is King and the Law is his Law he being by the Constitution by Contract obliged to own it and Govern by it 2. And Parliaments have their part in the Legislation as Representatives or Trustees of the People and therefore the Laws are called those quas vulgus elegerit But the People die not at the dissolving of a Parliament 3. At least it 's of apparent necessity that the Supreme Executive Power survive or else the Laws die For whose Laws are they if we had no King or Soveraign Whom do we obey or disobey in obeying or disobeying such Laws But our opposers say that even the Supreme Executive as well as Legislative Power is in General Councils If so their Laws are dead a thousand years and we cannot disobey or obey dead men Therefore why do you press us to obey their Laws Arg. 5. If God would have had such Councils to be the Universal Soveraigns he would have notified this plainly in his Word or in Nature it being supposed the Constitutive Form of the Church or at least necessarily to be known for the common Duty and Concord of Christians Our opposers say There is no Concord nor avoiding damnable Schism but by obeying the Vniversal Governing Church But God hath notified no such thing in Nature or Scripture Arg. 6. If God would have his Church Universal to have had such a Soveraign he would have empowered some one or more to call such a Council and told us who hath the power to call them that we may know which have Authority and are to be obeyed For there have been many false and heretical General Councils so called and they have cursed and condemned one another But God hath given us no notice of any empowered to call such a Council nor any means how to know which of them is true and which false which to obey and which not whatever the Pope pretendeth Arg. 7. All the Inferior Officers derive their Power from the Supreme But all the particular Bishops and Presbyters do not derive their Power from General Councils ergo they are not Supreme The Major is undoubted with all Politick Writers It is one of the Jura Majestatis to be the Fountain of Inferior Power The Minor is notorious de facto in the common History of the Church By the National Orders of the Roman Empire Councils had a chief Power in case of difference to determine of the five Patriarchs but not necessarily to chuse them nor did they consecrate them nor was this without the Empire nor did these Patriarchs make the other Bishops The Papists dare not determine whether Election or Consecration necessarily make a Bishop or whether it must be both For which ever be necessary distinguished from invalid acts their Popes and Bishops are nulled much more if both But neither of them was appropriate to General Councils Arg. 8. The Soveraign Government of the Universal Church is supposed necessary to its Unity and to avoiding of Schism and deciding Controversies and therefore its Laws are necessary to be Preached to all the Flocks But none of this is true as to the Soveraignty of a Council â—or the Church had Unity mostly without it and subsists without it at this day and few Subjects know its Laws and few Preachers preach them or People think they are bound to learn them Arg. 9. Christ hath appropriated the Soveraignty and Universal Legislation and Judgment to himself alone Therefore it is not committed to a Council The Antecedent is proved fully by 1 Cor. 11.3 1 Cor. 12.27 c. Col. 1.18 2.10 17 19. Eph. 1.22 23. Eph. 4.3 4 5 6. to 16. 1 Cor. 6.16 17. Gal. 3.28 1 Cor. 3.3 4 5. 4.6 1 Cor. 10.16 17. Matth. 22.25 26. Luke 22.26 Arg. 10. They that will claim so great a Power as to be the Soveraigns of the Christian World must shew a clear Commission for it But Universal Councils can shew no such Commission Arg. 11. If an Universal Council of Bishops be the Supreme Governours of the Universal Church they that call them not or they that come not together live in most damnable sin For all Office consisteth in Obligation to do the duty as well as Power to do it And to neglect so many hundred years a work of such unspeakable need must be more damnable than to neglect a particular Flock so that this casts either all the Bishops of the World into damnation as most perfidious men or the Pope for not calling them Arg. 12. The necessity of such an Universal Supreme Senate is feigned and false therefore none such is of God 1. The great pretended necessity is of Universal Legislation But that is not necessary For Christ hath already given his Church as many Laws as are universally necessary No man can prove the necessity of one more 2. Nor is their Universal Judging Office necessary For Arg. 13. A General Council is not capable of Universal Supreme Government Therefore they were never by God appointed to it I. They are not capable of Universal Legislation 1. Because Christ hath made perfect Universal Laws and forbidden all addition to them that is at least all of the same kind To say that Christ hath left out any of universal necessity is to say that he hath done his work by the halves and men must mend it especially if it be in necessary things If it be but undetermined Circumstances or Accidents then 1. None can know which of them agree with all Countries on Earth 2. Those that agree this year may not be agreeable the next 3. Nor is an Agreement in more than Christ hath determined necessary at all So that here is no work for them to do 2. And what is the Judiciary Power that they can use No man can tell what 1. They cannot judge of particular Persons to be Baptized whether they are fit All the Bishops of the World must not meet to try a Catechumen 2. Nor yet of Persons that are to be Confirmed and admitted to adult Communion 3. Nor of Persons accused of Heresie or Scandal No one is so mad as to say that an Universal Council must be gathered out of all the Earth to judge whether A. do justly accuse B. of these Crimes and to hear all men speak for themselves and to Examine the Witnesses c. And whole Cities and Kingdoms are not fit for Church Censures because they are mixt of righteous and unrighteous and noxa Caput sequitur Every man must answer for his own Sin and every one must have his own Repentance And if whole Countries are to be Judged whole Countries of Witnesses must be heard And shall the Council come to them or they all go to the Council and whither and when If it be Causes and not Persons that they must judge what are they if they be no Persons Causes If only Cases of Doctrine and Conscience in general as the Expounding hard Texts of Scripture or Points of Divinity This is not properly
unlimited Monarch we will speak according to common use and let them speak as their Interest dictates to them but remember that the Controversie is but about the Name and not the Thing We take the French Church for Papists If they will call them Protestants they are free But if we are agreed what a Pope is the case is plain as followeth I. Mr. Dodwell their most Learned defender if number of words or greatest self-conceit be the chief strength tells you that if the Council be not lawfully called it obligeth you rather to bring them to Punishment as a Rout or Rebels than to obey them And that none but the President hath Power to call them And remember yet that this good Man is no Papist And indeed who else but the Pope should call Universal Councils The King in Scotland may call a Scotch General Assembly and in England a Convocation and Parliaâ—ent And 1. The Emperor of Rome or Constantinople might call such Councils in the Empire as were then called General and did so But who now shall call one out of France Spain Portugal Italy Germany Britain Denmark Sweden Poland Moscovie the Turkish Empire Armenia Georgia Mengrelia Tartary Abassia Mexico Peru China c. We are awake and therefore cannot Dream of Princes doing it by Agreement We are yet out of Bedlam and cannot conclude that all the Bishops in the World will come together by common consent or as the Atomists say the World was made by a fortuitous concourse of Atomes 2. How shall lawful Councils be known from unlawful if none have Authority to call approve and difference them If only ex factis by their good or bad Deeds half the World will Judge as they have done and do one Council to be spurious which another obeyeth 3. What order shall be kept among them if none have Authority to appoint the Place the Time to Preside and Moderate and to dissolve them and who pretends to this but the Pope 4. When Councils Contradict Condemn and Curse each other who shall tell us which of them to receive believe and obey II. And if we must have a visible Supreme Power we must have one that successively existeth that the Church be not dissolved And none pretendeth to this but the Pope III. And if all National Patriarchal Churches be but Parts of a visible Catholick Church with a Humane Supremacy then there must be some Power still existent to give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power Mr. Dodwell saith it overthrows all Government to appeal to Scripture as a Charter or Law of Christ None hath more than the Giver intended him None can give that which he hath not to give The Inferior hath not Power to give to the Superior Who then but a Pope can give Patriarchs and Metropolitans their Power If for want of Authoritative Collation of Power all the Presbyterian Ordinations Sacraments and Covenant-hopes of Salvation are Nullities and Sins against the Holy Ghost as Mr. Dodwell and his Tribe say what better are all the Bishops and Archbishops for want of a Superior conferring Power which none pretendeth to but the Pope IV. And who else shall judge Patriarchs Metropolitans and National Churches when they prove Hereticks or Schismaticks Their Heresie and Schism is far more heinous and dangerous than single Persons or Congregations And Councils are not extant And we cannot send all over the Earth to gather Bishops Votes against them unheard It must be a Pope or no body on Earth that must by Governing Authority Judge them V. And who else shall be the stated Judge of new started Controversies You say such there must be shall they be undecided till the World have a true general Council VI. And who shall an injured Person appeal to from a Tyrannical Metropolitan or National Church but to the Pope Many more clear Necessities there will be of a Pope on their Principles I blamed the Author of the Divine Hierarchy for naming such without an Antidote lest it should make men Papists But I understand he is a worthy Protestant But verily there is no avoiding a Pope by any that assert an Vniversal humane Church Supremacy VII And indeed I must not suppose them so immodest as to deny it For it is but the Pope's Absolute Power above the Councils and their Laws and not Simple Popery or the Pope's limited Power that they deny 1. They confess that they hold Rome for the Mistriss Church as Grotius calls it 2. And that the Pope is Patriarch of the West and the prime Patriarch 3. And that he is Principium Vnitatis to all the Church on Earth And if so they are out of the Church which is One that deny this 4. That he is authorized to call General Councils 5. And to be their President 6. And to be the chief Governor when there are no General Councils and that is indeed always 7. And that they are all Schismaticks that do not thus far submit to him And how much more Mr. Dodwell giveth the President I have shewed you in his own words VIII As Mr. Thorndike threateneth England with God's Judgments if they do not amend the Oath of Supremacy by making it acceptable to the Papists that renounce not a foreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction so others labour to prove that the meaning of it is only to renounce the Pope's Jurisdiction here in Temporals which belongs to the King and not a Papal and Foreign Jurisdiction properly Ecclesiastical by the Keys As you may see partly in Mr. Hutchinson's alias Berry's Book who on that Supposition took the Oath as many do and publickly profest himself of the Church of England IX In the Description of the Reconciliation with the Pope endeavoured by Archbishop Laud in Heylin's History of his Life Pag. 414 415 c. All that the Pope was to abate was 1. That the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity may be taken I told you in what sense 2. And that the Pope's Jurisdiction here but no where else be declared to be of Humane Right that is say ours by the Fathers in General Councils not without the Apostles by whose Church-Laws we are all bound 3. That all should be really performed to the King so far as other Catholick Princes usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be independent both from King and Pope but not from subjection to either This saith he no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him 4. Marriage permitted to Priests 5. The Communion in both kinds 6. The Liturgy in English I ask any sober man now Qu. 1. Whether the Pope did himself think that by this bargain he ceased to be Pope and all Papists to be Papists 2. Whether if the King had been thus far equalled with other Catholick Princes the Pope would not have supposed him and his Bishops and Church to be of the same Roman Catholick Church as they 3. Whether in all this here be any
Fervour and the Devotion of the Catholicks of those Countries and feeling that I had none of it or very little I have never ceased since that time to ask of God the Grace that if I were not of the true Religion I might be so before I died Nevertheless I had not the least doubt but that the Belief of the Church of England was the true and I never had any scruple or trouble of Conscience on this Occasion until November last that I began to read Dr. Heylin's History of the Reformation which is much esteemed and whereof the reading in the Opinion of all the able Men of the Kingdom is sufficient to free the Conscience from all Scruples and Doubts which might arise about Religion But for my part far from finding in that History what was said of it I found to the contrary that by reading of it it only made me see the most horrible Sacriledges that were ever heard spoken of and that it was not sufficient to satisfie an indifferent understanding nor to perswade it that we had the least foundation or appearance of reason for changing the ancient Face of the Church and renouncing the Catholick Religion I noted in that History first that Henry the Eighth quitted not the Communion of the Church of Rome nor opposed the Authority of the Pope but because he would not let him put away the Queen his Wife to Marry another 2. That King Edward the Sixth being yet a Child his Uncle who governed him abusing the Royal Authority which he had in his hand enriched himself by appropriating to himself and his Family the Lands and Goods of the Church 3. That Queen Elizabeth not being the lawful Heir of the Crown could not keep the unjust Possession which she had taken but by renouncing the true Church because the Purity and Rectitude of her Doctrine was not consistent with the Usurpation of the Kingdom of Great Britain I could not conceive much less believe that the holy Spirit which governs the true Church should be the Author of the Three Points that I now noted which have been the only Foundation of the Subversion of the ancient Religion to favour the Licentiousness of Henry the Eighth the Usurpation of Queen Elizabeth and the Ambition mixed with the extream Avarice of the Uncle of Edward the Sixth Neither could I understand how the Bishops who boast that they had no other design â—n separating themselves from the Communion of the Church of Rome but to endeavour the re-establishing of the Doctrine Discipline of the Primitive Church have not thought of this pretended Reformation but while Henry the Eighth attempted a Separation from the Roman Church that he might satisfie his guilty Pleasures All these Reflections having busied my Mind after the reading of that History I endeavoured to â—nstruct my self in the Points controverted between â—s and the Catholicks I examined them the most â—xactly that I could by the Scripture it self and though I thought not my self sufficient for underâ—tanding it well I found nevertheless some things which appeared to me so clear so easie to be unâ—erstood that I have a thousand times wondred that I have been so long without reflecting on them I was particularly and strongly convinced of the â—eal Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar of the Infallibility of the Church Confession and Prayer for the Dead I was willing to confer of these Matters by way of Discourse with the two most able Bishops that we â—ave in England and both confessed to me ingenuously that there are many things in the Church of Rome which it was to be wished that the Church of England had still observed as Confession which it could not be denied but that God had commanded it and Prayer for the Dead which is one of the most authentick and ancient Practices of the Christian Religion But as to themselves they made use thereof in private without making publick profession thereof As I pressed one of these Bishops upon the other Points of Controversie and principally on the real Presence of Jesus Christ in the Holy Sacrament of the Altar he answered me freely That were he a Catholick he would not change Religion but that having been educated in a Church in which he believed there was all that was necessary to Salvation and there having received his Baptism he thought he could not quit it without great Scandal All this Discourse served but to increase the ardent desire which I had to become a Catholick and I felt inward pains and horrible disquiets after the Conversation I had with these two Bishops Nevertheless that I might not precipitate in an Affair of this Importance and where my Salvation was concerned I endeavoured to satisfie my self entirely I prayed God with all my heart to calm my troubled Mind by making me to know the Truth the search of which had caused my trouble Being in this Condition I went at Christmas to the Kings Chapel to receive the Sacrament which put my Soul into new troubles which continued till I discovered my state of Mind to a Catholick who to procure me the repose and tranquillity which I wished caused a good Priest to come to me and he was the first Ecclesiastick with whom I conferred of my inward condition and the affairs of my Soul The more I spoke with him the more I found my self inwardly perswaded and strengthened by the Grace of the Holy Spirit to change Religion As I could not doubt of the truth of the words of Jesus Christ which assures us that the Holy Sacrament contains his Flesh and his Blood I could not easily believe that he who is truth it self had permitted that the Communion under one kind had been introduced into his Church in which and with which he hath promised to dwell to the end of the World if it sufficeth not for the Salvation of them who communicate under one kind only To conclude I am not able to enter into Dispute with any on these great Truths and though I were I would not engage my self further than in a Discourse of a few words and without contesting to express simply the Motives and Reasons of my Conversion I call God to witness who knows the secret of Mens hearts that I had never thought of changing Religion if I had believed I might obtain Salvation by continuing in the state I was by my Birth and Education and I think it is not necessary that I here declare that it was not Interest nor prospect of Honors or of any fading and perishable Profits which have perswaded me thereunto seeing that on the contrary by changing Religion I exposed my self to the hazard of losing both my Friends and my Credit and freely to confess the truth I considered and examined often whether it was not more expedient for me to keep my Friends my Rank and my Credit in the Court by continuing in the Exercise of the Religion of the Church of England
