composing those differences not by the way of an accommodation but an absolute conquest and to this end they dispatch'd to him certain of their number in the name of the rest such as were interessed in the Quarrel Dr. Whitacres himself for one and therefore like to stickle hard for the obtaining their ends the Articles to which they had reduced the whole state of the business being brought to them ready drawn and nothing wanting to them but the face of Authority wherewith as with Medusa's head to confound their Enemies and turn their Adversaries into stones And that they might be sent back with the face of Authority the most Reverend Archbishop Whitgift calling unto him Dr. Flecher Bishop of Bristol then newly elected unto London and Dr. Richard Vaughan Lord Elect of Bangor together with Dr. Tyndal Dean of Ely Dr. Whitacres and the rest of the Divines which came from Cambridg proposed the said Articles to their consideration at his House in Lambeth on the tenth of Novemb. Anno 1595. by whom those Articles were agreed on in these following words 1. Deus ab aeterno praedestinavit quosdam ad vitam quosdam reprobavit ad mortem 2. Causa movens aut efficiens praedestinationis ad vitam non est praevisio fidei aut perseverantiae aut bonorum operum aut ullius rei quae insit in personis Praedestinatis sed sola voluntas beneplaciti Dei 3. Praedestinatorum praefinitus certus est numerus qui nec augeri nec minui potest 4. Qui non sunt Praedestinati ad salutem necessario propter peccata sua damnabuntur 5. Vera viva justificans fides spiritus Dei justificantis non extinguitur non excidit non evanescit in Electis aut finaliter aut totaliter 6. Homo vere fidelis id est fide justificante praeditus certus est plerophoria Fidei de Remissione peccatorum suorum salute sempiterna sua per Christum 7. Gratia salutaris non tribuitur non incommunicatur non conceditur universis hominibus qua servari possint si velint 8. Nemo potest venire ad Christum nisi datum ei fuerit nisi pater eum traxerit omnes homines non trahuntur à patre ut veniant ad filium 9. Non est positum in arbitrio aut potestate uniuscujusque hominis servari 1. God from Eternity hath predestinate certain men unto life certain men he hath reprobate 2. The moving or efficient cause of predestination unto life is not the foresight of Faith or of perseverance or of good works or of any thing that is in the person predestinated but only the good will and pleasure of God 3. There is predetermined a certain number of the Predestinate which can neither be augmented or diminished 4. Those who are not predestinated to salvation shall be necessarily damned for their sins 5. A true living and justifying Faith and the Spirit of God justifying is not extinguished falleth not away it vanisheth not away in the Elect either totally or finally 6. A man truly faithful that is such an one who is indued with a justifying faith is certain with the full assurance of faith of the remission of his sins and of his everlasting salvation by Christ 7. Saving Grace is not given is not granted is not communicated to all men by which they may be saved if they will 8. No man can come unto Christ unless it be given unto him and unless the Father shall draw him and all men are not drawn by the Father that they may come to the Son 9. It is not in the will or power of every one to be saved Now in these Articles there are these two things to be considered first the Authority by which they were made and secondly the effect produced by them in order to the end proposed and first as touching the authority by which they were made it was so far from being legal and sufficient that it was plainly none at all For what authority could there be in so thin a meeting consisting only of the Archbishop himself two other Bishops of which but one had actually received consecration one Dean and half a dozen Doctors and other Ministers neither impowred to any such thing by the rest of the Clergy nor authorized to it by the Queen And therefore their determinations of no more Authority as to binding of the Church or prescribing to the judgment of particular persons than as if one Earl the eldest son of two or three others meeting with half a dozen Gentlemen in Westminster Hall can be affirmed to be in a capacity of making Orders which must be looked on by the Subject as Acts of Parliament A Declaration they might make of their own Opinions or of that which they thought fittest to be holden in the present case but neither Articles nor Canons to direct the Church for being but Opinions still and the Opinions of private and particular persons they were not to be looked upon as publick Doctrines And so much was confessed by the Archbishop himself when he was called in question for it before the Queen who being made acquainted with all that passed by the Lord Treasurer Burleigh who neither liked the Tenents nor the manner of proceeding in them was most passionately offended that any such Innovation should be made in the publicck Doctrine of this Church and once resolved to have them all attainted of a Premunire But afterwards upon the interposition of some Friends and the reverend esteem she had of the excellent Prelate the Lord Archbishop whom she commonly called her Black Husband she was willing to admit him to his defence and he accordingly declared in all humble manner that he and his Associates had not made any Articles Canons or decrees with an intent that they should serve hereafter for a standing Rule to direct the Church but only had resolved on some Propositions to be sent to Cambridge for the appeasing of some unhappy differences in the University with which Answer her Majesty being somewhat pacified commanded notwithstanding that he should speedily recall and suppress those Articles which was performed with such care and diligence that a Copy of them was not to be found for a long time after And though we may take up this relation upon the credit of History of the Lambeth Articles printed in Latin 1651. or on the credit of Bishop Mountague who affirms the same in his Appeal Appeal p. 71. Resp Nec p. 146 Anno 1525. yet since the Authority of both hath been called in question we will take our warrant for this Narrative from some other hands And first we have it in a book called Necessario Responsio published by the Remonstrants Anno 1618. who possibly might have the whole story of it from the mouth of Baroe or some other who lived at that time in Cambridge Cabul p. 117. and might be well acquainted with the former passages And secondly We find the same
most eminent Divines of all the Kingdom to come before him whom he required freely and plainly to declare as well what their opinion was of the aforesaid Pamphlets as what they did think fit to be done concerning the Translation of the Bible into the English Tongue And they upon mature advice and deliberation unanimously condemned the aforesaid Books of Heresie and Blasphemy no smaller crime then for translating of the Scriptures into the English tongue they agreed all with one assent that it depended wholly on the will and pleasure of the Sovereign Prince who might do therein as he conceived to be most agreeable to his occasions but that with reference to the present estate of things it was more expedient to explain the Scripture to the people by the way of Sermons than to permit it to be read promiscuously by all sorts of men yet so that hopes were to be given unto the Laily that if they did renounce their errours and presently deliver to the hands of his Majesties Officers all such Books and Bibles which they conceived to be translated with great fraud and falshood and any of them had in keeping his Majesty would cause a true and catholike Translation of it to be published in convenient time for the use of his Subjects This was the sum and substance of the present Conference which you shall find laid down at large in the Registers of Arch-Bishop Warham And according to this advice the King sets out a Proclamation not only prohibiting the buying reading or translating of any the aforesaid Books but straitly charging all his Subjects which had any of the Books of Scripture either of the Old Testament or of the New in the English Tongue to bring them in without delay But for the other part of giving hopes unto the people of a true Translation if they delivered in the false or that at least which was pretended to be false I find no word at all in the Proclamation That was a work reserved unto better times or left to be solicited by the Bishops themselves and other Learned men who had given the