though derived to us from the Church of Rome appears sufficiently by Bucer Peter Martyr and other Protestants being here in England and assisting our Bishops in the work of Reformation also by the Letters of the chief and best Learned in those Churches Calvin Zanchy c. to our Bishops and to others concerning them whose Testimonies collected by the Bishop of Durham were published in these Times and opposed to our Covenanters and all other Sectaries that attempted the extirpation of Episcopacy as Antichristian 7. As for the sayings which Champny gives us out of Luther Calvin Mornaeus to whom he adds Fulk and Whitaker rejecting and condemning the Romish Ordinations as Antichristian corrupt and unlawful he might remember that elsewhere he tels us of their pleading by them their alledging that Luther Bucer Oecolampad c. were ordained in the Church of Rome c. 4. and 9. and he could not but know that Fulk and Whitaker allowed of Bishops here and were ordained by them But hence he concludes them all to be taken in a contrary tale and put to a miserable shift For ask them saith he Whence came ye who sent you they will tell us they came from the same stock and originall as the Pastors of the Catholic Roman Church did for their first Doctors Luther Bucer Zuinglius were by them ordained Priests ask them again how can they account that to be a lawfull calling which is derived from the Ministers of Antichrist they will not stick to defy those Orders and Ordinations and presently flie to an extraordinary vocation So he c. 9. p. 323. 324. And yet this seeming contradiction is very reconcilable For when they reject the Ordinations received from Romish Bishops as corrupt and Antichristian they do it not simply as if they were Null or none at all but in regard of the additionall abuses especially that great and sacrilegious depravation of giving such a sacrificing power and placing the Priestly function chiefly in it Therefore so far as the Romish Ordinations pretend to give that power with other superadded abuses they are justly condemned and rejected but in as much as they retain withall the words of the Evangelicall commisson Receive the holy Ghost whose sins ye remit c which give the power of the Ministery of reconciliation in the dispensing of the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel they are valid and good and not to be reiterated where they are given 8. By this power of Order received in the Roman Church Luther Zuinglius Oecolamp and others had lawfull calling to preach the Word yea to preach against the very Errors of that Church which considering the condition of that Church and the Errors of it they might do and for any thing I know they did lawfully without transgressing the bounds and limits of submission due to a Church which I endevoured to fix at the beginning of this Treatise 9. Plea of â—extraordinary Vocation Now what is spoken by some of extraordinary Vocation as that implyes a renouncing of Orders received from Rome must not be taken as the generall plea or judgment of those Churches for we heard them pleading Orders received in the Roman Church and Luther wrote very well as Champny cites him chap. 8. against Munster and others that pretended to extraordinary Vocation bidding them prove it by Signs and Miracles Again that extraordinary calling which some in the Reformed Churches have alleged sounds not any new office they pretend to be call'd to but that of Pastors and Teachers and according to the end it was instituted for nor other way of comming to that office but by external vocation from men but it implies some difference from or failing in the ordinary and usual way of ordaining to that office viz. by Bishops for which they plead their case and concernment was extraordinary which rests upon them to demonstrate 10. Hitherto of their judgment in the point from whence we infer that the present Reformed Churches if they follow the judgment of the first Reformers and of the most sober and learned men that have been in them since must allow of our plea of Ordinations by Bishops and those derived from the Church of Rome and Champny must acknowledg an agreement so far between us Now for their Practise not conformable to that Judgment as we cannot approve of it so are we ready to excuse their failing so far as the necessity they plead will bear leaving it to the Romanists desperatly to cut off Nations and People from the Church for failings and wants in such things as do not immediatly touch the very life and being of a Church or of the Members of it 11. Two things in the constitution and continuance of the Church To this purpose there are two things considerable in the constitution and continuance of the Church both necessary though not equally 1. The Doctrine of Faith and Life the due profession of which makes a man a Member of the Visible Catholic Church and the true belief and practise of which makes him a lively Member of the true Symbolical Catholic Church that which we believe in the Creed that which is the true mystical body of Christ 2. The order of Ministery and Government in the Church for bringing of Men to that due profession of Doctrine and so on to be true lively Members of the body of Christ and for holding them in the Unity of faith To this end Pastors and Teachers in whom that Ministery and Government rests are given by our Saviour Eph. 4.11 12 13. 12. Concerning these two things are clear First that although Apostles Prophets Evangelists there mentioned and taken in a stricter sense were only then given and for those Times yet Pastors and Teachers were given to continue to the worlds end The purpose for which he gave them expressed Eph. 4.1 doth imply so much and so doth his Commission given to them As my Father sent me so I send you S. Jo. 20. by vertue whereof they were to send others and so doth his promise given them imply as much I am with you to the end of the world S. Math. 28. Secondly That this giving or sending of Pastors was to be continued by such as our Saviour appointed and his Apostles after him I send you saith he and accordingly they committed this power of sending or ordaining Pastors unto the hands of special men such as Timothy Titus Sylvanus Sosthenes Clemens Epaphroditus c. Whom we find either written to by the Apostle or joyned with him in the inscription of his Epistles to the Churches or honourably mentiond for special labour and care in the affairs of the Church whom Antiquity also witnesseth to have been chief Pastors or Bishops in governing the Churches planted by the Apostles Such also and no other could be the Angels of the Asian Churches written to by S. John or by our Saviour rather 12. The concernment and necessity of 〈◊〉 But as it is clear that the having
Subjection and from all manner of Obedience So the Sentence ran and the Romish Priests began to stickle work busily thereupon then was it high time for the Queen State to look to themselves and therefore An. 13. made it Treason to disperse such Bulls and to reconcile or be reconciled upon them 6. Reconciling to the Bishop of Rome But we must note here 1. This reconciling there forbidden was not practised upon the power of their Priestly function but upon the Autority and by vertue of such Bulls which is plain by the words of the Statute If any person shall by colour of such Bull or Instrument or Autority take upon him to absolve or reconcile any person c. and therefore they are called Bulls of absolution and reconciliation in that Statute 2. This reconciling or absolving was so far from the ministry of reconciliation which we acknowledg to pertein to the Prieftly function by our Saviours institution that the very intent and purpose of it was formally Treason which also is plain by the same Statute in these words The effect whereof viz. of those Bulls and Instruments from Rome hath been and is to absolve and reconcile all those that wil be content to forsake their due Obedience to our Sovereign Lady the Queen and to yeild and subject themselves to the usurped Autority of the Bishop of Rome Is this Evangelical or Priestly reconciliation of Penitents to God Had the Apostles preached such Gospel or practised such Reconciliation admitting none into the Christian Church but such as would be willing to forsake their Obedience to their Heathen Princes unless they also would embrace the Christian Religion had they not deserved to be forbidden entrance into their Kingdoms or to be cast out of them The Romish Priests then are justly ejected punished whose absolving of Penitents from sin is proved a pretence of absolving Subjects from their due obedience whose reconciling men to God or his Church a cloak for their Reconciling to a forrein jurisdiction of Papal usurped Autority and what that brings after it who knows not If we go on in our story we shall see what were the Consequents of it Seditions stirring up the People which S. Paul was most careful to clear himself and the Gospel of Act. 24.12 and throughout his Epistles thence Insurrections Rebellions and because these suceeded not secret attempts upon the life of the Prince by Pystoes Poysonings and what not Therefore came out after ten years more the Statute which Champny cites out of An. 23. Eliz. This in the preamble thus reflects upon the former Statute An. 12. Whereas sithence the Statute made in the 13. year of the Queen divers evil affected persons have practised by other means then by Bulls or Instruments Written or Printed to withdraw her Majesties Subjects from their Natural Obedience to obey the said usurped Autority of Rome For Reformation whereof be it enacted That all persons who shall pretend to have power or by any means shall put in practice though by pretence of Priestly function to absolve perswade or withdraw any of her Majesties Subjects from their Natural Obedience or shall to that intent that 's noted stil in the drift of Romish practises and the ground of the Laws provision against them withdraw them from the Religion established to the Romish Religion 7. The frequent seditious practises of Romish Priests The Law looks at the consequents of reconciliation to the Pope or Romish Church for they that made it were not ignorant of the consectary Doctrines to it and by experience found what had been the practises following upon them and therefore in justice and prudence were bound to prevent them Now if this seem to entrench upon their Religion or expose it to Infamy let them discard such Doctrines for the credit of it if upon their Priestly Function which indeed hath the Ministry of Reconciliation annexed to it let them blame themselves who have abused that Evangelical power to cloak and advance such hellish attempts If to the disparagement of privat Confession thanks to them that have abused it to the searching out fit instruments for treasonable designs by seeing into the thoughts and inclinations of persons confessed 8. Some secular Priests were so ingenuous as to confess and complain of the Seditious practises which those of the Society advanced and acknowledge the just provocation which the State had against Romish Priests in their book set out in the latter end of the Queens Reign thus pag. 10. Amongst many things that give her Majesty and the State very just cause to think more hardly of us all this is one that the pretended Brethren of that Society Jesuites and such as follow their steps do calumniate the Actions of the State c. and afterward entring upon the story of Father Parsons his Seditious practises which he together with the rest of his society set on foot they thus write pag. 56. He inveighs bitterly in a seditious book set out by him against the cruelty of her Highness Lawes which we wish had been more mild but he never mentions that he and his fellows have been the occasion of them by their traiterous courses against her Crown and Life Againe pag. 57. If these things viz. their endeavours to advance the Infanta's Title to this Crown should come to the knowledg of the State who will blame the same if such Priests as come either from Spain or Rome be not wel entertained here Thus they truly and ingenuously of the practises of Romish Emissaries and of the justness of the Laws against them 9. I wil not say nor do I think that all their Priests which suffer here were Politicians or acquainted with all the devices of their Superiors I believe the forementioned Seculars were not such and do suppose there are some who in the simplicity of their hearts and out of meer Conscience of Religion do labour the propagation of it whilst others more directly are guilty of Seditious and Treasonable Practises It is my wish there could be a distinction made between the one and the other that the punishment which the Law adjudges all Priests to that are found within the Land might only fall upon them who are indeed guilty of such practises which being so frequently found in their predecessors and the State being not able to distinguish between them who are all Missionaries of Rome caused those Lawes to be made for the security of Prince and State And if they that come into the Land without any treasonable intent do suffer for it they must thank their Fellows as the above mentioned Seculars do the Jesuits whose restless attempts forced the State to forbid them all entrance into the Land under pain of Treason Doctor Champny one would think should not be a stranger in France by the wisdome of which State the whole Order of the Jesuites was upon this score banished 1594. as Corrupters of Youth troublers of the public quiet and
convocated managing the business and concluding what was to be done in it and the soveraign Prince with Parliament confirming and giving public establishment to that which was so concluded and agreed upon by them Seeing also Champny doth largely insist upon this point of the Supremacy in his 15 16. Cha. upon occasion of deprivation of Popish Bishops for refusing the Oath of Supremacy under Q. Elizabeth we will defer farther prosecution of this point til we meet with him below CAP. III. Of the lawful calling of our English Protestant Bishops against Doctor Champny a Sorbonist and of the first prejudice from other Reformed Churches that have not Bishops 1. THis Writer having spent 8. Chap. of his book against the Vocation of Ministers in the Reformed Churches which want Bishops advanceth in the 9. against our English Protestant Bishops and labours what he can more indeed then all his fellows beside to make their Vocation or Ordination unlawful To that end Defects in Ordination how arising he layes this as the ground-work on which his whole discourse must proceed That Ordination which gives lawful calling to the Pastors of the Church must be valid and right in respect of the Ordainer of the Ordained and of the Ordination it self or Form of it and that a defect in any of these renders the Ordination and so the calling of the Party Ordained unlawful cap. 9. pag. 308. We admit the consideration of those three respects as proper and pertinent to the business in hand and do grant that there may be such a defect in any of them as wil render the ordination either Unlawful for the use or plainly Void or Nul for the substance of it 2. Our English Bishops receiving Ordination from the Romish He begins to examine the calling and ordination of our Bishops and Priests according to the first respect of their Ordainers viz. those of the Church of Rome For from thence the English Church received her Bishops and Pastors together with the Christian Faith in the time of Gregory the first this we acknowledge of the English though the Brittains had the Christian faith and their Bishops before and hath continued that ordination and calling of Bishops with uninterrupted succession down from those first Christian Bishops to Cranmer and our first reformed Bishops The Romish Ordainers he as he must needs allows of and approves the Orders given by them as good and lawful but would make our plea from thence void by our own judgment and according to the Protestant doctrine concerning them and the Orders received from them The summ of his Reasonings is briefly this 1. From the judgment and practice of other Reformed Churches which renounce Ordination by Bishops especially from Rome pleading their vocation upon other grounds and therefore either they or we can have no lawful Pastors no Church 2. From the judgment and doctrine generally of all English Protestants by whom the Pope is held to be Antichrist or Antichristian therefore we must acknowledg we received our Ordination and calling if from Rome from the Ministers of Antichrist by whom also they of the Church of Rome are accounted Heretikes therefore we can have no lawful calling from such by whom also the Orders there given are accounted Antichristian abominable Sacrilegious and therefore cannot be lawfully received by us Lastly by whom the Sacramental Character is exploded and therefore no power of Order can be received by us All this he wil have follow upon Protestant doctrine to defeat us of our plea from Romish Ordainers This is the summ of his Reasonings in the 9. and 10. Chapt. We shall examine them in order as briefly as we can 3. The seeming prejudice from other Reformed Churches First for the judgment and practice of other Reformed Churches He urges That they renounce our plea of having Ordination by Bishops and of receiving any orders from the Church of Rome esteeming them Antichristian and pleading extraordinary Vocation from whence he concludes against them that they have no lawful Pastors therefore no Church and consequently against us that we are bound by our plea of Ordinations by Bishops and those derived from Rome to renounce the fellowship of those Churches which hitherto we accounted of as Sisters and to stand alone divided from all other Churches as we are from the Roman and to hold the Church of England the only true Church thereby confining the Catholic Church within the bounds of that Kingdom which considering the Number of Puritans Brownists Anabaptists all which defie these Ordinations and that plea wil be too too narrow To this purpose he cap. 9. pag. 315 316. c. 4. Now although the different condition of some Reformed Churches doth not immediatly concern us who have retained the regular way of Ordination by Bishops yet because the Romanists make it a matter of reproach to us and some in these Times who covenanted the extirpation of Episcopal Government sought a defence in it for such Schismatical attempts we wil answer to the former charge and try what may be duly concluded upon the judgment and practice of other Reformed Churches First therefore we may say in general However it stands with the Reformed Churches which want Ordination by Bishops and whatever be concluded on them by Champny and others as to the point of having lawful Pastors or being Churches yet his last inference of our restraining the Catholic Church within such narrow compass as this Kingdom is altogether inconsequent for we do not exclude the Roman Church out of the bounds of the Catholic Church neither doth it follow upon our division or want of externall Communion between us that either it or we should be wholly severed from the Catholic Much less do we exclude the Greek and Eastern Churches who have their Ordination and Succession of Pastors from the Apostles as well as the Romish Church Yea and we may add here We cannot exclude those Reformed which want the regular way of Ordination from belonging to the Catholic Church 5. All Reformed Churches not without Ordination by Bishops But 2. All Reformed Churches i.e. such as have purged themselves of Romish Error and Superstition besides the English are not without Government and Ordination by Bishops Those Churches which are the Remains of the ancient reformed Bohemians and are now in and about Poland or those parts do stil retain Bishops as appears by their Book set out 1626. containing the substance of their Doctrine the manner of their Government Synods c. Neither are Denmark and Sweden without their Bishops and therefore Champny's other inference That in this plea of Ordination by Bishops and that derived from the Romish Church we of England stand alone is also false 6. Now 3. The judgment of other Reformed Churches of our Bishops As for reformed Churches in a stricter sense such as those of France Geneva Germany which Champny names c. 9. what their judgment was of our Bishops and Ordination by them
