of Rome about a Primacy of order but about a Supremacy of Power I shall declare my sense in four conclusions First that St. Peter had a fixed Chair at Antioch and after that at Rome is a truth which no man who giveth any credit to the ancient Fathers and councils and Historiographers of the Church can either deny or well doubt of Secondly that St. Peter had a Primacy of order among the Apostles is the unanimous voice of the primitive Church not to be contradicted by me which the Church of England and those old Episcopal Divines whom he pretendeth to honour so much did never oppose The learned Bishop of Winchester acknowledgeth as much not only in his own name but in the name of the Church and King of England both King and Church knowing it and approving it Resp. ad Apol. Bellar. cap. 1. Neither is it questioned among us whether St. Peter had a Primacy but what that Primacy was and and whether it were such an one as the Pope doth now challenge to himself and you challenge to the Pope But the King doth not deny Peter to have been the prime and Prince of the Apostles He who should trouble himself and others to oppugn such a received innocent truth seemeth to me to have more leisure than judgement But on the other side it is as undoubtedly true and confessed by the prime Romanists themselves that St. Peter had no supremacy or superiority of power and single Jurisdiction over any other Apostle To this purpose I have laid down these four grounds in my Book of Schisme Garded pag. 27. First that each Apostle had the same power by virtue of Christs Commission Secondly that St. Peter never exercised a single Jurisdiction over the rest of the Apostles Thirdly that St. Peter had not his Commission granted to him and his Successours as any ordinary Pastor and the rest of the Apostles as Delegates for term of life Fourthly that during the History of the Acts of the Apostles the Soveraignty of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction rested not in any single Apostle but in the Apostolical Colledge Hitherto there is no cause of controversie between him and me or between any persons of judgement and ingenuity My third assertion is that some Fathers and Schoolmen who were no sworn vassals to the Roman Bishop do affirm that this Primacy of order is fixed to the Chair of St. Peter and his Successours for ever As for instance Gerson for a Schoolman that learned Chancellour of Paris who sided with the council against the Pope and left his enmity to the innovations of the Court of Rome as an hereditary legacy to the School of Sorbone Auferibilis non est usque ad consummationem saeculi vicarius sponsus Ecclesiae The vicarial Spouse of the Church this was the language of that Age whereby he meaneth not the person of any particular Pope but the Office of the Papacy ought not to be taken away untill the end of the World And among the Fathers I instance in St. Cyprian whose publick opposition to Pope Stephen is well known who seemeth not to dissent from it In his Epistle to Antonianus he calls the See of Rome the place and Chair of Peter Ep. 52. And in his 55. Epistle to Cornelius They dare sail and carry Letters from Schismatical and profane persons to the Chair of Peter and the principal Church from whence Sacerdotal unity did spring And in his De unitate Ecclesiae Although he give equal power to all his Apostles after his Resurrection c. Yet to manifest an unity he eonstituted one Chair and by his own authority disposed the original of that unity beginning from one And a little after The Primacy is given to Peter to demonstrate one Church of Christ and one Chair Every one is free for me to take what exceptions he pleaseth to the various lections of any of these places or to interpret the words as he pleaseth Always there seemeth to be enough to me in St. Cyprian to declare his own mind without taking any advantage from any suppositious passages Whether it be a truth or an error it concerneth not me I am sure it is none of mine error if it be one who neither maintain nor grant such a Primacy of order to be due to the Chair of St. Peter and his Successours by the institution of Christ. But only dispute upon suppositions that although there were such a beginning of unity which Calvin and Beza require in all Societies by the Law of Nature And although the Bishop of Rome had such a Primacy of order either by divine right or humane right yet it would not prejudice us nor advantage them at all Neither in truth is it worth contending about or to be ballanced with the peace of the Church and of the Christian World They who undervalue the Fathers may stile their sayings untruths when they please I have weighed my grounds over seriously to stumble at a Straw My fourth and last conclusion is that supposing still but not granting that any such Primacy of order or beginning of unity about which we have no Controversie was due to the Chair of St. Peter by divine right or much rather by humane right yet this supposed Chair of St. Peter is not fixed to Rome As for divine right we have the plain consession of Bellarmine it is not to be sound either in Scripture or Tradition that the Apostolick See is so fixed to Rome that it cannot be removed Bell. de Rom. Pont. l. 4. c. 4. And for humane right there needeth no proof For whatsoever is constituted by humane right may be repealed by humane right This is my constant