notwithstanding their mouldy Pretences as if they had come from far and were descended from Ancient Times their true Original is much later and nearer to this present Age. And now Secondly it will be easie to determine That as the Roman is not the Old Religion so neither ought the Professors of it to appropriate to themselves the Name of Catholick For whether we take it in the Primary and Grammatical sense for Vniversal or in its common acceptation for True Believers The Romanist hath no peculiar Right to this Venerable Title First because their Faith in those Points wherein it differs from the Church of England is not Universal for as the judicious Mr. Brerewood computes the Christians holding the Faith of Rome are not above a fourth part of those who believe in Christ And the excellent Author of Europae Speculum thus makes out the Account The Greek Church saith he in number exceeds any other and the Protestants in number and circuit of Territory are very near equal to the Papal part these are two fourth parts to which if we add the Oriental Christians which are not of the Roman Communion and those under Prester John or the Abassine Christians we have another fourth part of the Christian people and then the Romanists are but one fourth part of Christians only And it is very odd to say that the fourth part is the whole And surely my Friends you cannot seriously think the Roman Church to be the Vniversal or Catholick Church in this sense when you remember that the Pope's Authority is not acknowledged by the Generality of those Christians living in England Scotland and Ireland with the Plantations thereunto belonging nor by those of Denmark and Sweden nor by those of Transylvania Walachia and Moldavia nor by the large Church of Russia nor by the populous States and Provinces of the Dutch with their many Plantations abroad nor by at least five parts of six of the vast Country of Upper Germany nor by two parts of three of the Switzers nor by those of Geneva and Piedmont nor by very many in France Hungary Poland c. How many Millions of Christians are there in the Eastern World who have no dependance on the Roman Church The Christians of the Greek Church properly so called under the three Patriarchs of Constantinople Alexandria and Antioch those of Armenia who are professed Enemies of Rome and yearly Excommunicate the Pope The Georgian Christians with many other lesser Names in Asia the Abassine Christians in Africa all these are not of the Communion of the Roman Church and therefore how can that Church pretend to the Title of Vniversal or Catholick in this sense But secondly if you say you are Catholicks that is true Believers in all Points I desire you to consider that none say so but your Selves and 't is suspicious their Witness is not true who bear witness to themselves S. John v. 31. And where so many Articles of Faith are New it is probable some are False since the Oldest things in Religion are the truest and the best So that upon the whole Enquiry the Church of England may more justly claim the Title of Catholick because the Principles thereof are few and clearly deduced from Scripture believed in the Primitive Church and universally received by all sorts of Christians who differ in some Ceremonies but for the Points which this Church accounts necessary to Salvation the whole Christian World generally agrees in them And since the Religion of the Church of England is the most Ancient and most Vniversal you will be more truly of the Old Religion and more properly styled Catholicks by embracing the Faith professed in your own Country and disowning those who damn all Christians but them of their own Party although it be Evident there are in the World Christians far more in number than they and among those many equal in Learning and superior in Piety to the best of the Roman Church who are reprobated and sentenced to Eternal Flames by their uncharitable Anathema's SECTION II. Whether the said Opinions were not introduced for evil Ends ALthough all this be matter of Fact and acknowledged by your own Writers yet I must expect the venerable Esteem you have so long had for the Roman Church will make you slow to believe this deserved Charge of Innovation and perhaps you will wonder how so pure so Celebrated and so Orthodox a Church as Rome Primitive was should vary so much from her first Faith yet since the Change is so Evident and so well attested I hope at least your Curiosity will tempt you to Enquire First For what ends she should bring in these New Doctrines Secondly By what means they became so generally believed Thirdly Of what nature the things themselves are Fourthly Whether there be Authority sufficient in the Roman Church to Impose them on the whole Christian World Fifthly Whether the Catholicks of England ought to be swayed by that Authority to embrace them And if in examining these Particulars any thing shall be spoken which sounds harshly to your ears accustomed to hear nothing but Encomiums of Rome I shall desire you to consider that Truth is seldom grateful to Offenders and I must say with one of the Writers of the Popes Lives We relate these things because they were done and if the Popes would not have base or evil things reported of them they must do no such things or if they do them not fancy they can be so concealed as that they shall not be known nor related to Posterity Papyrius Masson de Vit. Pont. For my own part I profess I take no delight in Accusations nor shall I say any thing out of malice to that Church but out of pity to the Souls of those who without reason dote upon it If you enquire What ends the Roman Church could have to bring in these New Doctrines I Reply The first decay of that Church began in her Manners For after there were Christian Magistrates saith S. Hierome the Church became fuller of Riches and emptier of Vertue And for the Roman Bishops they began very early to affect a Dominion beyond the bounds of Priesthood as Socrates notes which made S. Basil say thirteen hundred years ago I hate the Pride of that Church and caused a Heathen Historian of that Age to say The Roman Bishops were richly clad carried in Litters and profuse in their feastings But the faults of that Age were small in respect of After-times for as their wealth and power increased their manners grew still worse and worse as we find by the complaints of Salvian and many others till at length about the ninth Age your own Baronius saith The face of the Roman Church was become most filthy when lewd and potent Curtezans swayed all there At whose pleasure Sees were changed Bishops placed and which is horrid to Pious ears their Paramors were thrust into S. Peter ' s Chair false Popes which