Rule delivered by himself and by the Council of Trent c. P. 239. The Augustane Confession commodiously explained hath scarce any thing which may not be reconciled with those Opinions which are received with the Catholicks by Authority of Antiquity and of Synods as may be known out of Cassander and Hoffmeister And there are among the Jesuits also that think not otherwise P. 71. The Churches that join with Rome have not only the Scriptures but the Opinions explained in the Councils and the Popes decree against Pelagius c. They have also received the egregious Constitutions of Councils and Fathers in which there is abundantly enough for the Correction of Vices But all use them not as they ought And this is it that all the Lovers of Piety and Peace would have corrected as Borromaeus did Page 18. Speaking of false Doctrine These are the things which thanks be to God the Catholicks do not thus believe though many that call themselves Catholicks so live as if they did believe them But Protestants so live by force of their Opinions and Catholicks by the decay of Discipline Page 95. What was long ago the judgment of the Church of Rome the Mistress of others we may best know by the Epistles of the Roman Bishops to the Africans and French to which Grotius will subscribe with a willing mind Page 7. They accuse the Bull of Pius Quintus that it hath Articles besides those of the Creed but the Synod of Dort hath more But these in the Bull are New as Dr. Rivet will have it But very many Learned Men think otherwise that they are not new if they be rightly understood and that this appeareth by the places both of Holy Scripture and of such as have ever been of great Authority in the Church which are cited in the Margin of the Canons of Trent Page 35. And this is it which the Synod of Trent saith That in that Sacrament Jesus Christ true God and truely Man is really and substantially contained under the form of those sensible things Yet not according to the Natural manner of existing but Sacramentally and by that way of existing which though we cannot express in words yet may we by Cogitation illustrated by Faith be certain that to God it is possible The Councils expressions are that There is made a change of the whole substance of the Bread into the Body and of the whole substance of Wine into the Blood Which Conversion the Catholick calleth Transubstantiation Page 79. When the Synod of Trent saith That the Sacrament is to be adored with Divine Worship it intends no more but that the Son of God himself is to be adored Page 14. Grotius distinguisheth between the Opinions of School men which oblige no Man for saith Melchior Canus our Church alloweth us great liberty and therefore could give no just cause of departing as the Protestants did and between those things that are defined by Councils Even by that of Trent The Acts of which if any Man read with a mind propense to peace he will find that they may be explained fitly and agreeably to the places of Holy Scripture and of the ancient Doctors that are put in the Margin And if besides this by the care of Bishops and Kings those things be taken away which contradict that holy Doctrine and were brought in by evil Manners and not by Authority of Councils or old Tradition then Grotius and many more with him will have that with which they may be content Val. pro pace That which he blameth is 1. The School-mens liberty of disputing and Opinions not agreeable to Councils 2. And the Pride Covetousness and ill Lives of the Prelates and others which all sober Jesuits and Papists blame Page 16. That the labours of Grotius for the peace of the Church were not displeasing to many equal Men many know at Paris and many in all France many in Poland and Germany and not a few in England that are placid and Lovers of peace For as for the now-raging Brownists and others like them with whom Dr. Rivet better agreeth than with the Bishops of England who can desire to please them that is not touched with their Venom And whereas you may find Grotius and his Adherents yet disclaiming Popery and saying They are no Papists he tells you his meaning Ib. p. 15. In that Epistle Grotius by Papists meant those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of the Pope for Honour and Lucres sake as is usual By this description I suppose that many Popes even of late were no Papists such as condemned the Acts and Persons of their Predecessors and such as censured Liberius and Honorius nor Adrian the sixth that saith a Pope may be a Heretick nor Baronius Binnius Genebrard that exclaim against many of them Nor Bellarmine nor Queen Mary nor More or Fisher nor Bonner nor Gardiner nor any that ever I met with But others more moderately call only those Papists that are for the Popes Power above Councils And so the French are none nor the Councils of Constance and Basil were none Grotius addeth p. 45. that By Papists he doth not mean them that saving the Rights of Kings and Bishops do give to the Pope or Bishop of Rome that Primacy which ancient Customs and Canons and the Edicts of ancient Emperors and Kings assign them which Primacy is not so much the Bishops as the Roman Churches preferred before all other by common consent So Liberius the Bishop being so lapsed that he was dead to the Church the Church of Rome retained its right and defended the Cause of the Universal Church Ans. If it be a Primacy of Name and Honour only without any Governing Power it 's nothing to our case But seeing it 's a Governing Primacy that he means 1. It 's against the right of Kings and Kingdoms that Foreigners claim Jurisdiction over them 2. Emperors never gave Popes or Councils power over other Princes Dominions nor could give any such 3. Nor did ancient Councils nor could do Who gave it them And who knows to what Councils he will limit this power Councils these thousand years have been for much of Popery 4. If Common Consent give this power it binds not the Dissenters The Judgment of others concerning Grotius 1. Vincentius wrote a Book called Grotius Papizans 2. Claud. Saravius an Eminent Parliament-man in Paris in his Epistles p. 52 53. ad Gron. saith Heri invisi Legatum De ejus libro libello postremis interrogatus respondet plane Mileterio consona Romanam fidem esse veram sinceram solosque clericorum mores degeneres schismati dedisse locum Adferebatque plura in hanc sententiam Quid dicam Merito quod falso olim Paulo Festus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Sed haec tibi soli Infensissimus est Riveto Est sanè in praecipiti in quo diu stare non licet Deploro veris lacrymis tantam jacturam Deumque ex
Supremacy in these parts of Christendom which I conceive no man of Learning and Sobriety would have grudged to grant him It was also condescended to in the Name of the Pope that Marriage might be permitted to Priests that the Communion might be administred sub utraque specie and the Liturgy be officiated in the English Tongue And though the Author adds not long after that it was to be suspected that so far as the inferior Clergy and the People were concerned the after-performance was to be left to the Pope's discretion yet this was but his own suspicion without any ground at all And to obtain a Reconciliation on these Advantages the Archbishop had all the reason in the world to do as he did in ordering the Lord's Table to be set where the Altar stood and making the accustomed reverence in all approaches towards it and accesses to it and in beautifying and adorning Churches and celebrating Divine Service with all due Solemnities in taking Care that all offensive and exasperating Passages should be expunged out of all such Books as were brought to the Press and for reducing the extravagancy of some Opinions to an evener temper His Majesty had the like reason also for tolerating lawful Recreations on the Sundays and Holidays the rigorous restraint whereof had made some Papists think those most especially of the vulgar sort whom it most concerned that all honest Pastimes were incompatible with our Religion And if he approved auricular Confession and shewed himself willing to introduce it into the use of the Church as both our Authors say he did it is no more than what the Liturgy commends to the care of the Penitent though we find not the word Auricular in it and what the Canons have provided for in the point of security for such as shall be willing to Confess themselves But whereas we are told by one of our Authors that the King should say he would use force to make it be received were it not for fear of Sedition among the People yet it is but in one of our Authors neither who hath no other Author for it but a nameless Doctor And in the way to so happy an Agreement though they all stand accused for it by The English Pope p. 15 Sparrow may be excused for Pleading for Auricular Confession and Watts for Pennance Heylin for Adoration towards the Altar and Mountague for such a qualified Praying to Saints as his Book maintaineth against the Papists If you would know how far they had proceeded towards this happy Reconciliation the Pope's Nuntio will assure us thus That the Universities Bishops and Divines of this Realm did daily embrace Catholick Opinions though they professed not so much with Pen or Mouth for fear of the Puritans For example they held that the Church of Rome is a true Church that the Pope is Superior to all Bishops that to him it pertaineth to call General Councils that it 's lawful to Pray for the Souls of the Departed that Altars ought to be erected of Stone In sum that they believed all that is taught by the Church but not by the Court of Rome Another of their Authors tells us that those among us of greatest Worth Learning and Authority began to love Temper and Moderation that their Doctrines began to be altered in many things for which their Progenitors forsook the visible Church of Christ As for example The Pope not Antichrist Prayers for the Dead Limbus Patrum Pictures that the Church hath Authority in determining Controversies of Faith and to interpret Scripture About Free Will Predestination Universal Grace that all our Works are not Sins Merit of good Works inherent Justice that Faith alone doth not justifie Charity to be preferred before knowledge the authority of Traditions Commandments possible to be kept that in Exposition of Scripture they are by Canon bound to follow the Fathers And that the once fearful Names of Priests and Altars are used willingly in their Talk and Writings In which Compliances so far forth as they speak the truth for in some Points through Ignorance of the one and Malice of the other they are much mistaken there is scarce any thing which may not well consist with the established though for a time discontinued Doctrine of the Church of England the Articles whereof as the same Jesuit hath observed seem patient or ambitious rather of some sence wherein they may seem Catholick And such a sence is put upon them by him that calls himself Franciscus à Sancta Clara as before was said And if upon such Compliances as those before on the part of the English the Conditions offered by the Pope might have been Confirmed who seeth not that the greatest benefit of the Reconciliation must have redounded to this Church to the King and People His Majesty's Security provided for by the Oaths of Supremacy and Allegiance so far as it concerned his Temporal Power The Bishops of England to be Independent on the Pope of Rome The Clergy to be permitted the use of Marriage the People to receive the Communion in both Kinds and all Divine Offices officiated in the English Tongue no Innovation made in Doctrine but only in qualifying some Expressions and discharging some Outlandish Glosses that were put upon them And seeing this what Man could be so void of Charity so uncompassionate of the Miseries and Distractions of Christendom as not to wish from the very bottom of his Soul that the Reconciliation had proceeded on so good terms as not to magnifie the Men to succeeding Ages who were the Instrument Authors of so great a Blesâ—ing So far Dr. Heylin who was the Archbishop's Intimate and Agent Archbishop Laud's own words as laid down in his Book defended by Dr. Stillingfleet § 1. The Archbishop disclaimeth the Divine Institution and the Infallibility of General Councils But he thinks we must allow them external Obedience and that honour and priviledge which all other GREAT COURTS have that there be a Declaration of the invalidity of their Decrees as well as of the LAWS of other Courts before private Men can take Liberty to refuse Obedience Part. 3. c. 2. And page 540. It doth not follow because the Church may erre that therefore she may not govern For the Church hath not only a Pastoral Power to Teach and Direct but a Praetorian Power to controul and censure too where Errors and Crimes are against fundamental Points or of great Consequence Thus the Archbishop It is the Universal Church and Councils that he speaks of But 1. There is no such thing on Earth as he calls the Church that is One Universal Aristocracy that hath Power of Governing all the Christian World in one Council or otherwise as one Supream 2. General Councils of divers Kingdoms o're all the World are no more a Court than the Assembly at Nimeguen was 3. No Obedience is due to them but only consent for Concord so far as their Canons tend to true Concord
of the truth For instance The first General National Council determineth that Christ is God of God Light of Light Very God of Very God I believe they meant the truth But these words are so far from making me a new Article of Faith or making the point plainer than Scripture made it that they are to me much darker than many Scripture words That Christ is God even One God with the Father and that he is the Eternal Word and Son the only begotten of the Father the Scripture plainly tells us And that the Person of the Son is of the Father For the Persons being three it is meet to say that one is of the other But God of God and Very God of Very God is of harder understanding and hath tempted mistakers to say it is Godhead of Godhead as if the Essence as well as Persons were many Creeds must be supposed to speak properly And denominations formal are most proper The Tritheites take advantage of this and say It is not said that the Person of the Son is of God the Father but the Godhead as such God of God being twice said say they signifieth two Gods They misinterpret it But the Scripture speaketh plainlier The same I say of Light of Light a Metaphor in a Creed And they that put substare accidentibus into the definition of substance and when they have done say that God hath no accidents do not by the Word substance add any plainness to the Scripture phrase And how little the Council at Constantinople and Chalcedon did to end the Controversies of Prelates and unite the Church by setting Constantinople and Rome in mutual Jealousies and Competition the World knows And what the Councils at Ephesus and Chacedon did to end the Controversies about the Nestorian and Eutychian points or that at C. P. against the Monothelites or that under Justinian de tribus capitulis Mr. Morice and you cannot keep the World from knowing nor yet what all the Councils about Images some for them and some against them have done Are they the only means of ending Controversies 1. Who do end none 2. Who have most increased them 3. Who are the greatest Controversie themselves The World will never be agreed which are to be taken for General Councils Authoritative and which not nor can you give us any thing that hath the shadow of reason to satisfie any impartial Man And no wonder when indeed there never was an Universal Council in the VVorld All true Christians are agreed in all that constituteth Christianity And it is not the Authority of Councils that made them Christians and so agreed them And to dream of ending all Controversies about lesser matters as long as men are so ignorant and imperfect as all are in this VVorld is the part of no Man in his VVits § 5. Page 345. Dr. S. Accordingly the Christian Church has challenged such an Authority and has held such Assemblies as occasion did require and six such have been approved and received generally i◠the Church and no more Ans. In all this matter of fact I think there is not one true word 1. The Christian Church did never challenge such an Authority unless you mean the Papal Church as in Council to have a Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty over the whole Christian VVorld 2. Never such an Assembly was call'd or held as I have fully proved 3. The six you mean we honour and are of the same Faith as they were but how far all the Christian World hath been from receiving them all I have elsewhere shewn and so hath Luther de Conciliis and many Protestants 4. That there were no more approved and received as these were is unproved § 6. Dr. S. As for Mr. B 's exception why we do not own the second of Eph. and second of Nice for General Councils also I answer because they were at the time they were first held and many years after accounted no General Councils and not received for such by the Church And page 346. Mr. B. demandeth how shall any Mans Conscience be satisfied that just these six had a supream c. Ans. By the publick Acts of the Church as we are satisfied of our Acts of Parliament For there are no more generally received and these are Ans. 1. I will not stand here on many previous questions How we shall know that a Council not General binds us not as much as a General if they have as wise Men and as strong Evidence And whether any Council be General which carrieth it but by a Major Vote where a few turn the Scales and the rest dissent But 2. If there be in this decision of this great point one word that should satisfie any Mans Conscience which will not be satisfied with meer noise or the VVriters Authority I confess I cannot find it 1. Either the Decrees of the said Councils are obligatory by their Soveraignty before the diffused Church receiveth them or not If yea then that obligation must be first known yea and it is known and the Council known by those that are nearest before all the Church on Earth can know it If not then it is not the Council but the Receiving-Church which hath the obliging Soveraign power And this is indeed to make Soveraign and Subjects to be the same This is like Mr. Hooker's Principles and many Politicians that the Legislative Power is really in the people by Natural right and it 's no Law which hath not common consent And if so no Man can tell how to date your Church Laws They did not begin to be Laws when the Council made them but when all the Church on Earth consented But we have need of the Decree of a General Council for no Dr. is sufficient to tell us when all the Christian VVorld consenteth for if every Christian must travel all over the VVorld to know it will be a vagrant Church And if he must send he cannot be sure that his Messenger saith true And a thousand Messengers may all differ And who can bear their Charges And if a Council tell us when the VVorld consenteth to former Decrees we must know also the worlds consent to that Decree before we can be sure it 's true And 2. VVhether the Church diffusive give authority to the Decrees or only be the Promulgators whose reception must be our notice it is a contradiction to say I know it first because all the World of Christians receive it For that 's all one as to say Every single Christian knoweth it because all Christians know it first That is All know it before they know it The parts are in the whole 3. Hath God laid the Salvation of all the Millions of Men and Women Learned and Unlearned upon such acquaintance with Cosmography and History as to know what Councils past 1000 years all the Christian World receiveth Or whether the greater part be for them or against them Is there one of a hundred thousand that knoweth it
it in the Case in question yet were they Apostles to the Universal Church that which none are since their time III. If there be such a Vicarious Governing Soveraignty over the Universal Church it is either the Pope or a General Council or some Colledge of Pastors But it is none of these 1. As to the Pope you say that he is so far from being Head of the Church that he is not a Member So that I need not say more of this to you 2. That General Councils are no such Soveraign Power which all must obey that will be Christians or in a Church seemeth to me past doubt for these Reasons 1. Because there is no such thing in the Creed though the Catholick Church and Communion of Saints be there But it would be there were it of such necessity to Christianity 2. Because there is no such thing said in all the Scripture which would not omit so necessary a point What is said from Acts 15. is answered before it was no General Council A General Council was not then the necessary means of Concord or Communion 3. There never was one General Council representing the Universal Church in the World I have fully proved in my second Book against Johnson that the Councils called General were so only as to the Roman Empire and few if any so General and that the Emperor called all the Chief Councils who had no Power without his Empire nor called any that were without 4. I have oft proved the unlawfulness of calling General Councils now as the Church is dispersed at such distances over the Earth and under Princes of so contrary Interests and Minds 5. I have oft proved the Impossibility of such a Councils meeting to attain the ends of Government in question being to pass by Sea and Land from all quarters of the World by the Consent of Enemies that rule them and through Enemies Countreys and Men of Age that must have so long time going and sitting and returning and of divers Languages uncapable of understanding one another and a number uncapable of present Converse with other such insuperable difficulties 6. If such Councils be necessary to the Being of Christianity Church or Concord at least the Church hath seldom had a Being or Concord it seldom having had such a Council in your own esteem And you cannot say that it ever will have any 7. If General Councils have Supream Government visible it is 1. Legislative 2. Judicial 3. Executive But I. If Legislative then 1. Their Laws are either Gods Infallible Word or not If not all Men must disobey them when they err If yea Gods Word is not the same one Age as another and is Crescent still and we know not when it will be perfect 2. Their Laws will be so many that no Christians can know them obey them and have Concord on such terms 3. If they could agree who should call them and whither yet the Prince whose Countrey they meet in would be Master of the whole Christian World and so of other Christian Countreys by Mastering them 4. Princes would be Subjects 1. To Foreign Powers 2. Yea to the Subjects of other Princes 3. Yea of their Enemies 4. And to such Preâ—ates as they are uncapable to know whether they are truely called to their Office 5. Or whether they are erroneous or sound in Faith 5. And then the Ecclesiastical Laws of all National Churches and Kings might be destroyed by such Councils as Superior Powers 6. And no Princes or Synods could make valid Laws about Religion till they knew that no Law of any such Council were against them 7. The Laws of Christ recorded in Scripture would by all this be argued of great insufficiency â—f more were Universally necessary he that made the rest would have made them whose Authority is to the Church unquestionable 8. The Christian World is divided so much in Opinion that except in what Christs own word containeth plainly they are in no probability of agreeing So much of Legislation II. As to Judgment 1. To judge the sence of a Law Scripture or Canon for the common Obligation of the Church is part of the Legislative Power and belongs to the Law-makers 2. To judge the Case of Persons e. g. whether John Peter Nestorius Luther Calvin c. be a Heretick an Adulterer a Simonist c. requireth that the Accuser and Accused and Witnesses of both be present and heard speak But he that would have all Hereticks Criminals Accusers Witnesses travel for a Tryal to Jerusalem Nice Constantinople Rome even from America Ethiopia c. will not need any Confutation III. The same I say of Executive Silencing Ejecting Excommunicating c. II. A Soveraign Power that cannot be known is not necessary to Christianity or the Constitution Communion or Concord of the Church But General Councils so impowered cannot be known I. I have shewed that it cannot be known by ordinary Christians that there are any such Authorized by Christ. I know it not nor any that ever I was familiar with The main Body of the Reformed Churches know it not for they ordinarily deny it as the prime point of Popery They cannot prove it who affirm it Therefore they know it not as others may judge Millions are Baptized Christians that never knew it II. It is not to this day known which were true General Councils that are past Some say those were Latrocinia and Conventicles that others say were Lawful Councils Some are for but four some for six some for eight some for all so called there is no agreement which are true and obligatory Grotius is for Trent and all which others abhor 2. It is not known who hath Power to call them and whose call is valid 3. Nor what Individuals or Particular Churches are capable of sending and chusing and obliged to it Almost all the Christian World is judged uncapable by the most of Christians The Papists are so judged by the Greeks Protestants c. The Eastern and Ethiopian Christians are excluded by the Papists Greeks c. as Jacobites Nestorians Schismaticks c. The Greeks are excluded by the Papists and others as Schismaticks and Erroneous The Protestants are judged Hereticks and Schismaticks by the Papists and many Greeks c. How Lutherans and Calvinists Diocesans and Presbyterians c. judge of one another I need not tell And can all or any of them know which of these must make up a Legislative Council of the whole Church on Earth 4. It is not known how many must Constitute such a Council nor in what proportions If there be innumerable Bishops under Philippicus for the Monothelites out of the East as Binnius saith and few out of the West was that a true General Council If at Nice Ephesus Constantinople Chalcedon there be not one out of the West to twenty or forty or a hundred others is it a true representative of the whole Church If there be two hundred at Trent or a thousand at