way everywhere I do altogether deny a supremacy of Power and Jurisdiction over us in the exteriour Court which only is in controversie between us and the Pope And whatsoever Jurisdiction he hath elsewhere I regulate by the Canons of the Fathers I suppose a Primacy of order but grant it not farther than it hath been granted by the Canons of the Catholick Church And as it was acquired by humane right so it may be taken away by humane right To confound a Primacy of order with a Supremacy of Power divine right with humane right a legislative Power with an executive Power is proper to blunderers So in his two first Exceptions I suffer two palpable injuries In the first Exception he chargeth me upon suspicion directly contrary to my assertion In the second Exception he confoundeth a Primacy and a Supremacy order and power and maketh me to fix that to the See of Rome which I maintain to be unfixed His third Exception is this That the Pope should hold to himself and his Church his last 400. years determinations and so continue as the Bishop here concludes to be no Apostolical Orthodox Catholick Church nor to have true Faith is an unlikely thing to stand with the unity and concord which he mentioneth We shall cement but sorrily with such a
saith doth not weigh one grain in the Scale of Reason Our Case-Divinity will hardly excuse this from downright Calumny But that is their only weapon and their only strength and Skill hath ever laid in idle and malitious suggestions CHAP. IV. This Plot weakly Fathered upon Episcopal Divines I Mused some while why he should rather father his imaginary design of reducing the Pope into England upon Episcopal Divines than upon any other Divines For in the first place this is certain that both Presbyterian Divines and Independent Divines and Millenary Divines and Anabaptistical Divines and each sort of their Divines if any of them may be allowed that Title have all of them and every one of them contributed more to the reducing of the Pope into England than Episcopal Divines ever did or were likely ever to do Men do naturally preferr Antiquity in Religion before Novelty Order and Uniformity before Confusion Comeliness and Decencie before sordid Uncleanliness Reverence and Devotion before Prophaneness and over-much Sawciness and familiarity with God Christian Charity before Unchristian Censures Constancy before Fickleness and frequent Changes they love Monuments of Piety and delight not in seeing them defaced and demolished they are for Memorials of ancient Truth for an outward splendor of Religion for helps of Mortification for adjuments of Devotion all which our late Innovators have quite taken away Nature it self doth teach us that God is to be adored with our Bodies as well as with our Spirits What comfort can men have to go to the Church where they shall scarcely see one act of corporeal devotion done to God in their whole lifes These are the true Reasons why the Roman Emissaries do gain ground daily upon them why so many apostate from them If the Pope have a fairer game in England he is beholden to them for it not to the Magistrates Sword much less to Episcopal Divines Some may perhaps urge that this advantage is accidental to Episcopal Divines therefore I propose a second consideration That Episcopal Divines cannot be the Popes Stalking Horses nor promoters of the Papacy without deserting their principles about Episcopacy Episcopal rights and Papal claims are inconsistent This appeared evidently in the Council of Trent in the debating of that great Controversie about Episcopal Right whether it be divine or humane Thus much the Spanish Polonian and Hungarian Divines saw well enough And consulting seriously about the Reformation of the Church they could find no better ground to build so noble a Fabrick upon than the Divine Right of Bishops as the Archbishop of Granato well observed Hist. Conc. Trid. l. 7. p. 588. Father Lainer the General of the Jesuits saw this well enough and concluded that it is a meer contradiction to say the Pope is head of the Church and the Government Monarchical and then say that there is a power or jurisdiction in the Church not derived from him but received from others that is from Christ. Hist. Conc. Trid. ibid. The Popes Legats themselves found this out at last when it was almost too late l. 7. p. 609. Octob. 19. When the question was set on foot in the beginning the Legats thought that the aim was only to make great the Authority of Bishops and to give them more reputation But before the second Congregation was ended they perceived very late by the voices given and reasons used of what importance and consequence it was For it did imply that the Keys were not given to St. Peter only that the Council was above the Pope and the Bishop equal to him who had nothing left but a preheminence above others c. the dignity of Cardinals was quite taken away and the Papal Court reduced to nothing But before the Papalins discovered this the Party bent for a serious Reformation was grown numerous and potent in the Council The Divine Right of Bishops was inserted into the Anathematisms Fifty nine of the prime Fathers voted for it besides all those whom either an Epidemical or a Politick Catarrh deteined at home notwithstanding all the disswasions and perswasions threatnings and promises and other Artifices used by the Papalins whereof the chiefest and