Institution in the charge and cure But the Collation challeng'd by our Princes is of another Nature and signifies no more then the Nominating a Person to be Ordain'd to such an Office or presenting a Person already Ordained to such a Benefice And the right of Investitures which is the same with such a Collation is by this Bishop asserted to Emperours This being clear'd which was by him on purpose perplex'd If we take the extent of the Regal power from this Bishop He tells us That Sovereign's as Nursing Fathers of the Chuâ—â—â— are to see that Bishops and all Inferiour Ministers perform their faithfull duties in their several places and if they be found faulty to punish them His next Author is Mr. Thorndike Who is as large as any one in the Vindication of the Churches rights and Yet He tells us that No man will refuse Christian Princes the Interest of protecting the Church against all such Acts as may prove praejudicial to the common Faith. He holds as this Writer with great concern observes that the Secular power may restore any law which Christ or his Apostles have ordained not only against a Major part but all the Clergy and Governours of the Church and may for a Paenalty of their opposing it suppress their power and commit it to others tho' they also be establish'd by another Law Apostolical Thus that considerative man who held not the Pope to be Antichrist or the Hierarchy of the Church to be followers of Antichrist Bishop Taylour his next Author doth with the rest assert that the Episcopal Office has some powers annex'd to it independent on the Regal But then he farther lays down these Rules That the Supreme Civil-power is also Supreme Governour over all Persons and in all Causes Hath a Legislative power in Affairs of Religion and the Church Hath Jurisdiction in causes not only Ecclesiastical but also Internal and Spiritual Hath autority to convene and dissolve all Synods Ecclesiastical Is indeed to govern in Causes Ecclesiastical by the means and measure of Christ's Institutions i. e. by the Assistance and Ministry of Ecclesiastical Persons but that there may happen a case in which Princes may and must refuse to confirm the Synodical decrees Sentences and Judgments of Ecclesiastics That Censures Ecclesiastical are to be inflicted by the consent and concurrence of the Supreme Civil power The next Author cited is the Learned Primate Bramhal and We have here reason to wonder that one Who praetends to have been conversant in his Writings dares appear in the Vindication of a Cause which the Learned Author has so longe since so shamefully defeated As for the right of Sovereign Princes This Arch-Bishop will tell him That to affirm that Sovereign Princes cannot make Ecclesiastical Constitutions under a Civil pain or that they cannot especially with the advice and concurrence of their Clergy assembled in a National Synod reform errors and abuses and remedy Incroachments and Usurpations in Faith or Discipline is contrary to the sense and practise of all Antiquity and as for matter of Fact He will instruct him that our kings from time to time call'd Councils made Ecclesiastical Laws punish'd Ecclesiastical Persons saw that they did their duties in their calling c. From this Bishop's acknowledgment that the Bishops are the proper Judges of the Canon this Author that He may according to the Language of a modern Pen as well waken the Taciturn with Quaestions as silence the Loquacious with baffling fallacies takes Occasion briskly to ask whether this Bishop doth not mean here that the Bishops may both compose and execute Canons in the King's Dominions and use Ecclesiastical Censures by their own Autority But see saith He the Bishops depriv'd of the former power in the Reformation To which I answer that the power of which they were depriv'd in the Reformation was only of such an executing the Canons as carried with it pecuniary and corporal Punishments and this power the Bishop has told him they could not Exercise by their own Autority And here it were to be wish'd that our Author in reading this Bishop's Works had made use of his advice To cite Authors fully and faithfully not by halves without adding to or new moulding their Autorities according to Fancy or Interest The next Advocate against Regal Supremacy is King Charles the First But if we may take a draught of that Blessed Martyr's Sentiments from his own Portraiture He did not think his Autority confin'd to Civil Affairs but that the true glory of Princes consists as well in advancing Gods Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good as in the Dispensation of Civil power with Justice and Honour to the publick Peace He thought himself as King intrusted by God and the Laws with the good both of Church and State and saw no reason why he should give up or weaken by any change that power and Influence which in right and reason He ought to have over both He thought himself oblig'd to preserve the Episcopal Government in its right Constitution not because his Bishops told him so but because his Iudgment was fully satisfied that it had of all other the best Scripture grounds and also the constant practice of Christian Churches He was no Friend of implicit Obedience but after he has told the Prince that the best Profession of Religion is that of the Church of England adds I would have your own Iudgment and reason now seal to that Sacred