Extra-Imperial Churches had Bishops in those Councils or were there represented yea or ever called Doth he prove a word of this Not one word but saith The Ethiopians now submit to them Ans. 3. The Question is not what they do now but what they did then Christian Reader admire the gracious Providence of God The Custom then was for the Major Vote of the Bishops in Council when they anathematized any as Hereticks to get them banished Many of these banished men enlarged the Church and encreased the numbers of Christians where they came but they propagated a Condemnation of the Councils that condemned them Nestorius but specially Dioscorus and Jacobus Syrus and many of the Eutychians turned multitudes in the East and South and some in Tartary to their minds herein Among others the Abyssines were taken with the Reverence and Authority of Dioscorus condemning the Council at Chalcedon and the rest that were against him And all the Extra-Imperial Churches honoured those of the Empire above themselves living under Infidels except Abassia and rejoyced in the Power of the Christian Empire but never joyned in their Councils nor received them as their Laws but rejoyced as Consenters to all that they thought good He cannot prove that before Dioscorus Banishment the Abassines obeyed Alexandria And to this day their Abuna is chosen by the Monks at Jerusalem say some but say others chosen and confirmed by the titular Patriarch of Alexandria and ruleth Abassia himself and they all condemn the foresaid Councils and the Pope Godignus tells you and Ludolphus more fully what respect they have for the Pope and our Councils Ans. 4. The truth is all that ever I heard yet that can be said for the Subjection of the Abassines or other Exterior Churches to the Council even of Nice or the Patriarchs before is but a Word in the Canons lately Divulged by Pisanus which are novel of no Authority nor to be Credited by any that Credit not the Roman Forgeries And it 's contrary to the true Nicene Canon that saith Egypt only is Subject to Alexandria when this Forgery addeth Ethiopia And yet it 's said of Trajan that he went far into Ethiopia to Enlarge the Roman Power So if the Romans had any skirt there as they had oft in Persia and Scythia that 's nothing to the Abassines nor proveth any Exteriors much less all represented in the General Councils of old Ans. 5. Many Countries and Parties did for Concord and some Advantages put themselves under particular Patriarchs and also profess their voluntary consent to the Nicene and some other Councils Canons or Creed who yet never took a General Council for the Rightful Soveraign of the Christian Churches through the World At this day one Sect obeyeth only the Patriarch of Constantinople and rejecteth all the rest and another the Patriarch of Alexandria and three others the three pretending Patriarchs of Antioch rejecting the rest and they reject as aforesaid some of the four first Councils and all that followed By which it appeareth that they take not the four or five Patriarchs Essential to Catholick Unity nor General Councils to have a supream Regiment over all Most Protestants receive the four first General Councils saving some mutable accidentals And yet they hold not their Universal Soveraignty L. It is neither lawful nor possible to call a Vniversal Council to Exercise Vniversal Soveraignty nor ever like to be I have fully proved this in the Second part of my Key for Catholicks Consider 1. It must be Grave Experienced Men who are fit to be trusted in so great a Matter And such are Aged and usually weak 2. From Abassia Mexico Armenia c. they must be a year or near in receiving the Summons and as long in preparing and coming to Europe if this be the place 3. They must it's like be some years absent at the Council 4. They cannot if they are sufficient Representatives come all into one Room to hear Debates 5. They cannot most of them understand one anothers Language 6. They will hardly live to bring back the Decrees 7. There is no Person or Senate in the World that hath an obliging Authority to call them 8. It is not like that they will ever agree Voluntarily to meet in one place without such Authority The Abassines Armenians Syrians c. will think we should come to them and we shall think they should come to us 9. If possibly they should agree a Mans Age is little enough to go all over the World to Sollicite and bring them to such Agreement 10. Who and how many will undertake that task 11. How few can bear the Charges of all this 12. It were sinful Cruelty to Separate the Wisest Men so long from their Charges to the Peoples loss as well as by the Voyages and Journeys to kill them 13. It is certain that most of the Princes on Earth under whose power the Bishops live would not give leave to go out of their Dominions to such Synods most being Infidels many Heterodox and many in Wars or Enmity with each other and almost all in Jealousies and without their leave they cannot come 14. The great Numbers of the nearer Bishops and the paucity of the most remote would make it no true Representative as to Votes 15. There is no one on Earth Antecedently Authorized to be their President what ever the Papists pretend And to choose a President it 's like so many such would hardly agree 16. It 's already known that they account one another Hereticks or Schismaticks or Usurping Tyrants before hand Some are called Nestorian Hereticks some Eutychian or Jacobite Hereticks some Melchites some one thing and some another and most take the Papists for Tyrants and Hereticks both And will all these ever meet in Council 17. Men are naturally so much for their own ease and so much against Works of so vast difficulty charge and hazard that a competent number of fit Men would never undertake it it being almost equal to a Martyrdom which even the best Men will not undergo till they are better Convinced of the Duty and Necessity than any Man can truly be of such Universal Councils 18. It 's known that all the Protestants if not allmost all other Christians save Papists do believe no such Councils to be necessary no nor lawful but to be usurping Tyranny as challenging the Universal Church-Government as a Senate So that as there never was so there never will be must be or can be such a Council unless which God forbid all the Church should be again Reduced to a narrow Room LI. They that would make such Councils possible by pretending that a few Patriarchs and such Bishops as they will bring with them are the Sufficient and Authorized Representers of all the rest do but more grossly deceive and abuse the Christian World For 1. They never proved nor can prove that ever Christ Authorized such Patriarchs much less to such a Power 2. And whereas Arch-Bishop
and Jesus Christ which I add because some think they may lawfully be subject to those Bishops that are subjected only to Universal Councils or Church Parliaments so they do but disclaim the Roman Papacy X. Though some may think that subjection to a pretended Universal Council may stand with Loyalty to Christ because such a Council is a Chimera or Non Ens and never will be in the World and so can do no harm as one may be true to the King who yet Sweareth Obedience to an Assembly of Mortal Angels yet the case is otherwise For 1. These Men that profess Subjection to Councils cannot be supposed to take such Councils for Chimera's or things impossible without being taken for mad Men. Therefore it is not a true General Council but something possible that they mean And they use to say themselves or as General as can be well had So that such a one as that at Trent or as they will call General as they do the old Imperial Councils will serve their turn 2. And let them disclaim Popery never so loudly they mean still that the Pope must be the ordinary Caller and President of these Councils and the Chief Patriarch and Principium Vnitatis Vniversalis And so all will come but to a limited Pope instead of an Absolute One And is he not a Monarch though he must Rule by Law For they intend not that there be no Catholick Church all the time that there are no Councils and therefore they intend some Unifying Constitutive Executive Supreme XI Obj. But if we may not own a Bishop that subjecteth himself to the Pope or other Foreign Vsurper of Vniversal Government then if the King be a Papist it will follow that we must not be subject to him Which all Protestants confess to be false Ergo so is the Antecedent as of Bishops Ans. I deny the Consequence speaking only of such a Kings Religion Nero was a Heathen and it was lawful for Christians to be subject to him for Conscience sake But it was not lawful to subject themselves to Heathen Bishops a contradiction A Heathen may be Gods Minister to preserve the common Peace and Execute the Laws of God in Nature and the Just Subordinate Laws But the Office of a Bishop consisteth in another matter viz. In teaching the true Doctrine and Laws of Christ and guiding the Church by them and keeping out all that is against them And therefore no other man can be a Bishop that doth not this as to the Essentials If the King command us to be Papists we must disobey him But if he command us to do things good and lawful we must obey True Christianity is Essential to a Bishops Office but not to a Kings as King But if any put the Question Whether a Ruler of a Protestant Kingdom who taketh himself bound by the Laterane or other Council on pain of Damnation to destroy all his Kingdom that will not forsake their Religion be Publicus Hostis And whether by the Law of Nature every Nation have a right of self-defence against open Enemies I meddle with no such Cases as these XII To conclude I advise all Christians to live peaceably in their places but to take care whom they trust with the Pastoral Conduct of their Souls and not to be seduced to enter into a Confederacy against Christs Prerogative by any pretences of Humane Authority or Catholick Vnity which really are against Divine Authority and the true Unity of the Church in Christ For a thousand years experience even by our Bishops confession who own but the Six first Councils have told us by the sad confusions of the Christian World that such Pretenders to Unity in a Humane Universal Soveraignty have but caused divisions and offences contrary to the Apostolical Doctrine not serving Christ but their own bellies and by good words and fair speeches deceived the hearts of the simple Our Unity consisteth in One Head Jesus Christ One God one Body or Church of Christ one Faith one Baptism one Hope one Gospel and Universal Law of Christ and that we live in Love and Peace and Order in Learning and in Worshipping God in several Congregations under their respective Guides as consenting Volunteers and that the conjunction of such under Christian Kings makes Christian Kingdoms where by the Counsels of Pastors in their own Dominions they may keep that Church-Peace and external Order which is left to the trust of their determination and that in cases of need the Counsel and Help of Foreign Churches be desired and that Communion in Christianity be professed with all the true Christian World and that we wait for perfect Unity in Heaven But that Princes and Kingdoms be not brought under a Foreign Jurisdiction specially if pretended Universal instead of Foreign Counsel Communion Peace and Aid Chap. VII Of the second Part of the Design to bring the Papists into our Communion as they were in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign § 1. Dr. Heylin saith That this was much of A. Bishop Laud's design and that it was in order to this that he made the Changes which he made And Dr. Burnet saith That even Queen Elizabeth thought that if she could some how bring all her Subjects into one Communion tho' of different Opinions in one Age they would come to be of one mind And therefore she was desirous to have kept up Images and other such things in the Churches till the reasons and importunity of some Divines prevailed with her § 2. If this be done it must be either by the Papists turning Protestants or the Protestants turning Papists or by meeting in some third State of Religion between both or by continuing in the same Church-Communion without change of their Religion § 3. I. If the Papists come into our Churches by Conversion it is not then Papists but Protestants that come in There is no true Protestant that is not earnestly desirous of this But bare coming in to our Churches and Communion is not a renunciation of Popery § 4. II. That the Protestants should turn Papists for Union is not openly pleaded for by them that we have to do with The name of Papists they earnestly disown § 5. III. If it must be by meeting in some middle way it must be by a change in the Papists or by a change in the Protestants or both 1. If the Papists change any thing of theirs it must be either the Essentials of Popery or also the grosser errours and sins which are its most corrupt Integral part or only some mutable Accidents or lesser faults and errours 1. If the Papists hold still that there ought to be one Universal Soveraign Power of Legislation and Judgment under Christ on Earth and that either the Pope himself with a General Council or a Council where the Pope is President and Principium Vnitatis is this Soveraign this is the Essence of Popery continued 2. If the Papists should quâ—t this Universal Soveraignty and yet
for such when divers Churches and Countries may have divers such Accidentals and the same Churches may change them as they see cause Q. 80. If it be not Legislation but Judicature that we must have an Universal Judge or Power for what are the Cases that they must Judge Sure it is not whether John or Thomas shall be judged capable of Baptism or of the Lord's Supper or whether he be an Adulterer a Drunkard and impenitent therein and so to be Excommunicate Must all the World come before all the World Shall Millions of Sinners be unjudged till all the Bishops of the World Judge them If it be Persons accused of Heresie Schism or any Sin that must be judged must they not be heard and their witness heard before they can be judged justly But if they Judge not of Persons but of Doctrines whether they be Heresie or not this will make no Alteration or Reformation till it be judged what persons are guilty of such Errors or Heresies And if particular Pastors on the place must judge all such persons is not the Scripture the Rule of Faith a sufficient Rule to judge of Heresie by Q. 81. If it be whole Churches that are to be judged will not a brotherly power of disowning their Communion serve without a Governing Power Had every one a Governing Power to whom the Apostles commanded with such not to eat nor bid them good speed May not Princes renounce Communion with Neighbour Princes and Nations without being their Governour Q. 82. In conclusion doth it not remain that this pretended Universal Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical is the device of the Prince of Pride a Treasonable Usurpation over all Princes disobedience to Christ Luke 22. and Antichristian Usurpation of his Prerogative and a base Captivating of the Souls and Reason of Mankind to a pretended Power which common sense reason and experience fully proveth to be a natural impossibility or that which in practice no Mortal Man or College is capable of Chap. XI A Breviate of the Papists Faith and Church Doctrine both the Monarchical and Aristocratical sort § 1. WE must believe that Christ hath a Church before we believe that he is Christ the Redeemer § 2. VVe must believe that this Church is Infallible or our Governour before we can believe that Jesus is Christ and our Governour § 3. We must believe that Christ Promised Infallibility or Governing Authority to this Church before we can believe that he is Christ. § 4. We must believe that this Promise is true and shall be fulfilled before we believe the Gospel Promise of Pardon and Salvation that is before we are Christians or believe the Scripture § 5. We must believe that the Pope is Christ's Vicegerent or Vicar General or General Councils at least before we can believe that Christ is Christ. § 6. We must believe that the Words of the Apostles were Intelligible else why did they speak but their Writings are not till a General Council make them so by an Exposition § 7. We must believe that it is intelligible which be true Bishops and Councils and what is the meaning of their Voluminous Decrees but it is not intelligible what is the sense of the Scripture till Councils tell us § 8. We must believe that God is the great Deceiver of the World by sense and things sensible e. g. by sense which takes Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine § 9. We must believe that all men are Hereticks who deny not their senses and all that believe sense even of all the sound men in the World shall be Damned That is All that believe God speaking by things sensible § 10. We must believe that God who is the great Deceiver of the World even to and by the senses yet hath given a Spirit of Infallibility to those Popes and Prelates in Council who live in worldliness and wickedness § 11. We must believe that an unlearned Pope and Prelates who never understood the Original Tongue but are ignorant men are by Miracle in Council inspired with the gift of right expounding the Scriptures which they never studied or understood before § 12. We must believe that every Priest how ignorant or wicked soever doth by pronouncing the bare words of Consecration work many Miracles turning Bread into no Bread Wine into no Wine making quantity and other Accidents to exist without Substance c. And that he can work such Miracles every hour of the day and if he can but get into a Bakers Shop or Vintners Celler to say Mass may in malice undo the poor men when he will by turning all their Bread and Wine into none § 13. We must believe that the Roman Empire was all the Christian VVorld or that a Council General as to that Empire was General as to all the VVorld And that the Roman Emperor or the Pope called the Bishops of all the VVorld together And that the humane Primate of one Empire was Governour of all the VVorld § 14. VVe must believe that now that Empire is dissolved the Laws then made bind all the Princes and Churches on Earth viz. that a defunct power still ruleth even those that never owed them obedience § 15. VVe must believe that we in England are rightfully under a Foreign Church Jurisdiction contrary to the Oath of Supremacy § 16. VVe must believe that all Temporal Lords must be sworn to extirpate all Protestants and to perform it if able on pain of Excommunication Deposition and Damnation And that if they do not the Pope may execute this penalty of Excommunicating and Deposing them and giving their Dominion to others and may Absolve their Subjects from their Oaths of Allegiance Concil Later sub Innoc. 3. Can. 1 2 3. § 17. VVe must Swear never to expound the Scripture but according to the Concordant sense of the Ancient Fathers who never expounded much at all much less ever agreed in any Exposition of them all § 18. VVe must believe that God hath given the Church that is the Pope and Councils a Power to Expound hard Scriptures and to end Controversies and that this is a great Blessing to us VVhen yet neither Pope nor Councils will give us a Commentary on the Bible or exposition of hard Texts nor will determine most of the Controversies that now trouble us § 19. VVe must believe that the Governing part of the Church is to be obeyed and Gods VVord received but by their Proposal when yet it is not known who is the Governing part Pope or Council nor which Councils be true and which but false Conventions nor can they assure us how we may ever come to know it § 20. VVe must believe those Councils to be true and credible which contradict and condemn each other and that both are in the right § 21. VVe must believe both that all Gods VVord in the Sacred Scripture is true and that Councils and Popes say Truth when they contradict it § 22. VVe must believe