counsel by whom indeed the people were kept up in hope that all should be accomplished unto their desires And so indeed it proved at last For in the Convocation of the year 1536. the Authority of the Pope being abrogated and Cranmer fully settled in the See of Canterbury the Clergy did agree upon a form of Petition to be presented to the King That he would graciously indulge unto his Subjects of the Laity the reading of the Bible in the English Tongue and that a new Translation of it might be forthwith made for that end and purpose According to which godly motion his Majesty did not only give Order for a new Translation which afterwards He authorized to be read both in publique and private but in the interim he permitted CROMWEL his Vicar General to set out an Injunction for providing the whole Bible both in Latine and English after the Translation then in Use which was called commonly by the name of Matthews Bible but was no other than that of Tindal somewhat altered to be kept in every Parish-Church throughout the Kingdom for every one that would repair thereunto and caused this mark or character of Authority to be set upon them in red Letters Set forth with the Kings most gracious Licence which you may see in Fox his Acts and Monuments p. 1248. and 1363. Afterwards when the new Translation so often promised and so long expected was compleat and finished Printed at London by the Kings Authority and countenanced by a grave and pious Preface of Arch-Bishop Cranmer the King sets out a Proclamation dated May 6. Anno 1541. Commanding all the Curates and Parishioners throughout the Kingdom who were not already furnished with Bibles so authorized and translated as is before said to provide themselves before All-hallowtide next following and to cause the Bible so provided to be placed conveniently in their several and respective Churches straitly requiring all his Bishops and other Ordinaries to take special care to see his said commands put in execution And therewithal came out Instructions from the King to be published by the Clergy in their several Parishes the better to possess the people with the Kings good affection towards them in suffering them to have the benefit of such Heavenly Treasure and to direct them in a course by which they might enjoy the same to their greater comfort the reformation of their lives and the peace and quiet of the Church Which Proclamation and Instructions are still preserved in that most admirable Treasury of Sir Robert Cotton And unto these Commands of so great a Prince both Bishops Priests and People did apply themselves with such chearful reverence that Bonner even that bloody Butcher as he after proved caused six of them to be chained in several places of St. Paul's Church in London for all that were so well inclined to resort unto for their edification and instruction the Book being very chargeable because very large and therefore called commonly for distinctions sake The Bible of the greater Volum Thus have we seen the Scriptures faithfully translated into the English Tongue the Bible publickly set up in all parish-Parish-Churches that every one which would might peruse the same and leave permitted to all people to buy them for their private Uses and read them to themselves or before their Families and all this brought about by no other means than by the Kings Authority only grounded on the advice and judgment of the Convocation But long it was not I confess before the Parliament put in for a share and claimed some interest in the work but whether for the better or the worse I leave you to judge For in the year 1542. the King being then in agitation of a League with Charles the Emperour He caused a complaint to be made unto him in this Court of Parliament That the Liberty granted to the people in having in their hands the Books of the Old and New Testament had been much abused by many false glosses and interpretations which were made upon them tending to the seducing of the people especially of the younger sort and the raising of sedition within the Realm And thereupon it was enacted by the Authority of the Parliament on whom He was content to cast the envy of an Act so contrary to his former gracious Proclamations That all manner of Books of the Old and New Testament of the crafty false and untrue Translation of Tindal be forthwith abolished and forbidden to be used and kept As also that all other Bibles not being of Tindals Translation in which were found any Preambles or Annotations other than the Quotations or Summaries of the Chapters should be purged of the said Preambles and Annotations either by cutting them out or blotting them in such wise that they might not be perceived or read And finally That the Bible be not read openly in
sake of Jesus Christ to lay aside all prejudice which possibly you may be possessed withal either in reference to the Argument or unto the Author and to peruse this following Story with as much singleness of heart and desire of truth and invocation of Gods Spirit to find out the same as was by me used in the writing of it It is your welfare which I aim at as before was said your restitution to your functions and reconciliation to the Church from which you are at point of falling that we with you and you with us laying aside those jealousies and distrusts which commonly attend on divided minds may joyn our hearts and hands together for the advancement of Gods honour and the Churches peace And God even our own God shall give us his blessing For others which shall read this Story whether by you misguided or yet left emire I do desire them to take notice that there is none so much a stranger to good Arts and Learning whom in this case and kind of writing I dare not trust with the full cognizance of the cause herein related In points of Law when as the matter seems to be above the wit of common persons or otherwise is so involved and intricate that there hath been no Precedent thereof in former times it is put off to a demurrer and argued by my Lords the Judges with their best maturity of deliberation But in a matter of fact we put our selves upon an ordinary Jury not doubting if the evidence prove fair the Witnesses of faith unquestioned and the Records without suspition of imposture but they will do their Conscience and find for Plaintiff or Defendant as the cause appears So in the business now in hand that part thereof which consists most of Argument and strength of Disputation in the examining of those reasons which Pro or Con have been alledged are by me left to be discussed and weighed by them who either by their place are called or by their Learning are inabled to so great a business But for the point of practice which is matter of fact how long it was before the Sabbath was commanded and how it was observed being once commanded how the Lords day hath stood in the Christian Church by what Authority first instituted in what kind regarded these things are offered to the judgment and consideration of the meanest Reader No man that is to be returned on the present Jury but may be able to give up his Verdict touching the title now in question unless he come with passion and so will not hear or else with prejudice and so will not value the evidence which is produced for his information For my part I shall deal ingenuously as the cause requires as of sworn counsel to the truth not using any of the mysteries or arts of pleading but as the holy Fathers of the Church the learned Writers of all Ages the most renowned Divines of these latter times and finally as the publick Monuments and Records of most Nations christned have furnished me in this enquiry What these or any of them have herein either said or done or otherwise left upon the Register for our direction I shall lay down in order in their several times either the times in which they lived or whereof they writ that so we may the better see the whole succession both of the doctrine and the practice of Gods Church in the present business And this with all integrity and sincere proceeding not making use of any Author who hath been probably suspected of fraud or forgery nor dealing otherwise in this search than as becomes a man who aims at nothing more than Gods publick service and the conducting of Gods People in the ways of truth This is the sum of what I had to say in this present Preface beseeching God the God of truth yea the truth it self to give us a right understanding and a good will to do thereafter THE HISTORY OF THE SABBATH BOOK I. From the Creation of the World to the destruction of the Temple CHAP. I. That