Bond which Education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other Mens Custom or Tradition which you profess He did not give that glorious Testimony to the Religion established in the Church of England that it was the best in the World not only in the community as Christian but also in the special Notion as Reformed and for this reason required and intreated the Prince as his Father and his King that he would never suffer his Heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from it till he had first tried it and after much search and many disputes thus concluded These are the Sentiments of our Authors in which if I have been over-long the Reader will excuse me that I choose rather to intermix something useful from these great Pens then to entertain him altogether with the Paralogisms and prevarications of this Writer There is nothing that remains considerable under this first Thesis but his Sub-sumption that whatever powers belong'd to the Church in times of persecution and before Emperours had embrac'd Christianity are and must still be allowed to belong to her in Christian States Which I conceive not altogether so Necessary that it must be allowed and I am sure by our Authors it is not As for Convening of Councils the power of greatest concern Bishop Andrews to this Quaestion What say you to the 300 Years
ANIMADVERSIONS ON THE EIGHT THESES Laid down and the INFERENCES Deduced from them in a DISCOURSE ENTITL'D Church-Government PART V. Lately Printed at OXFORD They went out from Us because they were not of Us for if they had been of Us they would 〈◊〉 no doubt have continu'd with Us but they went out that they may be made manifest that they were not all of Us. 1 Joh. 2. 19. OXFORD Printed at the THEATER Anno 1687. Imprimatur IO. VENN Vice-Can Oxon. Iun. 2. 1687. To the UNIVERSITY READER THESE Papers neither have nor need any other recommendation then that of the Cause which they maintain They are extorted by the importunity of those Adversaries who have endeavour'd to wound us in all our nearest concerns The Honour of our University the Autority of our Church and the Rights of our Sovereign The Laborious Author of the Discourses spar'd no pains to shake the foundations of our Religion and the designing Publisher has with no inconsiderable expence endeavoured a farther advantage from them by casting a reproach npon these Seminaries of our Education But it is justly hop'd that their designs against the University will prove as successless as their attempts on the Church Of which we know that tho' the Rains descend the Flouds come and the Winds blow yet it cannot fall for it is founded upon a Rock The hopes of our Enemies abroad have been entertain'd and the solicitude of our Friends awaken'd by the news of our Oxford Converts daily flocking into the bosom of the Roman Church But we hope All men are by this time convinc'd that they deserve as little consideration for their Number as they do regard for their accomplishments No one need to be alarm'd at the Desertion of Six or Seven Members who shall consider their dependence on One who by the Magazines which He had stor'd up against Us shews that He has not now first chang'd his Complexion but only let fall the Vizour Nor ought we more to regard the Insinuations of those who tell us of the secret Promises of such as have not openly Profest as having no other ground but the confidence of the Reporters But be it as it will God covers us with his Feathers and under his Wings will We trust We will neither be afraid of the arrow that flieth by day nor for the Pestilence that walketh in darkness But we least of all fear any danger from this praesent attempt of our Author since the Regal power seems engag'd with our Church in one common defence For she is no farther concern'd in this present Controversie then as she is accus'd to have been too great a friend to the Praerogative of the Crown And certainly that Doctrine which invades the just Rights of the Prince can hope but for few Proselytes amongst those who have constantly defended them in their Writings asserted them in their Decrees and upon all occasions vindicated them with their Swords For We do not lie open to the imputation of a condition'd and distinguishing Loyalty who have shew'd our readiness to imitate the glorious examples of our Fathers and were prepar'd had not God's good Providence prevented our service to have transcrib'd that Copy lately at Sedgmore which they set us formerly at Edge-hill And in truth our steady fidelity to the Prince is so unquestionable that our Enemies have been pleas'd to ridicule what they could uot deny and have made Passive Obedience bear a part in our Character when the Muse has been inclin'd to Satyr As for our Author and his Theses there is nothing here advanc'd which was not in King Edwards time fully answer'd by Protestant Writers and had he written in Henry the 8th's Reign he might have receiv'd a Reply from a Roman Catholic Convocation So vain is it to urge Us now with the stale pretences of a Forreign Iurisdiction which our Ancestors of the Roman Communion ejected with so Universal a consent and which our Fathers of the Reformation resisted even unto death I mean those Glorious Prelates who here dying sealâ—d the truth of our Religion with their Blood and left it as a Legacy to us their Children by us to be convey'd to the