what was to be done for Councils and Popular Humours would never know where to stop but would break down all the Churches strength and glory 2. Luther's Party after their riper thoughts were for such a Reformation as consisted in a nullifying of the Papal Church and Separation from it as no True Church but the Seat of Antichrist 3. A moderate sort of Papists were for reforming of many things in the Roman Church but not for nullifying it They were for reconciling the two Parties and for submissive Conformity but not for Separation Such were Julius Pslug Sidonius and Agricola who drew up the Interim and also Erasmus Cassander Ar. Baldwin Wicelius c. And in France the great Chancellor Michael Hospitalias Thuanus and many of their most excellent Lawyers and Parliament-men and some Bishops and Divines These men being offended at the Separating part of the Reformation were taken with the notion of Unity and Government but understood not the true state of the Controversie and were of two minds among themselves 1. Some had long had an untryed notion by Tradition that the Church throughout the World was One Body Politick under one Humane Government 2. Others never thought of that but having seen a submission of all the Western Churches to the Pope thought a Separation unlawful § X. But the case of the Separation which they understood not who blamed it was this The Reformers took the Universal Church in all the Earth to have no Head King or Soveraign Governour but Christ none else having the least shew of true capacity or right and therefore that none had an Universal Legislative Judicial or Executive Power And a Church-Soveraignty was a more irrational conceit than a Civil Soveraignty over all the Earth And an Aristocracy of Bishops more irrational than a Papal Monarchy Therefore they professed not to separate from Papists as Christians or from any of their Societies as parts of Christ's Church but to renounce deny and separate from their new Vsurped Church-Species or Form as it is feigned to be an Vniversal Humane Soveraign with his Subjects Had they never corrupted other Doctrine or Worship this Church-Species of Universal Soveraignty is to be separated from 2. And with all the Reformers found that though they could have submitted to Patriarchs as a Humane Power set up by Princes had they Governed according to the Laws of Christ yet 1. It being but a Humane Power 2. And one Prince having no right to set up a Patriarch over another Princes Subjects 3. And the Roman Patriarch claiming also the Universal Soveraignty or part of it in Councils 4. And having corrupted Doctrine Worship and Discipline they took it to be their duty to renounce also the Pope's Patriarchal Government and for all Christians to obey Christ's Universal Laws alone and the Local Laws circa sacra left to man's Legislation of the particular Princes and States where they live And not to place Universal Unity or Concord in any Usurping Humane Soveraign or their Laws or mutable circumstances And had those excellent moderate Papists before-named well studied this point of Universal Soveraignty it 's like they had forsaken Rome § XI When the Pope thought to satisfie the World and confound the Reformation by the Council of Trent the Cardinal of Lorain and the French consented not to much that they there did but stuck to the Councils of Constance and Basil lest they should lose the Liberties of the Gallican Church So that it was long e're that Nation seemed to own the Council of Trent and never did it heartily and universally but continued at some further distance from the Absoluteness of the Pope than Italy or Spain And to this day they continue to maintain 1. That the Pope hath no Power over the King in Temporals 2. That he hath no Power to Depose Kings 3. That General Councils are so far above him as to reform him and his disorders 4. That he is not Infallible alone but in conjunction with the Church or Councils And though some have spoken and written against the first and second Barclay and many others have confuted them and the Parliaments have burnt their Books And this is the Moderate Popery of France Well may I call them Papists still for 1. They renounce not a Humane Universal Church Soveraignty 2. They allow the Pope to call Councils and Preside and to be the principium Vnitatis and Patriarch of the West 3. They know that when no Church-Parliaments are in being the Universal Executive Power must be continued or the Universal Policy be dissolved Therefore they allow the Pope a Right of Universal Government according to the Canons but not Arbitrary and therefore not above Councils So that if those that are for the King Ruling by Law and making Laws only in and by Parliaments be yet for Monarchy then Concil Constan. Basil and the French are yet for Popery As to our Reformation it is so fully recorded by many and newly by that excellent and moderate Historian Dr. Burnet that for the time he writes I shall only transcribe a few Notes out of his Abridgment Page 87. The Oaths which the Bishops swore to the Pope and the King were found so inconsistent as it appeared both could not be kept which caused the Popes to be dismist Page 113. An Act was made for Election and Consecration of Bishops in short The King to name one and the Dean and Chapter in twelve days to return an Election of the person named by the King Page 138. Cranmer Tonstall Clark and Goodrik Bishops being called to give their Opinion of the Emperors Power to call Councils said That though ancient Councils were called by the Roman Emperors yet that was done by reason of the extent of their Monarchy that was now ceased But since other Princes had an entire Monarchy within their Dominions Yet if one or more of those Princes should agree to call a Council to a good intent and desire the concurrence of the rest they were bound by the rule of CHARITY to agree to it Page 139. Cranmer said that this Authority of General Councils flowed not from the Number of Bishops but from the Matter of their decisions which were received with an Universal Consent for there were many more Bishops at Arimini than at Nice or Constantinople c. Christ had named no Head of the whole Church as God had named no Head of the World In Queen Elizabeth's Reign 1559. the Divines appointed to dispute against the Papist Bishops in their second paper maintain That every Church had power to reform it self This they founded on the Epistles of Paul to the particular Churches and St. John to the Angels of the Seven Churches In the first three Ages there were no General Councils but every Bishop in his Diocess or such few Bishops as could assemble together condemned Heresies determined Matters that were contested so did also the Orthodox after Arrianisme had so overspread the World that even
have its allowed Physitian who in doubtful Cases consulteth with many others Their counsel is the counsel of Physitians that is of Men licensed for that Work and Care But it proveth them not to have any proper Governing Power over his Hospital or Patients 5. If every Bishop be a Governor not only in but of the whole World or Church it is either Singly or Collectively as part of a Governing Company If singly it 's a monstrous Body that hath so many thousand Universal Heads If collectively then no one is a Supream Governor but a part of that Body which is such And no one on Earth can act as such a part of One Aristocracy without presence with the rest hearing what they say and what Actors and Witnesses say and gathering Votes Pag. 411. He confesseth out of Socrates about the Emperors Power in Church Matters that from the time in which Emperors received the Faith Ecclesiae negotia ex eorum nutu pendere vis◠sunt Socr. l. 5. Proem And if so why is Mr. Morice angry with me for saying That Bishops used in Councils much to follow the Emperors minds 2. And then it will be but an odd Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraign Power over all the World which dependeth on the consent of so many Princes Protestants Papists Mahometans Heathens Jacobites Nestorians c. as a General Council must be called by or depend on And it will be an endless Controversie what Princes have or have not a Power to consent or dissent that their Subjects shall go to such Councils But also Consultation is not Government Chap. XI The Judgment of Mr. Herbert Thorndike a late Eminent Divine of the Church of England § 1. MR. Thorndike hath written so much on this Subject that I need no more than refer the Reader to his Books for the discovery of his mind The sum of his late Writings these thirty years past is to call us all into one visible Catholick Church which is unified by one Humane Government of all out of which nothing will excuse us from Schism or make our failing tolerable His arguments for an Universal Aristocracy answered by Dr. Izaak Barrow in the end of his Treatise of Supremacy I will not here recite because they are there so fully and learnedly confuted § 2. In his Just Weights and Measures he tells us that the Church of Rome being a true Church Reformation lyeth in Restoration and not in Separation Page 5. he saith Who will take upon him to shew us that the Worship of the Host in the Papists is Idolatry Page 6 7. They that separate from the Church of Rome as Idolaters are thereby Schismaticks before God For in plain terms we make our selves Schismaticks by grounding our Reformation on this pretence Should this Church declare that the Change which we call Reformation is grounded on this supposition I must then acknowledge that we are Schismaticks Ch. 2. Is to disprove them that make the Pope Antichrist and Papists Idolaters and shew that the supposition of one Catholick Visible Church is the ground of all Communion and supposed to Reformation And Ch. 3. Nothing to be changed but on that Ground of such Visible Unity Ch. 5. If our Lord trust his Disciples and their Successors with the Rule of his Church he trusteth them also to make Laws for the Ruling of it These Laws are as Visible as the Laws of any Kingdom or Common-wealth that is or ever was are Visible I maintain the Popes Canon Law and the same is to be said of the Canon Law by which the Patriarch of Constantinople now Governs the Eastern Church to be derived from those Rules whereby the Disciples of our Lord and their Successors governed the Primitive Church in Unity The power of Giving Laws to the Church the power of Dispensing the Exchequer which God hath provided for the Church are in the Governors of the Church and the power of admitting into and excluding out It 's a Visible Society founded by God under the Name of the Catholick Church on the command of holding Communion with it Page 41. The Church in the form which I state it is a standing Synod able by the consent of the Chief Churches containing the consent of their resorts to conclude the whole Page 48. The Church of Rome hath and ought to have when it shall please to hear reason a Regular pre-eminence over the rest of Christendom in these Western parts And he that is able to judge and willing to consider shall find that Pre eminence the Only Reasonable means to preserve so great a Body in Unity And therefore I am not my self tyed to justifie Henry the Eighth in disclaiming all such pre-eminence Page 48. That the difference may be visible between the Infinite and the Regular Power of the Pope Page 91. The perpetual Rule of the Church makes them Hereticks to the Church that Communicate with Hereticks and Schismaticks that Communicate with Schismaticks Page 94. The Flesh and Blood of Christ by Incarnation the Elements by Consecration being united to the Spirit that is the Godhead of Christ become both One Sacramentally by being both One with the Spirit or Godhead to the conveying of Gods Spirit to a Christian. Page 125. The worshipping the Host in the Papacy is not Idolatry Page 132. He saith that the Oath of Supremacy is but to exclude the Popes Temporal power But because the words seem to exclude the power of General Councils of which the Pope is and ought to be the chief Member of necessity the Law gives great offence And that offence is the sin of the Kingdom and calls for Gods Vengeance on it which though all are involved in the account in the other World will lye on them which may change it and will not Page 134. But the authority of those Divines of this Church who have declared the sence of the Oath of Supremacy with publick allowance are now alledged by the Papists themselves to infer that the matter of it is lawful as excluding only the Popes Civil Power Page 141. We receive the Body and Blood of Christ and by consequence his Spirit Hypostatically united to the same to inable us to perform Page 149. The Church of Rome cannot be charged with Idolatry The Pope cannot be Antichrist Ch. 22. The Reformation pretended is abominable and Apostasie and the usual Preaching a hinderance to Salvation and new Homilies to be formed to restrain Preaching Page 146. I confess I can hope for no good end of any dispute without supposing the sence of the Articles of One Catholick Church which hath carried us through this discourse for the Principle on which all matter in debate is to be tryed P. 214. And oft he professeth that Presbyters not ordained by Bishops baptize and give the Eucharist void of the Effect of a Sacrament and only by Sacriledge speaketh against killing and and banishing But this will require the like Moderation to be extended to the
a Vice-God or his Deputy to Rule all the World For sure he never dreamed that all Kings and States on Earth would meet or voluntarily agree to chuse one Universal King over them I met newly with an extraordinary Wit who saith that after the Conflagration in the Millennium of the New Heaven and Earth Christ or his Vice-Roy will triumphantly Rule c. But 1. I never read before of a Vice-Roy after the Conflagration which he saith will first consume Antichrist 2. I know not how much of the New World he assigns to this Vice-Roy's Government for if Gog and Magog after cover the Earth and the New Generation be numerous which he thinks the Earth will bring forth like lower Animals it may be the New Jerusalem may be so small that one Vice-Roy may Rule it 3. But sure that holy Generation will make Government and Obedience far easier things than now they are Chap. XIV Dr. Saywell's Arguments for a Foreign Jurisdiction considered § 1. THis Dr. who I may well suppose speaketh his Lord and Masters sence is so open as to let us know 1. That it is the Popes Power above General Councilâ— which they call Popery 2. And that they join with the conciliar Party in point of Church Government and so take not them for Papists who hold not that Soveraignty of the Pope but only his Primacy 3. That it is but the Jesuited Party of the Church of Rome which they renounce 4. That they also renounce all Nonconforming Protestants as a Jesuited Party So that he would tempt us to believe what some affirm that their design hath long been to subdue the Jesuits and Reformed Churches or rather destroy these and to strike up a Union with the French and maintain that they are no Papists as to Government But though the Power of old Protestants in England were never so much subdued to them methinks the Jesuits Interest in France should resist them unless the Jesuits themselves be as some vainly think faln out with the Pope and then it will be the Jesuited Party which these Men will own § 2. But to his Arguments Page 342. Mr. B. saith I have earnestly desired and searched to know tâ—e proof of such a Legislative Vniversal Power and I cannot find it But if Mr. B. would seriously consider these Texts he might find that obedience is due to the Church Mat. 18. If he neglect to hear the Church let him be to thee as an Heathen Man and a Publican Now as one private Man may neâ—lect to hear the Episcopal Church to which he belongs so the Episcopal Provincial and National Church may also prove Heretical and neglect to hear the Catholick Church but the Vniversal Church can never faâ—l for the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against it And if more Persons or particular Churches give offence by Heresie Schism c. the Church Vniversal or the rest of the Bishops may reprove them for it and then there is no reason why one Man should be censured and many go frâ—e and consequently our Saviour hath established the Authority of his Church over all Christians as well particular Churches as private Men. Ans. 1. Let us try this Argument by the like God hath commanded obedience to Kings and said He that will not hear the King and Judge shall be put to death But Kings and their Kingdoms may be Criminal And if private men must obey Authority or be put to death so must Kings and Kingdoms Why should they escape Therefore all Kings and Kingdoms must obey One Universal Humane King or Kingdom under Christ. Do you think this is true No There is no such Universal Humane Empire Monarchical or Aristocratical No Mortal Men are capable of it any more than of Ruling the World in the Moon or the Fish in the Sea but of a part only So there is no such Universal Church Power but particular there is As to your reason I answer God is the Universal King and he only is the punisher of all Soveraign Powers whether Monarchs Aristocracies or Mixt. which I have ever asserted though the Lying Spirit hath feigned the contrary God hath several ways to Rule and Judge them here and his final Judgment is at hand And the case is like with National Churches save that their own Princes may punish offending Clergy-men 2. One Person or Nation may renounce Communion with another as Heretical without any Ruling Power over them And the other may do the same by them deserving it Am I a Governor or Legislator over every one that I may refuse to eat or pray with as a Brother 3. That there is no Humane Universal Church which hath power to Govern a National Church as the Bishops may their Flocks is proved 1. They cannot have the Authority who have not so much as a Natural Capacity But none have a Natural Capacity to Govern all the Christian World Ergo none have such Authority 2. They have not the Authority who have not the Obligation to use it in such Government For an Office containeth Authority and Obligation But none are obliged to Govern all the Christian World Ergo c. For the Minor 1. None are obliged to Impossibilities But c. 2. None are obliged without some obliging Law But there is no Law obliging any to Govern all the Christian World Ergo. 3. If they are obliged they are condemned if they do it not But none do Rule all the Christian World He confesseth none have done it since the sixth General Council that is these thousand years and more by one And doth he not Damn the Bishops of all the World then for neglecting their great Duty a thousand years together If he say that Others made Canons enough before I answer 1. If they have had no such work to do these thousand years then there was no Office or Obligation or Power to do it 2. It was then only those that made the Laws that had that Soveraignty The Dead are no Rulers and so the Church hath had no Soveraign since 2. If he say They since Ruled by the old Laws I answer 1. That was not by Legislation but Execution 2. They never Ruled the Universal Church as one Soveraign Power by the old Laws but only per partes in their several Provinces as Justices and Mayors Rule the Kingdom without Soveraignty Arg. 3 That which never was claimed till the Papal Usurpation was not instituted by God But a Soveraign Government of the Univeâ—sal Church on Earth was never claimed till the Papal Usurpation Ergo. That Councils were only General as to one Empire and called only in one Empire and pretended to Govern that Empire and not all the World I have fully proved against Johnson Arg. 4. Those that must Rule all the Christian World must teach them For the Pastoral Government is by the Word But no one Person or Aristocracy are the Teachers of all the World Who have pretended to it but the Papacy Arg.