the SABBATH was not instituted in the Beginning of the World 1. The entrance to the Work in hand 2. That those words Genes 2. And God blessed the seventh day c. are there delivered as by way of anticipation 3. Anticipations in the Scripture confessed by them who deny it here 4. Anticipations of the same nature not strange in Scripture 5. No Law imposed by God on Adam touching the keeping of the Sabbath 6. The Sabbath not ingraft by Nature in the soul of man 7. The greatest Advocates for the Sabbath deny it to be any part of the Law of Nature 8. Of the morality and perfection supposed to be in the number of seven by some learned men 9. That other numbers in the confession of the same learned men particularly the first third and fourth are both as moral and as perfect as the seventh 10. The like is proved of the sixth eighth and tenth and of other numbers 11. The Scripture not more favourable to the number of seven than it is to others 12. Great caution to be used by those who love to recreate themselves in the mysteries of numbers I Purpose by the grace of God to write an History of the Sabbath and to make known what practically hath been done therein by the Church of God in all Ages past from the Creation till this present Primaque ab origine mundi ad mea perpetuum deducere tempora carmen One day as David tells us teacheth another Nor can we have a better Schoolmaster in the things of God than the continual and most constant practice of those famous men that have gone before us An undertaking of great difficulty but of greater profit In which I will crave leave to say as doth St. Austin in the entrance to his Books de Civitate Lib. 1. c. â— Magnum opus arduum sed Deus est adjutor noster Therefore most humbly begging the assistance of Gods holy Spirit to guide me in the way of truth I shall apply my self to so great a work beginning with the first Beginnings and so continuing my Discourse successively unto these times wherein we live In which no accident of note as far as I can discern shall pass unobserved which may conduce to the discovery of the truth and seâ—ling of the minds of men in a point so controverted On therefore 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 to the present business Gen. 2. In the beginning saith the Text God created the Heaven and the Earth Which being finished and all the hosts of them made perfect on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had made And then it followeth And God blessed the seventh day and sanctified it because that in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made Unto this passage of the Text and this
Ark of Gods Secret Counsels of which spirit I conceive this Frith to be not that I find him such in any of his Writings extant with the other two but that he is affirmed for such in a Letter of Tyndals directed to him under the borrowed name of Jacob For in the collection of his pieces neither the Index nor the Margent direct us unto any thing which concerns this Argument though to the Writtings of the others they give a clearer sense howsoever made then in favour of the Calvinian party than the Books themselves or possibly was ever meant by the men that made them Acts and Mon. fol. 987. Now Tyndals Letter is as followeth Dearly beloved Jacob my hearts desire in our Saviour Jesus is That you arm your self with patience and be hold sober wise and circumspect and that you keep you a low by the ground avoiding high questions that pass the common capacity but expound the Law truly and open the Rule of Moses to condemn all flesh and prove all men sinners and all deeds under the Law before mercy hath taken away the condemnation thereof to be sin and damnable And then as a faithful Minister set abroach the mercy of our Lord Jesus and let the wounded consciences drink of the water of life And then shall your preaching be with power not as the Doctrine of Hypocrites and the Spirit of God shall work with you and all consciences shall bear record unto you and feel that it is so And all Doctrine that casteth a mist on these two to shadow and hide them I mean the Law of God and mercy of Christ that resist you with all your power Of him it is or of such high Climers as he was â—roloe before the Epist unto the Rom. p. 48. who we find Tyndal speaking in another place But here saith he we must set a mark upon those unquiet busie and high-climing Wits how far they shall go which first of all bring hither their high Reasons and pregnant Wits and begin first from on high to search the bottomless secrets of Gods Predestination whether they be predestinated or no These must needs either cast themselves headlong down into Desperation or else commit themselves to free chance careless But follow thou the order of this Epistle and nuzzel thy self with Christ and learn to understand the Law and the Gospel-means and the office of both that thou mayst in the one know thy self and how thou hast of thy self no strength but to sin and in the other the grace of Christ and then see thou fight against sin and the flesh as the seven first Ghapters teach thee Of these high flyings Lambert another of our Martyrs was endicted also who as he would not plead Not guilty Acts and Mon. fol. 1008. so he stood not mute but bound to the Endictment in this manner following Vnto the Article saith he whether it be good or evil cometh of necessity that is as you construe it to wit whether a man hath Free-will so that he may deny joy or pain I say as I said at the beginning that unto the first part of your Riddle I neither can nor will give any desinitive answer for so much as it surmounteth any capacity trusting that God will send hereafter others that be of better cunning than I to incite it If there be any thing in this which may give any comfort to our rigid Calvinists much good do them with it and if they meet with any in the former passages let them look back upon the Answers before laid down and then consider with themselves what they have got by the adventure or whether Tyndal Barns and Frith conjunct or separate may be considered as a Rule to our first Reformers which having done I would have them finally observe the passage in the eighth of St. Mark where the blind man whom our Saviour at Bethsaida restored to his sight at the first opening of his eyes said he saw men as trees walking that is to say he saw men walking as trees quasi dicat homines quos ambulantes video non homines sed arbores mihi videntur as we read in Maldionale By which the blind man declared saith he se quidem videre aliquid imperfecte tamen videre cum inter homines c arbores distinguere non posset I discern somewhat said the poor man but so imperfectly that I am not able to distinguish between trees and men Such an imperfect sight as this might these Martyrs have in giving unto men no greater power of walking in the ways of Gods Commandments than as if they had been sensless Trees or liveless shadows And such an imperfect sight as his the Lord gave many times to those whom he recovered out of the Egyptian darkness of Popish Errours who not being able to discern all divine Truth at the first opening of the eyes of their understanding were not to be a Rule or President to those that followed and lived under a brighter beam of illumination Finally taking all for granted as to the judgment of these men in the points disputed which the Calvinians can desire and pretend unto and letting them enjoy the Title which Mr. Fox hath given them of being called the Ring-leaders of the Church of Englanp which Bilney Byfield Lambert Garet or any other of our ancient Martyrs may as well lay claim to yet as they suffered death before the publick undertaking of the Reformation under E. 6. so nothing was ascribed to their Authority by the first Reformers CHAP. VIII Of the Preparatives to the Reformation and the Doctrine of the Church in the present points 1. The danger of ascribing too much to our ancient Martyrs c. exemplified in the parity of Ministers and popular elections unto Benefices allowed by Mr. John Lambert 2. Nothing ascribed to Calvins judgment by our first Reformers but much to the Augustine Confession the writings of Melancthon 3. And to the Authority of Erasmus his Paraphrases being commanded to the use of the Church by King Edward VI. and the Reasons why 4. The Bishops Book in order to a Reformation called The Institution of a Christian man commanded by King Henry VIII 1537. corrected afterwards with the Kings own hand examined and allowed by Cranmer approved by Parliament and finally published by the name of Necessary doctrine c. An. 1543. 5. The Doctrine of the said two Books in the points disputed agreeable unto that which after was established by King Edward the Sixth 6. Of the two Liturgies made in the time of King Edward VI. and the manner of them the testimony given unto the first and the alterations in the second 7. The first Book of Homilies by whom made approved by Bucer and of the Argument that may be gathered from the method of it in the points disputed 8. The quality and condition of those men who principally concurred to the Book of Articles with the Harmony or consent in Judgment between