Generations yet to come Animadversions on the Eight Theses c. AS that Person who would prove himself a genuine Son of the Church of England had need of more Sincerity then this Editor shew'd whilst He profest to be of Her Communion so one who has the ambition of appearing a potent Enemy against her had need of greater Strength then he has either produc'd of his own or borrow'd from others since he has been her declar'd Adversary Had he continued still to dissemble his Faith and affected an aequilibrium betwixt both Churches His writings would have been more suitable to such a Character where the attentive Reader will find the Church of England but weakly attacq'd and that of Rome as faintly vindicated But since some Motives have prevail'd with him to assume the Name of another Church as that which he has left has no great cause to lament the loss of such a Member so that which He would seem to have fled to will have little reason to boast that She has gain'd a Proselyte For how plausibly soever He may discourse of Church-Autority He abounds in too great a Plerophory of his own sense to submit himself either to a Convocation at home or Council abroad and altho' he would appear an Enemy to Luther he seems at this very time to be drawing up a novell Scheme of Doctrines and modelling to himself a new Church Hence it is that in one of his Treatises he has deserted the antient Plea of Transubstantiation upon which the Tridentine Fathers founded their Adoration of the Host and from which all the great Champions of that Church have constantly deduc'd it Hence his modifying the Council's Sacramentum into Res Sacramenti his prescinding from the Symbols his certain inferior cult only due to them his stripping them even of the Schoolmens latricall qualified secondary improper accidental co-adoration and such other his abstractive Notions of that Worship as do indeed befit a Nominal Philosopher but have no agreement with the avowed doctrines and practises of the Roman Communion Hence it is that in the Discourse we are now upon We read nothing of the Dominus Deus Papa of the Canonists Nothing of the Vicar of Christ the Holy Apostolick and Infallible See which their former Writers have endeavour'd to establish Iure divino Nothing of the Supreme Pastour Governour and Head of Christ's Church the Successor of S. Peter and other Titles which even our Representers of late whose business it hath been to mollifiâ— have furnish'd us with No not so much as of the modest Bishop of Meaux's Primacy of S. Peter's chair and common Center of Catholic Unity but instead of these we are told of a Western Patriarch one who pleads the Prescription of some Years for his Autority and thinks himself hardly dealt
be more rational to shew were not that an attempt long since despair'd of that the particular doctrines and practises to which we are invited are agreeable to the word of God or that it doth not concern us whether they be or not For if either it may be prov'd that the Errours of the Church of Rome were so great that there was a necessity of reforming them that every National Church has a right to reform her self that this right of the Church of England in particular was unquestionable that she us'd no other then this her lawful right and that accordingly the Reformation was effected by the Major part of the then legal Church-Governours Or if in failure or this which yet we say is far from being our case it may be prov'd that where evident Necessity requires and the prevailing Errours are manifest there the Civil power may lawfully reform Religion without the concurrence of the major part of the Clergy for Secular Interests averse from Reformation Or if lastly supposing no such Reformation made by lawful authority but the Laws which enjoyn such erroneous Doctrines remaining in their full force and vigour every private Christian can plead an Exemption from his Obedience to them by proving them evidently contradictory to the known laws of God if any one of these Pleas are valid all which have by our Writers been prov'd to be so beyond the possibility of a fair Reply then Nothing which is aim'd at in these Papers can affect us and tho' the author would have shew'd more skill in proving his Question yet he had still betray'd his want of prudence in the choice of it By what hath been sayd the Reader will be induc'd to think that these Papers do not so much concern the Church of England as the State and that a Reply to them is not so properly the task of a Divine as of a Lawyer The Civil power is indeed manifestly struck at and an Answer might easily be fetcht from Keble and Coke He may perswade himself that he acts craftily but certainly he acts very inconsistently who erects a Triumphal Statue to his Prince and at the same time undermines his Autority in monumental Inscriptions gives him the glorious and astonishing Title of Optimus Maximus and yet sets up a superiour Power to his If neither Loyalty nor gratitude could perswade him to speak more reverâ—ntly yet out of wariness he ought to have been more cautious in laying down such things as seem to have an ill aspect on his Majesties proceedings For it may seem very rash to deny that the Prince can remove from the Exercise of his Office any of his Clergy for not obeying his Decisions in matters of a Spiritual Nature when a Reverend Prelate suffers under such a Sentence