that which saved the Court of Rome from utter ruine at that time was to represent to the Italian Bishops whose number was double to all the rest of the Christian World in that Council a very unequal composition how much they were concerned in the preservation of the Papacy as being the only honour which the Italian Nation had above all other Nations This I urge to shew that Episcopal Divines cannot be Papalins without betraying their own Principles The very name of Episcopal Divines renders this dedesign less probable Thirdly In stiling them Episcopal Divines he doth tacitely accuse himself to be an Anti-Episcopal or at least no Episcopal Divine What odious consequences do flow from thence and how contrary it is to the title of Catholick which he gives himself in the Frontispiece of this Treatise I had much rather he should observe himself than I collect Catholick and Anti-Episcopal are contradictory terms From Christs time till this day there was never any one Catholick in the Eastern Southern or Northern Churches who professed himself to be Anti-Episcopal but only such as were cast out for Hereticks or Schismaticks The same I say of the Western Church for the first 1500. years Let him shew me but one formed Church without a Bishop or the name of one Lay Presbyter in all that time who exercised or challenged Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or the power of the Keys in the Church before Calvins return to Geneva in the year 1538. after he had subscribed the Augustine Confession and Apology for Bishops and I will give him leave to be as Anti-Episcopal as he will I will shew him the proper and particular names of Apostles Evangelists Bishops Presbyters Deacons in Scriptures in Councils in Fathers in Histories if he cannot name one particular Lay-Elder it is because there never was any such thing in rerum natura for 1500 years after Christ. I will add one thing more for the honour of Episcopal Government that all the first Reformers did approve it and desired it if they could have had it Second Reformations are commonly like Metal upon Metal which is false Heraldry After the Waldenses the first Reformers were the Bohemian Brethren and both these were careful to retain Episcopacy Take their own Testimony in the Preface of their Book called Ratio Disciplinae Ordinisque Ecclesiastici in unitate fratrum Bohemorum lately translated out of Bohemian into Latine and published by themselves And whereas the said Waldenses did affirm that they had lawful Bishops and a lawful uninterrupted succession from the Apostles unto this day they created three of our Ministers Bishops solemnly and conferred upon them power to Ordain Ministers From that time this Order is continued in all their Churches until this day The next Reformers were the Lutherans These retained Bishops name and thing
Powers Is not this like to prove a fair accommodation wherein the first Article must be to renounce the light of natural reason and the experience of so many ages since Christs time and the prudential Constitutions of all our primitive Guides These are such terms of peace as can please no body but Sequestrators and such as live like Moths in other mens garments Neither would his pretented Divine terms be more favourable to innovations than humane terms but only that this way affordeth wranglers a longer time to prevaricate before Controversies can be maturely determined If ever there were an Universal reconciliation of all Christians the first act which they ought to do after their Union is to cast out all such pernicious principles as this form among them before they thrust out all reason and humane right out of the World His second rule is the terms of peace must be things necessary not unnecessary We are beholden to King Iames not to him for this prudent direction But by setting it down so imperfectly he makes it his own There are two sorts of necessary things Something 's are absolutely necessary to the being of the Church Some other things are respectively necessary to the well-being of the Church The terms of peace ought to extend to both these to the former ever more to the later as far as it may be Or yet more distinctly Some things are necessary necessitate medii as necessary means of salvation without which no Church can consist Concerning these there is little or no need of reconciliation where there is no difference Secondly Some other things are necessary necessitate precepti as commanded by God or by the Church of God Both these are necessary in their several degrees and both of them ought to be taken in consideration in a reconciliation but especially the former yet not excluding the later Every thing ought to be loosed by the same Authority by which it was bound Thirdly There are other things which though they be neither necessary means of salvation nor necessarily Commanded by God or man yet they are necessary by a necessity of convenience out of pious and prudential considerations Huic hîc nunc to this or that Church at this or that time in this or that place The greatest consideration that ought to be had of these things is to leave every Church free to determine their own necessities or conveniences yet with a regard to unity and uniformity His Third rule is the terms of peace must be ancient according to the primitive simplicity and neither new nor yet too numerous curious or abstruse