Num. 2 3 4 5 6 Part 2. Cap. 1. Num. 10 c. Cap. 4 Numb 7. Cap. 5. Num. 5 6. Cap. 6. Num. 5 7. besides many other passages here and there interserted to the same effect that I shall save my self the trouble of adding any thing further to those Observations And to them therefore I refer the Reader for his satisfaction At this time I shall say no more but that the Church had never stood so constantly to Episcopal Government were it not for the great and signal benefits which redound unto it by the same Of which there is none greater or of more necessary use to Christianity than the preserving of a perpetual succession of Preists and Deacons ordained in a Canonical way to be Ministers of holy things to the rest of the people that is to say to Preach the Word Administer the Sacraments and finally to perform all other Divine and Religious Offices which are required of them by the Church in their several places Thus have I laid before thee good Christian Reader the Method and Design of this following Work together with the Argument and Occasion of each several Piece contained in it Which as I have done with all Faith and Candor in the sincerity of my Heart and for the Testimony of a good Conscience laying it with all humble reverence at the feet of those who are in Authority so with respective duty and affection I submit the same unto the judgment of which Persuation or Condition soever thou art for whose instruction in the several Points herein declared it was chiesly studied And I shall heartily beseech all those who shall please to read it that if they meet with any thing therein which either is less fitly spoken or not clearly evidenced they would give me notice of it in such a charitable and Christian way as I may be the better for it and they not the worse Which favour if they please to do me they shall be welcome to me as an Angel of God sent to conduct me from the Lands of error into the open ways of truth And doing these Christian Offices unto one another we shall by Gods good leave and blessing not only hold the bond of external peace but also in due time be made partakers of the spirit of Vnity Which Blessing that the Lord would graciously bestow on his afflicted and distracted Church is no small part of our Devotions in the publick Liturgy where we are taught to pray unto Almighty God that he would please continually to inspire his universal Church with the spirit of Truth Vnity and Concord and grant that all they which do confess his holy Name may agree also in the truth of his holy Word and live in Vnity and godly Love Unto which Prayer he hath but little of a Christian which doth not heartily say Amen Lacies Court in Abingdon April 23. 1657. The Way of the REFORMATION OF THE Church of England DECLARED and JUSTIFIED c. THE INTRODUCTION Shewing the Occasion Method and Design of the whole discourse My dear Hierophilus YOUR company is always very pleasing to me but you are never better welcome han when you bring your doubts and scruples along with you for by that means you put me to the studying of some point or other whereby I benefit my self if not profit you And I remember at the time of your last being with me you seemed much scandalized for the Church of England telling me you were well assured that her Doctrine was most true and orthodox her Government conform to the Word of God and the best ages of the Church and that her publick Liturgie was an Extract of the Primitive Forms nothing in all the whole composure but what did tend to edification and Increase of piety But for all this you were unsatisfied as you said in the ways and means by which this Church proceeded in her Reformation alleding that you had heard it many times objected by some Partisans of the Church of Rome that our Religion was meer Parliamentarian not regulated by Synodical Meetings or the Authority of Councels as in elder times or as D. Harding said long since in his Answer unto B. Jewel That we had a Parliament Religion a Parliament Faith and a Parliament Gospel To which Scultinguis and some others after added that we had none but Parliament Bishops and a Parliament Clergy that you were apt enough to think that the Papists made not all this noise without some ground for it in regard you have observed some Parliaments in these latter days so mainly bent to catch at all occasions whereby no manifest their powers in Ecclesiastical matters especially in constituting the new Assembly of Divines and others And finally that you were heartily ashamed that being so often choaked with these Objections you neither knew how to traverse the â—ndictment nor plead Not guilty to the Bill Some other doubts you said you had relating to the King the Pope and the Protestant Churches either too little or too much look'd after in our Reformation but you were loth to trouble me with too much at once And thereupon you did intreat me to bethink my self of some fit Plaister for the sore which did oft afflict you religiously affirming that your desires proceeded not from curiosity or an itch of knowledge or out of any disaffection to the Power of Parliaments but meerly from an honest zeal to the Church of England whose credit and prosperity you did far prefer before your life or whatsoever in this world could be dear unto you Adding withal that if I would take this pains for your satisfaction and help you out of these perplexities which you were involved in I should not only do good service to the Church it self but to many a wavering member of it whom these objections had much staggered in their Resolutions In fine that you desired also to be informed how far the Parliaments had been interessed in these alterations of Religion which hapned in the Reigns of K. Hen. VIII K. Edw. VI. and Q. Elizabeth What ground there was for all this clamour of the Papists And whether the Houses or either of them have exercised of old any such Authority in matters of Ecclesiastical or Spiritual nature as some of late have ascribed unto them Which though it be a dangerous and invidious Subject as the times now are yet for your sake and for the truth's and for the honour of Parliaments which seem to suffer much in the Popish calumny I shall undertake it premising first that I intend not to say any thing to the point of Right whether or not the Parliament may lawfully meddle in such matters as concern Religion but shall apply my self wholly unto matters of Fact as they relate unto the Reformation here by law established And for my method in this business I shall first lay down by way of preamble the form of calling of the Convocation of the Clergy here in England that
begin to intrench upon the Churches Rights to offer at and entertain such businesses as formerly were held peculiar to the Clergy only next to dispute their Charters and reverse their privileges and finally to impose some hard Laws upon them And of these notable incroachments Matthew Parker thus complains in the life of Cranmer Qua Ecclesiasticarum legum potestate abdicata populus in Parliamento coepit de rebus divinis inconsulto Clero Sancire tum absentis Cleri privilegia sensim detrahere juraque duriora quibus Clerus invitus teneretur Constituere But these were only tentamenta offers and undertakings only and no more than so Neither the Parliaments of K. Edward or Q. Elizabeths time knew what it was to make Committees for Religion or thought it fit that Vzzah should support the Ark though he saw it tottering That was a work belonging to the Levites only none of the other Tribes were to meddle with it But as the Puritan Faction grew more strong and active so they applyed themselves more openly to the Houses of Parliament but specially to the House of Commons putting all power into their hands as well in Ecclesiastical and Spiritual Causes as in matters Temporal This amongst others confidently affirmed by Mr. Pryn in the Epistle to his Book called Anti-Arminianism where he avers That all our Bishops our Ministers our Sacraments our Consecration our Articles of