to assert that the Prince ought not to collate to Benefices where the Clergy have Canonical exceptions against the Person nominated whilst a Friend of his thus qualified enjoys the benefit of such a Collation to find fault with the Reformers that they gave their Prince leave to dispense with Laws and Constitutions Ecclesiastical when he himself is in that case most graciously dispens'd with How far the Regal power extends it self in these cases especially as it may be limited by the municipal laws of the Realm I am not so bold as to determine but where such Rights are claim'd by the Sovereign and actually exercis'd there it becomes not the modesty of a private Subject to be so open and liberal in condemning them But then above all he renders his Loyalty justly questionable when he tells us it is disputed by the Roman Doctors and leaves it a Question Whether in case that a Prince use his coactive Jurisdiction in Spiritual matters against the Definitions of the Church then the Pope hath not also virtually some Temporal coactive power against the Prince namely to dissolve the Princes coactive Power or to authorise others to use a coactive power against such a Prince in order to the good of the Church Now I appeal to the judicious Reader whether the substance of that infamous Libel which was part of a late Traytour's Indictment and which was written by way of Polemical Discourse as he pleaded might not if manag'd by this Author's pen have been thus warily exprest Whether in case that a Prince use his coactive Jurisdiction in Civil matters against Acts of Parliament then the Parliament hath not also virtually some temporal coactive power against the Prince namely to dissolve the Princes coactive power or to authorize others to use a coactive power against such a Prince in order to the good of the State Such bold Problems as these ought not to be left undecided and one who had any zeal for his Prince would scarce let the Affirmative side of the Quaestion pass without affixing a brand on it These Expressions among others He might well be conscious would be offensive to any SIR of known Fidelity and Loyalty to his Prince and therefore such person 's good Opinion was to be courted in an Epistle Apologetickâ— But certainly it was expected that the kind Sir should read no farther then the Epistle for if he did he would find himself miserably impos'd upon The Author in this Epistle praeacquaints him with these things 1. That there is nothing touch'd in this Discourse concerning the Temporal Prince his Supreme power in such matters as it is dubious whether they be Spiritual or Temporal but only in things which are purely Spiritual and Ecclesiastical 2. That he knows not of any Ecclesiastical powers in this Discourse denied to the Prince but which or at least the chiefest of which all other Christian Princes except those of the Reformed states do forego to Exercise 3. Nor of any but which the Kings of England have also foregone before Henry the Eighth Now I shall humbly beg leave to undeceive the unknown Sir and to represent to him that in all these he is misinform'd As to the first 1. That there is nothing touch'd in this Discourse concerning the Temporal Prince his Supreme power in such Matters as it is dubious whether they be Spiritual or Temporal but only such as are purely Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Now if by dubious he means such things as He does not doubt but they are Spiritual then this doth not reach our case because We may doubt whether some things are not Temporal which He doubts not but they are Spiritual But if by dubious He means such things as are doubted by no body but that they are purely Spiritual then are we agreed since neither do We allow the Temporal Prince any power in things of which We our selves doubt not but they are purely Spiritual That there are some Powers merely Spiritual appropriated to the Clergy and incommunicable to the Prince no true Son of the Church of England will deny but now altho' the substance of those Powers be immediately from God and not from the King
recall it and so they acknowledge not the Pope for head to whose Tribunal no Appeal can be made because their King has no Superiour as to the Spiritual Moreover this right of superiority is not consider'd as delegate but proper and the King of Sicily or they who hold Jurisdiction in his place and who are Lay-men take the title of Beatissimo Santissimo Padre attributing to themselves in effect in respect of Sicily what the Pope takes to himself in regard of the whole Church and they preside in Provincial Councils As for the title of Head of the Church which taken by the Reformers so much offends our Discourser this Critical Historian farther observes It was matter of great astonishment that in our age Queen Elizabeth took the title of Head of the Church of England But seeing in the Kingdom of Sicily the Female succeeds as well as in England a Princess may take the title of Head of the Church of Sicily and of Beatissimo Santissimo Padre Nay it hath happen'd so already in the time of Iean of Arragon Castile the mother of Charles the 5th So that this Critick concludes that it may be said there are two Popes and two sacred Colledges in the Church to wit the Pope of Rome and the Pope of Sicily to whom also may be added the Pope of England What Jurisdiction Spiritual the King of France