Old Religion which God revealed at first and which Christ and his Apostles taught That is truest which was the first saith Tertullian and that was first which was from the beginning So S. Cyprian We ought not to regard so much what some others before us have thought fit as what Christ himself who was before all hath done Now if that be the Old Religion which is taught in the Holy Scripture and the Creed herein the Religion of Rome cannot pretend to be Older than the Religion of this Church because we hold all these Articles as well as they yea if the case be rightly stated the Church of Englands Faith is the Old Religion and not that of Rome for she professeth To believe nothing as an Article of Faith but what is read in Holy Scripture or may be proved thereby Artic vi But the Roman Church declares They receive Traditions with the same veneration that they do the Scriptures Concil Trident. Sess 4. So that we hold all the Principles of the Old Religion and no other but they under the pretence of Traditions have invented and added many points to the Old Religion which are not mentioned in the Bible and Decreed other Articles contrary to the Old Religion recorded in Scripture and all these are a New Religion and yet these are the Doctrines in which we differ In all the Principles which are truly the Old Religion we and they generally do agree but if you take the Religion of the Roman Church for the Doctrines in which they differ from us it may be justly said they are of the New Religion and we of the Old since our Religion was recorded in Scripture sixteen hundred years ago as our Adversaries seem to confess when they call us Scriptuarii Scripture-men Prateol whereas all that which is properly their Religion is of much later Date And that I may not be thought to invent this Charge or to accuse the Roman Church wrongfully I will instance in the most principal of the Doctrines wherein we differ and bring in your own Doctors as Witnesses of this Truth 1. That Prayers to the Saints are not mentioned by Christ nor his Apostles is confessed by Salmeron Lindan and Bannes Etherianus saith as much of Prayers for the Dead Indulgences are not to be found in Scripture nor in the Ancient Doctors say Durandus Major Cajetan and Antoninus Transubstantiation it self cannot be proved by Scripture if you will take three Cardinals words for it And if our designed brevity would allow it the like might be proved of all the rest But we must proceed to shew there are some New things in the Romish Religion directly contrary to the Scripture The taking the Cup from the Laity is contrary to our Saviours Institution as that very Council of Constance confesseth which first enjoyned it for they say the Sacrament shall be given in one kind only to the people Non obstante c. notwithstanding our Lord did appoint it in both Concil Constant Sess 13. And your own Authentick Vulgar Translation as if this Innovation had been foreseen where the Greek only hath We are all partakers of one bread adds de uno Calice and of one Cup 1 Cor. 10. 17. The Veneration which you give to Images seems to all impartial eyes directly contrary to the Second Commandement and though your Priests will not directly confess it yet their general leaving out the Second Commandement in your Catechisms and cutting the Tenth in Two to keep up the number and conceal the omission from the Vulgar is a fair Evidence they themselves suspected that this Commandement made against them and feared others would apprehend it so To these you may add Praying in an unknown Tongue which S. Paul condemns in one whole Chapter 1 Corinth xiv as some of your own Commentators on the place confess As also the making Saints and Angels your Mediators to God when the same Apostle positively saith There is but one Mediator viz. Christ Jesus 1 Tim. ii 5. All these therefore cannot rightly be accounted any part of the Old Religion properly so called But if we shall descend lower these and many other Points of your Religion are so far from being the Old Religion that the Writers of the Roman Church do acknowledge they were not known to the Primitive Fathers yea they record the very time when most of them were imposed The Doctrine of Purgatory was first built upon the Credit of those fabulous Dialogues attributed to Gregory the First or if they were his which many doubt this was six hundred years after Christ and it was not generally believed in the Church five hundred years after as we learn from an Old Historian Otto Frising Chronic. An. 1146. And as for the Prayers made to deliver Souls from thence that gainful Article of your Church we are told by your own Authors that the first who caused them to be appointed by your Church was Odilo Abbot of Clugny An. 1000. The worshipping of God by Images was not allowed by the Ancient Fathers say your own Authors Clemangis Polyd. Virgil and Peresius Aiala And all men know this kind of use of Images can be derived no higher as to its being Decreed than that despicable Council in the Eighth Century but both the Doctrine and the Council