of Pastors duly sent and lawfully ordained doth highly concern the Church so is it most clear that the first concernment of the Doctrine of faith and life is the chief and simply necessary to all the Members of the Church and that the latter Order of Ministry and Government by Pastors and Teachers is to serve unto it The Apostle shews us this by two similitudes he uses to set out the Constitution of the Church One Eph. 4. of a Body fitly joyned together c. That which joyns the body of the Church to Christ the head and knits one joynt or part to another is Faith mentioned ver 13. and Love or charity ver 16. and He gave Apostles Pastors Teachers for the perfecting and edifying of this body ver 12 13. and that not carried away with every wind of doctrine ver 14. The other similitude is of a Building 1. Cor. 3. The Foundation is Christ that which joyns us to it is Faith and knits us as stones to one another is Charity the builders are Pastors and Teachers who lay us upon the Foundation by bringing us to the Faith Ministers by whom ye believed ver 9. So then Faith and Charity joyn men formally intrinsecally to Christ the Head and Foundation Pastors and Teachers serve to that end and do that work ministerially and extrinsecally The first is the chief and the doctrine that contains it necessarily concerns all the Members of that body in particular as to their being such concerns them I say simply and indispensably as to the holding of the the Foundation or Doctrines immediatly fundamental and also necessarily as to the consectary doctrines according to the revelation or means they have of knowing them but the latter viz. the having of Pastors so sent and ordained serves unto the former yet so as the Order left and established in the Church for the perfecting of it is strictly to be observed where it can possibly be had and kept for wilful omission or rejection of it is not only a great sin and Sacrilege committed against the commandement and appointment of Christ and his Apostles but also such a breach of charity in them who are guilty of it that it renders them Schismatical and so far disjoyned from the body of Christ which is his Church as they stand guilty of it 14. Of Churches without due Ordination of Pastors by Bishops And now to come to some issue by application to the Churches in question I. Where the first viz. the doctrine of faith and life is truly and sufficiently professed and held we cannot think that a bare Want there or unavoidable defect and irregularity in the second viz. the Order of sending or Ordaining Pastors doth exclude such professed Christians from belonging to the Church Which unavoidable and necessary defect may arise either because they cannot have Ordination from Bishops abroad or because the soveraign Power being adverse will not suffer them either to have Bishops among them or to receive ordinations from forrein Bishops that would give them II. We must look at those who are in such a condition without Pastors regularly ordained as at Churches defective and not compleatly framed but in a capacity or expectation of receiving their completion when that necessity which enforces the defect is removed and so continuing as wel as they may rather then to give up that Truth and purity of Christian Doctrine they have attained to 15. VVhether of choice or of necessity Let me here add what Doctor Moulin Son of Peter Moulin saith in behalf of the French Churches and I add it chiefly for their sakes that gave him the occasion they were the Soottish and English Presbyterians who at the beginning of these Troubles rejected Bishops and Ordination by them and sought to justifie themselves by the example of the French Churches He therefore shews them in his book then set out what judgment and desire the best in those Churches have expressed concerning Bishops and that their not having them was not of choice but necessity which he endeavours to demonstrat by several reasons drawn from the consideration of that Kingdome and of their condition under the Soveraign Power there And to shew if they might have their choice they would willingly have Bishops he tells us that the Bishop of Troyes having abjured Popery began to preach the pure Word of God and sent for the Elders of the Reformed Church to know whether they would confirm and acknowledg him for their Bishop which they all with one consent did submitting themselves to his obedience And then adds There is none I dare say of all the Churches of France but would do as much in the like case None but would obey Bishops if Bishops would reform and obey God Till God extend so much mercy upon that Kingdome the poor Churches will stay for the leisure of the Bishops viz. which now possess the Sees and are not Reformed keeping themselves in an estate fit for Obedience Or as he had said before The Church of France being under the Cross and without Bishops is a body prepared for Obedience whensoever the Popish Bishops shall reform in the 25. and 26. pag. of his book But for those that reject Bishops when they may have them he shews how they fall under the severe censures of Zanchy and Calvin Testor me coram Deo saith Zanchy I protest before God and in my Conscience that I hold them no better then Schismaticks that account or make it a part of Reformation of the Church to have no Bishops c. Yea they are worthy saith Calvin of any execration that will not submit themselves unto that Hierarchy that submitteth it self unto the Lord These censures he cites in his 13. pag. out of their Tracts De Reform Eccles for both wrote of that Argument 16. Now to Champny's Argument A true Church is not without true Pastors for as Cyprian saith Ecclesia est populus Pastori conjunctus and again Ecclesia est in Episcopo Episcopus in Ecclesia But those Reformed Churches have not true Pastors lawfully called but only pretended Elders which are made by those that have no power to ordain or send others therefore they are no Churches Moulin would answer and first grant with Calvin That the World may be as wel without the Sun as the Church without true Pastors l. 4. Inst c. 3. And farther take the word True Pastors that there be no ambiguity in it for such as are called lawfully after the originall and ordinary way of the Church viz. for Bishops and those that are ordained by Bishops He wil grant the proposition true of the whole Church which is never without such and also true of particular Churches completed perfected and regularly formed Such Churches he acknowledgeth the French are not but in a state imperfect yet capable of a regular completion and as it were expecting of it And therefore wil deny that they are concluded by the former argument to be
a power wholly superadded or as the restraint of a power diffused it is clear that the exercise of that power the performance of Ordination was setled upon certain and speciall persons who were properly Bishops and Chief Pastors by Apostolical appointment and practice Of which there are so clear footsteps in Scripture suchapparent Monuments and Records in Antiquity that it is no less then a wonder any Learned Judicious Man should think it could be otherwise or conceive as the Presbyterians generally that this Order was afterwards set in the Church as an humane though prudent invention to avoid Schism and preserve Unity and not withall conceive it reasonable to think the Apostles did foresee that Reason and provide against it when as we hear Saint Paul complaining of it 1 Cor. 1. and Saint Hierom refers that Order of setting Bishops over Presbyters to that very cause pointing out that very time when some said I am of Paul I of Cephas 22. If therefor Doctor Field when he answered that Ordinations without Bishops were void according to the rigor of the ancient Canons did mean that such Ordinations offended only against Ecclesiastical Constitutions we grant that Champny duly proves it otherwise and do acknowledg them transgressions not only of Ecclesiastical but Apostolical Constitution and Practice but we are not therefore bound to yeild an utter nullity of them in all cases ex naturâ rei as he contends unless he can clearly demonstrat this faculty or office of ordaining to stand in a distinct power wholly superadded and not in the extension of the Priestly Order or limiting of the exercise of that power conceiv'd to be radically diffus'd with it Thus indeed Doctor Field as I said seems to conceive it and thereupon to deny such Ordination to be Null in themselves ex naturâ rei yet withal to hold as may be gathered out of his 5. book cap. 27. that this Order or limiting of the Power in the exercise of it to certain special persons was by Apostolical appointment 23. And no question the antient Church had respect to that Apostolical constitution when she pronounced such Ordinations without Bishops to be void and Null as repugnant to that constitution not defining whether they were void ex naturâ rei but declaring she had good cause to account them void and not to admit any to officiate that did so wilfully transgress against Apostolical order and practice and could have there being Bishops then at hand in every Nation where Christian Faith was professed no pretence of necessity or of loosing the band by which the Apostles had restrained the exercise of that power to certain persons thereunto consecrated And if any Presbyter should have heretofore presumed to ordain within the Church of England their Ordinations had deserved to be accounted of no otherwise then as void And so within every Church completed and regularly formed according to Apostolical Order ought they to be accounted 24. Now that I may draw to a Conclusion and freely speak what I think of the two forementioned wayes of conceiving the Ordaining power to be estated by the Apostles upon special and select men properly called Bishops or chief Pastors I suppose the first way which conceives it superadded as a distinct power to their Priestly function to be the clearer for securing the Episcopal function and distinguishing it from the other but the second way which conceives that power radically diffused and communicated in the very order of the Priestly function and restrained to such select persons in the exercise of it the faculty or immediate power whereof they received by consecration I suppose to be more easie and expedient for a peaceable accord of the difference in hand and yet safe enough for Episcopal Ordination 25. The first way conceives the Apostles who had the whole power given them by Christ both the extraordinary Apostolical power and that which was ordinary and to continue in the Church did communicate this power severally That which belonged to the office of Deacons to persons chosen for that purpose That which belonged to the Ministery of reconciliation to all Pastors or Presbyters So likewise That power of sending and ordaining others to these Offices was communicated entirely unto special persons appointed and consecrated to that work This as I said is more clear in the distinguishing of the several Functions of holy Order But the second way which estates the power or faculty of Ordaining upon special persons by restraining the exercise of it to them seems as above said to be more fair and easie for the making up this business of the Reformed Churches which have Ordination without Bishops and yet to afford safety enough to Episcopal function and Ordination For it first supposes that to be established and secured by Apostolical Order which none can transgress wilfully without Sacrilege and consequently it acknowledges such Ordinations without Bishops to be irregular and deficient in regard of Apostolical order and constitution and that they ought to receive a supply completion and confirmation by the imposing of Bishops hands before the persons so Ordained can be admitted to officiat in a Church completed and regularly formed Lastly by this way whatsoever is spoken by S. Hierom in appearance favourable to the Presbyterian pretence may be cleared and reconciled to Truth and by it may be answered also whatever is brought by Champny or others to prove such Ordinations utterly or ex naturâ rei null and void in all cases 26. I will not trouble the Reader to hear any long Scholastick contest with Champny in the business only I shal shew by one instance how well he hath acquitted himself in the defense of his assertion against the former argument of a Bishop ordained per saltum and therefore not having power to ordain others or consecrate the Sacrament because he wants the Priestly Order That which he replies to it returns more forcibly upon himself A Bishop per saltum cannot ordain and why Sicut ex eo c. Even as saith he because the Priestly function is exercised both about the Mystical body of Christ in absolving and binding and also about the Natural body of Christ in consecrating of it it doth not therefore follow there is a diverse Order but a diverse power of the same Order So the power of Ordaining though it make not a distinct Order from that of the Priestly Function yet is it a distinct power of Order To this purpose he cap. 7. pag. 183 184. But this comes not home to Ordination per saltum where it is supposed that the power of Ordaining is not given at all because the Priestly Order is wanting This also returns more forcibly upon him by applying it thus according to his reasoning Even as the Powers of absolving and consecrating are distinct yet both conteined within one Order of the Priestly function so may the power of Ordaining though distinct from the other be formally and immediately conteined