His first rule doth virtually comprehend both his later rules and renders them superfluous For if nothing be admitted into the terms of peace but Divine truths they can neither be unnecessary nor new nor too numerous curious or abstruse And this way of his rightly expressed and understood is the same in effect with my way which he pretendeth to impugn He admitteth no truths but Divine and excludeth all humane rights which is more than he ought to do I distinguish divine right from humane right and give unto the Law of God both written and unwritten and to the Laws of the Church and to the Laws of Caesar their respective dues He admitteth none but necessary truths I admit no truths in point of Faith but these which the blessed Apostles judged to be necessary and comprehended in the Creed I reject all new coined Articles of saith all usurpations in point of Discipline all innorations in point of worship He proposeth for a Pattern of union the simplicity of the ancient and primitive Church So do I before the faith was adulterated by the addition of new Articles or the Discipline translated into a new Monarchical way or the publick worship of God was corrupted by the injunction of sinful or supernumerary rites I wish he had expressed himself more clearly what he means by the primitive simplicity I hope it is not his intention that either the house of God or the publick service of God should be fordid and contemptible He cannot be ignorant that so far as the persent condition of times and places and Persons and affairs will bear it there ought to be some porportion between that great God whom we serve and that service which we perform unto him God was acceptably served by the Primitive Christians both in their Cells Vaults homely Oratories in times of persecution and likewise in stately and magnificent Temples and Cathedrals when God had given peace and plenty to his Church Wisdom is justified of her Children Yet even in those times of persecutions a man would wonder at that external splendour wherewith those devouter souls served God where they had means and opportunity Neither do I perfectly understand what his aim is where he would not have the terms of peace to be curious or abstruse I conjecture it reflecteth upon the School-men And if his meaning only be that he would not have our Catechisms or accommodations to be pestered and perplexed with the obscure terms and endless disputations of the Schools I do readily assent But if he think that in the work of reconciliation there is no need of a Scholastick Plain to take away the crabbed knots and to smooth the present Controversies of the Christian World I must dissent from him We find by daily experience that the greatest differences and such as made the most Noise and the deepest breach in the Christian World being rightly and Scholastically stated do both become easy and intelligible and now appear to have been meer mistakes one of another And when many other questions are rightly handled after the same manner I presume they will find the like end When I was a young Student in Theology Doctor Ward declared his mind to me to this purpose that it was impossible that the present Controversies of the Church should be rightly determined or reconciled without a deep insight into the Doctrine of the Primitive Fathers and a competent skill in School Theology The former affordeth us a right pattern and the second smootheth it over and plaineth away the knots Though he himself do deal only in Generals yet he telleth us that Mr. Chillingworth hath already particularly told the World a way of unity It is well if he have but if it prove as general as his own way it will not conduce much to the Peace of Christendom What hath Mr. Chillingworth told us or where hath he told it Had it not been worthy of his labour to have repeated the words or cited the place What a deal of vanity is it to write whole Treatises in confutation of others to no purpose and when he comes to the main business or to the only necessary and satisfactory point to be mute It is long since I read over Mr. Chillingworth but I remember no such particular reconciliatory way told by him to all the World but only some general intimations or
only terms of peace and concord let us see what exceptions Mr. Baxter is able to bring against them CHAP. VI. Mr. Baxters exceptions answered HE saith he cannot consent that these which I grant should be made the terms of union pag. 25. What then Suppose I did name improper terms of pacification not only in Mr. Baxters judgement which I ought not altogether to depend upon but in very deed Is there no remedy but I must needs be the Popes Stalking Horse presently and have a design to reconcile England to him This is over severe My design is rather to reconcile the Pope and his party to the Church of England than the Church of England to the Pope He may make use of my way if it like him Much good may it do him If not he ought to thank me for my good will and propose a better expedient himself if he can But I must tell him before hand that if it be a general one like those which he hath hitherto proposed it will signify nothing Observe Reader how he is every way mistaken I make demands and he calls them grants or concessions I propose some terms as preparatory to a treaty and he calls them terms of peace He saith he cannot consent to these terms and yet he