also was rejected for many years after by the French English and German Churches Indulgences are not Ancient as Bishop Fisher confesses Nor is there any good proof in your own Authors for them before the time of Pope Alexander 3. A. 1160 or the Council of Clermont however An. 1096 And the first who made Mony of them was Boniface 9 th An. 1390. as Platina and Polydore Virgil tell us And the first Jubilee the great Market for them was not an hundred years before The forcing all Priests to vow Single Life and renounce their Wives was first obtruded upon the Church by Pope Hildebrand Without any Precedent saith an Old Historian and as many thought of an indiscreet Zeal contrary to the Holy Fathers Opinion And yet he was not obeyed here in England in this for above a hundred years after for our Ancient Records say All these Decrees availed nothing for the Priests by the Kings consent still had their Wives as formerly Auricular Confession to a Priest was never imposed as necessary until the Lateran Council It being little above fifty years before that we are informed by the famous Master of the Sentences and by Gratian your great compiler of the Decrees that it was in our choice whether we would confess to God only or to the Priest also and T. Aquinas confesseth this was the Opinion then Transubstantiation the discriminating Doctrine of your present Church was not held by the Fathers as your own Doctors acknowledge and one of the Infallible Heads of your Church affirms That the Elements cease not to be of
only serve to fill up so great a space of Time in the Catalogue of Roman Bishops And a Writer who lived in those Times tells us The World was amazed at the Manners of the Romans It is strange saith another Historian how far in that Age they were degenerated from the Piety of the Old Popes This Age as Another speaks was especially unhappy in this that for about an hundred and fifty years there were fifty Popes wholly fallen from the Vertue of their Predecessors being disorderly and Apostatical rather than Apostolical And if our brevity would permit it we could shew out of Platina Onuphrius and Others of your own Writers that there was no Reformation in all the Ages while these New Doctrines were in coyning Now it is the Great Philosopher's observation That Wickedness is destructive of good Principles So that it is no wonder if in such Decays of Piety and such a flood of Iniquity the Roman Church did bring in many New Articles suitable to her Manners and I think when Pride Luxury and Covetousness possess the Chair we can hardly expect any other Laws but such as shall gratifie these affections And the Practices as well as the Decrees of Rome for divers of the latter Centuries have so apparently tended this way that it hath been taken notice of by all those of her own Communion whose affection hath not rob'd them of their discerning Powers yea even in Catholick Countries it hath abated much of the Reverence formerly paid to that See by reason the designs thereof are so apparently Secular tending not to the Salvation of Souls but the support of their own Grandeur Which makes me admire our English Romanists should hug their Chains and adore those who abuse their well-meaning Devotion with Articles of Faith serving rather to carry on the Designs of the Imposers than the Salvation of their over credulous Believers Methinks an easie apprehension might discover that the Roman Guides govern you by Principles that have more of Machiavel in them than of Conscience or Gospel-simplicity and a little consideration will inform you that those things which they teach you to call Religion are Arts to enslave and impoverish you and Engines to advance themselves to the highest pitch of honour and abundance S. Bernard though a great friend to the Roman Church saw this when he said At Rome all regard is given to Honour but to Holiness none at all Were this the fault of particular mens Evil management from which no Society is free it were more excusable but there are Doctrines added to the Old Catholick Faith even most of the Tenets wherein they differ from the Church of England which are plain Artifices to increase the power and wealth of Rome Doctrines for which they dispute with us upon Demetrius's Principle because thereby they have their gain Act. xix 25. And many think the Guides of your Church contend for some of these Principles not because they believe them but because it is their Interest the people should be perswaded of them which makes them secretly laugh at their Credulity who will be imposed on by them as that great Cardinal did when he gave the People who flocked about him his Benediction in these words Qui vult decipi decipiatur And it is a vile suspicion of this which we may gather from that observation of Hospinian That in Italy the name Christian is used for an Ideot or Fool But to be more particular let us look over some Instances of such New Doctrines as are taught in the Roman Church for Secular ends We begin with the Doctrine of Implicit Faith or believing as the Church believes a Doctrine unknown in S. Cyrils time who speaking to his young Christians Bids them not meerly believe the things he spoke because he affirmed them unless he did demonstrate them to be so out of the Divine Scripture And truly this Novel Doctrine may agree with Pythagoras's Ipse dixit and is a good shelter for Paganism the best Argument for which Balbus saith is this That he had received it from his Fore-fathers The Jewish Rabbins told their Disciples They must believe whatever they taught them though they should say that their right hand was their left and it was becoming enough in Apelâ—es the Heretick to charge his seduced Scholars not to examine his Principles by Reason But it is below the Honour of true Religion to desire to be taken upon Trust so that this Doctrine is a policy of your Priests to secure their evil