by our Saviour and his Apostles must affirm that going out from the Communion of a Church determined to such a place or succession is not always a going out of the Church for that Church may happily usurp a Jurisdiction and require an unlawful subjection and pervert the Doctrine of Faith and that a Church continuing the same for place and succession may yet go out from it self i. e. from what it was anciently by taking to it self a new unwarrantable power of Jurisdiction and forsaking the Doctrine it anciently professed 12. For a Church to go out of it self and return to it self needs not seem any strange thing or phrase it is what we see in every Penitent Sinner and read of that unthrifty Son S. Luk. 15.17 that he came to himself he was gone out of himself before But to clear it in regard of the Church by instances When the Arrians possessed all the Bishops Sees and ruled the whole Church as to the more Visible state of it the true Catholicks driven into corners and so few or so little seen that the Emperour Constantius thought he had cause to say the whole Christian World was against Athanasius What could be judged of Heresie Schism then according to this Argument without taking in the Doctrine of Faith For first Champny will not say that they which were Baptised in the Communion of the Arrian Church were bound to continue in it nor will he judg them Hereticks or Schismaticks for going out of it If he say they could shew the Arrian Church gone out of a more Antient it is very true but they could not shew this by local succession but by forsaking of antient Doctrine For the same Bishops for the most part which before was Catholic did with their flocks turn Arrian and so the place and persons were the same only the Doctrine or Faith was changed by reason of which they might truly be said to go out of the more Antient Church not by change of place and persons in regard of which the face and visible Communion of the Arrian Churches was stil the same but of Christian Faith and Doctrine It was elegantly said of Nazianzen Orat. 21. in the case of Athanasius that he was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 agreeing both in Seat and Doctrine with the Catholic Bishops that went before him but not so with the Arrian Bishops who though no intruders as those that of Catholicks turn'd Arrian held the same Seats with those that sat before them but not the same Doctrine 13. Of our going out of the Church of Rome This premised it is easie to answer I. That although we received Baptism and Christianity at first from the Church of Rome in the time of Gregory the Great which we thankfully acknowledg yet are we not therefore bound to receive or continue in the accrewing errors of that Church and although Cranmer and those of his time were Baptized in the Communion of that Church yet not bound therefore to continue in it as neither were they whom the Arrians Eutychians or Monothelites converted and Baptized bound to continue in those prevailing Heresies when once brought to a knowledg of them II. That our going out from the Church of Rome was a going out in regard of the Papal Jurisdiction from under a yoke and Tyranny which that Church had usurped over this Nation greater and heavier then any of the former Hereticks laid upon Christian people over whom they prevailed in regard of the Doctrine it was a going out of that Church no otherwise then we went out of our selves i.e. out of our errors in which we were before a going out of that Church so far as it had gone out from it self what antiently it was by Errors and Superstition in the Belief and Worship which it required of all within her Communion 14. And thus Cranmer shewed that the Church of Rome was so gone out when for three dayes together he boldly and learnedly argued before the whole Parliament against the six Articles to the admiration but grief of his Adversaries shewing plainly how the Church of Rome in the Doctrine of Transubstantiation Half Communion Priests Marriage Image-Worship was departed or gone out of it self Which also as to the main point of Papal Jurisdiction or Supremacie Gardiner Tunstal Stokesly and the most learned of that party did demonstrate by Scripture Fathers Councels Reasons Here is all the difference that when the Arrian or Eutychian Heresie prevailed it was more clear and notorious because it was a change of Doctrine by one singular Heresie whereas the Romish change of Doctrine was not by one or so immediat to the foundation or at once comming in but by many errors creeping in successively and by degrees also the continuance of the other Heresies in their prevailing condition was not so long but Men could remember it had been otherwise whereas the Errors of the Church of Rome have had the happiness or unluckiness rather in these Western parts to continue longer and to be upheld and propagated with more Policy and force though complained of and professed against more or less in all Ages since they became Notorious But this continuance of Time is only the Pharisees Dictum Antiquis it was said by them of old S. Mat. 25. No prescription against Truth that was before the Error or against our Saviours caution Non sic ab initio it was not so from the beginning 15. He adds a fourth Argument He that joyns himself to that Society which cannot shew it self Christian but by the Tradition and Succession of that Church which he hath forsaken and Opposed is an Heretick But Cranmer joyned himself to that Society or Congregation which cannot shew it self to be Christian but by c. Answer How we may prove our Christianity by the Romish Church how not For a Man or Nation to prove their Christianity by another Church for example the Roman may be taken in several respects either because such a Man or Nation were converted to the Christian faith or received Baptism or Ordination in and by that Church In all these respects we grant the Assumption that Cranmer the first Reformed English could not prove they received the Christian Faith or Baptism or Ordination in any other Church then the Roman but we say the Proposition is false and doth not make them Hereticks in forsaking a Church wherein they have received these or joyning themselves to those that have had them from thence also For instance If of two Gottish Nations which the Arrians by their Bishop Vlfilas and others converted from Heathenisme to Christianity and Baptized them and ordained them Pastors but infected with their Heresie one of them renouncing the Heresie and forsaking the Communion of them that they were made Christians by the other Nation also should see and forsake the Error and joyn with the former were then the Argument good against this latter Nation to prove
or killing of Christ For as this is plainly impertinent to Lombards resolution of the question so is it to that which Bellarmine and all of them do and must grant that in a real Sacrifice there must be a real destruction or consumption of the thing Sacrificed and they are as hard put to it to shew this destruction or consumption of the Body and Blood of Christ as to shew his Occision for at last it comes to this with them that the Species of Bread and Wine under which they will have his body and bloud to be are destroyed and not his body indeed A fair reckoning This place of Lambard was cited by Mason and Champny perceiving as it seems the weakness of Bellarmines answer doth wisely take no notice of it altogether omitting to speak any thing to it But to my apprehension it is very considerable 1. Because it was the purpose and work of the Master of the Sentences to gather a body of Theologie or Resolutions to all Theological Doubts out of the Sentences of the Fathers and to this Quare of a Real Sacrifice he could draw out of them no other resolution then what we have heard 2. Because it is a clear evidence how this present Doctrine of the Church of Rome touching a real Sacrifice was not formed or believed so long after the age of those Fathers they so much boast of The summ of all is this The Fathers usually expressed the Celebration or work of the Eucharist by the Words of Sacrifice or offering up the Body of Christ for themselves and others because there was a Representing of the real Sacrifice of the Cross and a Presenting as we may say of it again to God for the impetration or obtaining of the benefits thereof for themselves and for all those they remembred in the Celebration of the Eucharist 9. Fourthly Of prayer and Offering for the Dead It is true that the Ancient Fathers speak of offering this Sacrifice for the dead but far from the Popish sense according to which Romish Priests in their Ordination are said to receive Power to offer Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead For that offering for the Dead which the Ancients speak of in the Celebration of the Eucharist had the same extent purpose and meaning that their prayers there for the dead had and these anciently were made for those whom they judged to be in bliss Apostles Martyrs Confessors Holy Bishops c. and the purposes of the Church in remembring those in her publick prayers were many as we find in the Ancient Writers especially Epiphanius Haer. 75. I may reduce them to these heads First They were Acknowledgments of the honor and preheminence of Christ above all men that all they stood in need of mercy and that he only was not to be prayed for but to be prayed to note all Invocation of Saints stood excluded then by these prayers for the Dead of the happy estate of those they prayed for that they lived with God Of their own hope that they trusted to attain to the same state of bliss Secondly they were Thanksgivings for their sleeping in the Lord. Thirdly Petitions for that which was yet behind for their consummation that which Saint Paul calls the Redemption of the body Rom. 8.23 the Crown of Righteousness to be given in the last day 2 Tim. 4.8 the Mercy which he prayes Onesiphorus may finde in that day 2. Tim. 1.18 The Arcient Prayer which is yet reteined in the Canon of the Mass sounds to this purpose Remember O Lord the Soules of thy Servants which rest in the sleep of Peace This prayer indeed seems to be framed with respect to that opinion which anciently was very common in the Church that the Souls of just men were not admitted into the sight and presence of God till the Resurrection but kept in Receptacles of Rest Peace and Light of blessed comfort and refreshment yet it tells us that which they prayed for them was in regard of all the mercy and glory that was behind And it is plain by the Writers of those times that this remembring of the Dead thus in the Celebration of the Eucharist which was the representation of Christs Sacrifice was that which the Ancients cald Offering for them or as in Saint Augustines time Offering the Sacrifice of the Altar or the Sacrifice of our Saviour for them i.e. an acknowledging of and thanksgiving for their sleeping pro dormitione as Saint Cypr. and others in the Lord and their saving by the merits of his death and an Impetration by his Sacrifice then represented of all that mercy redemption and glory which was yet behind Thus Saint Augustine in his Confessions speaks of Offering for his Mother Monica whom he doubted not to be in bliss i. e. remembring her upon the like respects The Romanists have applyed all prayers and Offering for the Dead to the Souls in Purgatory Romish misapplication of all to the Souls in Purgatory Bellarmine tells us the Mass may be said in honour of Saints and with invocation of them lib. 2. de Mis cap. 8. so contrary doth the Church of Rome now run to Antiquity which offered for and prayed for the Saints and both in the honor of Christ and his Sacrifice Now the Offering of their Mass and the prayers for the dead are made for the souls in purgatory and in regard of them only it is that the Romish Priests receive power to offer Sacrifice for the Dead And accordingly they are bound to apply the aforementioned prayer Remember O Lord c. to the Souls in Purgatory but so untowardly that Bellarmine answering for the Canon of the Mass could not with all his wit come off any better then thus They rest saith he from the works of sin though not from Torment So then to lie in Torment is to rest in the sleep of peace 10. Indeed in the fourth Century they began to inquire what benefit of the prayers and oblations of the Church might redound to them which were not in requie in rest and sleepe of peace but in aerumnâ in trouble and grief after this life The second Quaere ad Dulcitium is to that purpose where Saint Augustine saith that Paulinus had also consulted him about it Now to this Quaere they spoke their private opinions such as their compassion to the dead suggested Saint Augustine delivers his in that place ad Dulcitium in his Enchirid c. 109. and in his book de curâ pro Mortuis Which book was also occasioned by a like quaere put to him by Paulinus out of like curiosity Private conceits about a Purging fire Whether it was any help to the dead to have their bodies buried neer the Memories or Tombs of Martyrs Then also was enquiry made after some kinde of purging fire to help such as held the Foundation dying in the profession of Christian Faith but whose lives were not answerable as we may see by Saint Augustine Lib. de fide
determinatly in Councels Statutes and Laws in this clause relate to those of this Land those especially that concerned this business CHAP. I. Of submission of judgement and externall peaceable subjection due to the Church Nationall or Universall from the respective Members thereof WHat relation this point hath to the peace and unity of a Church in preserving it from Error and to the Reformation of a Church when Error hath prevailed upon it was insinuated in the Preface and in those respects there was occasion in the former Treatise Of the Division of English and Romish Churches upon the Reformation Sect. 9 10 13. to touch upon it 1. There Limits of submission fâ—om the Autority to which and matter in which however a possibility of just dissenting from the publick could not be denyed a due Submission with all peaceable external subjection was required and so it was a Limited not Absolute submission which we required the limits of it arising from the condition and concernment of the Autority to which and of the Matter in which this Submission is to be yeilded The Autority is publick and though not Infallible yet guiding others by an Infallible rule and most highly concerned to guide them accordingly as being answerable for their souls The condition of the Matter also was observed to be diverse according to the difference of Belief and Practice and in each kind to be of more or lesse concernment according to the Nature of the things propounded to us to be believed or practised by us The generall result was that we ought to yeild all the Submission of Judgment and peaceable subjection which such Autority may require and all that the condition of the matter will admit of Thus much was insinuated in the former book 2. Now to make a supply to that Difficulty in fixing those Limits which was briefly couched there and to discover more particularly the hounds and limits of this Submission which to fixe precisely is no easie matter For this Submission must be carryed even between God and Men such Men as God himself hath set over us in his Church and commanded us to hear and obey them Yet such as possibly may entrench upon his right in taking to themselves a dominion over our Faith and if we follow them in a blind obedience and resignation of judgment wholly we are sure to transgresse in giving to them what is due to God So also must this Submission be carryed even between Man and Man by declining the Romish excess of arrogating too much to the publick Autority and avoiding the other extreme of giving too much Liberty to Private Judgment into which Anabaptists and other Sectaries run and thereby make void the Autority and Office of the Pastors of the Church 3. Therefore that we may better discover the bounds of due Submission we must take aim as abovesaid from the consideration First Generall considerations of the Autority and the Matter of the Autority to which the submission is yeilded That we finde seated in the Church Nationall or Universall and justly requiring submission from the respective Members The Church we hear speaking her judgment by the Bishops and Pastors of it either in or out of Councel and whether it do speak either way secured from possibility of Error will be considerable in the yeelding of our Submission to it Secondly of the Matter or things in which this Submission is yeilded These we finde as was said to be of severall sorts Some are onely in Opinion or belief which being inward need not happily discover it self Some are in Practice as Worship Discipline Rites Ceremonies which being outward must needs appear Now in reference to both Autority and Matter we shall have occasion to consider the Extent of Submission from Judgment and belief which begin within to external compliance and conformity of Practise and accordingly in the Manner of performance this submission either stayes our judgment and belief within when it dissents or discovers it without but so as not to a disturbance of peace 4. Judgment and Reason is that Light which he that lighteth every one that comes into the World Joh. 1.9 puts into the minde of Man in order to his yeilding assent and belief to that which is propounded This light as it shines inwardly to the aforesaid purpose may not be put out by absolute submission or resignation of judgment to Man or any company of Men but as it is a light to shine outward for direction of others so it may be concealed For though a Man doth not acquiesce inwardly to that which is propounded yet may he be silent in some cases and forbear to publish his judgment to others These things being premised come we to some conclusions touching this submission 5. From the consideration of Autority to which submission is due we may say I. Pastors of the Church singly taken have a publik Authority Seeing the Church speaks her Judgment by the Pastors and teachers in it every such Pastor is a Publick Person and by his Office and Commission for teaching guiding ruling others hath in regard of all them Autority publick Judgment to which there is a submission due They sit in Moses chair and He that despiseth you despiseth me saith our Saviour Submit and obey saith S. Paul Heb. 13.17 All which is spoken of the Pastors and Teachers of the Church not as joyned in Councel but severally taken and so teaching what the Church has learnt of Christ and what it declares and commands agreeable to the voice of the great Pastor speaking in the Word This Conclusion is against Anabaptists and Sectaries that make void the Office and Authority of the Pastors of the Church and against all others that acknowledging the Office do too much weaken the Autority receiving what they teach and declare with little or no other respect then if the same were spoken to them by any other Men. They of the Romish Church as they are not behind hand in giving Autority to their Priests or Pastors so do they acknowledg it not secured from error and the submission due to it not to be absolute but limited We need not therefore quarrel with them here Al the business wil be to conclude upon that submission which is due to the Pastors of the Church joyned or met in Councel to give out the Judgment of the Church 6. II. Pastors or Bishops met in Councel Therefore we cannot but say If they that meet either in a Provincial or National much more in a General Councel be gathered together in the Name of Christ they have the promise of his presence among them which is by the assistance of his Spirit S. Mat. 18.20 This is the onely place as it seems to me which delivers a promise immediately appliable to Councels though not to them only other places so much beaten upon by the Romanists I am with you to the end S. Mat. 28. Tel the Church S. Mat.