Religion our Homilies Common-prayer Book yea and all the Religion of the Church is no other way publickly received supported or established amongst us but by Acts of Parliament And this not only since the time of the Reformation but That Religion and Church affairs were determined ratified declared and ordered by Act of Parliament and no ways else even then when Popery and Church men had the greatest sway Which strange assertion falling from the pen of so great a Scribe was forthwith chearfully received amongst our Pharisees who hoped to have the highest places not only in the Synagogue but the Court of Sanhedrim advancing the Authority of Parliaments to so high a pitch that by degrees they fastened on them both an infallibility of judgment and an omniotency of power Nor can it be denied to deal truly with you but that they met with many apt Scholars in that House who either out of a desire to bring all the grist to their own Mill or willing to enlarge the great power of Parliaments by making new precedents for Posterity or out of faction or affection or what else you please began to put their Rules in practice and draw all matters whatsoever within the cognizance of that Court In which their embracements were at last so general and that humour in the House so prevalent that one being once demanded what they did amongst them returned this answer That they were making a new Creed Another being heard to say That he could not be quiet in his Conscience till the holy Text should be confirmed by an Act of theirs Which passages if they be not true and real as I have them from an honest hand I assure you they are bitter jests But this although indeed it be the sickness and disease of the present Times and little to the honour of the Court of Parliament can be no prejudice at all to the way and means of the Reformation amongst sober and discerning men the Doctrine of the Church being settled the Liturgy published and confirmed the Canons authorized and executed when no such humour was predominant nor no such power pretended to by both or either of the Houses of Parliament But here perhaps it will be said that we are fallen into Charybdis by avoiding Scylla and that endeavouring to stop the mouth of this Popish Calumny we have set open a wide gap to another no less scandalous of the Presbyterians who being as professed Enemies of the Kings as the Popes Supremacy and noting that strong influence which the King hath had in Ecclesiastical affairs since the first attempts for Reformation have charg'd it as reproachfully on the Church of England and the Religion here established that it is Regal at the best if not Parliamentarian and may be called a Regal Faith and a Regal Gospel But the Answer unto this is easie For first the Kings intended by the Objectors did not act much in order to the Reformation as appears by that which hath been said but either by the advice and co-operation of the whole Clergy of the Realm in their Convocations or by the Counsel and consent of the Bishops and most eminent Church men in particular Conferences which made it properly the work of the Clergy only the Kings no otherwise than as it was propouned by him or finally confirmed by the Civil Sanction And secondly had they done more in it than they did they had been warranted so to do by the Word of God who hath committed unto Kings and Sovereign Princes a Supreme or Supereminent power not only in all matters of a Temporal or Secular nature but in such as do concern Religion and the Church of Christ And so St. Augustine hath resolved it in his third Book against Cresconius In hoc Reges sicut iis divinitus praecipitur pray you note that well Deo serviunt in quantum Reges sunt si in suo Regno bona jubeant mala prohibeant non solum quae pertinent ad humanum societatem verum etiam ad Divinam Religionem Which words of his seemed so significant and convincing unto Hart the Jesuite that being shewed the Tractate writ by Dr. Nowel against Dorman the Priest in the beginning of Q. Elizabeths time and finding how the case was stated by that Reverend person he did ingenously confess that there was no Authority ascribed to the Kings of england in Ecclesiastical affairs but what was warranted unto them by that place of Augustine The like affimed by him that calleth himself Franciscus de S. Clara though a Jesuite too that you mjay see how much more candid and ingenuous the Jesuits are in this point than the Presbyterians in his Examen of the Articles of the Church of England But hereof you may give me opportunity to speak more hereafter when you propose the Doubts which you say you have relating to the King the Pope and the Churches Protestant and therefore I shall say no more of it at the present time SECT II. The manner of the Reformation of the Church of England declared and justified HItherto I had gone in order to your satisfaction and communicated my conceptions in writing to you when I received your Letter of the 4th of January in which you signified the high contentment I had given you in condescending to your weakness as you pleased to call it and freeing you from those doubts which lay heaviest on you And therewithal you did request me to give you leave to propound those other scruples which were yet behind relating to the King the Pope and the Protestant-Churches either too little
what the Gentiles did who being another of those integral parts whereof the Church of Christ consisted both Jews and Gentiles making up one Church to our Lord and Saviour and having their own forms and rites of religious worship if the Idolatrous service of their gods may be so entituled are in the next place to be looked upon that we may see how univerfally all sorts of people have agreed in this to institute set forms and determinate rites whereby to order and direct their whole devotions And having shewn out of their most unquestionable Records and Monuments with what a general consent they entertained those publick formulas which had been recommended to them by the former times we shall proceed to the affairs of the Christian Church so far forth as they do concern this present business And then I hope it will seem reasonable to the indifferent and sober Reader that if a prescribed Form of Worship hath been admitted in the world semper ab omnibus ubique according to the rule of Lyrinensis at all times formerly in all places too and by all sorts of people of what Sect soever It must needs be a most unheard of novelty to reject them now and hazard all the publick worship of Almighty God either upon no Forms at all or such as no man is obliged to observe and hold to A matter which which the very Gentiles though men of excellent wits and eloquence thought not fit to do their gods though gods of earth made of gold and silver and far worse materials being conceived of too great Majesty to be spoken unto in such an unprepared and unpremeditated manner as some men now affect to speak in to the God of Heaven And this we shall deliver in one Chapter only with as much brevity as may be and so pass forward to the Forms or Liturgies used from the first beginnings of the Christian Church which is the matter most especially to be looked into CHAP. IV. That antiently the Gentiles had their Liturgies or prescribed Forms of publick Worship 1. The use of Sacrifice amongst the Gentiles before Moses time 2. Times Priests and Temples sanctified and selected by the Gentiles for the publick service of their gods 3. A general proof that anciently the Gentiles had their Liturgies and set forms of Worship 4. Preparatory forms used at the Celebration of their Sacrifiees 5. The rites and forms used in the Sacrifice it self 6. Several short forms of words observed amongst the Gentiles both Greek and Latine in their publick Sacrifices 7. Set forms of Prayer used unto Jupiter Mars Janus Juno and other of the gods and goddesses 8. The solemn form used by the Gentiles in evocation of the gods of besieged Cities 9. As also in devoting themselves or Enemies to a certain ruine for preservation of the Common-wealth 10. The several gestures of the Gentiles in the act of publick worship prescribed and regulated 11. The rites and forms used by the Greeks particularly in the solemn Sacrifices 12. A prescript form of Matrimony amongst the Romans IT is observed by Epiphanius Epiphan in Pan. l. 1. c. 1. n. 5. that from the time of Adam unto that of Serug there were no different opinions in the world about Religion 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no sides nor factions fostered by the Sons of men in matters which concerned Gods worship but that Gods Servants were distinguished from other men by the piety and integrity of their conversation 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It was the piety and impiety of their lives saith he which made all difference But in the times of Serug the people being scattered and divided into several Languages and not communicating with each other as before they used began to take up several opinions in the things of God which brought them at the last unto Idolatry their errors in the point of practice being grounded on their mispersuasions in point of judgment Yet so that there accrewed unto them no particular name by which to difference them from the rest till the days of Abraham from which time forward the world began to be divided into Jew and Gentile Id. adv haeres 8. num 2. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as he tells us after Upon which ground it may be probably inferred that in the worshipping of those Idols Ninus or whosoever else brought in Idolatry retained that form of Sacrifice and publick Worship which they had seen observed and practised in the Service of God For Belus the Assyrian Monarch the Son and Successor of Nimrod from whom the Jews and Gentiles in succeeding times borrowed the names of Bel and Baal being the first whose Statua or Image was advanced and worshipped 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Cyril Alex. contr Julian l. 3. as mine Author hath it by those that lived under his Dominion was the first also unto whom they offered Sacrifices and other rites of divine worship 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 saith the Father plainly Now Bel and Serug were Contemporaries as appears evidently in all Chronology And therefore when Lactantius tell us of Meliseus King of Crete Lactant institut divin l. 1. c. 22. primum diis sacrificasse that he was the first who offered Sacrifice unto the Gods it must be understood with no doubt reference to Europe and these Western parts of the world Or else it must be meant that he set forth the Sacrifices of the gods after a more pompous and magnificent manner than formerly had been accustomed ac ritus novos sacrorumque pompas introduxisse as the words next following do seem to intimate Cicero de natura deorum So that however it be true which Tully tells us nulla gens tam barbara that there was never any Nation known so rude and barbarous which was not well enough persuaded that there was a God and that it was imprinted in their souls by the stamp or character of nature that God was to be Worshipped by them and that too in the first place 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 said the Grecian Orator yet for the form and manner of his Worship Isocrat orat ad Demon. the Rites and Sacrifices which they used in the first times of their Idolatry I rather think they took it on tradition and from hand to hand than that the light of nature did direct them in it But be this as it will it comes all to one as to the business now in hand which aims no further than to shew that anciently the Gentiles had their Sacrifices when yet no Sacrifices were enjoyned by the Law of Moses And if they had their Sacrifices as 't is plain they had and took them up upon the practice of Gods Servants as 't is most probable they did we may conceive that with those Sacrifices they did joyn such Prayers and Praises as were agreeable to their occasions and necessities when they made their Offerings accordingly as had been done by the holy Patriarchs Unto what purpose did
of work since the time of the old Martin Mar-prelat began to teem again with a new brood of Libellous Pamphlets the Females of Sedition as a Learned Gentleman truly calls them in which the Bishops were reproached with Innovating in the Worship of God here by Law established in order to some dark design to bring in Popery The antient usages of the Church grounded on Law required by Canon and Authorized by the stamp of Supream Authority had lien so long under the Rubbish of neglect and discontinuance by the remisness to say no worse of it of the former Government that the endeavour of reducing them to use and practice was forthwith clamorously branded with the odious name of an Innovation though when it came unto the trial the Innovation lay at their doors who had raised he clamor Amongst which Innovations so unjustly charged there was none made a greater and more general noise than the requiring a set Form of Prayer to be used by Preachers before their Sermons imputed by H. E. to the late Archb. as an act of his and yet confessed so much he was transported by his spleen and passion to be prescribed in the Canon of 603. full 30 years before that Prelate had attained the See of Canterbury During these heats I was requested by the Right Reverend Father in God the Lord Bishop of W. to ease him of some pains in searching into the constant practice of this Church since the Reformation as to that particular as also to consider of the grounds and motives which might induce the Bishops of those times to compose the Canon in which that Form had been prescribed that haing satisfied himself in all points which concerned that Argument towards which my poor endeavours were not likely to contribute much he might with greater confidence require the Clergy of his Diocess to conform unto it An employment which I undertook with a ready chearfulness as one that had been always trained up in the School of obedience and looked upon the just motions of my Superiors as in the nature of commands What satisfaction this discourse then gave unto hisLordship I forbear to add and what contentment it may give to the Reader now I forbear to guess The fate of Books depends not in these times as in those before on the capacity of the Reader but on his private interess so as it is not to be hoped that such as are approved by some will be liked of all though most of those who may mislike may give no sufficient reason for it All therefore which I have to do is to submit it to the judgment of the equaland unbyassed Reader from whom I am as willing to receive satisfaction in any controverted point as to use my best endeavours to give it to him And so good Reader I conclude with those words of the Poet Tu vergo si quid novisti rectius istis Candidus imperti si non his utere mecum If thou hast better reasons lend me thine Or otherwise make bold with these of mine A BRIEF DISCOURSE Touching the Form of Prayer c. 1. The Introduction to the whole 2. The Canon of the year 1603. 3. The meaning and purpose of that Canon 4. The Injunction of Qu. Elizabeth to the same effect 5. The Injunction of King Edward VI. to the same effect 6. The like Injunction of King Henry VIII 7. The ground and reason of the Injunction of that King and the exemplification of it in the practice of Bishop Latimer 8. The difference between Invocation and that bidding of Prayer which is required by the Canon 9. The Canon justified by the practice of Bishop Andrews 10. By the practice of Bishop Jewel in Qu. Elizabeths time 11. By the practice of Archbishop Parker in King Edwards time 12. By the like practice of Bishop Latimer in that Kings time also 13. More of the practice of Bishop Latimer in this point 14. The same proved also by the practice of Bishop Gardiner 15. The result arising both from the precept and the practice of the Church herein 16. How the now Form of Prayer by way of Invocation was first taken up 17. No Prayer by way of Invocation used by the Antients in their Sermons 18. The Prayer appointed by the Canon and Injunctions used rather heretofore as a part of the Sermon than as a preparation to it 19. Bidding of Prayer more consonant unto the meaning of the Law than any set Prayer in the way of Invocation 20. Bidding of Prayer more proper for the place or Pulpit which was not made for Prayer but for Exhortation 21. The like concluded from the posture of the Preacher also 22. Some inconveniences arising from the Form of Prayer by Invocation 23. More inconveniencies of that nature by accusing the Liturgie as defective 24. The conclusion and submission of the whole to his Lordships judgment INventae erant Epistolae ut certiores faceremus absentes si quid esset quod eos scire aut nostrum aut ipsorum interesset Epistles were devised as Tully writes to Curio to this end and purpose that we might certifie the absent of those things which are most proper for their knowledge and our relation They are our Messengers for love our Posts for business our Agents in the managing and dispatch of the weightiest Affairs