or extraordinary gifts of the Holy Ghost were then common to most Christians at least as you may see by comparing Gal. 3.2 3. 1 Cor. 12. Act. 8. Rom. 8 9 c. 2. There were but two Messengers more than those that dwelt together and met ordinarily And 1. The Apostles themselves had not such present command of the Spirit as excluded the need of consultation 2. And no doubt but the doubtful Christians abroad did more reverence the consent of all than one alone What therefore they did as consenting inspired infallible persons will not prove a soveraignty in all the Bishops of the World in a Council to decide Controversies by Sentence and Command No doubt but the Assembly at Nimeguen Munster Francfort c. may decide Controversies between Princes but not by soveraignty over each other but by consent To their Subjects it 's reverenced as a consent of Princes but to each others it 's the consent of Equals I have said that Archbishop Vsher said to me That Councils were but for Concord and not for Government the Major Vote of Bishops being no rulers of the Minor nor of the absent Obj. But all Pastors are related to the Vniversal Church Answ. As a Licensed Physitian is related to all the Kingdom that is he may be Physitian to any that desire him How strictly do the Canons forbid Usurpation in other Mens Dioceses The English Ordainers say Take thou Authority to Preach the Word of God and Administer the holy Sacraments where thou shalt thereto be lawfully called A general Ordination maketh none a Governor of other Mens Flocks § 4. Dr. S. The Apostles to give Example how Controversies should be ended in future Ages did not decide it by their infallible Spirit only but proceed in an ordinary Method plainly countenancing the Authority of Councils and intimating to us that all Christian People ought to submit to their Decrees Answ. 1. They did decide it by their Infallible Spirit else they had not fathered all on the Holy Ghost But not only by that Spirit for it was also by their Vnderstandings and their Tongues Even so they did not write the Gospel only by the Spirit but also by their Reason and their Pens But they decided it not without that Spiritual infallible Inspiration which your Councils have not You may as well say when Act. 6.2 the twelve called the Multitude c. that there was a General Council that spake not only by the Spirit And Act. 11.2 Peter pleadeth his Cause before the Apostles and Brethren who were satisfied by his Reasons This was such another General Council But who doubteth but the Apostles had Reason as well as the Spirit and used the gift of the Spirit in the use of Reason and not only in Extasies And therefore Consultation and the Spirits infallible Inspiration may go together 2. We deny not the use of Consultation and the Consent of many as a help to incline mens Minds to Satisfaction But only infallible Men can by infallible Authority decide Controversie sententially And if Pope or Councils have such Infallibility they have done ill that they would use it no better than the Multitude of their Contradictions manifesteth And if they were Infallible the Peoples actual Faith is never the more infallible unless they themselves were infallible also Are all the believers of Popes and Councils themselves infallible or not If yea then are all herein equal to the Pope and Councils If not then the Laity know not but they may be deceived in thinking the Pope and Councils infallible 3. I have truely recited the doleful decision of Controversies which they have made They have raised abundance of Controversies which have torn the Church into pieces as I have fully proved whether Mr. Maurice will or not 4. It would have been a Service to the World indeed if Pope or Councils would to this day after 1500 years Controversie vouchsafe to end them and not tell us that they are appointed to end them and yet will not Why are there still Cart loads of Books of Controversies among Papists and Protestants and all and yet no Council doth decide them Even the Catalogues of Heresies given us by Ephinanius Philastrius Augustine c. are few of them medled with in your six Councils It is the Controversies about the sence of Scripture which is most talkt of which Councils must decide And of the many hundred or thousand Controverted Texts how few have Councils ever Expounded to us How great is their guilt if they are bound to do it and will not 5. But you do but speak darkness and no satisfaction to us to tell us that all Christian people ought to submit to their Decrees till you tell us Whether it be to All their Decrees or but to some and to which and how known The Case may be I About points absolutely necessary to Salvation or points not so necessary II. About points plainly exprest in Scripture or points there darkly exprest I. As for points absolutely necessary sober Papists themselves confess that they are all plainly exprest in Scripture Else it were no perfect Doctrine or Law of God if a Council contradict any Article of the Creed must we receive its Decrees Sure Councils have no power to judge that there is no God no Christ no Scripture no Heaven Nor must we believe them if they should so do And if they have power only to tell us that There is a God a Christ a Heaven Scripture hath told us this already and we need not that a Council tell it us If we believe it as of God it is a Divine Faith if as of Man it is but a Humane Faith 2. But if it be only points not Necessary a Council cannot make that necessary which God made not so And it 's a great wrong to the World to increase the difficulty of Faith and Salvation by making more necessary to it than God hath done II. And whether they are necessary or not if they are plainly exprest in Scripture what need we a Council to say the same again Is not Gods plain words intelligible as well as theirs And must we not believe Gods plain words till a Council repeat them How many things then must we refuse to believe which are plainly exprest in Scripture But if they be things not plainly exprest in Scripture it 's like they are not Necessary to Salvation If they be they are such deductions from plain Scripture as are obvious to a sound understanding or not If yea then every sound understanding may know them Or if Men be ignorant either Councils or single Pastors may teach them But that is by opening the evidence of truth and not by commanding Men to believe it Teaching and not Magisterial determining begeteth rational belief But if they are not such obvious deductions we cannot be sure that Councils rightly collect them But we are sure they have no power to command us believe without giving us convincing proof
not too distant may for mutual help and Concord meet in Councils And none should needlesly break their just Agreements because of the general Command of Concord But 1. They hold that these Councils be no representers of all the Christian World 2. Nor have any Universal Jurisdiction 3. Nor any true Governing Power at all over the absent or dissenters but an Agreeing Power 4. And if they pretend any such Power they turn Usurpers 5. And if on pretence of Concord they make Snares or Decree things that are against the Churches Edification Peace or Order or against the Word of God none are bound to stand to such Agreements These being the Judgment of Protestants what do these Men but abuse their words of Reverence to Councils and Submission to their Contracts as if they were for their Universal Soveraign Jurisdiction § 13. And next he saith Whereas Mr. B. doth usher in his Discourse with an intimation that this was only a Doctrine of the Gallican Church he cannot but know that this was the sence of the Church of England in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign Answ. 1. I honour the Gallican Papists above the Italian but I am satisfied that both do erre 2. There is a double untruth in Matter of Fact in your words 1. That I cannot but know that which I cannot know or believe 2. That yours was the sence of the Church of England which I have disproved But what is your proof D. S. For the 20th Article saith The Church hath Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith and the next Article doth suppose this Authority in General Councils Answ. The Church of England supposeth that Kingdoms should be Christian and the Magistrates and Pastors Power so twisted as that their Conjunction may best make Religion national as it was with the Jews But it never owned a foreign Jurisdiction or the Governing Power of the Subjects of one Kingdom over the Princes and People of another It followeth not that because the Church in England may Decree some Rites here that therefore foreign Churches may command us to use their Rites Our own Church Teachers no doubt have Authority in Controversies of Faith that is to teach us what is the truth and to keep Peace among Disputers but not to bind us to believe any thing against God's Word and therefore not meerly because it 's their Decree Therefore the Article cautelously calls the Church only a Witness and Keeper of holy Writ which we deny not And that besides Scripture they ought not to enforce any thing to be believed for Necessity to Salvation But you would have us believe the Soveraign Universal Jurisdiction of Councils yea and the lawfulness of all your Oaths and Impositions as necessary to escape damning Schism and is not that as necessary to Salvation 2. And one would think there needed no more than the next Articles to confute you which you cite as for you They knew that there had been Imperial General Councils which being gathered and authorized by the Emperors had the same Power in the Empire that National Councils have with us or in other Nations But there 's not a syllable of any Jurisdiction that they have out of the Empire Yea contrary it 's said 1. That they may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And therefore cannot Govern them without their Will nor have any Conciliar Power being no Council And one King cannot command the Subjects of another Indeed if Princes will make themselves Subjects to a Council or Pope who can hinder them 2. They are here declared to be Men not all governed by the Spirit and Word of God and such as may erre and have erred in things pertaining to God Therefore their meer Contracts and Advice are no further to be obeyed than they are governed by the Spirit and Word of God which we are discerning Judges of And it is concluded that things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture So that even their Expositions of the Articles of Faith which you make their chief Work hath no further Authority than it 's declared to be taken out of the Scripture it self nor yet their decision of the sence of controverted Texts And such proof must be received from a single Man § 14. Such another proof he fetcheth from the Statute 1 Eliz. c. 1. Forbidding to judge any thing Heresie but what hath been so judged by Authority of Canonical Scripture or the first four General Councils or any of them or any other General Councils Answ. As if forbidding private Heretication were the same with the Universal Soveraignty of Councils we are of the same Religion with all true Christians in the World and we are for as much Concord with all as we can attain But is Concord and Subjection all one or Contract and Government § 15. The like Inference he raiseth from a Canon 1571. forbidding any new Doctrine not agreeable to the Scripture and such as the Ancient Fathers and Bishops thence gathered Answ. And what 's this to an Universal Church Soveraignty § 16. The Church of England's Sence is better expounded Reform Leg. Eccles. c. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta Ut tamen ex eorum sententia de sacris literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Christianae doctrinae Regulae esse Judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes Lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit § 17. D. S. P. 358. Mr. B. saith The doubt is whom you will take for good Christians into your Communion But this can be no doubt when I except only the Jesuited part of the Roman and other Churches Answ. So you take in the Church of Rome which you cannot do without taking in the pretended Soveraignty Essential to it Was not that Church Papal before there were any Jesuites But hold Dr. It 's France that you are first Uniting with and they say that the Jesuites are there the Predominant part And are you against them there § 18. P. 360. He takes it ill that I suppose him to separate from the Church of England I have fully given him here my proof The Church of England took not it self for a part of an Universal humane Political Church But his Church doth and is thereby of another Political Species as a City differeth from a Kingdom I will not tire the Reader with following him any further Vain Contenders necessitate us to be over tedious § 19. I am loth here to answer the rest of his Book against our Nonconformity 1. Because I would not follow them that
Basil out of the West or some few parts of it and few from the East and none from Ethiopia Armenia America and many other Churches are these a true Universal Council And can we all be here resolved The Countrey where the Council meeteth and the Prince who is for them will have more Bishops there than any if not all the rest when remote parts and the Churches under Enemies or dissenting Princes will have few 5. The same Councils that had most for them under one Prince have had most Bishops against them under the next and so off and on for many Successions We know that the Council of Nice was mostly for the truth because we try it by the Word of God Else how should it be known after when under Constantius and Valens most of the Bishops by far in Councils and out were Arrians The World groaned to find it self grown Arrian The Council of Constantinople in the beginning set up Greg. Nazianzen and in the end was against him Which part was the Universal Governor The first Council at Ephesus was against Nestorius till Joh. Antiochenus came and then it divided into two which condemned each other and after by the Emperors threatening was united The Chalcedon Council carried most while Martian Reigned and after most condemned and cursed it and then again most were for it and under other Emperors most cursed it again and under Zeno the most were for Neutrality or Silencing the difference The Eutychians had far most at Ephes. 2. and a while after under Theodos. 2. and Anastasius c. And under others and most Princes most were against them and called Eph. 2. Latrocinium And yet most of the East have been for Dioscorus ever since saving the Greeks The Monothelites had far most innumerable Bishops out of the East saith Binnius ut supra under Philippicus in a Council yea saith Binnius the Council at Trullu in Constant. were Monothelites and yet the same Men that were at the foregoing approved fifth General Council at Const. And over and over most Bishops were for one side and most for the other as Princes changed afterward Under Justinian most seemed for the Phantasiastae against the Corrupticolae VVhich yet are since with Justinian accounted persecuting Hereticks The approved Council at Const. de tribus Capitulis had some time most Bishops for it and sometime most-against it Insomuch that it occasioned much of Italy it self to renounce the Popes-headship and set up the Patriarch of Aquileia as their Chief The Council at Nice 2. and others for Images and so others against them have been so oft and notoriously under one Emperor owned by most and under another condemned by most yea by the same Bishops owned and after disowned that no Man can tell which of them to take for the Universal Legislators or Rulers of the Church by the number of the Bishops but only we must know which of them were sound by the VVord of God And since them what Council ever was there that could be so known by numbers to be of Authority Constance and Basil that had the greatest numbers are condemned by Florence and by the most of the Roman Church No Man can tell us of all that are past what Councils are of obliging Authority and must be obeyed by any outward Note but only by trying them by the VVord of God 6. And what wonder when there is no other certain Note by which an obliging Council can be known from others And he that knoweth what God saith without the Council needs it not The Papists have no Note of difference but the Popes Approbation And Protestants know that this is no proof of their Authority At Eph. 2. Bellarmine and Binnius tell us that the consent was so general that only St. Peter's Ship escaped drowning At Const. 1. they confess that the Pope had not so much as a Legate By what Note shall we know the true and Authorized Councils from the rejected when part of the Christian VVorld is for one and against another and the other part contrary III. And there is no Agreement in what the Power of such Councils materially doth consist and what it is that they may command us and what not IV. Nor is there any Agreement which and how many are their true Obligatory Laws when we have such huge Volumes of Decrees and Canons woe to us if all these must necessarily be obeyed to our Concord or Salvation And if not all how shall we know which V. Nor do we know how we must be sure that all these Canons indeed were Currant and had the Major Vote or many be Counterfeit when the Africans had then such a stir with the Pope about the Nicene or Sardican Canon and when to this day the Canons of the Laterane Council sub Innoc. 3. are justified by most and denied by many VI. If this could be known to a few Learned Men it is certain that to most Christians yea Ministers it cannot To me it is not And it 's certain that all Christians nor all Ministers are not obliged to so great a task as to search all the Councils till they know which they be and which the Laws which they must obey III. And as the Power and Laws cannot be known so it is certain that Obedience to these is not the necessary means of Christianity Concord or Communion because the necessary measure of such Obedience cannot be known to such a use Christ in his Institution of Baptism and other ways hath told what he hath made necessary to be a Member of the Universal Church and how all such must live in Love and Peace in obeying the rest of his Word so far as they can know it But you that make Obedience to a visible Power over the Church Universal necessary to our Membership can never tell us which is the necessary Degree If it be all the Canons and Mandates that must be so obeyed no Man can be saved much less can the Churches all have Concord on such terms yea every Christian If it be not all who can tell us which be the necessary Canons and Acts of Obedience and distinguish Essentials from Integrals unless you will return to the Word of God and say that The Covenant of Grace is Essential which we may know without these Councils Laws The Ministry of Councils teaching us how to know God's Word and Laws is one thing and their own pretended universally obliging Legislation is another Of all this I have said much in the second Part of my Key for Catholicks and in my foresaid Rejoinder to W. Johnson II. But you tell me of another Church Power which all must obey that will have Communion and Concord which you call Collegium Pastorum If none be Church Members or Christians that understand not what this is much less do obey it I doubt the Church is still a little Flock indeed For I understand it not nor know one Man that I think doth 1. Is
must believe e. g. In Abassia Egypt Syria c. they will be bound to believe one thing and at Constantinople another c. Those called now Nestorians are by Travellers said to own none of that Heresie but to Condemn the Council of Chalcedon and Eph. 1. for wronging Nestorius as Innocent did them that condemned Chrysostome Those called Jacobites and Eutychians are said to have no more of the Heresie but to condemn the said Chalcedon Council for wronging Dioscorus and to own the second Ephesine Council some will be bound to be for Images in Churches and some against them some for Constantinople and some for Rome's Supremacy and all in their Countries to be Papists for their Pastors tell them that the Catholick Church is on their side yea in the same Country as in England some must be for Arminianism as it is called and some against it some for the imputation of Christ's righteousness and some against it some for free Prayer in the Pulpit and some against it c. For on both sides their differing Pastors plead the Authority of the Church Few Christians can thus agree in any thing but Christ's plain Laws which I shewed are the terms of Concord If we must appeal from particular Pastors to whom is it If to Councils to whom must we appeal from disagreeing Councils If to the whole Church on Earth how shall we hear from them and know their mind I never saw nor knew any Man that saw any literas formatas subscribed by all Bishops scattered through the Earth 5. You that are Zealous against Popery I presume would not have me be a Papist But I cannot avoid it if I receive your Doctrine that there is a Church-Power in a Council or College of Pastors to Govern the Universal Church and that none are in the Church nor have the Spirit that obey not this Universal Church of Pastors and that to obey them is the only means or terms of Concord For 1. I then yield them the fundamental difference That there is one Universal summa Potestas or Visible Head Collective under Christ. 2. And if so I cannot deny it to be the Pope as the Principium Vnitatis and the Chief Executor of the Laws and the first Bishop in Councils For Councils are rare and the Church is a Church when there are no Councils And the Pope is a known Person and Rome a known Place and accessible and no other pretendeth to this Power that I know of And the Executive Power must be Constant And any other Supream accessible College is unknown to me and all that I can speak with and I can no more obey them than a College of Angels unknown to me If the Church have a visible Vicarious Supream the Pope is likest to be he as to the constant Executive Power and the President of Councils I suppose you take the Councils of Constance and Basil and the French for Papists though they set a Council above the Pope 6. The World hath no Universal Civil Government under God neither a Monarch nor a College or Council of Kings All the World is Governed by Men per partes in their several Dominions as all England is under the King by all the Mayors Bailiffs and Justices But there is no Council of Justices that are One Vniversal Governour Collective Nor is the Dyet of Princes or any Council of Kings one Supream Government of the Earth A Logical universality there is as all Rulers considered notionally rule all the World by Parts but no Political Head or Universal Governour over the whole whom all the Parts must obey I. If now I am in the right and you mistaken then you wrongfully deny the Spirit Church-Membership and consequently Salvation as well as Concord to all Protestants that ever I knew or read who deny a visible Universal Church Head Personal or Collective And I think to most in the World And what Schism that is I need not say II. If I am in the wrong I am no Christian nor Church Member nor can be saved For you say This Body so governed only hath the Spirit And I cannot help it not knowing possibly how to know 1. Who this College is 2. What Councils 3. Or which be the Laws which I must obey 4. Nor with what degree of Obedience 5. Nor that they have such Power How great need have I then earnestly to beg your speedy help for my Information Which will oblige Your Servant Ri. Baxter Decemb. 27. 1679. Chap. XVII The Third Letter to Bishop Guning To the Right Reverend the Lord Bishop of Ely My Lord THough in Conference I told you the Sense which I had of your words yet judging it my duty to think of them over and over again I also judge it my duty in Writing to leave with you the sum of such a Judgment as I am able to pass on them on my best Consideration leaving it now to your self whether you will by word or writing return any further Answer my hopes of Satisfaction thereby being very low The sum of your Speech which I am concerned in is as followeth I. That certainly a Supream Vicarious Governing Power there is in the Bishops by Christ's Institution 1. Because it is Prophesied Isai. 60.12 That the Nation and Kingdom that will not serve the Church shall perish And the word Church is never put for Christ. 2. And the Apostles only were admitted by Christ to his last Supper and so the Power of Administring that Sacrament till Christ come is given only to them and such as they shall give that Power to 3. And it was not Paul and Barnabas that had the infallible judgment of that Case decided Act. 15. but the College of the Apostles II. That this Supream Vicarious Governing Power over the whole Church on Earth is 1. In all the Christian Bishops of the World 2. And the Major part goeth for the whole 3. And General Councils are their Representatives and so have this Power 4. And that to such Councils it is enough that all be called though all be not there 5. And it is their reception by the Church Vniversal which must prove their Vniversal Power and the Obligation of their Laws 6. And though the Vniversality of Bishops be not always in such a Council they have always that Power which in Councils is to be used as the Judges out of Term time 7. And that if I or any will publish a Heresie we shall know where that Church is by their Censure 8. But as Promulgation is necessary to the Obligation of Laws so many that never can or do hear of the foresaid Vniversal Church-Governing Power or what their Laws are or what is the sence of them may be saved without them by the reading of the Word as many that have not the Scriptures may be saved without them And this you say answers three parts of my last Papers 9 Of these General Councils it is only six that you own as such