18. The gates of Hel shall not prevail S. Mat. 16. The spirit of Truth shall guide you into all Truth S. Joh. 16. and the like cannot be drawn to concern Councels but by many consequences and not at all to concern them in such an Infallible guidance as the Romanists would have 7. The assistance promised to them that meet in Christs Name Now to know the Importance of this place the promise and condition must be considered The promise of Christs being in the midst of them is made as we see to two or three even to the meanest Ecclesiastical meeting or Synod and therefore cannot assure that infallible guidance which among the Romanists is applied only to General Councels or to the Pope with his Consistory What then It must needs imply such assistance as is needful and sufficient Such as we acknowledg there can be no danger for any in the Church in submitting to her Definitions when and where such assistance is given 8. But for that we must look to the Condition required to be gathered together in the name of Christ viz. With due Autority from him and with mindes answerable to the end and purpose of their meeting that is with mindes free from worldly intents and designs and from all factious engagements seeking unfeinedly the glory of God and the propagation of the true Catholick faith and therefore setting before them the only Infallible Rule of Faith and Truth Gods Word attending to it with due heed and submission and with prayer for that is express in the Text to ask for assistance To such so gathered in the name of Christ the promise wil be made good and the issue wil be a declaration of the Truth in all matters of Belief and Worship 9. Now for our Submission The submission answerable were it certain they so met together in Christs name as it is certain the promise wil be made good to them if so met together no more would remain for us to do but to submit to their Definitions without any fear of danger or farther inquiry whether they be answerable to that Infallible Rule But we must needs say III. It is not certain that they which meet in Councels are so gathered together Sometimes it is certain and notorious that they are not as in the second Councel of Ephesius a packed faction prevailed to the advancing of the Entychian Heresy and in the Romish Councels for these later Ages the Papall power and faction hath managed and over-ruled all so apparently in their glorious Councel of Trent that it was often and openly complained of while the Councel was sitting and the decrees of that Councel not received in France for about 40. years after it was concluded Can we say such Councels are gathered in the Name of Christ or that the promise can belong to such and the Infallible assistance of Gods Spirit which the Romanists pretend can be given to such a company of Men so gathered together so overswayed with factious interests or to a Pope be he what he wil be for person so he be Pope For such to say Visum est Spiritui sancto nobi It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us what wants it of blasphemous arrogancy and what wants it of Simon Magus his sin to think the Holy Ghost can be bought with Money or bound to a Pope that hath bought his Chair and enters Simoniacally or to a company of Men whose Votes in Councel are purchased with Gold or golden hopes of preferment as it fared with a great part of them that met at Trent being either Titulars Popes Pensioners or bound to him upon like worldly concernments 10. But at the best where there is not evident cause of exception yet can there not be certainty that they which meet in Councel are so gathered in the Name of Christ with such minds purposes and endeavours as above required Now the Issue of the promise depends upon performance of the Condition of which performance though we may have a great presumption in regard of their learning and judgment and their high concernment as being answerable for mens souls besides the care and respect that God hath towards his Church yet can we not have such a certainty as simply and absolutely to ground submission of judgment and belief upon it and therefore we receive their Definitions concerning Faith and Worship not finally or chiefly upon the presumption we have of their performance or conformity to the condition of the promise but upon the evidence of that conformity which their Definitions have to the Infallible Rule It was the care of S. Paul and of the true Apostles and so it should be of all the Pastors of the Church by the demonstration of the Truth to commend themselves to every Mans Conscience that they have not handled the word of God deceitfully 2 Cor. 4.2 Upon this evidence or demonstration of Truth the Four first general Councels have been so generally submitted to so readily received by all good Christians 11. Submission and belief Conditionall and praevious or absolute and Final But fourthly lest that which is said of the Evidence and demonstration of Truth from Gods Word in order to assent or Faith be mistaken to a slighting of publick Autority and submission due to it because it may be also said and truly that such evidence made out of Gods Word by any man whatsoever requires and obtains such Assent we must know there is an Assent and belief properly due to the proposals of the Church or Doctrine of the Pastors and Teachers in it and that by vertue of their Office and Commission which they have to teach and rule others and that under so great a concernment as the giving account for their souls Only this Assent or belief is not at first absolute but conditional not final but previous and preparatory and so remains in the learner as a preparation till that Evidence or Demonstration come and advance it into a Divine Assent and final resolution grounded upon the revelation of Gods Word Or else it is Cashired upon the like Evidence to the contrary for we ought to submit and obey them til upon such Evidence we can say It is more right to hearken unto God then unto them Act. 4. and good reason seeing our submission to them stands upon their Autority and Commission which they have to teach and guide us therefore we must have a greater Autority against them from Gods word and seeing our judgment is not to be compared with theirs whose profession is the study or interpretation of Gods Word and whose lips preserve knowledge therefore we must have such Evidence of that greater Authority on our side that is apparent to any that can use his reason before we deny our submission to them But some may say if we cannot yeild submission of judgment and belief yet ought we to submit so far as not to publish it not to oppose
Authority It is true submission as above was insinuated extends it self so far even to a suffering for our judgment and belief and such submission is due to the Pastors and Governors of the Church by vertue of their publick Autority but the consideration of submission in the several extent of it much depends upon the several condition of the Maiter in which we submit unto Autority of which presently here we are upon the submission of judgment due unto Autority as to the unward belief which submission we affirm to be not absolute but limited and may conclude it upon the Apostles warrant who in one place gives us the precept of it and the reason of it Obey Submit Why they have the rule over you that is their Commission and Autority for teaching and guiding you and they watch for your souls and must give account Heb. 13.17 there 's the high concernment But this Obedience and submission cannot be absolute unless they alone were concerned to give account for our souls if we must also then are we also concerned to watch over our own souls to see and judg what we do and therefore the Apostle as he tels us in this place they have the rule over us so in another place adds the limitation Not as having dominion over your faith 2 Cor. 1.24 and Not as Lords over Gods heritage saith S. Peter 1.5.3 how then as Ministers by whom ye believe 1 Cor. 3.9 as helpers of your joy 2 Cor. 1.24 Ministers Helpers Guides they are in the way of Salvation but as it is one thing for a Man to follow a Guide til he see apparent danger another thing to be led by him blindfold So is it one thing to follow our spiritual Guides with a conditional belief or reservation to Gods-Word yea and to follow them to a mistrust of our own judgment or knowledge we have of the way another thing to resign up judgment and belief to them and put out that light of reason which God hath put in us in order to our receiving direction for the way of Salvation The first we allow and require the other let the Church of Rome exact and gain where she can Thus far from the consideration of Autority to which Submission is due We may receive more particular directions for the extent and manner of performing this Submission if we now add the Consideration of the Matter or things in which Submission is yeilded 12. Several conditions of the matter in which The matters or things wherein the Church declares her judgment and requires Submission are of divers condition as was above insinuated some are matters of Opinion or belief only and these as they are of different condition from matters of Practise and outward exercise so are they to be distinguished one from the other in the Declarations of the Church for it is considerable in our yeilding of Submission to know what things are Credenda or matters of belief strictly taken for Catholick Faith such as the prime Articles Christ God and Man and the like or their immediat and apparent consequences Two wills in Christ Natures distinct and unconfounded and what things again are Credibilia Credible Truths or Matters of Opinion or belief largely taken Also it is considerable What the Church hath declared as Articles of Faith and what she hath shewed her judgement in as Credible Truths but not imposing them as Articles of Catholick Faith for in case she should mistake in these the danger in conforming our judgment to hers is the less as if a Church upon mistake should as many of the Ancients thought judg it Credible That the souls of just men are not admitted into the glorious presence of God til the Resurrection or that there may be some kind of purgatory after this life turning S. Augustines Non incredibile into a Credibile but not imposing it as an Article of Faith as the Church of Rome hath boldly done So likewise Matters of Practice are of divers forts and of greater or less concernment Some of Worship and Adoration some of Discipline Rites Cercmony Under matters of Discipline the observing of set Times for Fasting works and performances of publick Penance single life of Priests and the like are considerable in the Canons or Declarations of the Church concerning them In matters of Belief or Opinion our subjection to a publick judgment stands in a conformity of our judgment and belief to the publick and in the publishing or not publishing of our judgment In Matters of practice our Submission stands in the conformity of judgment if we judge of Worship and other matters determined as the Church judges or in the outward exercise if we do in these things as the Church does and practises 13. Having premised thus much Submission of Judgment answerable come we now to more particular directions for the extent or manner of performing Submission to the judgment of the Church when she hath declared it in Matters of Belief or Practise As for the Submission of Private judgment to the publick 1. To all the determinations of the Church we ow Submission by assent and belief conditional and preparatory at the least which being given with reservation for evidence out of Gods Word does both acknowledg the Autority of our Pastors and Teachers and withall reserve unto God his due 2. In matters of Faith and Religious Worship we cannot submit to any company of Men by resignation of our judgment and belief or standing bound to receive for Faith and Worship all that they shal define and impose for such for such resignation gives to Man what is due to God and stands excluded by the condition as above shewn of the Autority which is not Infallible and also by the condition of the Matter Faith and Worship of high concernment to our own Souls and to be accounted for by our selves who therefore stand bound to make present and diligent search for that evidence and demonstration from Gods Word upon which we may finally and securely stay our judgments and belief in such matters 3. In other Matters of Opinion and Credibility or of Discipline and Rites which the Church determins and proposes for such as there is more cause for ready conformity of judgment so is there more security or less danger in it for such Matters are either not determined by Scripture in particular or not determinable but by several consequences Only this conformity is yeilded stil with a reservation for any sufficient evidence or demonstration of Truth to the contrary else til that come our conformity remains secure for here 's the difference of conforming in the former points of Catholique faith or worship and these later of Opinion Discipline Rites that when the former are proposed to our belief and practice we rest not secure til we have demonstation or evidence that they are so but in the other we submit with security til we have evidence that they are not so as Autority
hath determined Indeed in matters of Discipline and Ceremony though in themselves of small concernment great opposition hath often been made to the judgment and determination of Autority of which I shal speak a litle below under the conformity of Practice in such matters and in the mean let us see what Cautions may be given in case of Privat Judgment justly dissenting from the Publike 14. Of concealing a dissent of Judgment in peaceable subjection If therfore it come to that as possibly it may yet for preserving of due submission take care 1. That our dissenting be not upon any comparing or equalling our privat judgment to the publique and autoritative judgment of the Church for this wil be absolutely against that conditional preparatory belief or assent with which we are to receive all her determinations but upon the evidence of a greater Autority on our side viz. the demonstration of Truth from Gods Word or primitive consent of the Catholique Church either of which is of more Autority then the present Governours of the Church 2. That the dissenting of privat judgment be only in order to a mans own believing and delivering of his own soul for which he is to give account not to any inconsiderate publishing of it to others for the light of Reason though it may not be put out yet may and often ought to be concealed and a mans privat judgment silenced in submission to the publique 3. If he publish or make known his dissenting it ought to be by modest proposal to his Superiours not by clamours against the Church to a disturbance of the peace of it much less by force or tumult as the manner of Sectaries hath usually been for if he cannot internally acquiesce in the judgment of the Church yet ought he to submit as far as possible externally and to suffer for it if need be 15. Whether in al Matters or Cases But here a question may be made about these matters in which we were said to have evidence of Scripture and Primitive consent if a Church should so far err as to judg contrary to these as for the error of Monothelites or Eutychians or for the worshiping of Images or any Creature with Religious worship must a man submit with silence in such a case I answer The Ministers of the Word being by that Church according to Gods Ordinance called to publish the Gospel and Counsels of God for salvation ought to propose their contrary judgment and belief to their Superiors so erring if they reform it is wel if not the other ought to declare these Counsels of God for in this case they have greater Autority as was said on their side and may say to the Governours of the Visible Church as the Apostles did to the great Councel Whether it be more right to hearken to you or to God c. Acts 4. And to this case I refer that other erroneous principle of belief the mother of Error and Apostacie that al the Members of the Church are bound to receive for Catholike Faith and Christian Worship all that the Church whereof they are Members proposes to them for such herein we had and all that are stil of the Roman Communion have cause to complain of that Church and to declare dissent of judgment from it which not only imposes Purgatory Transubstantiation and such novel errors for Articles of the Catholike faith and commands Image-worship as lawful and pleasing to God but also holds all the Members thereof bound to that former principle of mis-belief in a blind receiving all for faith and worship that shal be so proposed to them 16. The submiitting of Doctrine and Writings to the censure of the Church And this which hath been said will also speak the meaning of that submission which we profess to yeild when we usually say and not without cause We submit our Judgment Doctrine or Writings to the censure of the Church for 1. this is not a resignation of judgment in regard of believing but a submission in regard of the publishing it a putting it to the permission of the Church whether such Doctrine or Writings shall stand published or be silenced 2. And this not in all things simply for no Man can submit his Judgment and Doctrine to any Company of Men when he believeth and teacheth the prime Articles of Catholick Faith into which all Christians are baptized or the immediat consequences of them which are evident to all that can use Reason and Judgment or the express commands of God concerning Religious Worship but it is in things more questionable not plainly determined in Scripture and though deducible from some confessed Article or express Command yet by divers Consequences As in the first kind the Church hath power to silence and censure any that teach contrary to such Articles or Commandments but cannot forbid to teach them So in the second she hath power to silence any that teach contrary to her declared Judgment in them For it cannot be denyed that the Church hath power to over-rule and restrain the exercise of any mans Ministry in order to the common peace and safety she being answerable for others as wel as for him whom she restrains in publishing his private judgment or belief to others 17. Submission of Practise or Conformity in doing Thus much of Submission of Judgment in matters of Belief or Practice either in conforming to the Judgment and determination of the Church therein declared or in a fair and peaceable dissenting Now come we to Submission of Practice in a conformity of doing what the Church does and practises The Judgment we have of Matters either of belief or practice need not happily discover it self may for peace sake be silenced but in matters of practice determined by the Church and commanded to be done by us our conformity both in Judgment and Practice must needs then appear It was wel and peaceably said of Jo Frith a yong Man but Learned and Moderate in his Reply to Sir Thomas Moor concerning Transubstantiation Let it not saith he be Worshiped and think what you will for then is the Peril past Difference of judgment may be in a Church without disturbance In matter of worship but difference of practice because apparent endangers the peace of it And let me here add Notwithstanding the difference of judgment in the Protestant Churches de modo presentiae yet may they wel communicate together in the Sacrament because neither of them allow or practice that Adoration directed to the Sacramental Symbols which the Church of Rome practises and requires of all her Communicants or Spectators rather Now for Submission or Conformity in matters of practice we must remember such matters were of different sorts and concernments Worship Adoration Discipline Order Ceremony and then we have a double Caution 1. According to the indifferencie of the matter or the greater but evident concernment of it either to yeeld conformity for Peace sake