hath consented to them already that if they would reform what the Bishop requires them to reform it will undoubtely make way for nearer concord To make them adaequate terms or conclusive Articles of Peace was never any part of my meaning All the exceptions which he bringeth against my way are taken out of my answer to Monsieur Militier I have seen some silly exceptions against it from a Jesuit and have answered them but he is the first Protestant that I have met with who doth disapprove it If the efficacy or influence of it upon him be different from what it is upon others I cannot help it Books have their success according to the prejudice or qualifications of their Readers On this side the seas it hath been more happy to confirm many to convert some and particularly the Transcriber of the Copy which was brought to the Press who was then one of their Proselytes to irritate no Man but the common Adversaries who vented their splene against it weekly in their Pulpits as thinking that the easiest way of confutation Thus one sucks honey and another poison out of the same flower He pretendeth that the old Episcopal Divines are of his partie some of them have approved it and thanked me for it If they be not of his party I hope he will not suspect them at Geneva as Factors for Popery They have allowed it and translated it into French and Printed it without any fear of introducing Popery into their City by it God forbid that we should esteem the practice of the Primitive times to be Popish They who admit that for a conclusion need not wonder if the more rational persons turn Apostates But it has ever been the trade of this proud and envious race of men to fasten an hated name upon every thing they understand not And it is to be feared this great Divine may in time write a Book to prove Greek the Language of the Beast and he may as reasonably do it as charge me with Popery only because I pretend to more knowledge in Antiquity than he knows himself to be guilty of His first particular Exception is this If when he excludeth Universality of Iurisdiction by Christs institution he intend to grant them which yet I know not an Universality of Iurisdiction by humane institution as agreement then it would be but to set up an humane Popery instead of a pretended Divine But this I charge not on him as his judgement though some will think it intimated p. 25. If he do not charge it on me then why doth he publish his own or other mens thoughts in Print to my disadvantage I know not how to acquit the Printing of groundless jealousies and suspicions of innocent Persons from downright calumny Especially suspicions of such things which the Persons suspected had publickly disclaimed in Print long before any such suspicion was broached These are my very words in my replication to the Bishop of Chalcedon p. 249. It were a hard condition to put me to prove against my conscience that the Universal Regency of the Pope is of humane right who do absolutely deny both his Divine right and humane right And in my Schisme garded p. 15 I have made it evident that the Popes Authority which he did sometime exercise in England before the Reformation when they permitted him and which he would have exercised always de futuro if he could have had his own will was a meer usurpation and innovation If I deny both the Popes divine right and humane right to Soveraign Jurisdiction and regulate his powers by the Canons of the Church If I make the Papacy a meer usurpation and innovation he hath no need to fear my setting up of an humane Popery But I have just cause to require reparation of him So his first exception is a false groundless suspicion But doth he make no difference indeed between a Divine Papacy and an Humane Papacy So it seemeth by his words If the Pope do hold a Soveraign power in the Church by divine institution then whatsoever he doth though he draw millions of Souls to Hell after him yet it is not in the power of a general council to call him to an account or to depose him or to reform him But if his right be only humane all this may justly be done and hath been done If he have a Soveraignty by divine right he may give his non obstantes to the Canons of the Fathers at his pleasure then all power in the Church is derived from him But if he hold the Papacy not from Heaven but from men then other Bishops do not derive their power from him singlely but he from them jointly then he is stinted and limitted by their Canons and cannot dispense with them further than the Church is pleased to confer a dispensative power upon him within the bounds of his own Patriarchate Against divine right there is no prescription but against humane right men may lawfully challenge their ancient liberties and immunities by prescription A Papacy by divine right is unchangeable but a Papacy by humane right is alterable both for person and place and power So an humane Papacy if it grow burthensom is remediable But a pretended divine Papacy when and where and whilst it is acknowledged is irremediable So much a pretended divine Papacy is worse than an humane His second exception follows But that St. Peter hath a certain fixed Chair to which a primacy of order is annexed and an headship of unity is not a truth and therefore not a principle necessary to heal the Church Whether it be a truth or no is not much material We have no Controversie with the Church