Countries in the World 2. I can easily prove what I told you how oft the Major Part hath changed yea the same Bishops upon the change of Princes and cried Omnes Peccavimus And who knoweth by Majority of Votes which Years they were in the right 3. Either the Canons of Councils were obligatory upon the Promulgation before the absent Bishops in all Countries received them or not If yea then it is not Universal Reception that made them so If not then the absent are not bound to receive them 4. How many Years will it be after a Council before we can know whether all or most of the Christian World receive it By all that I can read in History I cannot tell e. g. whether more Bishops were for the Council of Chalcedon or against it for the time of seven or eight Emperors Reign Nor whether more now be for or against the second Nicene Council which the Lutherans so much favour and so of many more And every one cannot know it nor fetch his Faith or Religion from a Catalogue of all the Christian Bishops in the World or a Calculation of their numbred Votes § 9. 6. Frustra est Potentia quae non reducitur nec reducenda est in actum 1. Indeed as the Pope is naturally uncapable of Governing all the Christian World All Bishops on Earth are much more uncapable as one Collective Voting Power but only per partes in their several Limits 2. How can I obey a Power that acteth not § 10. 7. Alas what abundance of Heresies have been Published since the Six Councils which you own yea by Ranters Quakers Familists c. in our times besides Beckman's Catalogue of German Fanaticks And yet what Universal Council or Literae formatae of all the World have given us sufficient notice of their Evil How foolishly have the Papists done about Jansenianisms the Immaculate Conception of the Virgin Mary c. to seek the Pope's Determination if the sense of all the Bishops of the World can be known to decide the Case How many Heresies have been Condemned in Councils since the Sixth Council of which the whole Church hath no otherwise notified their sence as in the Case of Philoponus of Images of Elipandus and Faelix of Abbot Joachims Abeilard of Gilbert Porretane of Wecilo of Berengarius Wickliffe Husse whether it was Heresie or not You say If I broach a Heresie the Vniversal Church will soon tell me where they are by Condemning it When Multitudes have been broached these last Thousand Years of which those in Abassia Syria Egypt Armenia and most of the Christian World have never told us that ever they were Judged or so much as heard Shall no Bishops or Provincial Council condemn new Heresies but leave e. g. Swenkfeldius David George Servâ—tus Pomponatius Vaninus and a hundred such to pass for good Christians till they hear from all the Bishops of the World And what need General Councils be gathered to Condemn such if we can know the sence of all without them § 11. 8. If one that cannot know the sence of all the Bishops on Earth may ordinarily be a good Christian and saved by the Scripture only then why should they be sent to enquire of all the Bishops on Earth when a sure and nearer way is at hand 2. And then such may be of the Church and have Christ's Spirit that obey not such a Vicarious Church Head 3. And if want of Promulgation nullifie the Obligation that is no Governing Vicarious Soveraign to all the Christian World which cannot Promulgate his Laws to all Neither I nor any that ever I knew can tell how to know the Minds of all the Bishops on Earth or gather their Votes so as to rule our Obedience If the Scripture could not be commonly made known it could be no common Rule as it is not to them that have it only in unknown Tongues § 12. 9. What shall satisfie any Man that the Six Councils owned by you are the Acts of a Supream Vicarious Universal Church Power and no other but those 1. If the Pars imperans in Supremacy be as Politicks say a Constitutive Essential part of the Society then since the sixth Council the Church hath been no Church for want of an Essential part if Councils were that part But if it be all the dispersed Bishops the Head hath been in nudâ Potentiâ unactive these Thousand Years as the Socinians say the separated Soul is till the Resurrection or as one in an Apoplexy 2. This favoureth the Seekers who say that the Church this Thousand Years hath been lost in the Wilderness or asleep 3. The same Councils have done and undone That at Const. 1. in the beginning set up Greg. Naz. and in the end forced him to resign going about to depose him which part was obligatory That at Ephes. first was first one and after two and Nestorius Cyril and Memnon were all Condemned and after two of them restored and Joh. Antioch and Cyril by Theodosius threats were brought to confess that they had differed but in Words and did not know it Which part was Obligatory That at Chalcedon consisted of many yea most that had gone contrary in Ephes. 2. and cried Omnes peccavimus and so did many others and most Bishops were oft and long against it after That at Const. de Tribus Capitulis is noted commonly as a meer Cheat and abuse put on Justinian by an Eutychian and condemned three dead Mens Words before at Chalcedon absolved set the World even Italy into a greater Schism If you are sure all these are Universally Obligatory prove it and prove that no other are as much so Divers others were as numerous and called by as good Authority If you say as of Ephes. 2. they were Latrocinia and forced I answer No more than many others At Const. â— Nazianzen tells you they raged like Mad Men At Ephes. 1. they fought it out even before the Emperors Commissioners Theodosius 2d used his over-ruling Power at both Eph. 1. 2. What force was used in that under Philippicus and many others that erred and were more numerous than such as you receive Sola navicula Petri saith Binius scaped Drowning at Eph. 2. so Concordant were they all What have you against even Constance and Basil on your Grounds If you say they erred I grant it and how shall we know that none of the Six did so It was not their Number nor Consent that proved them in the right Tell us how to know the Councils that we must obey from all the rest Is it by other Councils Testimony that is to run in a Vain Circle How know we that the later is right other way than of the former Is it by Scripture or by Reason Tell us how without subverting your own Foundation the Soveraignty of Councils 4. Do you hold all the Six Councils still obligatory as the Rule of our Obedience and Communion E. g. 1. That at Nice 1. and
hath authorized a Vicarious Soveraign Prelacy before he can believe that there is a Christ that had any Authority himself 2. And he must be so good a Casuist as to know what maketh a true Bishop 3. And so well acquainted with all the World as to know what parts of the Earth have true Bishops and what they hold And is this the way of making Christians Perhaps you will say That Parents Tutors and Priests tell them what all the Bishops of the World hold as a Soveraign Judicature I answer 1. If they did Holden confesseth that the Certainty of Faith can be no greater than our Certainty of the Medium And the Child or Hearer that knoweth not that his Parent and Teacher therein saith true can no more know that the Creed or Scripture is true on that account 2. The generality of Protestants believe not an Universal-Governing Soveraign under Christ but deny it Therefore they never Preach any such Medium of Faith And can you prove that those that are brought to Christianity by Protestant Parents Tutors or Preachers are all yet Unchristened or have no true Faith 7. Why should we make Impossibilities necessary while surer and easier Means are obvious It is impossible to Children to the Vulgar to almost all the Priests themselves to know certainly what the Major Vote of Bishops in the whole World now think of this or that Text or Article save only consequently when we first believe the Articles of Faith we next know that he is no true Bishop that denieth them And it is impossible to know that Christ hath authorized a Soveraign Colledge before we believe Christs own Authority and Word But the Protestant Method is obvious viz. To hear Parents Tutors and Preachers as humble Learners To believe them Fide humana first while they teach us to know the Divine Evidence of Certain Credibility in the Creed and Scriptures and when they have taught us that to believe Fide Divinâ by the Light of that Divine Evidence which they have taught us What that is I have opened as aforecited and also in a small Treatise against the Papists called The Certainty of Christianity without Popery in which also I have confuted your way Besides what I have said in the Second Part of The Saints Rest and my More Reasons for the Christian Religion 8. I cannot by all your Words understand how you can have any Faith on your Grounds 1. You that renounce Popery I suppose take not the Popish Prelates for any part of the Soveraign Colledge 2. I perceive that you take not the Southern and Eastern Christians for a part who are called Nestorians Eutychians or Jacobites 3. I find that you take not the Protestant Churches that have no Bishops for any part for the Soveraignty is only in Bishops 4. I find that you take not the Lutheran Churches or any other for a part whose Bishops Succession from the Apostles hath not a Continuance uninterrupted which Rome hath not 5. And me thinks you should not think better of the Greeks than of such Protestants on many accounts which I pass by Where then is that Universal Colledge on whose Judging-Authority you are a Christian Sure you take not our little Island for the Universal Church I would I knew which you take for the Universal Church and how you prove the Inclusion and Exclusion 9. I find not that the Universal Church hath so agreed as you suppose of the Canon of Scripture and the Readings Translations c. Four or five Books were long questioned by many General Councils have not agreed of the Canon Bishop Cousins hath given us the best account of the Reception of the true Canon Provincial Councils have said most of this Even the fullest at Laodicea hath left out the Revâ—lations The Romanists take in the Apocrypha Many Churches have less or more than others What Grotius himself thought of Job and the Canticles I need not tell you Nor how Augustine and most others strove for the Septuagint against Jerome And if the Universal Judicature have decided the many Hundred Doubts about the Various Lections I would you would tell us where to find it for I know not § II. Your second Use of the Soveraign Power is to judge of the Sense of Fundamental Articles of Faith because the Words may be taken in a false Sense 1. This is very cautelously spoken Is it only Fundamentals that they are to expound by Soveraign Judgment How then shall we know the Sense of all the rest of the S. Scriptures And how will this end a Thousand Controversies 2. And why may not the same Means satisfie us about Fundamentals which satisfieth us about the Integrals of Religion Yea we have here far better help The first Christians Catechized and taught the Sense of Baptism before they were Baptized They and their Tutors and Preachers taught the same to their Children and so on Baptism and the Fundamentals have been constantly repeated in all the Churches of the World There are as many Witnesses or Teachers of these as there are Understanding Christians And yet must all needs hear from the Antipodes or know the Sense of a Humane Soveraign of the World before they receive them 3. Can this Supreme Colledge speak the Fundamentals plainlier than God hath done and than the Parish Priest can do Are they necessary to tell us that Christ died rose ascended because Scripture speaketh it not plain enough We know that no Words of Creed or Scripture falsly understood make a true Believer But is not that as true of a Councils Words as of the Creed And are there any Words that Men cannot misunderstand Why hath Filioque continued such a Distraction in the Churches and Councils yet end it not To say nothing of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and other such Have we a necessity of a Soveraign Judicature to be to all Men in stead of a Schoolmaster to tell them what is the meaning of Greek and Hebrew Words And could not one Origen or Jerom tell that better than a General Council of Men that understand not those Tongues I must confess that what understanding of the Words of Creed or Scripture I have received was more from Parents Tutors Teachers and Books than from Soveraign Councils or Colledge of Bishops though Dr. Holden say he is no true Believer and Catholick that believeth an Article of Faith because his Reason findeth it in Scripture and not rather because all the Christian World believeth it There is more skill in Cosmography Arithmetick and History necessary to such a Faith than I have attained or can attain I can tell E. g. by Lexicons and other Books what 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 signifieth in the Creed better than how all the Bishops in the World interpret it by an Authoritative Sentence § III. Your third Work of this Soveraign Power is Authoritatively to declare what Government of the Church was delivered by the Apostles 1. As I said of Scripture we
Sects were at first Members of these Episcopal Churches and received both their Baptism in them and all the Orders they received There was then no other Communion that could give this Authority Our Adversaries will not deny but that their Orders were received by them were actually received by their Forefathers in the Episcopal Communion They have actually received no more Power from God than they have received from their Ordainers For their Ordainers are they and they alone who have represented Gods Person in dealing with them 2. They have actually received from their Superiors nothing but what their Superiors did actually intend to give them One would think this should be very clear To the Objection that They ought to have given more Power he answers That only proveth that we have no more if they wronged us Where now is all the Reformers Power Did the Pope or his Bishops intend them any against himself IV. But yet he perceived that some might say Particular Ordainers might have singular Intentions And I cannot tell him that as Richardus Armachanus and abundance more thought Bishops and Presbyters to be ejusdem Ordinis so did Jacobus Armachanus of late and Bishop Downame and many other Bishops and declared that Presbyters had Power of Ordination but for Order sake it should not be without the Bishop save in cases of necessity To this he saith That the Ordainers must be presumed to do according to the common sense of the Church and Canons But what if they declare the contrary As Bishop Edw. Reinolds openly declared that he Ordained Presbyters into the same Order with Bishops who were but the prime Presbyters and that he was of Dr. Stillingfleet's Judgment that no Form of Government was Jure Divino necessario Saith he Pag. 487. The Law is alway charitable to presume that every Man intends as becomes him to intend Very good But it 's prudent to presume his actual Intention not from what others do think will become him no nor from what will really become him in the Judgment of God Therefore they must not judge of the Intention of the Bishop by the real Will of God Supposing us to be Proud of the Suffrages of the Schoolmen pag. 492.493 He suspecteth It was rather Picque than Conscience that brought them to it Alas Were not the Schoolmen Prelatical enough Many of them were Bishops and one was a Pope at least And the Council at Basil that allowed Presbyters deciding Votes and St. Jerome and the Reformers all fall under his Censure for the like viz. That Necessity put them on it as a Shift or else the Pope by the Vote of Bishops would have carried it and he justifieth not the Necessities choice but concludeth Pag. 496 497. If it be suspicious whether the Men who then followed these Principles did embrace them out of a sincere sense of their Truth then they cannot be presumed to have been Principles of Conscience Which if they were not this is sufficient to shew that they are not fit Measures of the Power that was actually given by the Bishops of that Age. I confess I had thought that the Papist Bishops Intention had not been the Measure of the Power of Bishops or Presbyters And that Mr. Dodwell had not been so much against the Council of Basil as unjust Conspirators by ill means to overtop the Pope He saith truly Pag. 505. Most certainly they who were of this Opinion the Papists could not intend to follow the Doctrine of the Wicklefists and Waldenses who had been lately censured for maintaining the Equality of Bishops and Presbyters No nor the Doctrine of Luther Cranmer or such as the Church of England hath held V. Yet being forced to confute himself he saith p. 52. It is sufficient for my purpose that Ecclesiastical â—ower be no otherwise from God than that is of every Supreme Civil Mugistrate It is not usual for Kings to be invested in their Offices by other Kings but by their Subjects Yet when they are invested that doth not in the least prejudice the Absoluteness of their Monarchy where the fundamental Constitutions of the respective places allow to them And hath not God's fundamental Law as much Power much less doth it give any Power over them to the persons by whom they are invested If the Power of Episcopacy be Divine and all that men can do in the case be only to determine the Person not to confine his Power c. what kept the man from seeing how great a part of his Book he here confuteth Doth he not confess now that God's Law may give the Power which men may not alter but only determine of the Person to receive it In the case of the Presbyters Office he will have it otherwise because the Bishops are forsooth not only the Investers but the Donors who give just what they please and he proveth it fully by saying it confidently and copiously Because God giveth it not immediately Yes he immediately by his Spirit in the Apostles instituted the species though he do not immediately chuse the Receiver But who giveth the Bishops their Power The Council is above them Do they give them their Power Who giveth them theirs And who giveth the Pope his Power If his may be given by Divine Charter without a Humane Donor but a meer Invester why may not a Presbyters VI. But it is the Vicedeity that is his great foundation Pag. 543. saith he Nor is there any reason for them to oppose God and the Church as they do on this and other occasions If the Churches Authority be received from God then what is done by Her is to be presumed to come from him the same way as what is done by any man's Proxy is presumed to be his own act And as what is done by an Inferior Magistrate by virtue of his Office is presumed to come from the Supreme This is in Answer to an Objection That the Powers united by God are inseparable by any Humane Authority But the Power of Ordination is by God united to the other Rights of Scripture Presbyters c. He answers If our Adversaries mean that those Presbyters who had both those Powers united in them by God could not be deprived of the one without the other nor of any by any Humane Authority this if it should prove true is a case wherein our present Ordinations are not concerned which were not received in those times wherein our Adversaries pretend to prove that these two Powers were inseparably united They may be separated de facto tho' they who separate them be to blame for so doing If they were then united by God because they were united by the men who represented God why are they not disunited by God now when men alike impowered by him have disunited them Why should they not oblige God in one case as well as the other Readers you see here the Core of the Churches disease and chief of our