or forbear for Conscience sake 2. That such forbearance of any practice be an Act of simple and bare Omission without clamour and contempt of Autority without tumult or resistance with a readines to suffer rather then is there peaceable subjection when private judgment keeps within these bounds For such conscionable forbearance of many practices in the Church of Rome of high concernment and very evident they have good cause that are within her Communion Such practice is the exercise of Religious Worship many wayes applyed in that Church to the Creature such also are some superstitious Rites and Ceremonies having a kind of Sacramental vertue and real holiness affixed to them 18. In Matters of Ceremony or Discipline But as for Rites and Ceremonies in themselves indifferent and by the Church enjoyned only with respect to Order and Discipline there is no cause of inconformity or forbearance yet in these hath there been great opposition from privat Judgments that could not keep within their bounds and those places of Rom. 14. He that doubteth is damned if he eat and what is not of Faith is sin have been abused to maintain a dissenting from the Judgment of the Church and a forbearance of the Practice We say therefore those places are misapplyed to matters determined by publick Autority against which it is not doubting or want of Faith i.e. perswasion of the Lawfulness or indifferency of the thing so determined that can take place or bear out disobedience but evident demonstration of the thing out of Gods Word to the contrary and the Reason is plain the command of Gods Word for Obedience and Submission to them that are over us is evident and therefore against them we must have evidence from Gods Word to shew they are mistaken in their Judgment or determination of that particular Now when a Church professes the thing determined by her to be indifferent in it self or of a middle Nature neither commanded by God nor forbidden and that she neither affixes any Sacramental or Spiritual vertue or hollness to it nor enjoyns it as Worship but only out of respect to Order and Discipline no man can have any evident demonstration but only a doubting or mixt perswasion of the unlawfulness of such a thing and although a Man of doubting of a thing in it self indifferent but not determined or enjoyned by Authority may by reason of his doubting have cause to forbeare it yet not in this case of the supposed determination and injunction of Autority for he that will then urge He that doubteth is damned must remember that he that disobeyeth is damned too that former place of doubting having many exceptions of which this predetermination of Autority is one but this disobeying of Autority hath only one viz. when there is sufficient evidence of L. vine Autority against the thing determined by humane and so it becomes an Obeying of God rather then Man 19. Of Priests Celebacie enjoyned by the Church and how But it may be expected because I referred the injunction of Priests single life to matter of Discipline that I should speak particularly to the conformity of Judgment and Practice to it I referr'd it to Discipline because antiently enjoyned not in a disparagement to Marriage which the Apostle concludes Honourable in all men but in Order to their better discharge of their Duty and Priestlie or Ministerial function and I do not now dispute the difference of that antient injunction from the now Roman exaction of single life nor question with what fulness of Autority it was enjoyned or how far or how long binding which I shall have more fit occasion to touch a little Num. 25.26 below and more largly against Champny in the sixth Chapter but only speak to the point of Submission and conformity to such judgment or determination of the Church supposing it fully concluded and binding Therefore I cannot but say while it was so binding every Clergy-man had cause to Judge the Governors of the Church saw reason to enjoyn it was bound to endeavour conformity in Practice i.e. to use such means by Temperance Fasting Prayer as conduce to preserve that continency of Single life but if after due use he found himself not answerable to that state but in the condition to which S. Paul prescribes the use of that remedy which God had ordained Marriage against Burning he was bound notwithstanding the Church-Ordinance to take to it and this as it hath direct Warrant from Gods Word so is it not a direct opposition to the Church Ordinance which was but conditional as in the prohibition of Marriage to Fellows of Colleges under the pain of loss of their Fellowships Only in this point of Priests Marriage the condition is of greater concernment the loss of Clergy or quitting the Ministerial function which if happened to him that hath dealt conscionably as above in the business the Church must answer for it 20. Thus have I endeavoured as neer as I can to discover and fixe the bounds of Submission of Privat Judgment and Practice according to the several condition of the matter wherein it is shewn and according to the divers extent and manner of performing or shewing it either to a direct conformity and compliance with the publick or if dissenting yet to a yeilding of all possible peaceable Subjection and that if need be to a suffering under Autority If Privat Judgment keep it self within the former bounds of Submission there can be no harm to the Church 21. I should now speak the respect Passages out of 8. Augustine touching Autority and Reason which every National or particular Church ought to bear to the Universal in this point of Submission but before we go farther it wil be worth our pains to take a short view of some passages of S. Aug. appliable to the business in hand concerning Autority and Reason I calld them Autority and Evidence or demonstration of Truth in his Books de verâ Relig. and de Vtil tate credend It is his purpose there to shew how Autority goes before Reason in our believing or receiving the Christian Faith which by the Romanists is sometimes misapplyed to the purpose of that Church requiring belief to rest upon her Autority We may therefore take notice that the writing of those books was occasioned by the Manichees who reproached the Catholiques for requiring belief of their Scholars or Auditors before they shewed them reason and boasted Se terribili Autoritate separatâ c. that laying aside all supercilious Autority they would by simple and plain reason bring Men to God cap. 1. de util cred Had this Romish Infallible Autority which exacts belief simply and finally been then pretended to in the Church they might well have call'd it terrible Autority and S. Augustine could not but have spoken to it Whereas it is his only work in both books to shew that Men are first moved by Autority to a belief of things before they see
power under which it was before and so it was with the Church of England Reforming And all this a National Church may so much the rather do when the Universal stands so divided and distracted as it hath for these latter Ages that a free General Councel cannot be expected as was insinuated Sect. 4. of the former book 2. But the Church Universal hath heretofore declared her Judgment in General Councels free and unquestionable doth not every National Church by name this of England ow submission of Judgment to them I answer as for matters of Faith and Worship there is no need that any National Church should dissent from any definition concerning that matter made or declared by any of the undoubted General Councels of the Church such as have not been justly excepted against and let any Romanist shew that the Church of England hath receded from the Judgment of such Councels either in matters of Faith or Worship 25. In Canons of Discipline Prudentiall Motives considerable As for Matters of Practice and Discipline under which I named Priests single life because they clamor against us as receding therein from the Catholick Church I may say generally of such points that the Church in them went upon prudential Motives and Reasons with respect to conveniences and inconveniences in those Times considerable and therefore we find it sometimes letting loose the Reins of Discipline sometimes drawing them streiter according to the Exigency of Times or condition of Persons As in those that enjoyn Priests single life Neither could they that made those Canons intend to bind the Church for ever which in after-Ages might have like cause upon experience of inconveniences to loosen that which they held stricter as we finde in the point of Penances and also in this very point of Single life if we look into the practise of it in several Ages and Countreys Nor was it necessary that this Remission or relaxation should alwayes expect the like Autority of Councels to decree it but it might be lawfully done by any National Church within it self upon long experience of the inconveniences and that especially when a free General Councel cannot be expected 26. As to this point of Priests single life I shall have occasion to speak more below against Champny cap. 6. here only I will hint these particulars I. It was conformable to the former Reason that Aeneas Sylvius afterwards Pope acknowledged often As at first they saw cause to forbid Priests Marriage so now there was greater cause to leave it free to them again Plat. in Pio. 2. II. The sixt General Councel in Trullo held in the seventh Century was the first General Councel that forbad Bishops to have or retein their Wives Can. 12. Where they excuse themselves for varying from the 5. Canon of the Apostles which forbad Bishops to put them away by a pretence conformable stil to the former reason viz. because stricter Discipline was fitter for their times then it was for the beginnings of Christianity III. That General Councel doth permit Priests and Deacons to keep their Wives decreeing those to be deposed that cause them to forsake their Wives after ordination Can. 13. where the Councel expresly by name sets a black note upon the Roman Church for doing so and Can. 55. censures that Church again for their custom of Fasting on Saturdayes For this cause some Romanists quarrel at and make exceptions against this Councel as not General or Lawful yet the more reasonable among them admit of it and so we leave them to answer for their dissenting from a General Councel upon a double score as appears by the 13. and 55. Canons 27 But what tell we them of answering it to any Councel VVhat submission the Church of Rome exacts that will have the whole Catholick Church bound to submit to the decrees of their Church Let us see then what Submission the Church of Rome requires of all within her Communion and indeed of all Christians under pain of Damnation We may deliver it in general thus In all that she defines she requires or exacts rather absolute Submission of belief and judgment but then we say she cannot make good the ground on which she requires it viz. Infallible guidance In other things not Defined she requires submission of silence which she imposes on both parties as the heat of the controversie between them seems to require And this Submission we acknowledg due to Autority in every Church not only to the Autority of the chief Pastors in that Church but also of the Supreme Civil power this imposing of silence being not a Definitive sentence for determination of Doctrine but a suspending sentence for ceasing of the debate and providing for publick peace 28. In all things defined What strict submission of belief the Church of Rome requires to all her Definitions we may see by the Oath set out by Pius 4. to be taken by every Bishop wherein after the recital of the whole Romish Faith as it is patched up with the Tridentine Articles follows that very clause which we find in the Athanasian Creed subjoyned to the Catholick Faith there expressed Haec est fides Catholica extra quam this is the Catholick Faith without which none can be saved So that they which joyn themselves to that Church stand bound to believe all which that Church at present doth or shall hereafter propose to be believed Let them place the judgment of that Church where they will in the Pope or Councel 29. And absolute Submission Card. Bel. who according to the Divinity professed at Rome and more generally obtaining in that Church reduces all to the judgment of the Pope is very strict in exacting this submission of belief In his fourth book de Pontif Rom. he disputes of the Popes Infallibility and there c. 3. and 5. We find Non esse subditorum de hac re dubitare sed simpliciter obâ—dirâ— It is not for Subjects or Inferiours to doubt of this matter viz. Whether the Pope can or doth erre but simply to obey And to shew the strength of this obligation the inconvenience that would fall upon the Church if the Pope be subject to erre in defining or commanding any thing to the Church he lets not to express it thus Si papa erraret praecipiendo c. If the Pope should erre in commanding Vice and forbidding Vertue the Church were bound to believe Vitia esse bona Virtutes malas nisi vellet contra conscientiam peccare that Vice was good Vertue evill unlesse it would sin against conscience To mollifie the harshnesse of this he inserts presently in rebus dubiis as if this Submission belonged only to his Commands and Definitions in doubtfull Matters which as it is not all they say so is it to little purpose for if he please to judg the most apparent thing to be doubtful as whether our Saviour appointed the Cup to be received by the people
within the Priestly function and this is more then is required more then is true but thus much at least he must by his own reasoning allow that it may be radically founded in that Order and for want of that foundation it may be that a Bishop ordained per saltum cannot ordain others 27. Again The reason saith he why a Bishop so ordained cannot Ordain or Consecrate is not quia Episcopatus non sit distincta potestas à sacerdotio sed quia essentialiter illud praesupponit ut potestas absolvendi necessariò praesupponit potestatem consecrandi not because Episcopacy is not a distinct power from the Priesthood but because that doth essentially pre-suppose this which is very neer to the founding of the power of Ordination in the Priestly Order even as the power of absolving doth necessarily praesuppose the power of consecrating So he ibid. pag. 184. Now albeit this latter assertion be false as being grounded upon their placing the whole perfection of the Priestly Order so Champny there in the Sacrificing of the Body of Christ when as the power of Absolving is as immediat to that Order or Function as the power of Consecrating can be yea the Ministery of reconciliation doth express the whole power of that function in Scripture 2 Cor. 5.18 to which this phansie of Romish Sacrificing is a stranger Albeit I say that instance speaks what is false yet stil it returns in the application more forcibly upon him if we reason thus As the power of Absolution necessarily supposes the power of consecrating which he laies down for a Truth and yet are conteined in the same Order of the Priestly Function so for any thing that he sayes may the power of Ordaining which necessarily essentially presupposes as he sayes the power of Consecrating be conteined also with it in the Priestly Order though not formally and immediatly as the power of Absolution is for that is stil more then is required or can be maintained yet radically founded in it and diffused with it 28. The true reason as I conceive why Ordination of a Bishop per saltum doth not give him power to consecrate the Sacrament or to absolve or to ordain others to those Offices is because the Power of the Keyes which includes all those Powers and Offices is received in the Priestly Function which made me say it is the more peaceable way and may probably be defended that the power of Ordaining is diffused with the Priestly Office or founded in it and is in it not immediatly and formally as a power ready for Act and exercise as the power of Absolving and Ministring Sacraments is in it to which the Priest hath particular and express Ordination but radically and as in primâ potentiâ the remote power so as the faculty of exercising it or the proxima potentia of it is given to special men by Consecration to the work and that by Apostolical constitution And in this sense the extension of the Sacerdotal Character which Champny allows may stand Now that first and radical power can never be lawfully reduced to Act or exercise in them that have not lawful consecration to it but by extreme necessity through the utter failing of them that have which whether it be possible I leave it to Champny to dispute 29. As for the necessity which those Reformed Churches have pleaded in excuse of this irregularity in their Ordinations I shall not now enquire into it Only I wish heartily that they which have chief rule in those Churches did not think themselves so far engaged to continue where they are but that they would entertain a stronger apprehension of the necessary concernment of that Order which was left in the Church by the Apostles and continued alwayes and in all places where the Christian faith was received till the last Age. 30. As for those false Inferences which either Papist or Sectarie hath made from the different condition of those Churches to the seeming prejudice of the English Church it was my work to discover them and now I shal give the Reader a brief of what hath been said against them in recompence of the trouble he hath been hitherto put to by a tedious perplexity I. That we Protestants of the English Church stand not alone in this point of Ordination by Bishops received at first from Rome Other Churches severed from the Romish Communion have reteined Bishops and Ordination by them and that derived from Rome and those Reformed Churches that have not yet approve it in us and have acknowledged their own deficiency joyning with us in judgment but differing in practice for which necessity is alleged II. We must not for that deficiency quit all fellowship with them or disclaim them as no Churches because of Consanguinit as Doctrine as Tertul. phrases it the Kindred and alliance of Doctrine which is between us for the bond or agreement in Faith and Charity binds the body of Christ together Eph. 4.16 and that is the main in the constitution of the Church And although the other point of Order as it concerns the sending and ordaining of those that should teach and publish that Doctrine and build up the body of the Church ought most carefully to be observed according to Apostolical practice which fixed that office upon special Select Persons called Bishops yet because it is not so clear whether it was fixed to their Persons as a superadded power or as the faculty of exercising that power which being conteined in the power of the Keyes might with them be radically received in their Priestly Order we cannot pronounce absolute Nullity upon their Ordinations especially the case standing with them as they plead And because it doth not appear that a bare want or Deficiency in the appointed Order of the Church should forfeit their belonging to the Church where the main viz. the Doctrine of Faith and Life is preserved and the other of Order not wilfully perverted to a breach of Charity with those Churches that have preserved it therefore we cannot judg them to be no Churches or Congregations of Christians but we look upon them as Churches not completed or regularly formed and excuse their defects so far as they are enforced on them by necessity and conclude them bound to seek their Completion and a supply of their defects from those that have Bishops and hold the ancient Apostolike way of the Church Lastly seeing their judgment concerning Bishops and Ordination by them where it may be had is such and their excuse of the want of it pleaded by necessity their example can in no wise be alleged in defence of those who of late have rejected Bishops and Ordination by them nay ejected them when they had them We bless God that we had the happy means of a regular Reformation the more they have to answer for that disturbed our established Order but as for those Churches which approve of that Order where it is and want it by necessity rather