Principles from being enquired into and a device to make you depend on them as Infallible Oracles who can by this means lead you blind-fold whither they will and impose any thing on you which serves their Interest under the pretence of true Religion 2. Auricular Confession to a Priest was voluntary of Old and only used in case of a troubled Conscience or a strong Temptation But it is now made necessary at stated times in all probability to make the Priest master of every mans Secrets to discover the least inclination of their Proselytes to leave them to keep the Laity in awe and make them venerate and depend upon their Spiritual Guide who hereby hath them at his Mercy And their Doctors do affirm that in some cases it is lawful to discover what is revealed to them in Confession especially if it concern the Roman Church And thus they have an Intelligencer in the breast of every Great man of their Communion The Exempting the Regular Clergy from their Lawful Bishops Jurisdiction which S. Bernard complains of as an unjust thing And the freeing Ecclesiasticks from their Natural Princes Authority is that the Pope may have Subjects numerous and potent to give Intelligence and abet his Interest in the bowels of all Kingdoms The Popes Supremacy Appeals to Rome the Collation of Benefices and other Preferments the Creating their Maker in the Mass with many others do all aim at the Honour of the Church of Rome and the making its most inferior Priests revered But because the Honour of the Church of Rome cannot be maintained without vast riches it is obvious to all that many of their New Doctrines and Practices have been introduced with design to fill the Churches Treasuries or if Ignorance and Superstition were the Mother of these gainful Devices it is certain Covetousness hath been an officious Nurse unto them As in the case of Purgatory and Prayers to deliver Souls from thence a Novel fancy feared and suspected at first by some but countenanced and Decreed by that Church thereby to oblige the people to give liberally for themselves or their deceased Friends to those who sell their Prayers so commonly that they occasioned that Proverb No penny no Pater Noster It is impossible to reckon the vast sums that this Opinion brings in for so many Masses Dirige's Requiems for those Trentals Obits and Anniversaries which the deluded Romanists purchase
were never necessary they have other devices to perswade you into a belief of coming off well at the end of your life howsoever ill you have spent it The Hereticks in Tertullians time said It was a meritorious thing to be of their Party And you are told it is a ready way of Salvation to die in the Communion of the Roman Church and if you can but receive the Sacraments of that Church and be Absolved by one of their Priests you scarce doubt of obtaining Heaven at last and if you have no good works of your own they perswade you the Church can sell you the Merits of the Saints or if you should drop into Purgatory by the way the pains of that they say are not endless and if you give liberally on your Death-beds or if any others afterwards give for you to purchase so many Masses and other Prayers for your Soul you will ere long be delivered from thence All which notorious delusions do miserably deceive poor men and most mischievously encourage them to put off their Repentance and to resolve not to be troubled with holiness in the way since they fancy they shall come off so easily in the end and alas they are as false as they are mischievous for the Ancient Fathers unanimously affirm no mans estate can be altered after this life But as the last day of a mans life finds him so the last day of the World finds him Nor will any thing help thee saith S. Augustine but what is done while thou art here Out of innumerable such Testimonies that of S. Salvian may serve Although a man should have so pious a Son who for alleviating his Fathers punishment would desire to give all the goods he left behind him it would do him no good for the Piety of the Son can do nothing to procure that Rest to a man after Death which his own Impiety and Infidelity hath denied him Finally these and the like Principles make so many infamous men and women so many Thieves and Murtherers debauched and prophane persons to take Sanctuary in the Roman Church because the Tenets thereof seem not to oblige them to forsake their evil ways but reconcile wickedness and Salvation together so that this Religion tends not to perswade men to Holiness of life and therefore is no good Religion I grant there are some Persons in that Church who live better than these Opinions engage them to do and do not draw those Conclusions into their practice which naturally follow from these Principles but that is only an evidence of the excellent vertue of such Persons but no proof of the goodness of these Doctrines and if these men be Holy in a Religion which gives such encouragement to evil doubtless they would be more holy by far if they were taught better things I shall only add that as the Roman Church is too loose in matters pertaining to Gods Laws so she is too strict in matters pertaining to her own Constitutions like the Old Pharisees who Tithed Mint and Annise and neglected the weightier matters of the Law Matth. xxiii which is a great obstruction to real Holiness when men place Religion in Ceremonies and slight things for while they are curious in these matters they neglect greater and think by observing the Rules of the Church they compensate for passing by the Laws of God your own Ordinary Gloss saith That is Superstition when Religion is placed in observing the Ordinances of men And if so then your wonderful strictness in Crossing Bowing using Holy Water Abstinence on certain days wearing Crosses c. in which you have placed so much Religion are no better than Superstition It cannot be denied that most Roman