such as most nearly do concern us which being a chief Use and Benefit of Letters no marvail if they have been used in all former Ages not only to maintain an intercourse between Friends in point of Amity but to lay down in them our resolutions as occasion is in point of Controversie The several Writings in this kind of the antient Authors as well the Christian as the Gentile what are they but so many precepts and directions by which to regulate our Conversations or reasons and authorities on the which to rest our judgments Upon which ground my most Honoured Lord I have adventured to declare by this way of Letter what I have found upon due search in answer to the proposition which your Lordship recommended to me touching the Form of Prayer appointed in the Canon to be used by Preachers before the Sermon Of which such question hath been made in these busie times whether it ought to be by way of Invocation as a formal Prayer or else by way of Exhortation as a bidding of Prayer For resolution of the which I shall first lay down the very Canon and after briefly shew unto you what is most like to be the true intention of it out of the publick Monuments of this Church and constant practice of those men who are above exception for the point in hand and also by such other pregnant reasons as I have thought most proper to confirm the same Now for the title of the Canon it runs thus Can. 55. The Form of a Prayer to be used by Preachers before their Sermons The body of it is this Before all Sermons Lectures and Homilies Preachers
Craec in Martii 14. was by him ordained Bishop of Britain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as the words there are a region full of fierce and savage people and that having there setled the Church and ordained Presbyters and Deacons in the same he did there also end his life The Reverend Primate of Armagh out of a fragment attributed to Heleca De Britannic Eccl. prim c. 1. sometimes Bishop of Saragossa in Spain doth recite a passage wherein it is affirmed of this Aristobulus missum in Angliam Episcopum that he was sent Bishop into England for so the Author calleth this Countrey according to the name it had when he writ the same But these things which relate to the British Churches I rather shall refer to our learned Antiquaries to be considered of more fully than affirm any thing my self But to look back on Timothy and Titus whom we left lately in their several Churches I hear it said that notwithstanding all those proofs before produced from the ancient yet being Evangelists as they were they could be no Bishops Smectymn p. 48. Bishops being tied to the particular care of that flock or Church over which God had made them Overseers but the Evangelists being Planetary sent up and down from place to place by the Apostles as the necessities of the Church required Besides that moving in an higher sphere than that of Bishops and being Co-partners with Saint Paul in his Apostleship or Apostolical function Unbishopping of Tim. Tit. p. 36. it had been a devesting of themselves of their Apostolical jurisdiction and preheminence to become Bishops at the last and so descend from a superiour to an inferiour Office For answer whereunto we need say but this that the gift of being an Evangelist might and did fall on any rank of ordinary Ministers as might that also of the Prophet Philip one of the seven a Deacon as it is generally conceived but howsoever Ministring unto the Church in an inferiour place or Office was notwithstanding an Evangelist and Agabus though perhaps but a simple Presbyter one of the Seventy past all question was a Prophet too Philip as he was one of the Seven was tied to a particular employment and of necessity sometimes Acts 6.12 must leave the Word of God to serve Tables Yet the same Philip as he was furnished by the Lord with gifts and graces for gaining Souls to God Almighty and doing the work of an Evangelist must leave the serving of those Tables to preach the Word And Agabus Acts 11.27 28. 21.10 if he were a Presbyter whether of Hierusalem from whence he is twice said to come or of some other Church that I will not say might notwithstanding his employment in a particular Church repair to Antioch or Caesarea as the Spirit willed him there to discharge the Office of a Prophet So then both Timothy and Titus might be Bishops as to their ordinary place and calling though in relation unto their extraordinary gifts they were both Evangelists As for their falling from a higher to a lower function from an Evangelist unto a Bishop I cannot possibly perceive where the fall should be They that object this will not say but Timothy at the least was made a Presbyter for wherefore else did the Presbytery which they so much stand on lay hands upon him And certainly if it were no diminution from an Evangelist to become a I resbyter it was a preferment unto the Evangelist from being but a Presbyter to become a Bishop But for the Bishopping of Timothy and Titus as to the quod sit of it that so they were in the opinion of all ancient Writers we have said enough We will next look on the authority committed to them to see what further proof hereof may be brought for that CHAP. V. Of the Authority and Jurisdiction given by the Word of God to Timothy and Titus and in them to all other Bishops 1. The Authority committed to Timothy and Titus was to be perpetual and not personal only 2. The power of Ordination intrusted only unto Bishops by the Word of God according to the judgments of the Fathers 3. Bishops alone both might and did Ordain without their Presbyters 4. That Presbyters might not Ordain without a Bishop proved by the memorable case of Coluthus and Ischyras 5. As by those also of Maximus and a Spanish Bishop 6. In what respects the joint assistance of the Presbyters was required herein 7. The case of the Reformed Churches beyond the Seas declared and qualified 8. The care of ordering Gods Divine Service a work peouliar to the Bishop 9. To whom the Ministration also of the Saoraments doth in chief belong 10. Bishops to have a care that Gods Word be preached and to encourage those that take pains that way 11. Bishops to silence and correct such Presbyters as preach other doctrines 12. As also to reprove and reject the Heretick 13. The censure and correction of inferiour Presbyters doth belong to Bishops 14. And of Lay-people also if they walk unworthy of their Christian calling 15. Conjectural proofs that the description of a Bishop in the first to Timothy is of a Bishop truly and properly so called THEY who object that Timothy and Titus were Evangelists and so by consequence no Bishops Unbishopping of Tim. Tit. p. 60 61 c. have also said and left in writing that the authority committed to them by Saint Paul did not belong to them at all as Bishops but Evangelists only But this if pondered as it ought hath no ground to stand on The calling of Evangelists as it was Extraordinary so it was but temporary to last no longer than the first planting of the Church for which so many signal gifts and graces of the Holy Spirit were at first poured on the Disciples I know not any Orthodox Writer who doth not in this point agree with Calvin Com. in 4. ad Eph. v. 11. who in his Comment on the Epistle to the Ephesians gives us this instruction Deum Apostolis Evangelistis Prophetis Ecclesiam suam non nisi ad tempus ornasse that God adorned his Church with Prophets Evangelists and Apostles for a season only having before observed that of all those holy ministrations there recited Postrema tantum duo perpetua esse the two last viz. Pastors and Teachers which he takes for two were to be perpetual But on the other side power to ordain fit Ministers of what sort soever as also to reprove and censure those that behaved themselves unworthily authority to convent and reject an Heretick to punish by the censures of the Church all such as give offence and scandal to the Congregation by their exhorbitant and unruly living this ought to be perpetual in the Church of Christ This the Apostle seems to intimate when he said to Timothy I charge thee in the sight of God 1 Tim. 6.14 and before Jesus Christ that thou keep this Commandment without spot