then choice we leave it to Champny and other Romanists to conclude desperatly upon them and all that are not in their way enclosing the whole Church within their Communion and judg of Christians not so much by their Union to Christ by the bands of faith and charity Eph. 4.13.16 as to his pretended Vicar by subjection to him for so they conceive of the Church of Christ as of a Society joyned together under one Pastor the Pope or Bishop of Rome and do accordingly define it and acknowledg the Members of it making themselves thereby Papists rather then Christians and cutting off from the Church not only for defects in ritu Apostolico the Order left by our Saviour and his Apostles which is the charge they have against the Reformed Churches that are without Bishops but also for failing ritu Romano the not observing in this point of Ordination the additional Rites and Papal Inventions used there which is the charge they have against us and for which they conclude we have no Bishops nor lawful Pastors as will appear below CHAP. IV. Of the second Prejudice From the Protestants Opinion of the Pope being Antichrist and the Church of Rome Heretical 1. NOw proceed we to his second Argument against our pleading of Ordination derived from the Church of Rome It is grounded upon the Judgment of our own Writers and amongst them some Bishops that hold the Pope is Antichrist and therefore that we fall by our own sentence and doctrine For how can the Ministers of Christ saith he receive due and lawful Ordination from the Ministers of Antichrist Or how can we think that Christ should leave the power of Ordaining Pastors for the feeding of his Church which he bought with his precious bloud and for the dispensing of his holy Word and Sacraments in the hand of his sworn Enemy c. 9. p. 320. c. To this Argument I answer the more willingly because I see how Presbyterians generally with those of other Sects suffer themselves by such inconsequencies and mistakes to be abused into many inconveniencies to the great disturbance of the Church Here are two points to be spoken to 1. The Judgment of the Popes being Antichrist 2. The Inference against our Ordinations 2. Of the opinion of the Pope being Antichrist To the first That there is much Antichristian doctrine taught in the Church of Rome invented broached maintained by the Popes and others that have been and are chief in that Church is most evident to any man that hath any reasonable insight into Christianity and that they which hold and maintein such doctrine are and may be called Antichrists is not to be denyed for so there are many Antichrists as St. John tels us of his time But that the Pope is the Antichrist is no point of our faith none of the Articles of our Religion Prophecies indeed are matter of Faith and ought to be believed that they shall be fulfilled before they come to pass and that they are fulfilled when the Scripture assures us they are but when it leaves us to gather the event by signs delivered in Prophetick expressions and more general terms such as is the description of Antichrists comming then to say such a prophecie is now fulfilled or such a State or Person is that Antichrist is not the act of Faith but the work of Reason making a Conclusion or Inference upon application of the signs and marks describing him in the prophecy to such or such a Person or State 3. VVhich admits several senses Now as King James in his Praemonition to Christian Princes falling upon this point by occasion of Heresie laid to his charge by those of Rome and the Oath of Allegiance declared by Pope Paul to be against the Catholic Faith pursues it indeed eagerly and with a long discourse not as an Article of his Faith but as a Problematical perswasion to shew he could better and with more appearance of Truth prove the Pope to be Antichrist then the Pope could prove him to be Heretick or himself to have such superiority over Kings So we must take that Assertion of our Writers de Papâ Antichristo comparatively not only in regard of our selves whom they call and hold to be Heretikes to say Antichristianism agrees more properly to them then Heresie to us but also in regard of all other Persons or States that have fallen under the suspition of being Antichrist to say Of all that yet appeared in the World the signs and marks of Antichrist agree most plainly to the Pope and Popedome I cannot but say I am much inclined to think as learned Zanchy seems to do in his Tract de fine Seculi that whatever is done already in the working of the Mystery of Iniquity the Antichrist will be revealed in that Seat and sit in that Papal Chair 4. Many Antichrists in a large and more remiss sense there have been and will go before the appearing of that great One and a great appearance of such there hath been in the Popedome already Bernard and many other that lived within the Communion of the Roman Church discovered the appearance of Antichrist in the Papal Court and spoke it Indeed the Spirit of Antichrist which Saint John saith did work in the Hereticks of his time 1. Ep. c. 4. v. 3. who by Tertul. are called Praecursores illius Antichristi Spiritus the forerunners of that great Antichrist advers Marc. l. 5. c. 16. that Spirit I say of Antichrist hath long wrought in the chief Rulers of the Romish Church not only by reason of Heretical and Antichristian doctrine there taught especially that Principle of mis-belief Papal Infallibility the ground of their faith or believing then which no one can better fit the turn of Antichrist or be a readier way to Apostacy from Christ but also by reason of exorbitant power there challenged and usurped first over all Bishops in the Church of Christ for which by Saint Gregories warrant we may stile the Pope the forerunner of Antichrist then over Kings and all that are called Gods 5. Now in the second place The seeming prejudice consider the Inference made from this Champny as we insinuated above draws it ad impossibile or to this Absurdity Therefore Christ left his Church in the hand of his sworn Enemy giving him the power of Ordaining or providing Pastors for his Church and tels us The Reformed Churches do therefore abhor the Orders and reject all things else that come from Rome Answ First supposing the Popes to be such Antichrists or Antichristian Rulers it was but part of the Christian Church that they ruled in and why should it seem so strange to any that Christ should leave part of his Church under Antichristian Tyranny when it is foretold plainly that Antichrist must sit in the Temple of God or why should it seem so strange and impossible to Champny that Christ should suffer his sworn Enemy to sit as chief Pastor in the Roman
Chair Many Monsters of Men have sat as Popes in the Rom. Chair when as it is certain in History that many Popes have sate there who have been as vile Monsters and as great Enemies to Christ and all godliness as we need suppose those Antichrists to be which we say are to be found in that Seat if any where yet in the World Such Popes as Champny himself must needs acknowledg to have been not so much Christs Vicars as the Devils Chaplans preferred by him advanced to that Chair by all Divellish means Murders Whoredoms Sorceries and by the like Arts and Divellish Practises holding it and ruling in it as Platina and other of their own Historians testifie Genebrard who is not forward to acknowledg such disparagements to that Seat yet complains of almost 50. Popes together in the 9. and 10. Centuries calling them Apostaticos potiùs quà m Apostolicos and saying they came not in by the door Baronius who alwayes employed the utmost of his skil to excuse is here forced to confess the Papal impieties and to lament the condition of the Church under such Heads particularly Joh. 12. and some other Popes notoriously abhominable about the 10. Century 6. Bell. in his Praephatique Oration to his books de Pontif. Rom. could not pass this by in filence or deny it but sets a good countenance on it and by the fineness of a Jesuit Wit which it seems Baronius Genebrard Champny had not learnt within their Societies turns all to the advantage of that Seat as testifying the Sanctity and perpetuity of it notwithstanding the iniquity of them that sate in it Nihil est quod Haeretici c. It is to no purpose for the Hereticks to take so much pains in searching out the Vices of Popes for we confess they were not few But Tantùm abest c. This is so far from diminishing the glory of this Seat that it is thereby exceedingly amplified for thereby we may perceive it consisteth by the special providence of God What Bell. speaks of the Seat i.e. the Papal Autority and power had he spoken it of the Church of God oppressed under that usurped power it had been a very sober rational and Christian-like acknowledgment of Gods special providence which did preserve a Church under such confusion and iniquity of Antichristian Rulers 7. This doth not invalidate Ordination And as in regard of the preservation of a Church so in respect of the continuance of Ordination in particular Champny must give us leave to say with much more Reason Tantùm abest c. It is so far from seeming impossible or absurd that Christ should permit the power of Ordaining Pastors to the hand of his Enemy that it makes more for the glory of his Power and special providence over his Church that notwithstanding such Wolves that entred He preserved his sheep notwithstanding such Antichristian Rulers He continued and propagated a saving Truth by transmitting down his Word and Scriptures and a succession of Teachers and Pastors by Ordination stil continued Yea his special providence farther in as much as by that Word of Truth transmitted and received from them that had the chief Rule many have discovered their Errors and Tyranny and cast them of and by Ordination derived and received by their hands have a lawful succession of Pastors to declare that Truth and to continue the Church so purged and Reformed without running stil to them for Ordination or confirmation in the Pastoral charge 8. Let us heare what S. Augustine saith appliable to this point in his 165. Ep. Etiamsi quisquam Traditor subrepsisset although some Traitor had crept into that Chair he means the Roman and after-Ages have seen many Judasses or Traitors in it as above said nihil praejudicaret Ecclesiae innocentibus Christianis quibus providens Deus c. He should nothing hurt the Church or innocent Christians for whom our Lord hath provided saying of Evil Prelats What they say do ye Mat. 23. as if he had said be their Persons what they wil it doth not prejudice the work of their Function or Ministry no more then it did in those to whom our Saviour there relates viz. the Scribes and Pharisees professed enemies to Christ yet in Moses chair and to be heard and obeyed The Leper also is sent to the Priests because they were in place though generally Enemies to Christ Yea the Ministerial Acts of Judas himself who was Traditor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Traitor and a Devil were good and valid when he was sent as were other Disciples abroad to perform them If then the Iniquity of Rulers or Pastors do not prejudice the Church in the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments which are of nearer concernment to the Salvation of Christians much less doth it in the transmitting of Orders 9. Lastly VVe first derived Ordination from Rome before any suspition of Antichrist there We begin the succession of our English Bishops derived from the Church of Rome in the time of Gregory the first when as no such Traitor or Antichristian Ruler had crept into that seat and the power of Ordination then received hath ever since continued without interruption among us And although after some Ages we see that many Popes proved Monsters and enemies to Christ from whose Tyranny this Land and Church were not free yet find we many of our Bishops not willingly bearing but complaining under that Yoke as Grosthead and others And as for those that Ordained Cranmer and Latimer they had ejured the supposed Antichrist and cast out the Papal Autority So that whatever Protestants judg now of the Pope it cannot prejudice the Ordination either of our first English Bishops by Gregory the Great who mainly resisted the beginnings of Papal Antichristianisme in John of Constantinople or of our first Reformed Bishops Cranmer Latimer or others for the Pope was then ejected and the Ordainers of those Bishops sworn against him and so not to be accounted Ministers of the supposed Antichrist To conclude considering what was said above of the ministerial acts of Judas and others that were in place and office the charge of Antichristianisme taken in any sense strictly or remisly cannot prejudice our judgment of the now Romish Ordinations which we allow to be valid still as to the substance of the Order appointed and setled in the Church by our Saviour and his Apostles And I wish the pretended Reformers of these later Times had not been so strong in their Zeal against the Church of Rome and so weak in their reasoning as out of fear of such seeming prejudices to decline and reject not only Ordination thence derived but even many Truths there professed and from that Church received 10. The seeming prejudice from our charging them with Heresie His next Argument is from the charge of Heresie laid by Protestants upon those of the Romish Church from which he concludes our plea of receiving Ordination by them must fall