Catholicks are more afraid to eat flesh on a Fasting-day than to curse or swear they will be drunk on a Holy-day which God forbids but not work on it because the Church forbids it many of them dare fornicate and debauch who dare not neglect Confession nor read a book written by a supposed Heretick And generally they are punctual in crossing sprinkling bowing and observing all Orders of the Church even such as live in the open breach of Gods Commandements and yet fancy themselves more sure of Heaven than the most pious and holy Protestant Thus this Religion is too strict where God gives us more liberty and too remiss where his Holy Law hath bound us with Eternal and Indispensable bonds and it is designed to promote Obedience to the Roman Church rather than Inward holiness towards God The effect of all which Considerations is this That whosoever sincerely desires to glorifie God and worship him with a rational Devotion and whoever would imitate him by a Holy Life ought not to chuse or retain such a Religion whose Principles tend so evidently to the dishonour of Gods Name the hindrance of true Devotion and to the rendring a Holy life unnecessary And as it was proved before that the appropriated Articles of the Roman Faith were not Ancient nor induced for pious ends nor propagated by honest means so now it is evidenced the Articles are not good in their own nature and therefore there is no reason why you should not renounce them unless you retain them in meer Reverence to the Authority of the Pope who doth impose them which Matter is the Subject of our last Enquiries SECTION V. Whether the Roman Bishop have sufficient Authority to impose the said Opinions upon all Christian Churches THe Last and almost the only shelter that your Doctors flie to at this day for the defence of your Principles is That the Bishop of Rome is the sole Vicar of Christ the Infallible and only Judge of Controversies and the Supream Head of the Vniversal Church and hereby their Adherents are awed into the retaining all his Decrees of what nature soever they be But let me beg leave to advise you not to lay so much stress upon these Titles and Authority till you have seriously examined by what Right the Pope laies claim to them for his Power had need be very great and his Proofs very good upon the Credit whereof you receive so many new and suspicious Articles of Religion some of which we ought not to receive though preached by an Angel Gal. 1. 8 9. And first though we stand not much upon Titles you may note that the name of Vicar of Christ is never given to the Pope in the first Ages and when this Title came into use it was not appropriated to the Bishop of Rome but other Bishops and Priests are styled Vicars of Christ also even by a Pope of Rome as also by the Old French Emperours and by our own Saxon Law So that there is no reason for the Roman Bishop to challenge any propriety in this Title or any special Priviledge by virtue thereof Secondly As to his being an Infallible Judge and the Supream Head of the Catholick Church throughout the World you may remember we have proved there are more Christians in the World who deny this Supremacy of Rome than there are who do acknowledge it And if the belief of this Infallible Headship be the reason why you receive other Articles of Faith this
they confess he is principally so but add that Saints and Angels are so in an inferiour manner which we utterly deny We say Christ is really present in the Sacrament of the Altar this they confess but add he is corporally there by the Transsubstantiation of the Bread c. and this we deny We say the Scriptures are the Rule of Faith and they will not absolutely deny it but add their own Traditions which we reject We say there are XXII Books of the Old Testament Canonical and they confess these all to be so but they add divers and call them Canonical which we affirm to be Apocryphal I could give more instances but these may suffice to shew that the Protestant Doctrines look most like the Ancientest as being received by both Parties but the Roman Opinions are Novel Enlargements of Old Catholick Truths so that a Protestant becoming a Romanist must take up many Articles barely upon the credit of that Church and begin to believe many things anew questioned by the bigger part of Christendom but a Romanist turning Protestant retains all the Old Essentials of his former Faith and doth only become a Primitive Roman Catholick III. The Discipline and Government of the Church of England are more agreeable to Primitive patterns than those of the present Roman Church are Our King hath the same Power that the Religious Kings of Judah had the same which the great Constantine and the succeeding Emperors for many years enjoyed the same power which the Ancient Kings of this Nation exercised viz. A power to convene his Clergy and advise with them about affairs of the Church A power to ratifie that which the Bishops and Clergy agree upon and give it the force of a Law A power to chuse fit persons to Govern the Church A power to correct all Offenders against Faith or Manners be they Clergy or Lay-men And finally A power to determine all Causes and Controversies Ecclesiastical and Civil among his own Subjects by the advice of fit Counsellors so as there lies no Appeal from his Determination and this is that we mean when we call him Supreme Governour of this Church which our King must needs be or else he cannot keep his Kingdoms in peace Besides for Spiritual Jurisdiction and sacred Administrations we have a Patriarch of our own The Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Primate of all England whom Vrban the Second call'd the Pope of the other World And his See was usually styled The Chair of the English Patriarch and is reckoned among the Patriarchates by a Forreign Writer And now his Priviledges and Liberties are restored by Law and his Title and