause to be pleaded where the crime was committed And likewise in regard of the Judge In every Judgment there ought to be four distinct persons The accuser the witnesse the guilty person and the Judge But in the Councel of Trent the Pope by himself or his Ministers acted all these parts himself He was the right guilty person and yet withall the accuser of the Protestants the witnesse against them and their Judge Lastly no man can be lawfully condemned before he be heard But in this Councel the Protestants were not allowed to propose their case much lesse to defend it by lawful disputation Thirdly it is objected and here they think they have us sure locked up that we cannot deny but that the Bishop of Rome was our Patriarch and that we have rebelled against him and cast off our Canonical obedience in our Reformation To this supposed killing argument I give three clear solutions First That the Bâ—itish Islands neither were nor ought to be subject to the Jurisdiction of the Roman Patriarch as hath been sufficiently demonstrated in my third conclusion For all Patriarchal Jurisdiction being of humane institution must proceed either from some Canon or Decree of a General Councel or of such a Provincial Councell as had power to oblige the Britons to obedience Or from the grant or concession of some of their Sovereign Princes or from the voluntary submission of a free people Or lastly from custom and prescription If they had any such Canon or Grant or submission they would quickly produce it but we know they cannot If they plead custome and prescription immemorial the burthen must rest upon them to prove it But when they have searched all the Authours over and over who have written of British affaires in those daies and all their Records and Registers they shall not be able to find any one Act or so much as any one footstep or the least sign of any Roman Patriarchal Jurisdiction in Britaigne or over the Britons for the first 600 years And for after-ages the Roman Bishops neither held their old Patriarchate nor gained any quiet settled possession of their new Monarchy Secondly I answer That Patriarchal power is not of Divine right but humane institution And therefore may either be quitted or forfeited or transferred And if ever the Bishops of Rome had any Patriarchal Jurisdiction in Britaigne yet they had both quitted it and forfeited it over and over again and it was lawfully transferred To separate from an Ecclesiastical authority which is disclaimed and disavowed by the pretenders to it and forfeited by abuse and rebellion and lawfully transferred is no Schisme First I say they quitted their pretended Patriarchal right when they assumed and usurped to themselves the name and thing of universal Bishops Spiritual Sovereigns and sole Monarchs of the Church and masters of all Christians To be a Patriarch and to be an universal Bishop in that sense are inconsistent and imply a contradiction in adjecto The one professeth humane the other challengeth divine institution The one hath a limited Jurisdiction over a certain Province the other pretendeth to an unlimited Jurisdiction over the whole World The one is subject to the Canons of the Fathers and a meer executour of them and can do nothing either against them or besides them The other challengeth an absolute Sovereignty above the Canons besides the Canons against the Canons to make them to abrogate them to suspend their influence by a non-obstaâ—te to dispence with them in such cases wherein the Canon gives no dispensative power at his own pleasure when he will where he will to whom he will Therefore to claime a power paramount and Sovereign Monarchical Royalty over the Church is implicitely and in effect to disclaime a Patriarchal
I answer that obedience to a just Patriarch is of no larger extent then the Canons of the Fathers do injoyn it And since the division of Britaigne from the Empire no Canons are or ever were of force with us further then they were received and by their incorporation became Britannique Lawes Which as they cannot noâ— ever could be imposed upon the King and Kingdome by a forreign Patriarch by constraint so when they are found by experience prejudiciall to the publick good they may as freely by the same King and Kingdome be rejected But I shall wind up this string a little higher Suppose that the whole body of the Canon Law were in force in England which it never was yet neither the Papall power which we have cashiered nor any part of it was ever given to any Patriarch by the ancient Canons and by consequence the separation is not Schismatical nor any withdrawing of Canonical obedience What power a Metropolitan had over the Bishops of his own Province by the Canon Law the same and no other had a Patriarch over the Metropolitans and Bishops of sundry Provinces within his own Patriarchate But a Metropolitan anciently could do nothing out of his own Diocesse without the concurrence of the Major part of the Bishops of his Province Nor the Patriarch in like manner without the advice and consent of his Metropolitans and Bishops Wherein then consisted Patriarchal authority In ordaining their Metropolitans for with inferiour Bishops they might not meddle or confirming them or imposing of hands in giving the Pall in convocating Patriarchal Synods and presiding in them in pronouncing sentence according to the plurality of voices That was when Metropolitical Synods did not suffice to determine some emergent difficulties or differences And lastly in some few honorary priviledges as the acclamation of the Bishops to them at the latter end of a General Councel and the like which signifie not much In all this there is nothing that we dislike or would seek to have abrogated Never any Patriarch was guilty of those exactions extortions incroachments upon the civil rights of Princes and their Subjects or upon the Ecclesiastical rights