Ordained Bishops Mason had framed the like Argument by way of Objection to himself and given this Answer That their Order consisted of two parts The one expressed in these words Take thee power to offer sacrifice The other in these And in what respect allow them Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou remittest c. The first part which stands in offering up Chrift gain is altogether abhominable The second which is in the Ministry of reconciliation is good for the substance though depraved by the Abuse of Auricular Confession To this purpose he 2. Champny replyes I. By cavilling at his making the Order to have two parts and runs into a needless disputation to shew that the Order being simple and like the Soul standing in indivisibili hath not Parts but several Powers from one character in the Soul But seeing he will be so subtil he should remember how he allowed above an Extension of the Character which now he telsus stands in indivisibili Well let him enjoy his Philosophical notions and Sholastick terms and let him call the different offices of Sacrificing and Absolving not Parts but Powers this we say still that the first power they give to their Priests of offering again really and properly the body and blood of Christ is Sacrilegious without any warrant from Scripture nay against it plainly and exceedingly derogatory to the Sacrifice of the Cross and therefore abominable unlawful altogether The other power of reconciliation or ministring the Word and Sacraments they give for the substance of it according to the Evangelical institution but deal not so sincerely in it as they should 3. II. He replies The Protestants though they hold Order no Sacrament Form of Ordination certain how yet must grant that a certain form is required to every Order and that such a depravation as they charge the Romish Ordination with must needs so change the Form as to make all void and null and so by their own doctrine they received no Order at all from the Romish Church This he endeavours to make good by the Form of Baptism which if depraved and changed as to say I Baptize thee in the name of the Father who is greater then the Son or the like the Baptism is null Answ It is true that unto lawful Ordination though not a Sacrament properly a lawful and certain form is required such as may express the institution of the Order and the function and power of it with application to the person receiving it Now if it be so changed and depraved that it doth not in a sufficient manner express so much it renders the Ordination invalid but if the Form be preserved as to the substance of it and only other Additions made to it by way of aggregation they however unlawful do not void what is given according to the right form reteined as in Baptism where the due Element and Form are reteined though there be additionals of marking the child with fire too as the Ethiopian Christians are said to do or of Salt Spitle and other trumperies with forms of words belonging to them as in the Church of Rome the Baptism notwithstanding is valid and good So in this of Orders that which we call abominable and unlawful is an addition of mans invention yet seeing the words of Christ are reteined receive the holy Ghost and whose sins ye remit c. in which the lawful and certain form of conveying the power of the Ministry of reconciliation is conteined we say the Ordination is so far valid and good and may stand without the corrupt additionals wherewith it is clogged in the Romish Church yea doth stand the clearer being freed from them as it is in the Church of England And therefore we do not re-ordain those Priests that come from them but cause them to renounce the corrupt additionals confirm what was validly received in their Ordination We may say in this point as Aug. answered Potil concerning Baptism administred by the Donatists Non vestrum est quod destruere metuimus sed Christi quod Sacrilegis per se Sanctum est nam venientes à vobis recipere non possumus nisi quod vestrum est destruamus We fear to destroy the Baptism given by you not as yours but as it is Christs which is holy even among them that are Sacrilegious for we could not else receive those that come from you except we destroyed that which is yours Contra lit Petil. lib. 2. So of Romish Orders we destroy what is theirs not what is Christs in them for that is yet holy and good notwithstanding their Sacrilegious additions and when we receive any that come from them it is necessary we destroy and cause them to renounce what is theirs but admit what they have reteined of Christs institution 4. Romish Priests fuffering here and for what III. He replies as to that part of their Ordination which we admit of viz. that which includes the ministry of reconciliation That we confess it to be of Christs institution and yet make their Priests guilty of Treason and execute them for exercising of it So is it decreed 23. Eliz. ◠to reconcile to the Church of Rome c. cap. 10.355 Answ It is not for that very work of the ministry as it is a reconciling of Penitents to God no more then for Baptizing which is another work of the ministry of reconciliation which if a Romish Priest do he is not therefore obnoxious to the Law But because one of these is abused to Treasonable attempts and made very fit for it by their kind of practising Sacramental confession the other is not neither can be so abused being admmistred to Infants therefore it comes to pass that the former is forbidden to be practised within this Land not directly but so far as it is a reconcileing to the Bishop or Church of Rome So the Statute expresses it and what that reconciliation means our State before it made that Statute had learnt experimentally viz. the instilling of many Treasonable Principles into the Party reconciled and moving them upon all occasions to answerable practises by vertue of the Obligation that was upon them by their reconciliation to the Pope 5. All this is most plain in the Story of those Times wherein we may see the beginning and progress of the boldness of Romish Priests in their Treasonable Practises and accordingly the first rise and advance of the severity of Laws made against them Til the thirteenth year of the Queen there was no Law that touched them in this point of their Priestly function They did baptize and absolve and both unpunished because it was supposed they did only exercise their function in absolving people from their sins not in absolving Subjects from obedience to their Soveraign But after Pius Quintus sent out his Bulls of Excommunication against the Queen pronouncing her deprived of all rule and dignity and her Subjects absolved from the Oath of their
use or exercise of that power nor could he lawfully Ordain others This is the summe of what he saith Of Bigamie or Digamie 1. We begin with that of Bigamie of which M. Mason took no notice in his defence of Bishop Cranmers Ordination and Doctor Champny only proves he was twice marryed which is not denyed but brings nothing to prove that such Bigamie or Digamie rather infers such an irregularitie as deprives a Bishop of the lawful use of his power of Ordaining To this charge it may be said I. That the Bigamy which the Apostle speaks of in his Canon 1 Tim. 3.2 and implicitly forbids when he saith Let a Bishop be the Husband of one Wife was a superinduction of a Second Wife upon the former either kept still or put away a Polygamy both ways either direct by cohabitation with two Wives or that which followed upon unjust Divorce and was indeed the having of two Wives at once a licentious Custome frequent among Jews and Gentiles Now such a person that had done so before his Conversion to Christianity or after was justly debarred by the Apostle from Holy Orders but of this Cranmer was not guilty As for that Digamy which is the taking of a second Wife after the first being dead or the taking of a Widow to wife at first we acknowledg it forbidden by some Canons of the Church that for the most part the former place of the Apostle was by the Ancients applyed to this Digamy for no marvel if being earnest in the commendation of single life they should so readily receive the Apostles words in that sense which most answered to their purpose But some of the Ancients better considering it do acknowledg the meaning of the Apostle to be according to the former interpretation amongst whom are reckoned Justin Martyr Chrysostome and Theodoret. Yea that parallel place 1 Tim. 5.9 of a Widow having been the Wife of one Man doth most reasonably receive the like interpretation notwithstanding that the Romanists cry out of it as a thing unheard of that a Woman should have two Husbands at once which is true of two by cohabitation not by desertion for so it was often seen that the Woman either forsaking her Husband or forsaken of him married another the first being yet alive Such a Widow the Apostle rejects as one of ill fame and thus Theodoret and Theophylact are known to interpret the Apostle of a Widow that hath been coupled but to one Husband at once Lastly it is wel known how Tertullian after he was Montanist reproached the Catholicks with their twice marryed Bishops in his book de Monogam cap. 12. Quot apud vos praesident Digami How many that have been twice marryed preside among you Yet doth that practice tell us the Apostles words were not taken to be against Digamy but that which is properly Bigamy He that would see more of this phrase the Husband of one Wife and the Wife of one Husband he may please to look the places in Fulkes Rhemish Testament where the meaning is debated and Antiquity consulted 2. II. Therefore we may say That Digamy forbidden by Eccles Canon and found in Cranmer doth not make a Bishop so far irregular as to spoil him of the lawful use of his Order This rests upon the consideration of the purpose and binding force of such Canons And here it need not much trouble us in our proceeding that we meet with this Canon against Digamy among those which bear the name of the Apostles Whatever may be thought of some of them this seems plainly crept into that number if we consider the liberty of those firster Ages in this point of Marriage from after-Times and so of no other Autority then are after-Ecclesiastical Canons But let that be what it will for the present the Church of Rome stands bound to answer to the Autority of them as wel as we and hath transgressed against them especially the sixt Canon in a matter forbidden not only by these Canons but by the Law of God and the Judgment of the Apostle indeed and that is the putting away of Wife or forcing a Man to put her away in pretence of Religion or holy Orders As for Canons Ecclesiastical they deserve to have their due respect and obedience answerable to the Autority by which made Provincial National General and according to the Matter in which and the Purpose to which they are decreed The Canons which concern Digamy Marriage Single life Penance and the like are for Discipline and of such we may say 3. VVhat is said to the Canons forbidding it First Though they forbid men so or so qualified to be admitted into the Clergy or command them to be deposed if after admittance and receiving of Orders they transgress yet doth not such transgression ipso facto take away lawful use till the Canon hath his effect by actual deposing of such a person This is plain by transgressions of higher nature Heresie it self doth not take away the Lawful use of Order till it be notorious and the person so declared by the Church Concubinage also and Simony not only against the Canon but Gods Law too which they cannot say of Marriage do not ipso facto make such an irregularity for if all the Ordinations made by such Bishops were unlawful it would make a wide gap in the succession of their Romish Bishops and calling of their Priests who have received their several Orders from Concubinaries and Fornicators and Simoniacks all deposable by the Ecclesiastical Canons If they say which is all they can say that it was not notorious in those Ordainers this approves what I said that the transgression of such Canons against Marriage and Digamy cannot ipso facto take away lawful use of the power of Order and I can say as much for Bishop Cranmer who marryed in Germany the Kinswoman of Osiander before he was made Bishop and it was not known here all the time of Hen. 8. in which he ordained many Bishops But again we say the Whoredoms Incests Simony of many of the Popes Bishops Cardinals were notorious to the age they lived in and stand upon Record still so notorious and visible in the ninth and tenth Ages that Baronius cryes out Quae facies Ecclesiae Rom. Those abhominable misdemeanours were openly known and apparent in the face of the Church then and not only then but after too especially in Alexander the sixt most abhominably notorious They had need to look home and make up their own breaches before they charge us with such defects or irregularities as Marriage which is Honourable in all Men. 4. Secondly we must tell them the same Canons which forbid Marriage or Digamy forbid also Concubinage under the like punishment or irregularity and though there be a wide difference between Fornication and Marriage yet we appeal to them whether these be equally dealt with in the Church of Rome whether the like severity be used against the Concubinary
as against the Married Man Marriage in their Priests or Bishops causeth deprivation indispensably but if a Priest that is accused of having a wife plead she is his Concubine i. e. his Whore doth he not escape deposing by it it was the plea of the Priest of Placentia as P. Moulin tells it for a known story in his book of Purgatory And seeing in most Ages since Marriage was restrained we meet with sad complaints of the frequent incontinency of their Clergy let them tell us how many in so many Ages have been deposed or made irregular for it If we look into the constitutions of Otho the Popes Legat in England which are as severe against Concubines as any they have yet see much difference in the proceeding against the Concubinary and the Married Clergy The constitution against the Married runs Si clam vel palam Matrimonium contraxerint omnino sunt amovendi if contracted Marriage secretly or openly they are by all means to be removed that 's peremptory and though the Marriage be secretly carried but the Constitution against the Concubinary si publicè Concubinas detinent if they keep Concubines publickly they are to be admonisht and after a Month to put them away or els to be suspended And in the comment or gloss upon it ob simplicem Fornicationem de Canonicâ benignitate Clericus non debet deponi licèt secùs fortè de Canonis rigore for simple Fornication a Clergy-man is not deposeable through the Courteste but Rigor of the Canons Thus have they extended the Courtesie of the Canons to Concubinage and Fornication but reserved the Rigor of them for Marriage As for Penances which their Canons adjudge Concubinaries to who knows not how easily that may be satisfied and in extremity it is no other censure then a Lay-man incurs upon the like offence doth not imply or carry with it Deposition or such an irregularity as they charge upon Marriage or Digamy Nor will it boot to say as they will be ready to reply that if the Married Clergy put away their Wives they are not deposed and accordingly it is required of Concubinaries that they put away their Concubines for as Marriage and Fornication stand not upon equal terms in themselves the first being an indissoluble Conjunction so neither are they with equal severity entertained by the Romanists as appears by their practice hinted in the premisses 5. Lastly we can answer to those Canons in behalf of Marriage or Digamy what they cannot say in regard of Concubinage or Harloâ—ry that in respect of the first those Canons were only disciplinary as was said above grounded on prudential motives that seemed reasonable in those times and therefore in time might through the exigencie of contrary experience cease to binde which cannot be said of them as they forbid and censure Harlotry And accordingly we find that however those prudential motives of the restraint of Marriage for the advancement of Discipline and stricter attendance upon the holy Function seemed reasonable to Them that made the Canons yet did they not to all or most in the Church which was to receive them for if we look to the reception of the Catholic Church which is very considerable in the approbation of such Canons we meet with a general dislike of them and reluctancy against them So that where they did obtain they were rather forcibly imposed then willingly received as is apparent in the passages of History which concerns the Western Church in which those Canons were violently prosecuted After-ages still found less cause to receive or continue them where received and now long experience of many and great inconveniences and mischiefs by the exacting of them perswades and enforces the restoring of the Clergy to that liberty of Marriage which is left them by the Law of God yea to the use of that Remedy which is prescribed them by that Law when need requires it If we look into the History of this Church and Kingdom we find that before the times of Lanfrank and Anselm the Clergy were free and enjoyed the liberty of Marriage but when they were compelled by those hot Italians to forgo that freedome what success had it but the begetting of a licentious uncleanness even unto Sodomy which in few years grew so notorious that the same Anselm who by Synod in London had severely forbidden Marriage and caused those that had wives to put them away was forced to call another Synod before he dyed for the repressing of that filthy uncleanness as it is observed in story 6. The Councels therefore that made those Canons anciently be they General or National could not in reason intend to bind the Church for all Ages at least could not in justice do it when experience found those Canons served not to the end for which they were intended but occasioned far more mischiefs and inconveniences and that this is no pretended plea which is not fit to be made against Ecclesiastical Canons the complaint and sad trial of many Ages doth sufficiently prove To conclude seeing those of the Roman Church think they have reason to be favourable to Concubinage and connive at it and plead such excuse for it as we finde in the Glosses of their Canon Law Such Canons are not exacted quia onerosi sunt because they are burthensome and quia corpora hodie fragiliora sunt because our bodies now more frail and as the Gloss upon the forementioned Constitution of Otho which it seems appeared too quick in putting the Concubinary to give satisfaction saith quod nimis esset rigorosum attentâ fragilitate nostri Temporis it is too rigorous considering the frailty of our times If they I say can think it reasonable thus to plead against the Rigor of the Canons in behalf of Harlotry how much more have we cause to plead for the necessity of using that Remedy of Honest Marriage which God hath allowed and prescribed 7. Of Heresie charged upon Cranmer and the Reformers We now proceed to the next Defect wherewith he charges our Archbishop Cranmer and concludes him not lawfully ordained or to have received the Lawful use of his Order and that is Heresie and Schisme Master Mason in reference to the breach with Rome in Hen. 8 his dayes spent one chapter upon the proof of this Truth That to renounce the Pope is not Schisme or Heresie All this is neglected by Champny who sets himself to prove that Heresie deprives a Bishop of the lawfull use of his power because the lawfull use of it requires union with the Catholic Church which is but what he insisted upon in his 9. Chap. as we heard above and yeilded it to him But now for the application of it to Crunmer 8. His first Argument to prove him Heretick is from his own recantation and renouncing the Protestant Doctrine as Heretical But this Champny stands not much upon knowing it was not the confession of Cranmers Faith but of his Frailty and that recantation made