Authority confirmed so that there lies no Appeal from him but to the King we have also Right Reverend Bishops together with other inferiour Priests and Deacons the only Primitive and proper Orders of the Clergy who can prove their Ordination to be as goodas any of the Romish Priests can do And are now Consecrated and Ordained by a more excellent Form and more agreeing to the eldest times than Rome it self can shew and if you will Judge impartially it must be confessed that the Clergy of England are altogether as Learned and generally more painful and pious than in any Catholick Country whatsoever Our Canons for Ecclesiastical Government are all founded on the Canons of Ancient Councils as I could shew by particular induction if time would permit and for the Exercise of our Discipline it is managed with more moderation and ease to the People than that of the Roman Church is IIII. You may consider our Divine Service and Sacred Administrations which as far as ever God made necessary to Salvation may be had in this Church We have the Holy Scriptures plainly translated Learnedly interpreted and practically Preached We have daily Prayers by a Form so Grave and so Agreable to the undoubted parts of Ancient Liturgies that it may challenge all Christendom to produce any thing so consonant to the purest Primitive Devotions A Form which hath all those parts of the Roman Offices which were known and used in the first three Centuries but wants all the Innovations and Corruptions of the present Mass And is used in English for the benefit of the meanest Christian in our Assemblies We have also those two Sacraments which Christ ordained and many of the Elder and Later Doctors own no more As for the other five Rites falsly called Sacraments viz. Confirmation Matrimony Holy Orders visiting of the Sick Repentance and Satisfaction for wrongs done we retain these but not by the name of Sacraments keeping the Primitive and main part of them only attended with fewer Ceremonies We press and practice also Charity and good works as much as the Roman Church doth and it may be demonstrated that more and greater gifts have been given in England to pious uses by private persons since the Reformation than in two Centuries before And though we dare not say we shall merit Eternal life by them because that is the gift of God yet we believe none can come to Heaven without good works In a word the Church of England worships God as he hath prescribed in Holy Scripture She commands all that he enjoyns and forbids all that he prohibits and therefore wanteth nothing that is necessary to Salvation V. You may look upon our Ceremonies which are few and easie Ancient and Significant and though we do not place so much Religion in Externals as the Church of Rome doth yet here is prescribed all that is needful for decency and order viz. That the Clergy always wear Grave and distinct habits and have peculiar Garments in Divine Administrations that Churches be adorned and neat that the People be Reverent in Gods House that the memory of our Saviours chief Acts and the Festivals of the Holy Apostles be religiously observed That Lent with the Vigils of great Feasts the Ember weeks and all the Fridays in the Year be kept as days of Fasting or Abstinence and if some Protestants do not observe them yet others do and are commended for it and you may follow the best not the most you will have more liberty by turning to the English Church as to Circumstantials and greater helps as to the Essentials of Religion So that it is upon all accounts your wisest and safest course to embrace this so true so Primitive so Pious and so rational a Religion Let me therefore shut up my Charitable and Friendly Advice by Requesting you to consider all these things without prejudice or passion and then I hope you will perceive how much the Religion of this Church excells that of Rome in Antiquity Integrity and Usefulness and no longer suffer your selves to be so sadly imposed on and so miserably made to serve the ends of Avarice and Ambition And if you have taken such prudent and pious Resolutions you shall not only be freed from the inconveniences you complain of here but also have
consent thereto or confirmation thereof The Popes indeed about the latter end of the Saxon times began to degenerate in Manners and aim at high things in all the Western world but his Pride was checked here even as as we shewed before it was in other places for when that Insolent Pope Hildebrand who first presumed to depose an Emperour took the boldness to require Fealty of King William the Conqueror he answered him in this manner Fealty I neither have acknowledged nor will I do it because neither did I promise it nor do I find that my Predecessors ever did it to your Predecessors as appears by the Conqueror's Letter still extant And when by Policy and evil Arts he had made some encroachments here yet still his Power was esteemed no other than a Temporal Power permitted by the favour of our Kings not due by any Original Right Hence the Historian saith That King Henry the First having subdued all his Enemies feared none but the Pope and that not for his Spiritual but his Temporal Power And an Old Record affirms that King Henry the Second smartly asked the Bishop of Chichester How he durst argue for the Pope ' s Authority which was granted by Men against his Royal Power derived from God The turbulent and seditious Attempts of T. Becket and his faction about that time to subject the English Clergy to the Pope's Vniversal Supremacy are sufficiently known but if our Ancestors whom you call Roman Catholicks had been of your Opinion in this great Article of Faith they would not have made so stout an Opposition against the Pope's Supremacy as they did It being apparent that the whole body of the Nation then looked on it as an Encroachment and an Vsurpation for in the famous Statutes of