singly is counted so if it be done in unlawful Assemblies And sure none can think it reasonable to ratifie the acts of Rebells And if the Society be not represented by unlawful Assemblies how can it in justice be obliged by them How can any of its Rights be disposed of by them who are not its Legal Representatives P. 513. The most natural way is by abrogating the acts of such Assemblies Therefore the Jurisdiction of the Assembly by the President is a right consequent of the Office of a President as a President and a circumstance requisite to make the Assembly it self lawful specially where no certain places or periods of times are agreed on for the keeping of any There must be some who have the power of Assembling them when they judge it convenient for the publick and who may be allowed for competent Judges of that convenience Every one is not permitted to judge of the occasion But there is none concerning whom this Power can so probably be presumed None to whom all undisposed Power does by the common Rules of all Societies so naturally Escheat as the President of the Assemblies Even in the Assemblies a Veneration is due to him for his Office above all other Members but much more so out of the Assemblies where none is in a likely way to be able to oppose him He who calls an Assembly must have some advantage over all the Members called by him that he may oblige them to convene and it is necessary to the Publick that they be obliged to meet when they are so called that is when the IVDGE of Circumstances thinks it necessary c. But there is none who can pretend to this advantage I do not say of Jurisdiction but even of Authority and Reverence above his fellow Members besides the President Besides the Power of such Assemblies expires with the Assemblies themselves so that in the intervals of Assemblies there remains no more of that Power c. But the Convening of Assemblies is an act of Authority in that very interval and therefore cannot agree to any but the President whose Authority alone can be antecedent to the meeting of the Assemblies so that if it be the right of any it must be his because none besides him is capable of it Answ. 1. Did Hosius of Corduba or Eustathius Antiochenus or Cyril Alexandr Anatolius Const. c. call the Councils of Nice Ephesus c. or had an Antecedent right to it 2. Hath no King or Parliament a right to call a Convocation in England 3. Have not K. James Jewel Crakenthorpe Buckeridge Bilson Carlton Abbot Field Andrews and other English Bishops and Divines and Chamier Sadeel Chemnisius and the rest abroad fully proved that the Emperors called the General Councils as did the Spanish and French Kings and the Emperor Provincial ones 4. Doth not every Conformist Subscribe to the Articles of Religion which say that General Councils may not be called but by the Will of Princes Though Mr. Dodwell have the plain Honesty not to be Ordained or Subscribe these English Articles Mr. Thorndike Bishop Bromhall Bishop Guning Dr. Saywell Dr. Parker c. I suppose did But let us hear him further And this is more certainly true of him who has a right to preside in Assemblies when they are convened by Virtue of his General Right to preside over the whole Society as well when Assemblies are not Convened as when they are than of him who is chosen by the particular Assemblies for their particular Occasions And he who has his Precedency not by virtue of any particular Election but for term of Life must have such a Presidency as I am speaking of Not only the Assemblies convened by him are in this regard lawful but also no Assemblies are lawful but what are called by him because there is no other way of making them lawful but the lawfulness of their Call nor any Power to Call them distinct from that of such a President Do you wonder that this Man Conformeth not Or do you not wonder that those Subscribe and are called Protestants that are of his Mind If they can answer the Articles the King and Parliament that say the King hath Power to call Synods what do they make of their Readers that obtrude such Baronian fictions on us without once attempting to answer Protestants who with all credible Historians prove it past all modest Contradiction that Emperors were the ordinary Callers of the General Councils and not the Presidents or Pope Pag. 516 517. He goeth on asserting Assemblies called without the President to be unlawful nullities and by the highest common interest to be punished so far must we think the Councils of Nice Ephesus c. to be from binding us and saith Indeed the Bishops could not renounce this Power without dissolving the Society by making the Exercise of Government unpracticable or without changing the whole frame of Government For who must have it If none had had it how could the Society be secured that Assemblies should meet if none had Power to oblige particular Members to be present at them when called If at any time no meeting were ascertained the Government would be dissolved Ans. 1. Did this reading Man never hear of the Claim of Princes to call Councils in their Dominions Did he not know where he lived Did he never read the late Act of Parliament in Scotland that asserts all Church-Power in Exteriors to be in the King Nor any of the Protestants Confessions or Divines Should I think he had quite forgotten all this or that he had the craft to take no notice of it as that which was too hot to handle 2. And was it not a piece of Wit to take it for granted that such Assemblies as he calleth the Councils are so Essential to the Church that the Government and Society is dissolved without them or without a Ruling Presidents Power to call them And the Pope must have a Power to oblige all particulars to come when he calleth them And no wonder when unless Men be Cheaters the whole Power Escheateth into the Presidents hands when the Council is dissolved which is when ever his Holiness please And long enough may you Petition him for these Church Parliaments when to call them is to surrender part of his Power Answ. 3. But what if all these Church Councils as such have no Governing Power at all over any of the particular Bishops any more than a Synod of Schoolmasters have over each others Persons and Schools but meet only by Christ's general Obligation to do all their work with greatest Prudence for Mutual Help and Concord He hath been told on both Ears oft enough that this is not only his Adversaries Judgment but such great Bishops as I have oft named yea and of Grotius his Friend when he wrote de Imp. sum Potest And where do you find this Disputant once attempt in all this begging presuming Volume to prove any
And yet he may own most or all other Pastors of the Catholick Church as such He that thinks the Subscriptions Forms or Ceremonies of the Greek Roman or English Church unlawful doth not therefore think Christianity or Catholick Communion unlawful XXXVIII All Christians are not bound to be fixed Members of particular Churches subordinate to National but those that can enjoy it ought The Negative I have so fully proved against Dr. Stillingfleet that for Dr. Sherlock to go on to harp on the same string and give no answer to it doth but tell us with what Men we have to do I will not repeat the Proofs I gave that some Ambassadors some Merchants some wandering Beggars or Tradesmen some Travellers and some where no Churches yet are gathered some Soldiers and some in times of Confusion are not obliged to be fixed Members of any particular Church but only to be Christians in Communion with the Church Catholick and to hold transient Communion with the Churches where they come He that yet will deny this words will not make him see it XXXIX Many of these Churches in one Kingdom have so great advantage by the Unity of Soveraignty civil Interest and Laws to be strengthening helpers to one another that they should accordingly associate and live in as much concord as their various conditions Auditors and Imperfections will allow And accordingly as Neighbours owe some more Charity to each other than to Strangers so Christians under the same Prince united by Civil Government Laws and Interest should be so far from persecuting and destroying each other for that which in various Kingdoms is allowable in Religion that they should exercise more love compassion and forbearance of one another XL. Christian Princes are true Parts of the Kingdom of Christ and eminent Integral Parts of the Universal Church as well as Pastors And are bound by Christ to do their best to make all their Kingdoms the Kingdoms of Christ that is to bring all their Subjects to consent to be Christians and to live in concordant Obedience to the Laws of Christ. And so all Nations should be discipled as far as they can procure it And such National Churches that is Christian Kingdoms we must all desire XLI Supreme Christian Princes or States are authorized and obliged to drive on by just means all Pastors and People to the Duties of their several Places and correct them for their Crimes XLII Christian Princes and States being Members of the Universal Church are bound to contribute their best endeavours to its welfare And therefore so far to Unite and Agree as is necessary to their mutual strengthening for the Universal good XLIII Therefore so far as Civil Councils or Dyets of many Princes or their Delegates or Ambassadors are necessary to this Concord for the common good they are bound by God to keep such And where Meetings cannot be kept to use all meet correspondency by Ambassadors and Letters for the same End So that this is no duty proper to Bishops but common to Christian Princes And if their sinful omission make it strange it is nevertheless their duty as God will make them know XLIV Thy Synods of Pastors duly ordered are of great use for their mutual advice strength and concord in order to the universal good So far are we from being against them that we think the right use of them of great importance That they may keep a right understanding of the Faith which they agree in and bear down Heresies the better by their joynt opposition and may keep up Christian Love and work out the disaffections which strangers and the calumnies of backbiters are apt to breed And even in Integrals and meet Accidents may do as much in Concord as they can XLV The Obligation which lieth on Particular Pastors to observe the Agreements of such Synods is from the general command of Love and Concord and the means thereto And he that stands not to such Agreements as make for the Strength and Concord of the Churches violateth this Common Law But such Agreements of Synods as make not for this common end but are against it no man is obliged to observe For it is no means that is not for the End but against it Therefore every Canon which enjoyneth sin or is not to the Churches good but hurt must not be kept XLVI It is not true that the Diocesan is by Office the Representer of the whole Church in Synods and Presbyters have no place or decisive Votes Protestants have at large confuted this in their Confutations of Popery and so have many French Papists and some others The Convocation in England hath a lower House of Presbyters Else in Abassia one Bishop were instead of all the Clergy of the Empire And two or three were a National Synod in a Nation that hath no more Diocesses They can shew no Commission for such a Representative Power therefore they have none such XLVII Much less have five Patriarchs and a few Metropolitans or such near them as they will call Authority to pass for the Representatives of all the Christian World and to constitute a General Council XLVIII No Pastors or Churches can give power to any to represent them absolutely but only limitedly to lawful things for common good And to oblige them no further or longer to stand to what they do than the common good requireth it What a man may not do himself he may not authorize another to do for him And no man may himself oppose Truth or Duty or cross the common good or assert any falshood or consent to any sin And that which accidentally maketh for the common good in one Age or Countrey may be against it in the next And then we are obliged against it whatever our Delegates Ancestors or selves did for it before XLIX There was never in the World a General Council of all the Bishops on Earth nor of the Representatives of all the Churches Even the six or eight or more old Councils now most honoured were General but as to One Empire yea far from that and not as to all the Christian World This I have fully proved in my second Book against Johnson 1. From the Subscriptions to the said Councils 2. From the Authority of the Emperors that called them 3. From the rest of the History and Acts 4. And from the Testimony of the Historians of those Times Yet A. Bishop Bromhall with the Papist Priest Johnson maintaineth the contrary pag. 110. saying This Exception was made in the dark c. and saith it abounds with Errours and that the Abuna of Ethiopia submitteth to the Patriarch of Alexandria and they all acknowledge the Pope the first Patriarch c. Ans. 1. If such a cant as this go with any man for a satisfactory answer to the full proof aforesaid which I have given and my Confutation of ten times more of Johnsons I have done with that man Ans. 2. Our Question is Whether any or all the
all true Christians have still agreed Quod ab omnibus ubique semper receptum fuit as Vincent Lerinensis speaketh The Baptismal Profession and Covenant expounded in the Creed the Lord's Prayer as the Rule of our Desires and Hope the Decalogue as the sum of Duty with the History of Christ's Incarnation Life Death Resurrection and Doctrine in the Gospel-writers the practice of Baptism and the Lord's Supper with Church-Assemblies for Teaching and Learning Praying and Praising God and this under Elders called thus to Guide their Flocks with the belief of all the rest of the Sacred Scriptures which are brought to our knowledge This hath been ab omnibus ubique semper receptum All Christians agree herein And in the observation of the Lord's day as a separated time for Sacred Assemblies And some Ceremonies and other little things most of them agreed in but not as necessary to their Unity or Communion but such as some differed about without violation of Christian Love and Peace as Socrates and Sozomen shew in divers Instances and of divers Countreys At this day All the Churches agree in these And this much constituteth men true Christians And Christ hath commanded all Christians to Love one another and Live in Peace and the strong to receive the weak and not offend the least Believers nor to please themselves but others to their edification The Kingdom of God which is his Church is not meat and drink but Righteousness Peace and Joy in the Holy Ghost and he that in these things serveth Christ pleaseth God and is or should be approved of men I have proved all this so fully in my Book called The true and only Way of the Concord of all the Churches that I here dismiss it § 3. But when this pretended Universal Humane Jurisdiction was set up it quickly divided the Catholick Church by making new Laws and Constitutions as if Christ's Laws had not been sufficient for Universal Concord and as if he that made Ministers the Teachers and Expounders of his own Laws had given them his Prerogative of Universal Legislation and Judgment And ever since then the Church hath been torn into those fractions which continue our shame and grief to this day Those that were ready to receive any Law from Christ by his Apostles would never all agree in Humane pretended Universal Jurisdiction nor in the Laws which such pretenders make Mutable Local and Temporary determinations of useful Circumstances by their several Guides suited to the time and place for Edification they submit to But Universal Law-makers they will never all acknowledge and own And their Canons are swell'd to so great a bulk and are so confounded with contradictions and uncertainties that they are Racks and Engines to tear the Church but utterly uncapable of being the Rule of Unity and Universal Concord § 4. The thing which Paul feared hath been our Ruine The Serpent which beguiled Eve by pretence of advancement and greater knowledge hath turned us from the simplicity that is in Christ. The primitive Unity is overthrown by departing from the primitive Purity Simplicity and Love of all And they that will ever hope for Universal Concord must endeavour the restoration of the Universal Terms and Temper Nothing next to fleshly and worldly lusts hath done so much to cut the Church into all the Sects which now remain as in a Religious War as this same pretended Universal Jurisdiction which our new Church-men mistake for the only cure Which I have fully proved in my Breviate of the History of Bishops and Councils and in the Vindication of it against the Accusations of Mr. Morrice § 5. Obj. The Scripture giveth but general Rules that all be done to edification decently and in order but there must be Laws of Discipline to determine in Specie what is for edification decency and order Ans. There are three sorts of these determinations 1. Of things necessary or meet for all the Christian World to be obliged to 2. Things meet for some Countreys to be obliged to 3. Things variable which Congregations may use variously and also change as occasion changeth It grieveth us to read how some Learned men that write on this Subject abuse the World by confounding these The first Christ hath determined sufficiently in the Scripture and no mortal men have any power to make Laws Ecclesiastical or Civil to bind all the World The second of these the King may determine by the Counsel of fit men who understand the case e. g. what Translation of the Bible in the English Tongue is fittest to be commonly used in the Publick Churches And if the King determine it not the Pastors in Synods may do it by way of voluntary consent but not as having as a Major Vote the Regiment of the Minor and of the absent or dissenters The third belongeth to every Pastor over his own Flock and may be altered as there is occasion viz. At what hour to meet how long to Pray and Preach in what words and variable methods what person to admit to Baptism as fit and to Church-Communion and what individual to Reprove Exhort Catechize Excommunicate c. A General or Provincial Council need not be called for any such thing as these § 6. Saith Dr. Beveridge Proleg That which Right Reason gathers from Scripture is of God for Right Reason is of God Ans. True But to gather it as Governours of all the World or of other mens charges as if the Right Reason of the King of France would give Laws to the King of England is one thing and to gather it by a discerning Judgement to teach our Flocks as Expositors or to guide our own Practice is another thing § 7. The Instance which he addeth of the Trina Immersio in Baptism sheweth that such things were never made Laws for the Universal Church for the Church never used them universally nor continued them but quickly changed them § 8. Ibid. Saith Dr. Beveridge General Councils are those to which all the Bishops of the whole World were called It 's not necessary that they be all there but that all be called and may come if they will But the five Patriarchs must be there or send their Letters There was no General Council which was not called by the Emperors command Ans. 1. All the Bishops of the World were never called to any Council nor near all 2. What Authority had the Roman Emperors to call Bishops out of other Princes Dominions 3. There is no Historical proof that ever they did any such thing 4. The Subscriptions of the Councils shew that the Bishops were only out of the Roman Provinces except some odd person as Joannes Persidis at Nice which no man can give account of 5. Half the Bishops of the Empire were not at the Councils 6. If calling them make a Council General though they come not then calling a Congregation though they come not maketh it a Congregation What if none come What if few come
Religion who value it most Dogs will fight for Bones and Carrion and Swine for Draff But Men will sooner fight for Gold and Pearls while Dogs and Swine like peaceable Creatures pass them by or tread them in the Dirt. All true Christians are agreed in all that God hath made necessary to Christianity and Salvation And no men on Earth were ever so wise as to be agreed of the meaning of every word besides in the Bible Much less in all that Usurping Universal Legislators will obtrude What a dismal noise and dangerous rupture doth the Controversie make now about Conformity in Brittain And what is our difference We are all agreed 1. That there is only one God the Governour of all the World and of his Attributes 2. That Man's Soul is immortal and that he hath another life after this to live and Heaven or Hell must be his end 3. That Jesus Christ God and Man is the only Saviour and Lord of all 4. That the Law of God is the chief indispensible Rule of our Faith and Life by which we must be judged 5. That we must live soberly righteously and godly loving God above all and our neighbours as our selves and doing as we would be done by superiours Ruling for God and inferiours obeying them under God but none having power above him or against him 6. That God only is the final Infallible Universal Judge of Controversies That Magistrates are Judges who shall be punished or protected by the Sword And Pastors are Judges who is fit for Communion in the Churches under their over-sight And every man a discerning rational Judge of his own duty 7. That without holiness righteousness and temperance or mortifying the lusts of the flesh by the Spirit no man can be saved 8. That no man should sin wilfully for any price or to avoid any danger even of death 9. That the Soul should be more cared for than the Body 10. That no man can love God and Holiness too much nor obey him too faithfully 11. That we should delight in the Law of the Lord and his Gospel and meditate in it day and night 12. That serious servent and faithful prayer is our daily ordinary duty 13. That we should live as we would be judged and daily prepare for death that we may be found ready 14. That we should use all worldly temporal things for spiritual everlasting ends knowing that else they are but vanity vexation and dangerous snares 15. That we should fetch our joy from the hopes of Heaven more than from all the possessions pleasures and hopes on Earth These and abundance more we are commonly as to Profession agreed on And though this in sincerity will serve for our acceptance with God and our Salvation it will not serve for our acceptance or toleration with some men nor to avoid the cry of scandalous intolerable Schism Disobedience Obstinacy and what men mind to charge upon us Yea though we are agreed that Rulers in their several places must be obeyed in all things that are not against the Law of God in Nature or Scripture But what now is the difference I will add that if every Conformist and Nonconformist in England were of so unattainable perfect knowledge as to be agreed of the sence of every Syllable in the Bible it would not serve to end our Differences nor keep us from Prisons Silencing and the present heavy Accusations Wonder not at it It 's an evident Truth Our Difference is 1. About the meaning of some Oaths Declarations and subscribed Professions and Promises imposed by Acts of Parliament 2. About the meaning of several Rubricks and other Words in the Liturgy and Book of Ordination 3. About the meaning and practice of several Canons Gods Law hath agreed us all that Lying deliberately is a sin and so is Perjury especially of thousands and so is the wilful depraving of Baptism and other Ordinances of God and so is the unjust Excommunicating of the Faithful and denying them Baptism and the Lords Supper and so is Sacriledge and Renouncing the Sacred Ministry when we are Vowed to it and so is Schismatical Dividing Christs Church by needless and unlawful Snares and Engines All these we are agreed are heinous sins not to be done for any Price But we are utterly disagreed whether to Conform would make us guilty of these sins But what Are Learned men such miserable Casuists as not to know what Lying Perjury Sacriledge Profaning Baptism Sinful Excommunicating c. are We differ about the sence of the Words Imposed and of the Law and Canons And then how should we know who is the Sinner But Qu. Who is it that wresteth them from their usual signification And who is it that dare not do it But the Sacred part of the Imposers cry up the necessity of a Judge of Controversies yea an Universal Judge some of them to Expound the Scriptures when men differ about the sence and will not they procure you an Exposition of a few controverted sentences in the Laws or endeavour it if that be necessary to understand or end your Differences Ans. No whatever cometh of it to Bodies or Souls to Church or Kingdom these Expositors of Scripture and Enders of Controversies will not so much as Petition the Law-makers to explain their words Yea though the Conformists are much disagreed about it among themselves Judges will decide particular Causes by the Law But to know the sence of the Law antecedently as our Rule which is required in one that Sweareth and Subscribeth to it can be by no ones Exposition but the makers of the Law Else the Judges were the only Law-makers For the sence is the Law And he maketh the Law that maketh the sence and not they that make the words alone which other men must put the sence on And if Popes or Councils Prelates or Priests could on pretence of a Judicial Expository Authority be Judges to all the Earth in what sence every word of Scripture must be understood it is they and not God that make the Law For God made but the words if this be true and the Bishops make the sence by pretence of judging of it To give an Universal Antecedent Obligatory Exposition is an Act of Legislation and none but the Law-maker himself can do it But to judge by this Law who shall be received and who shut out of their several Churches the Pastors must do that X. Another great deceit is by confounding Communion and Concord with Government and Subjection And arguing that because all Christians must have Concord and Communion therefore they must be under one Supreme Humane Government As if Christian Princes were not as much bound to Concord as any men on Earth Or as if that Concord must be kept by one Supreme Universal Senate or Monarch and mutual Consultation and voluntary Agreement would not serve Obj. But if God bind us to do all things in Concord and General Councils and Patriarchs determine the matter of