Baptism and Order are of like consideration and therefore I would require a Reason why they pronounce not our Baptism null because not after their manner as well as our Orders A man would think that Champny in both these reasonings did imply we had not true Baptism but durst not say it positively for that had directly contradicted the practice of their Church which doth not re-baptize those that are baptized after our Form yea the doctrine and practice of the Catholic Church which required no more to the Essentiall Form then what is expresly in Scripture Baptize in the Name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost and therefore did not re-baptize Hereticks that used the Form It is enough for us notwithstanding any thing that Champny hath said to Baptize as our Saviour appointed and to Ordein as we find the Apostles whom he sent as his Father had sent him to have done and taught though not altogether Ritu Romano as the Church of Rome doth and teaches most imperiously 10. But we must here take leave to look back to that he said above of Parker being not ordeined as Augustin the first Arch-Bishop was which if taken with the occasion of it may at first sight appear a seeming prejudice The occasion of it was from Mr. Masons saying That Mat. Parker the 79. Arch-Bishop after Austin had the happiness to be the first of that Number that was consecrated without the Popes Bul Pall and other superfluous accoutrements Hence Champny to the seeming disparagement of our Reformation infers Therefore his Ordination and so theirs that followed him cannot be derived from the Apostles if not the same that Austin delivered together with the Christian Faith to this Nation above a thousand years ago and as well saith he they may cast off Baptism which the same Austin delivered c. p. 479 480. But we may answer That the Popes Bul and Pall and other superfluities which Mason reflected on were of later date then Austins time for long it was after that ere the Popes Bulls and wild Beasts roared within this Land viz. after Gregory the 7. for then began the contention with Princes about investiture of Bishops from which time those Bulls also began to rage and did very much trouble this Land in that one particular of appointing the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in which regard we may well say with Mr. Mason it was a happiness to Mathew Parker to be the first that was consecrated without the Popes Bull not implying that all from Austin were so invested by the Pope but of all in that number who were consecrated after that usurped Papal investiture began he was the first that was clearly without it 11. As for that which Austin delivered either Baptism or Ordination we retein fully for substance and do thankfully acknowledg the benefit indeed some Ceremonies as in that Age the Church of Rome began to abound in them which he brought in and delivered in both we happily omit to use not because he delivered or used them but because the Church of Rome hath since abused them as above said This shews the vanity of Champny's inference that our Baptism and Ordination is not good or derived from the Apostles because not after the same form and manner peradventure according to some additional Ceremonies that Austin delivered to this Nation together with the Christian Faith Yea by vertue of that Ordination received which he delivered to us we can better prove our Ordination Apostolical then they can theirs for the Succession of Lawful Romish Bishops was much broken by unlawful intrusion of many Popes about the 9. and 10. Ages and after as appeared above when we spoke of Papal Antichristianism whereas our succession of Bishops being by Gregory the first derived to us from the Apostles before that unlawful usurpation and intrusion of many of their Popes together hath been continued among us without interruption 12. Presumptions from stories against the Ordination of our Bishops And now Champny goes on in his 13 Chap. to invalidate their Ordination by seeming probabilities or presumptions of the Nullity of it which the Romanists have sought all corners for and examined all passages of Stories Statutes clauses of Letters Patents which may concern the making or consecrating of our Bishops and this he calls his demonstration a posteriori beginning at pag. 428. Let us fee what weight there is in such not Demonstrations but Presumptions I should abuse the Reader too much to repeat and answer them all blowing therefore away the lightest I shall speak to those that may seem to carry any shew of probability And first he will prove it such is the strength of his presumption by the Judgment of Protestants themselves Ridley saith he at the stake humbly begged the Queen would be pleased to confirm the Leases he had letten as Bishop of London therefore he held himself not Lawful Bishop True it was his humble supplication to the Lord Williams of Thame that he would be a means to the Queen to do it and this was a Demonstration of his charity and conscionable respect to the Tenants not of his thinking himself not lawful Bishop he knew what they thought and judged of him not only that no Bishop but also no Bishop of London because of Boner then living and thereupon would be ready to quarrel at those Leases demised by him And so the Words which Champny cites out of Brook his reports do not contein the Sentence of judgment in this case but the plea that was pretended against such Leases because the Bishops that let them were not Ordained 13. His next Demonstration Boners plea. or Presumption is drawn from a story of Boner the ejected Bishop of London who for refusing the Oath of Supremacy tendred to him by Horn Bishop of Winchester was cited into the Kings Bench and answered that he refused the Oath because he that tender'd it had no power to do it being no Bishop The Judges thereupon consulted whether they should admit Boner to traverse it and concluded he ought to have leave to do it and to be acquitted the Court if he could prove Horn to be no Bishop then This out of Dier But saith he Boner was never after call'd to plead it whence he concludes they judged Horn to be indeed no Bishop Answer This is no Demonstration of the invalidity of his Ordination but of the Moderation and justice of those Judges that conteined themselves within the compass of their own profession not undertaking to determin whether the Form of Ordination was good or no and of their equity in allowing Boner the liberty of his plea how false soever his allegation was in it selfe and it was an argument of their prudence or of the Queens wisdome that held it more convenient to silence such a Bedlam Actor then suffer him to come upon the Stage who had more then once in King Edwards time so irreverently behaved himself with clamors and reproaches before the Kings
Archbishop Parkers Ordination where his first exception is against the Form as new and so acknowledged by Mason saying that Matthew Parker had the happiness to be the first of so many Bishops since Austin that received consecration without Popes Bull Pall c. p. 478. 479. But this because it belonged to the form of Ordination I referred it thither and answered to it above in the former Chapter 1. Presumptions against the Ordainers Next he excepts against the Ordainers that they were not such as was pretended And here we must again trouble the Patience of the Reader with the importunity of their presumptions and conjectures alleged against public Records which though it little serve to the end they intended the disproving of the Ordination of our Bishops yet will it make to this good purpose the proving of the restless importunity of these Men in their calumniando fortiter ut aliquid adhaereat their custome in raising and nourishing any manner of Reports to discredit their Adversary That I may not be thought to slander them in so weighty a business hear what they say The Popish Art of belying Evident Truth that knew it very wel Those secular Priests of whom above Chap. 5.8 in their book there mentioned complain much of this unconscionable dealing in the Jesuites and their followers acknowledging the Queens Majesty had very just cause to think more hardly of them all for it The pretended brethren say they of that Society and such as follow their steps do in their Writings so calumniat the Actions and Doings of the State be they never so judicially and publickly proceeded in never so apparently proved true and known of many to be most certain and after of Father Parsons that he was a great Master in this Art I find also Jo Copley sometime Priest among them but returning to the Church of England in King James his time to acknowledg this to be usual among their Priests and that it was one Motive to him of forsaking them This he spoke upon occasion of lying reports raised by their Priests and spread among their Proselytes to make them believe the whole carriage of that fearful plot was but a Trick of State Of Gunpowder Treason to make the Catholicks odious Lastly John Goe Master of Arts returning from them upon the downfal of the Black Friers in acknowledgment as he saith in his Preface of Gods mercy by which he escaped with life discovers the several and close practices damnable dissimulations and Artifices of their Priests about London naming the persons and place to ensnare and delude unwary Protestants or hold on their credulous disciples and this is one Their confident denying or misreporting and discrediting of evident Truth At the end of his book he gives in a Catalogue of neer 200. Priests in and about London their Names and the Characters and Lodgings of most of them in which Number this Doctor Champny was one and then trading for Rome Now let us see how well he plaies this part against the evident Truth of public Records So passionately that he will not abate us the fond story of the Naggs head in Cheapside but strives all he can to make it probable as we shall see presently 2. His first conjecture or presumption against Matthew Parkers Ordination is because according to Masons Records saith he the Ordainers here are set down with their bare Names whereas in all other consecrations the Ordainers are named with the Titles of their Bishopricks Now what reason can there be of this difference but that his Ordainers were not indeed Bishops consecrated but Elect only But Champny might have seen them set down in the Queens Letters Patents with the Titles of those Bishops Seâ—s they before held and also of those they now were elected to and the Registers of those Sees shew their enstalment as Godwin hath set them down His second Consecration of Bishop Barlo That Barlo one of the Ordainers was never as it appears consecrated himself for Mason could not give us the Record of his Consecration as of the rest Answer Mason though he found not his Consecration yet he found him a Consecrator of Arthur Buckley Bishop of Bangor in King Hen. 8. his time which evidently shews he was himself consecrated or could not els been admitted to assist in that Action Champny excepts that is alike as if a man should thus reason Such a man hath a woman and children therefore he is a Lawful Husband and Father That is not alike but thus Such a man in all public Actions Deeds Instruments was by Law permitted to do towards that Woman and those Children unquestionably as a Lawful Husband and Father she accordingly enjoying her Dowry and they their inheritance so demised by him therefore he was a Lawful Husband and Father so it follows evidently that Barlo being without question admitted to that public Action was a Lawful consecrated Bishop Whereas Champnies Negative Argument against him runs thus weakly according to the former instance such a Mans Marriage cannot be found in the Register of the Parish Church therefore he is no Lawful Husband But Godwin a diligent searcher of the Registers of Bishops finds him consecrated Bishop of Asaph Feb. 22. 1535. and the next year translated to S. Davids where he sate ten years in King Henry's reign besides the time of King Edward Now what reason can be imaginable why he should continue Bishop doing all the Offices and duties of a Bishop so long without consecration or that he should be suffered so to do Furthermore that he may say something rather then nothing he observes pag. 494. that Landaff who was consecrated some years after Barlo is pretended to be set before him in the Queens Letters Patent for the Consecration of Mat. Parker and why saith he but that Landaff was consecrated indeed and Barlo only Elect Also at the solemnizing of the Funerals of Henry the second of France related by Stow he finds Parker Barlo Scory assisting as Bishops and Parker in the first place who then was but Elect which ought not to have been so if the other two had been Bishops consecrated They are goodly doubts fit for a Doctor of the Sorbon to dispute but to solve them if they fall not in pieces of themselves we leave to Heralds or the Master of the Ceremonies to do it at their Leasure 3. The shameless story of the Nags-head Tavern And now we are come to that shameless tale which hath more of impudency in it then the former Instances had of weakness That our first Bishops in the Queens time were made at the Naggs-head Tavern in Cheapside That Scory alone Landaff failing Ordained Parker Grindal c. and after this manner They kneeled down before him and he laying the Bible upon their heads severally said Receive the power of Preaching Gods Word sincerely and so they all rose up Bishops pag. 497. and this he saith he received from Father
oper where cap. 1. and 15. he confutes them who conceived by mistake of the Apostles words 1 Cor. 3.15 that those which dyed professed of the Christian saith might be purged from all their evill works by some fire and so come to salvation merito fundamenti by reason of the foundation held also in his Enchirid cap. 109. and in 1. quest ad Dulcitium and in his 20. and 21. books de Civ Dei Now though they differed in their conceits about this fire whether it was immediatly after death or at last day commonly cald Ignis conflagrationis and about the Persons to be purged and helped by it yet all of them seem to conceive it to be a fire of Passage only for souls to go through to their appointed receptacles not a fire of Durance for souls to lie in as in a receptacle till the day of judgment as the Romanists believe it All that Augustine concludes upon it is nothing but uncertainty Tale aliquid some such thing may be after this life and quaeri potest it may be put to the question non est incredibile it is not incredible and forsitan verum est perchance it may be true so he of it in the forementioned places We see by this how from the curiosity of some of the Ancients enquiring after relief and help for those Dead whose state was of more uncertain condition Romish superstition hath taken her rise and how from the private opinions and uncertain conceits of some of the Ancients length of Time and strength of Romish presumption hath framed Articles of Faith this of Purgatory for one in respect to which and relief of the Souls tormented therein their Priests receive power to offer Sacrifice even the body and blood of our Saviour 11. Now to conclude By all that hath been said it appears how groundless unwarrantable and presumptuous this power is which the Romish Priests pretend to and how that power which our Priests or Presbyters receive in ordination and use in celebrating the Eucharist is warranted by the express Word and doth the whole work of the Sacrament sufficiently according to all purposes that our Saviour intended it for when he said do this and according to the true and proper meaning of the Fathers speaking usually of a Sacrifice in it And this is so much more considerable because the Romanists place the highest and chiefest act of Worship Evangelicall in this Sacrifice of the Mass and account the chief power and perfection of Evangelicall Priesthood or ministration totam vel maximam perfectionem sacri Ordinis saith Champny pag. 184. to be in this reall Sacrificing or offering up the body and blood of Christ And therfore it is most strange that in all the Evangelicall Writings there should be no Precept for such a Worship no institution of such a Sacrifice no commission for using such a power and that seeing the Apostle had often just occasion to speak of such a Sacrifice and Priesthood in his Epistle to the Hebrews nay had all the reason that could be to have acquainted them with it had there been any such whereas we shew express commands for that way of Worship we retein which with the Romanists is nothing in comparison of their Mass We shew direct commission for that power we use of Preaching Binding Loosing consecrating and celebrating the Sacraments which they account but dependent and subservient to the power of making the body of Christ and offering it up As for their pretence by our Saviours command Do this we found them thereby engaged to affirm that Christ offered himself up to his Father for the sins of the world in the Sacrament flat contrary to the tenour of the Gospel which yeilds that only to the Cross and expresly contrary to Saint Paul who affirmes he offered himself but once for sin Heb. cap. 7. and cap. 9. see above Num. 3. And when they have perswaded themselves of this untruth that Christ offered himself up in the Eucharist how can they assure themselves that do this warrants them to do all they suppose he did i.e. to offer him up as he did himself It is enough for us men to do this as a Sacramentall action blessing distributing eating drinking and by adding to it in remembrance of me he plainly shews he meant no real Sacrifical action by offering him up again but the Sacramental only by representing and remembring his once offering up himself to death and so the Apostle tells us Do this imports 1 Cor. 11. How great presumption is this for Mortal man to take upon him thus to offer up the Son of God Bell lib. 3. Bellarm. vain exception to excuse the Romish presumption de Pontif. Ro. c 19. writing of Antichrist and answering to this as a piece of Antichristianisme charged upon the Church of Rome dare not simply affirme that the Priest offers up Christ but that Christ offers up himself per manus Sacerdotis by the hands of the Priest Whether Bellarmine mend or marre his business here its hard to say This we know that Christ our High-Priest according to the Apostle Heb. 7.25 and 9.24 is in Heaven at Gods right hand executing his eternal Priesthood by interceding for us and in that representing still what he hath done and suffered for us And we know we have warrant and his appointment to do the like Sacramentally here below i.e. in the celebration of the Eucharist to remember his Death and Passion and to represent his own Oblation upon the Cross and by it to beg and impetrate what we or the Church stand in need of We know also that as He gives His Ministers Commission and Autority to do this so he assists them here below by his power and grace But that Christ should daily here below offer himself up personally for this Bellarmine must affirm in his qualifying of the Romis◠presumption by the hands of the Priest is inconsistent with that once offering of himself on the Cross and with the present performance of his Priesthood in Heaven where he is ever to intercede for us Heb. 7.25 and to appeare in the sight of God for us Heb. 9.24 This also would turn our Saviours command Do this in remembrance of me by which the Romanists pretend to take thus much upon them into a promise I will do this in remembrance of my self by your hands A meaning of our Saviours words which the Apostle knew not whē he told the Corinthians what it was to do this so oft as ye eat and drink this 1 Cor. 11. Yea the Priest saith directly in order of their Mass Suscipe Pater hanc Hostiam quam ego indignus servus tuus offero tibi Receive O Father this Sacrifice which I thine unworthy servant do offer up unto thee They that composed this prayer knew not that Christ as the Cardinal contrives it offered up himself there by the hands of the Priest or rather knew not that Christ was there