of Bishops or of those provisions and pensions and exemptions and reservations and dispensations and inhibitions and pardons and indulgences and usurped Sovereignty which our Reformers banished out of England And therefore their separation was not any waies from Patriarchal authority I confesse that by reason of the great difficulty and charge of convocating so many Bishops and keeping them so long together untill all causes were heard and determined And by reason of those inconveniencies which did fall upon their Churches in their absence Provincial Councels were first reduced from twice to once in the year and afterwards to once in three years And in processe of time the hearing of appeales and such like causes and the execution of the Canons in that behalf were referred to Metropolitans untill the Papacy swallowed up all the authority of Patriarchs and Metropolitans and Bishops Serpens serpentem nisi ederet non fieret draco Peradventure it may be urged in the fourth place That Gregory the Great who by his Ministers was the first converter of the English Nation about the six hundreth year of our Lord did thereby acquire to himself and his Successours a Patriarchal authority and power over England for the future We do with all due thankfulnesse to God and honourable respect to his memory acknowledge that that blessed Saint was the chief instrument under God to hold forth the first light of saving truth to the English Nation who did formerly sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death whereby he did more truly merit the name of Great then by possessing the chair of Saint Peter And therefore whilest the sometimes flourishing now poor persecuted Church of England shall have any being Semper honos nomenque suum laudesque manâ—bunt But whether this benefit did intitle Saint Gregory and his Successours to the Patriarchate of all or any part of the British Islands deserves a further consideration First consider that at that time and untill this day half of Britaigne it self and two third parts of the Britannique Islands did remain in the possession of the Britons or Scottish and Irish who still continued Christians and had their Bishops and Protarchs or Patriarchs of their own from whom we do derive in part our Christianity and holy orders and priviledges Without all controversie the conversion of the Saxons by Saint Gregory could not prejudice the just liberties of them or their Successours Secondly consider that the half of Britaigne which was conquered and possessed by the Saxons was not soly and altogether peopled by Saxons A world of British Christians did remain and inhabit among the Conquerours For we do not find either that the Saxons did go about to extirpate the British Nation or compell them to turn Renegadoes from their Religion or so much as demolish their Churches But contented themselves to chase away persons of eminency and parts and power whom they had reason to suspect and fear And made use of vulgar persons and spirits for their own advantage This is certain that Britaigne being an Island whither there is no accesse by land all those who were transported or could have been transported by Sea on such a suddain could not of themselves alone in probability of reason have planted or peopled the sixth part of so much land as was really possessed by the Saxons And therefore we need not wonder if Queen Bertha a Gallâ—ise and a Christian did find a Congregation of Christians at Canterbury to joyn with her in her Religion and a Church called Saint Martins builded to her hand And stood in need of Lethargus a Bishop to order the affaires of Christian Religion before ever Saint Austine set foot upon English ground Neither did the British want their Churches in other places also as appears by that Commission which the King did give to Austine among other things to repair the Churches that were decayed These poor subdued persons had as much right to their ancient priviledges as the rest of the unconquered Britons Thirdly consider That all that part of Britaigne which was both conquered and inhabited by the Saxons was not one intire Monarchy but divided into seven distinct Kingdoms which were not so suddenly converted to the Christian faith all at once but in long tract of time long after Saint Gregory slept with his fathers upon several occasions by several persons It was Kent and some few adjacent Counties that was converted by Austine It is true that Ethelbâ—rt King of Kent after his own conversion did indeavour to have planted the Christian faith both in the Kingdomes of Northumberland and the East Angles with fair hopes of good successe for a season But alas it wanted root Within a short time both Kings and Kingdoms apostated from Christ and forsook their Religion The Kingdoms of the West Saxons
and of the South Saxons under Kingils their King who did unite the heptarchy into a Monarchy were converted by the preaching of Berinus an Italian by the perswasions of Oswald King of Northumberland Oswâ—ld King of Northumberland was baptized in Scotland and Religion luckily planted in that Kingdome by Aidan a Scottish Bishop Penda King of Mercia was converted and christened by Finanus Successour of Aidan by the means of a marriage with a Christian Princesse of the Royal Family of Northumberland Sigibert King of the East Angles in whose daies and by whose means Religion took root among the East Saxons was converted and christned in France All these Saxons which were converted by Britons or Scots may as justly plead for their old immunities as the Britons themselves We acknowledge Saint Gregory to have been the first that did break the ice And yet we see how small a proportion of the inhabitants of the British Islands do owe their conversion to Rome in probability not a tenth part Fourthly consider that the conversion of a Nation to the Christian faith is a good ground in