Clarendon they condemn it Decreeing among other things That all the Clergy should bonâ fide swear to the King and none should Appeal but unto the Archbishop or from him finally to the King without particular License And to restrain his medling here the Kings of England declared they had a Right to forbid the Pope's Legates from entring into this Land and often did prohibite them even Qu. Mary her self exercising this Power yea it was adjudged in a Parliament 25 Ed. 3. To be Treason to bring in the Pope's Bulls here without the Kings consent Stat. de Provisor though the sending these be an Act of Spiritual Jurisdiction but it is plain they would not allow the Pope in those days to exercise Spiritual Jurisdiction here without the King's leave for his very Excommunicating certain English Bishops in a Parliament 16 of Rich. 2. is declared to tend To the open disherison of the Crown and the destruction of the King his Law and all his Realms and a little after it is affirmed there that the Popes attempts be clearly against the Kings Crown and Regality used and approved in the time of all his Progenitors finally therefore they all promise to stand with the King against all such Encroachments with their very lives And if you be well versed as becometh English-men in the Histories and Statutes of your own Country you must needs know that the Authority which the Pope once exercised here was gotten by taking advantages of the necessities of our Kings and the divisions among the People And in those Times which are accounted most Popish it was checked by Laws complained of in Parliament and thought an Oppression by the wisest and greatest Subjects so that the most Noble Hen. de Lacy Earl of Lincoln in his dying Speech to his Son in Law Thomas Earl of Lancaster said among other things That the Church of England heretofore Honourable and Free was now enslaved by Romish Oppressions charging him to stand up like a man for the Honour of God and the Church and the Redemption of his Country And the same Author tells us that it was debated in a Council at London An. 1408. Whether all Payments and Obedience to the Pope should not be taken away Which shews they thought it in the power of this Nation to take away his Authority here when they pleased And they retained it not as being necessarily or originally due to him but only in respect of his being a Bishop of an Ancient Apostolical Seat as is evident from those Instructions which King Henry the Fifth gave to his Embassadors sent to Pope Martin the Fifth bidding them if they perceived any delay in their affair to tell the Pope That their Master the King if he yielded not to his Demands would use his own power in these Particulars for he did not apply himself to Rome out of necessity but for Respect sake And therefore when this permissive Authority grew uneasie to those who had endured it for some time it was rejected much more Legally than ever it was introduced viz. by the Regal Power with the advice and consent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament And this is to be noted the Clergy and Laity of this Parliament did hold most of the Opinions of the Roman Church in other things and yet consented to the abolishing the Pope's Vsurped Power over England as believing it to be an unjust Encroachment And Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester a great Persecutor of the Protestants did then make a learned Oration De verâ obedientiâ shewing that the King was by Right and by God's Law the Supream Head of this Church of England And now that I may not only confute a false Opinion but establish the true let me intreat you impartially to consider that as it appears the Pope is not Dejure supream Head of this Church of England so it is as evident that the King of England is the Supream Head of the Churches in his own Dominions For indeed all Christian Princes are or ought to be so in their own Dominions whence it was that Constantine the Great did retain the Title of Pontifex Maximus without any blot to his Christianity saith Baronius And the highest Appeals in all Controversies Ecclesiastical even in matters of Faith were made to him though he used the assistance and Counsel of his Bishops for determining them And it is evident that he and his Successors as Cusanus before confesseth did call and Preside in all General Councils and ratified their Decrees which were no Laws till they were stamped with the Imperial Authority yea the Imperial Code sufficiently witnesses that the Emperour 's made Laws concerning Religion the whole Third book of Justinian's Basilicks being nothing else but Imperial Constitutions de Episcopis Clericis Sacris They also erected Patriarchates and gave them supream Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction over such Provinces as they pleased as at Justinianopolis in Daeia and at Ravenna in Italy it self which had no dependence on Rome till the time of Constantinus Pogon And all Ecclesiastical affairs depended on the Emperors saith Socrates so that Pope Anastasius calls the