challenges will best be learnt from the Liberties of the Gallican Church publish'd by the learned Pitthaeus and to be found in his Works Two of them which seem to come home to our purpose are these The most Christian King hath had power at all times according to the occurrences and necessity's of his own affairs to assemble or cause to be assembled Synods or Councils Provincial and National and therein to treat not only of such things as tend to the preservation of his State but also of affairs which concern the Order and Discipline of the Church in his own Dominions and therein to make Rules Chapters Laws Ordinances and Pragmatick sanctions in his own Name and by his own Autority Many of which have been received among the Decrees of the Catholique Church and some of them approv'd by General Councils The Pope cannot send a Legat à latere into France with power to reform judge collate or dispence or do such other things which use to be specified in the Bull of his Legation except it be upon the defire or with the approbation of the most Christian King. Neither can the said Legate execute his Office untill he hath promised the King in writing under his seal and sworn by his holy Orders that he will not use the said Legantine power in his Kingdom Countreys Lands and Dominions any longer then it shall please the King and that so soon as he is admonish'd of the Kings pleasure to the contrary he will cease and forbear and that whilst he doth use it it shall be no otherwise exercis'd then according to the consent of and in conformity to the King without attemping any thing to the prejudice of the Decrees of General Councils the Franchises Liberties and Priviledges of the Gallican Church and the Universities and publique Estates of the Realm And to this end they shall present the Letters of their Legation to the Court of Parliament where they shall be view'd verified publish'd and registred with such Modifications as that Court shall think fit for the good of the Realm and all processes shall proceed according to such restrictions and no otherwise In these two Liberties we find the Autority of the French King farther extended and the Papal power more limited then our Author can be contented the Regal Jurisdiction should be enlarg'd and the Patriarchal confined by the Reformed What power the most Christian King claims in confirming Canons we may learn from Petrus de Marca who lays it down for a Rule which never fails That the deliberations of the Gallican Church can be look'd upon no otherwise then as Counsel given to the King and that they cannot be put in execution without his consent and confirmation And he there saith that the King may praeside in Councils as Head. And in another place proposing to himself this Quaestion Whether since the supreme protection of the Canons doth belong to the King it thence follows that He can command that they be observ'd without expecting the sentence of the Gallican Church He answers * that it is indeed certain that the Observation of them will be the more sacred if they be made with the Universal consent of the Clergy because every one desires that that should take place which he himself approves of But then that it is aequally certain that the King with the advice of his Council may by his Edicts decree that the Canons be observ'd and may add such Modes and Circumstances as are necessary for the better Execution of them and accommodate them to the Interest of the State. This Autority he confirms from the Examples of the first Christian Emperors and the former French Kings and adds expresly That the most Christian Kings still use that right And now methinks the revising of the Canons by the Kings of England especially when humbly besought to do it by the Clergy should not be an Invasion of the Churches rights when the French Kings even without such Interposition of the Church exercise the same Right and yet do according to our Auther leave to the management of the Clergy all power in Spirituals I might here insist upon Collation of Benefices which the French Kings challenge by right of the Regale but I shall choose rather to mention the assembling of Councils because a French King in the last Century seems to have doubted whether his Clergy might convene without his consent as appears from that bold Speech of his Embassadour in the Council of Trent which because it gives us some insight into the freeness of that Synod I shall beg leave to transcribe the latter part of it from Goldastus We refuse to be subject to the Command of Pius the 4th All his judgments and decrees we refuse reject and contemn and although most Holy Fathers Your Religion Life and Learning was ever and ever shall be of great Autority with Us Yet seeing You do nothing but all things are manag'd rather at Rome then at Trent and the things that are here publish'd are rather the Placita of Pius the 4th then the Decrees of the Council of Trent We denounce and protest here before You all that whatsoever things are decree'd in this Assembly by the will and pleasure of Pius neither the Most Christian King will ever approve nor the French Church ever acknowledge for the Decrees of an Oecumenical Council In the mean time the Most Christian King commands all you his Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots Doctors and Divines to depart hence then to return when it shall please God