equity all other circumstances concurring why they should rather submit themselves or a General Councel assign them to that See that converted them then to any other Patriarchate As was justly pleaded in the case between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople about the right of Jurisdiction over the Bulgarians But the conversion of a Nation is no ground at all to invest their converter presently with Patriarchal authority over them or any Ecclesiastical superiority especially where too great a distance of place doth render such Jurisdiction uselesse and burthensome And most especially where it cannot be done without prejudice to a former owner thrust out of his just right meerly by the power of the sword as the British Primates were Or to the subjecting of a free Nation to a forreign Prelate without or beyond their own consent In probability of reason the Britons ought their first conversion to the Eastern Church as appeareth by their accord with them in baptismal rites and the observation of Easter Yet never were subject to any Eastern Patriarch Sundry of our British and English Bishops have converted forreign Nations yet never pretended to any Jurisdiction over them Fifthly and lastly consider That whatsoever title or right S. Gregory did acquire or might have acquired by his piety and deserts towards the English Nation it was personal and could not descend from him to such Successours who both forfeited it many waies and quickly within four or five years after his death quitted their Patriarchate and set an higher title to a spirituall Monarchy on foot whilest the most part of England remained yet Pagan when Pope Boniface did obtain of Phoeas the usurper an usurping Pope from an usurping Emperour to be universal Bishop Their Canon-shot is past that which remains is but a small volly of Muskets They adde that we have schismatically separated our selves from the Communion of our Ancestours whom we believe to be damned That we have separated our selves from our Ecclesiastical predecessours by breaking in sunder the line of Apostolical succession whilest our Presbyters did take upon them to Ordain Bishops and to propagate to their Successours more then they received from their predecessours That our Presbyters are but equivocall Presbyters wanting both the right matter and form of Presbyterial ordination To extinguish the order is more schismatical then to decline their authority And lastly that we derive our Episcopal Jurisdiction from the Crown First for our natural Fathers the answer is easie We do not condemn them nor separate our selves from them Charity requires us both to think well and speak well of them But prudence commands us likewise to look well to our selves We believe our fathers might partake of some errours of the Roman Church we do not believe that they were guilty of any heretical pravity but held alwaies the truth implicitely in the preparation of their minds and were alwaies ready to receive it when God should be pleased to reveal it Upon these grounds we are so far from damning them that we are confident they were saved by a generall repentance He that searcheth carefully into his own heart to find out his errours and repenteth truly of all his known sins and beggeth pardon for his unknown errours proceeding out of invincible or but probable ignorance in Gods acceptation repenteth of all Otherwise the very best of Christians were in a miserable condition For who can tell how oft he offendeth The second accusation of Priests consecrating Bishops is grounded upon a senselesse fabulous fiction made by a man of a leaden heart and a brazen forehead of I know not what assembly of some of our Reformers at the sign of the Nags-head in Cheapside or rather devised by their malicious enemies at the sign of the Whetstone in Popes-head-Alley Against which lying groundlesse drowsie dream we produce in the very point the authentick records of our Church of things not acted in a corner but publickly and solemnly recorded by publick Notaries preserved in publick Registers whither every one that desired to see them might have accesse And published to the world in Print whilest there were thousands of eye-witnesses living that could have contradicted them if they had been feigned There is no more certainty of the Coronation of Henry the eighth or Edward the sixth then there is of that Ordination which alone they have been pleased to question done not by one as Austine consecrated the first Saxon Prelates but by five consecrated Bishops Let them name the person or persons And if they were Bishops of the Church of England we will shew them the day the place the persons when and where and by whom and before what publick Notaries or sworn Officers they were ordained And this not by uncertain rumours but by the Acts and instruments themselves Let the Reader chuse whether he will give credit to a sworn Officer or a professed adversary to eye-witnesses or to malicious reporters upon hearsay to that which is done publickly in the face of the Church or to that which is said to be done privately in the corner of a Tavern These authentick evidences being upon occasion produced out of our Ecclesiasticall Courts and deliberately perused and viewed by Father Oldcorn the Jesuit he both professed himself clearly convinced of that whereof he had so long doubted that was the legitimate succession of Bishops and Priests in our Church and wished heartily towards the reparation of the breach of Christendome that all the world were so abundantly satisfied as he himself was Blaming us as partly guilty of the grosse mistake of many for not having publickly and timely made known to the world the notorious falshood of that empty but far spread aspersion against our succession As for our parts we believe Episcopacy to be at least in Apostolical institution approved by Christ himself in