doth not entrench upon the King's Supremacy telling you that you need not obey the Pope if he commanded you to fight against your King wherein they put a fallacy upon you for they know the Pope can Excommunicate and depose him even for a very small matter say your Canonists and then he is no longer Your King They pretend further this Supremacy over Kings in Temporals is not the Doctrine of your Church but only of some Jesuites upon whom they lay all those foul Doctrines of Deposing and murthering Kings so wickedly maintained by divers eminent Writers of your Church But this is a delusion also for when or where did the Pope or the Heads of the Roman Church condemn these Opinions or suppress these Seditious Books nay on the contrary the Books are approved and the Authors preferred at Rome even when France condemns them And those honest and loyal secular English Priests that have ventured to write against this usurped Power of the Popes over Kings in Temporals though they held his Supremacy here in Spirituals have been persecuted almost to death by the Roman Bishop they have been suspended and their Books condemned and their persons so odiously represented that no English Catholicks durst harbour them witness the learned F. Preston under the name of Roger Widrington in King James's days with his fellow-Priests and Peter Walsh Author of the Letter to the Catholicks who is at this day a great Sufferer by the Pope's means meerly for writing that you of the Roman Church ought to be Loyal to the King in all matters of Temporal cognizance a clear evidence that whatever your Church may pretend they will not endure that any of you Catholicks shall hold the King's power to be above the Pope's in any thing and consequently they will not allow you to be good Subjects Now to sum up all these particulars how grievous an abuse is it for a Forreign Prelate whose Predecessors had no Authority here at all to usurp such a power over you as to impose New and inexpedient Articles upon you Why should you enslave your selves to him that cannot have so much as a Spiritual Jurisdiction here without breaking the Canons of the most famous General Councils Why may you not take the same liberty to oppose his Decrees that your Ancestors in all Ages have done they whom you account good Catholicks rejected his Doctrines sometimes despised his Bulls and Excommunications frequently and always opposed his pretended claim of a Supremacy over this Nation why should you call that an Article of Faith and account it the Principal point of Religion viz. That England ought to be subject to Rome which even in those you call Catholick Times was declared to be no less than Treason and no other than an Opinion that did destroy the Prerogative of the King the Priviledges and Liberties of this Church the freedom and quiet of all English Subjects They were Romanists in other Points who condemned Appeals to Rome and maintained that the Crown of England was in no Earthly subjection and that the King had no Supream but God only who counted all the Power which the Pope ever had here meerly permissive tolerated by this Nation so long as they pleased and such as might be curbed lessened hindred or taken away by the Supream Authority of this Nation when ever they saw expedient It was a King and Parliament of your Religion in most points that restored the King to his just Supremacy and took away the precarious or usurped and much abused Power of the Roman Bishop here they thought a Supremacy in Spirituals as to this Kingdom was more than he had any Right to but he and his Agents expect to be allowed to over-rule the Temporal Laws also methinks if you have the Nobleness and Gallantry of true English spirits your affections for the Roman Church should not rob you of your love to your Native Country nor suffer you to endure those pretences which dishonour the King and despoil him of his Ancient Rights and enslave this free Church and Nation to one that only seeks his own ends in claiming this Subjection for though the holding the Pope's Supremacy doth contribute to the support of his own Grandeur yet it doth not further any mans Salvation and it is so far from doing any good in those Nations where it is allowed him that it might be made appear the setting up and abetting this Supremacy hath occasioned the murther of many Princes stirred up the complaints of all sorts of people and filled Christendom for many Ages with Massacres Treasons War and Bloodshed which was so notorious in the German Empire that it came to be a Proverb saith Guiccardine It is the property of the Church to hate the Caesars And the mischief it hath done in England by rifling the Nations wealth before the Reformation and disturbing its Quiet since is so well remembred and so deeply resented by the generality of the people that they will never endure that heavy Yoak any more nor can they be perswaded scarce ever to esteem them Loyal Subjects or true to their Countries Interest who do not renounce this unjust and odious Jurisdiction Why therefore O my Friends will you be so imprudent to oppose the Rights and Prerogative of your Lawful Sovereign the Priviledges of that Church wherein you were born the Freedom and Interest of your beloved Country the desire of your fellow-Subjects and best Friends yea and your own liberty also Why will you oppose I say all these meerly to support an unjust and groundless Power which no Ecclesiastick ought to have any where much less in so remote and so free a Monarchy to support a Power which is inconsistent with the Security of the Crown the Peace of the Kingdom and the welfare of Private persons S. Peter never bid any to honour his Successor the Pope thus but his Opinion was that you must submit to the King as Supream 1 Pet. ii 13. and his Counsel follows thereupon viz. that you should Fear God and Honour the King ver 17. S. Paul commands Every Soul to be subject to the Higher Powers Rom. xiii 1. Neither Bishops nor Apostles themselves are excepted saith S. Chrysostome And S. Bernard tells Pope Eugenius that the Apostles were forbid to exercise Dominion Luke xxii 25 26. and therefore he adds If you would have Apostolical and Royal Power together you lose both Finally therefore it is unreasonable for the Roman Bishop to challenge such Authority here and the Laws of God and Man forbid it so that I may expect you shall be so far from receiving any Articles for the sake of this Authority that you shall not scruple to renounce the Authority it self which was so ill-gotten at first so wretchedly abused while it did obtain and so legally taken away at last and in so doing you will demonstrate your selves to be Loyal to your King Faithful to your Country Friends to your