a Universal Soveraignty or Legislative and Judicial Power And therefore uncapable of our Coalition more than an Impenitent Murderer is of Church Communion § 2. And there are not a few nor small Matters that are above Four hundred Years old that found Protestants will never Unite with And though Mr. Thorndike give us so much quarter as to say that It is the Authority that must necessarily be owned and not the Canons if that Authority will change them 1. It is the usurped Authority that we most disown 2. And we have no assurance what Canons that Authority will change And Mr. Thorndike's Mr. Dodwell's and such Mens great rule of Unity is that none of us must question whether any of the Canons of that Authority are contrary to God's Word nor appeal to God and Scripture against them Multitudes of Papists themselves renounce such Doctrine § 3. I. And first All this is built on the Sand I have largely proved long ago in several Books that it is impossible for them to certifie us who have this Authority Who it is that we must hear as the Catholick Church and take Universal Laws from when there is no General Council Or what Councils we may be sure are General or what not Besides none were General but of One Empire When they condemn each other and when each call the other Heretical or Schismatical and when as Great a Number were at one as at the other and the same Authority chose and called both sorts How shall we know which we must obey Is it by Scripture Reason or Authority of Councils themselves that we must Judge They cannot tell us § 4. II. The Cause which I am pleading against is exprest by their Champion the Lord Primate of Ireland Archbishop Bromhall in the words forecited viz. To wave their last Four hundred years Determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary Causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their Old Patriarchal Power and Dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both Name and Thing By this we see what the Protestant Church of England must be or else be Schismaticks in the Judgment of these Learned Men. I will here tell you why this will never Unite us and why the old Church of English Protestants could not close with Rome on these mens terms § 5. I. Salmasius de Ecclesiis Suburbicariis circa finem granteth them that by their Imperial Constitutions the Bishop of Rome was not a meer Patriarch but more than a Patriarch a Caput Ecclesiae This was not Christ's Institution but the Emperours and their Clergies in one Empire But call it Patriarchal or what you will it contained such Power as Christ having not given and Dead men of another Kingdom being none of our Rulers we are not obliged to obey nor indeed lawfully can do 1. A Patriarch and Primate hath some degree of Governing Power or else wherein doth his Primacy consist He calleth Councils Precedeth c. And if he cannot command Archbishops how can they command Bishops And if they are not Commanders of Bishops why do our English Bishops in their Consecration Profess Promise and Swear all due Obedience to the Archbishops And 1. We cannot yield to bring England under the guilt and brand of Perjury by submitting to the Foreign Jurisdiction of a Roman Primate or Patriarch contrary to the Oath of Supremacy 2. We know already how many false Doctrines and Practices the Roman Church and Patriarch have espoused And we can no more receive all these Errours from a Patriarch than from a Pope § 6. II. But we will freely confess to you that we neither are nor can be such a sort of Protestants as the Regnant Church of France is which persecuteth the Protestants nor as these Men called the Church of England in such Proposals would have us be I will give you a Catalogue of some Determinations of above Four hundred Years old which the Church of England before Bishop Laud could not receive § 7. I. Mr. Thorndike also consenteth to rest in the Canons sent by Pope Adrian to Carol. M. about An. 773. And C. 23. ex Clem. is That Arch-Bishop Presbyter or Deacon taken in Fornication Perjury or Theft be deposed but not Excommunicate II. Can. 28. is That a Bishop who obtaineth a Church by Secular Power be deposed And yet we are called Schismaticks for not obeying alas I dare not name the things the Bishops that have many Score or Hundred Churches by Secular Power And must we Unite in this III. Can. 11. is Condemned Clerks shall never be restored if they go to the Emperour And must we Confederate against such Bishops in England IV. C. Laodic there recited 33. is that None Pray with Hereticks or Schismaticks When we knowing how the Roman Party are counted at the best Schismaticks by Greeks Syrians and Protestants and all these counted Schismaticks by them it will be but Schism to separate from almost all Christ's Church on Earth as Schismaticks V. Ex Can. Sard. 2. That a Bishop that by Ambition changeth his Seat shall not have so much as Lay Communion no not at the end VI. Ex C. Afric c. 15. That there be no Re-ordaining or Translation of Bishops VII No man must receive the witness of a Lay-man against a Clergy-man VIII The Second General Council at Nice setteth up the Adoration of Images cursing all from Christ with Anathema that are against it or doubt of it IX Even the contrary Council at Constantinople of 338 Bishops anathematizeth all that do not with a sincere Faith crave the Intercession of the Virgin Mary as the Parent of God and Superior to every Creature visible and invisible And all that confess not that all who from the beginning to this day before the Law and under the Law and in the Grace given of God being Saints are venerable in the Presence of God in Soul and BODY and seek not their Intercessions Yet they conclude with the Conc. Nice 2. That Christ's Body Glorified is not proper Flesh Def. 7. X. The said Second Council at Nice saith Every Election of a Bishop Priest or Deacon which is made by Magistrates shall remain void by the Canon which saith If any Bishop use the Secular Magistrate to obtain by them a Church let him be deposed and separated and all that Communicate with him Thus our English Bishops and Parish Ministers are deposed and all their Communicants to be Excommunicated XI Ibid. Can. 4. Those that for Gain or Affection of their own shut out any Ministers or shut the Temples forbidding the Divine Ministry are sharply condemned which would fall on Silencing Bishops XII Can. 15. Forbiddeth one man to have two Churches which would break our Clergy specially the Bishops that have Hundreds XIII Can. 7. Forbiddeth any Temple to be Consecrated without Relicts and ordereth Temples that have no Relicts to be put down XIV A Council
3. Did not Christ that sent out his Preachers by two and two and bid them shake off the dust of their feet as a Witness against those that did not receive them expect that they should be received and believed without the Authority of a Council Q. 4. Did Christ or his Apostles ever institute a General Council or Unifying College of Bishops to be the standing Aristocratical Government of all the Universal Church as one Q. 5. Would not this have been plainly done if the certainty of Scripture and Salvation and the Churches Unity had been founded on it Q. 6. If thousands were then made Christians without the knowledge of Councils or College may they not be so now Q. 7. Was the Church no Church or ungoverned for the first 300 years when there was no General Council Q. 8. And were not Christians all that while sure that the Scripture was true And were they not of the same Faith as now Q. 9. Was it not Constantine that called the first General Council at Nice and had he any Authority to call any but his Subjects Q. 10. Do not the Subscriptions of the Antient Councils shew that they were General only as to the Roman Empire and not to all the World Q. 11. How shall we be sure that the Council of one Nation or Empire is Ruler of all the other Kingdoms of the World Q. 12. When Councils of equal number and called by equal Authority of Emperors condemned one another in the days of Constantius Valens Valentinian Gratian Arcadius and Honorius Theodosius senior and junior Martian Zeno Basiliscus Leo Philippicus Anastasius Justinian c. how were all men and women sure which was of Conciliar Power and which not As to their faulty carriage each accused other Q. 13. Seeing so many then erred and are called Hereticks at this day as the Councils of Tyre Ephes. 2. Arimin Sirmium Milane Constantinople Alexandria Antioch Jerusalem Rome c. how shall we now be sure which err not Q. 14. If we must believe Scripture on the credit of Councils must we not also believe which Councils are true upon the credit of Councils And if so is it on the Authority of that same Council or another If of the same then must every Council even the Heretical be so believed or which and how known If of another must the Church suspend its belief of one Council till anoâ—her is called to attest it And on what account is that other to be believed And what if the later condemn the former and the next condemn that as Florence and Pisa Constance and Basil Q. 15. Is it all the Council agreeing or the major Vote against the rest that hath the credit or authority aforesaid Q. 16. How shall we be sure that the minor part are not in the right Q. 17. How shall all the distant World be sure the Votes were truly taken Q. 18. Why was the major Vote counted invalid if the Patriarchs were against it And are those Patriarchs of Divine Authority infallible Q. 19. What if one or two Votes turn the scales for a majority and what if afterward more come in on the other side and turn it back the other way as the Constantinopol Council did in Nazianzens case are both the sides infallible or authoritative So at Eph. 1. Q. 20. Who must call a valid Council What if the Pope call one and the Patriarch of Alexandria another and the Emperor another which is valid Q. 21. Is the Church no Church in the long intervals of Councils Q. 22. If it be where is the Visible Constitutive Supremacy or Power If in the Patriarchs and Metropolitans they are divided and account each other sometime Hereticks and sometime Schismaticks Q. 23. Who hath Authority to make Patriarchs now or Metropolitans for all the Christian World Q. 24. Must we now obey the major part of the old Patriarchal Seats Q. 25. If it be in all the Bishops of the Earth 1. Who shall go to them all over the World with all our Church cases 2. Who shall judge which of them are Hereticks while they hereticate each other 3. Who shall assure us that their Votes are truly gathered 4. Who shall bring them from all over the Earth to the person to be judged 5. Can they judge truly without hearing the accused and their witnesses 6. Where at this day may we find their Decrees by which they Rule except in Councils Q. 26. Must a General Council or this College consist of all the Bishops of the World or but of part Q. 27. If of all is such a Council possible or lawful Q. 28. If of part who shall chuse them And seeing undoubted experience tells us that most of the Clergy every where in such cases obey the Power that hath the Sword whether the choice that is made in the Turks Empire will not be made by the Turk and in other Kingdoms of Heathens Infidels Papists Hereticks by their several Kings and Magistrates And can we be sure such are infallible Q. 29. If the Empire of Abassia have but one Bishop the Abuna shall that Empire have but one Vote in Councils and be ruled by the rest And is it not certain that those next the Antipodes and remotest Kingdoms can send but few and must they therefore be ruled by those near the place who will be many Q. 30 Yea is it not wickedness or madness to attempt to call aged Bishops or any from all the Christian World to displease prohibiting Princes to hazard their lives in travel many years to forsake their Flocks so long and by differing Languages not able to understand each other nor like to live long enough to bring home the Decrees when perhaps they must sit so many years in Council as they did at Trent wearing out the lives of many Popes And what is the necessity of all this Q. 31. If those few that are sent do that which the rest at home dissent from is it valid e. g. King James chose Six to go to the Synod at Dort and most then consented and most now dissent The Parliament chose a Synod of one Mind and the King by his Clergy one of another And how shall we know that the Churches own the Acts of their Delegates and dissent not as the Greeks did after the Council of Florence Can all Men and Women rest on things no better known to them Q. 32. Seeing that it is notorious that the Bishops of almost all the Christian World except part of Europe are very unlearned ignorant Men Armenians Georgians Iberians Mengrelians most of the Greeks Moscovites and the numerous Easterns called Nestorians and Jacobites and Copties c. and abundance of the Papists also in Europe How shall we be sure that so many Ignorant Men and too vicious will do the work of Wise or Infallible Judges of the Christian World if they do but meet together in Council much less as scattered and called a College Must not this
Preach meer desperation to all that have not more knowledge than I have who cannot possibly find out a Governing Universal Church nor its Laws though I would willingly find it and obey it Q. 53. Do they not Preach common desperation who say that Schism is a damnable Sin and he is in that guilt who suffers himself to be Excommunicated by Prelates for not obeying them in any unsinful condition of Communion as H. Dodwell speaketh Do not such Carnifices animarum make it necessary to Salvation to know all the unsinful things in the World which a Prelate may impose to be unsinful And is any man on Earth so Skilful How many indifferent things are there which the wisest man may doubt whether they be indifferent Of old it was thought enough to know the few things which God made necessary and now these Tormenting Uniters make it necessary to know the multitude of things indifferent to be such Q. 54. Must we needs know what sense perceiveth by the credit of a General Council or all the Bishops of the World As whether I see the Light or Colours What taste my Meat hath c If not why may I not take Bread to be Bread and Wine to be Wine on the credit of my senses though the Bishops or Council say the contrary Q. 55. Must I have the Authority of a Council or College of Bishops to believe that there is a God and that he is most Great and Wise and Good most Holy Merciful True and Just or to know that there is a Life to come and the Soul Immortal or that men must not hate the Good and love the Evil as such nor live in Murther Theft Adultery Perjury c. Doth not the Law of Nature bind men without a Council of Prelates And can they null that Law by their pretended Soveraignty Q. 56. Must every man have the Sentence of a General Council or College as wide as the Christian World to satisfie him of the truth of Christianity before he is Baptized and made a Christian Q. 57. Must we know what the Council or spacious College saith before we believe the Creed Lord's Prayer and Ten Commandments or did the ancient Christians receive them only on such Authority Did not every Baptizer expect a Profession of the Creed Q. 58. Was not the Bible received before there was a General Council Q. 59. Have not Councils differed about the Canonical Books of Scripture See Bishop Cousins of the Canon Compared with the Council of Trent Q. 60. Must we have new Councils to deliver us again the same Creed and Bible Q. 61. Is it not a reproaching of Christianity to tell the World that after 1691 Years it is not yet fully known what it is but we must have new Councils to tell it us and to make it up Q. 62. Did Councils only receive the old Apostles Creed when they made so many new ones or added so many Articles Q. 63. Was the Primitive Church of the same Species with the present Romish and Imposing Church when he was then a Christian who profest belief of the Creed as the Christian Symbol and to desire according to the Lord's Prayer and Practise according to Christ's Commands And now so many other things are made necessary hereto Q. 64. Do not those men deal falsely who subscribe the 39 Articles of the sufficiency of the Scripture as to all things necessary to Salvation and yet say that it 's necessary to Salvation to obey the Bishop of the place in all unsinful things and consequently to Believe them all to be unsinful Q. 65. Is it by the Divine Authority of a Council or Mundane College of Prelates that we know which are the true Writings of Ignatius Irenaeus Clemens R. Alex. Tertullian Cyprian Hierom Augustin c Or do their Critical Writers send us to the College or Council to know If not why may not the Canon of Scripture be known yea much better by meer Historical Tradition and inherent Evidence Q. 66. Is it not by History and not Church Power that we know what Popes have been at Rome what Councils have been called and what they decreed And may not the same way secure us of the Matter of Fact about the Scripture Q. 67. Hath any Council or College yet Decreed which are the true and current Copies of the Original of the Scripture and which of the various Lections are true If they had agreed but of the vulgar Latin would Sixtus 5th and Clemens 8th have Published Editions so vastly different If they never did it yet when will they do it Q. 68. Did ever Council or College determine which is the truest Translation Q. 69. Did ever Council or College give the Church a Commentary on the Bible Q. 70. Did they ever write a Decision of the multitudes of Controversies about the meaning of several Texts and the multitudes of Doctrines which are yet controverted among Papists themselves and all the World Q. 71. Is it a Satisfaction or a gross Cheat to tell us of a necessary Church Power to Expound Scripture and Judge of Controversies who yet will not do it but leave all unexpounded and undecided Q. 72. Was Gregory Nazianzen a Fool that spake so much of the hurt that Councils do and resolved never to go to more Q. 73. Can I know that Pope or Council have Authority given them by Christ before I believe that Christ is Christ and had Authority himself Q. 74. Can I know that Christ's Promise to Pope Council or Prelate is true before I know that the Promise of Justification Adoption and Salvation are true that is Before I am a Christian Q. 75. Can I believe the Promise of Pardon and Salvation or the Promise made to General Councils or Prelates without knowing the meaning of those Promises And can I believe the Churches Power from God without believing the Promise of it And if I can understand all these Promises without a Council why may I not understand more And how then do I receive all Scripture from a Council Q. 76. Do those that Preach to convert Infidels in Congo China Japan Mexico among Turks c. Preach first the Authority of General Councils or a Mundane College as the Primum credendum upon whose credit Christianity is to be received Hath this been the way to Convert the World Q. 77. If Paul curse an Angel from Heaven if he bring another Gospel and Paul charge Timothy to see that men Preach no other or new Doctrine must there be Councils or a College to make either a new Gospel or a new Doctrine or Universal Law Q. 78. If men were saved without believing the Canons and Decrees of Councils before they were made even by simple Christianity is it not necessary Mercy to let men be so saved still Q. 79. If it be not a new Gospel but mutable Accidents which the Church Laws do determine of what need there an Universal Power or Soveraignty or an Universal Law
Apostolick power which was to teach whatever Christ commanded them He is with them to the end of the World 1. In blessing the Word delivered and recorded by them 2. In blessing those that teach it But not those that add to it the supplement of their own Universal Laws And which is the Church that in all Ages thâ—se thousand years have had this power Three parts of the Christian World say It is not the Roman The Roman Church say It is not the Greeks Both say It is not they in Abassiâ— Egypt Mesopotamia Armenia Georgia c. The Protestants confess it is not they And is obedience to an unknowable Power necessary to Concord and Salvation (a) Paul saith I was not sent to Baptize but to Preach the Gospel of Christ Mat. 28. And Paul to Timothy tell us of other parts as Essential They can include or exclude none but those that include and exclude themselves which shall be effectual whatever the Priest say or do He is but a Minister Invester and Declarer of it (b) Then a Moscovian Priest may serve or such as Optandus Bishop of Geneva was illiterate and one may be taken from any Shop or Cart that understands the Dealings of the World But how much more requireth Paul to Timothy and Chrysostom c. 2. And yet I and all of my Degree yea all the Ministers or the Reformed Churches that disown his Leviathan are uncapable of Ministry or Christian Communion by our ignorance 3. But is the Nature of the Covenant-Benefits Duties c. so easily known as he talks And yet must we Perish for not knowing them (c) Note here that tho' his Priesthood have the Power of saving or damning Men yet he confesseth the very office in Specie is not of God's making For if it be not stated in Scripture it is not in the meer Law of Nature And our Church-Changers are no Prophets And if God made not the office then the arrogated Power is not his Gift (d) Note that he speaketh of God's Church in the singular Number and not of national Churches which are many (e) He hath constituted a Species of visible Governors over the several Parts but no one Personal or Collective over the whole (f) Is it no Obedience unless it be absolute Is none due to God above Man Must not his Law be undorstood * Or Papal say others * And the Papal * Representing his Person is a high word But he never enabled them to change his Laws or Church-Offices but only as Servants to deliver that same Power by way of Investiture which he had instituted and described in his Law and was in their Commission As the Londoners may not change the Lord Mayor's Office but put him in that which the Charter maketh (a) Yes If the Bishops had been Makers of the Office and Donors with absolute Power and not only Servants entrusted to deliver their Masters Gifts and Offices * I am wholly of your Mind specially as to the Pope and his Bishops But I 'll judge of their Power by the Will of God * The Church is the Bishops and Council the Pope being President * That is in Scripture times Dr. Hammond confesseth the same And yet we are all no Ministers and have no Sacraments nor right to Salvation if we have not uninterrupted successive Episcopal Ordination from those times * What an happy advantage hath the Pope that can get forty Italians together at Trent seven years before he can send to and they come from Mexico Abassia Armenia and all the World There is an Art in all things and men live by their wits †Sir God will not learn of you But God hath made no such Government at all Monarchy or Aristocracy * A General Council meeting without the Call of the Pope their Established Governour are Rebels * 1. Hath the King no power but as a Representative If yea why not others 2. Who made Pope or Prelates the Representatives of those that never consented to them * Now we know what Councils have Authority Only those appointed by the President * The Mass Book * The Mass Book