Closet 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 after the manner of Kings and Princes Or if the Seat or Throne here spoken of were a Tribunal as it is said by Cassiodore we must not look upon him in the Church but in the Consistory in which he would have nothing ordinary like to other Bishops but all things suted and adorned like the Bench or Judgment-seat of a Civil Magistrate As for the men to whom the execution of the Sentence was committed which is the next thing here to be considered Eusebius tells us that they were the Bishops of Rome and Italy And possibly the Emperour might commit the judgment of the cause to them because being strangers to the place and by reason of their absence not ingaged in the business or known to either of the two Pretenders they might with greater equity and indifference determine in it This is more like to be the reason than that the Emperour should take such notice of the Popes authority as to conceive the Judgments and Decrees of other Bishops to be no further good and valid quam eas authoritas Romani Pontificis confirmasset Baron in Annal Anno 272. n. 18. than as they were confirmed by the Bishop of Rome as fain the Cardinal would have it If so what needed the Italian Bishops to be joyned with him The Pope might do it of himself without their advice indeed without the Emperours Authority This was not then the matter whatsoever was and what was like to be the matter we have said already And more than that I need not say as to the reason of the reference why the Emperour made choice rather of the Western than the Eastern Bishops to cognisance the cause and give possession on the same accordingly But there is something else to be considered as to the matter of the reference to the point referred as also to the persons who by this Sovereign Authority were enabled to determine in the cause proposed And first as for the point referred whereas there were two things considerable in the whole proceedings against Paulus viz. his dangerous and heretical Doctrine and next his violent and unjust possession the first had been adjudged before in the Council and he deposed for the same With that the Bishops either of Rome or Italy had no more to do than to subscribe unto the judgment of the Synod or being being a matter meerly of spiritual cognizance might in a like Synodical meeting without the Emperors Authority as their case then stood have censured and condemned the Heresie though with his person possibly they could not meddle as being of another Patriarchat But that which here I find referred unto them was a mere Lay-fee a point of title and possession and it was left unto them to determine in it whether the Plaintiff or Defendant had the better right to the house in question This was the point in issue between the parties and they upon the hearing of the cause gave sentence in behalf of Domnus who presently upon the said award or sentence was put into possession of the house and the force removed by the appointment of the Emperour And it is worth our notice also that as they did not thrust themselves into the imployment being a matter meerly of a secular nature so when the Emperor required their advice therein or if you will make them his Delegates and High Commissioners they neither did delay or dispute the matter nor pleaded any Ancient Canons by which they might pretend to be disabled from intermedling in the same A thing which questionless some one or other of them would have done there being so many Godly and Religious Prelates interessed therein had they conceived that the imployment had been inconsistent with their holy calling A second thing to be considered in this delegation concerns the parties unto whom it was committed which were as hath been said before the Bishops of Italy and of the City of Rome In which it will not be impertinent to examine briefly why the Bishops of Italy Niceph. hist Eccl. l. 6. c. 29. and the Bishops of Rome 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as by Nicephorus it is given us in the plural number should be here reckoned as distinct since both the City of Rome was within the limits and bounds of Italy and Italy subordinate or rather subject to the City of Rome the Queen and Empress of the World For resolution of which Quaere we may please to know that in the distribution of the Roman Empire the continent of Italy together with the Isles adjoyning was divided into two parts viz. the Prefecture of the City of Rome conteining Latium Tuscia and Picenum the Realm of Naples Vide chap. 3. of this 2. Part. and the three Islands of Sicily Corsica and Sardinia as before was said the head City or Metropolis of the which was the City of Rome And secondly the Diocess of Italy containing all the Western and broader part thereof from the River Magra to the Alpes in which were comprehended seven other Provinces and of the which the Metropolis or prime City was that of Millain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as in Athanasius Athanas in Epist iad solitar vitam agentes Optat. de Schis Dona. l. 2. So that that Church being in the Common-wealth according to that maxim of Optatus and following the pattern of the same in the proportion and fabrick of her publick Government the Bishops of the Diocess of Italy were no way under the command of the Patriarch or Primate of the Church of Rome but of their own Primate only which was he of Millain And this division seems to be of force in the times we speak of because that in the subscriptions to the Council of Arles Conc. Tom. 1. being about 40 years after that of Antioch the Bishops of Italy stand divided into two ranks or Provinces that is to say Provincia Italiae and Provincia Romana the Province of Italy of which Orosius the Metropolitan of Millain subscribeth only and then the Province of the City of Rome for which Gregorius Bishop of Porto subscribeth first In after Ages the distinction is both clear and frequent as in the Epistle of the Council of Sardica extant in Athanasius In Athanas Apolog. 2. Atha ad solitar vitam agentes and an Epistle of the said Athanasius written unto others So that according to the Premisses this conclusion followeth that the Popes or Patriarchs of Rome had no Authority in the Church more than other Primates no not in Italy it self more than the Metropolitan of Millain as may appear should all proofs else be wanting by this place and passage by which the Bishops of the Diocess of Italy taking the word Diocess in its civil sense were put into a joynt commission with the Bishops of the Patriarchat of Rome with the Pope himself Which tending so expresly to the overthrow of the Popes Supremacy as well Christopherson in his Translation of Eusebius as
which afterwards in the year 1625. he published to the World with his other Lectures Now in this Speech or Determination he did thus resolve it First that the Sabbath was not instituted in the first Creation of the World nor ever kept by any of the ancient Patriarchs who lived before the Law of Moses therefore no moral and perpetual Precept as the others are Sect. 2. Secondly That the sanctifying of one day in seven is ceremonial only and obliged the Jews not Moral to oblige us Christians to the like Observance Sect. 3. 4. Thirdly That the Lords day is founded only on the Authority of the Church guided therein by the practice of the Apostles not on the fourth Commandment which in the 7. Section he entituleth a seandalous Doctrine nor any other authority in holy Scripture Sect. 6. 7. Fourthly That the Church hath still authority to change the day though such authority be not fit to be put in practice Sect. 7. Fifthly That in the celebration of it there is no such cessation from the works of labour required of us as was exacted of the Jews but that we lawfully may dress Meat proportionable unto every mans estate and do such other things as be no hinderance to the publick Service appointed for the day Sect. 8. Sixthly That on the Lords day all Recreations whatsoever are to be allowed which honestly may refresh the spirits and encrease mutual love and Neighbourhood amongst us and that the Names whereby the Jews did use to call their Festival whereof the Sabbath was the chief were borrowed from an Hebrew word which signifies to Dance and to make merry or rejoyce And lastly that it appertains to the Christian Magistrate to order and appoint what Pastimes on the Lords day are to be permitted and what prohibited not unto every private person much less to every mans rash Zeal as his own words are who out of a schismatical Stoicism debarring men from lawful Pastimes doth incline to Judaisin Sect. 8. This was the sum and substance of his resolution then which as it gave content unto the sounder and the better part of the Assembly so it did infinitely stomack and displease the greater numbers such as were formerly possessed with the other Doctrines though they were wiser than to make it a publick Quarrel Only it pleased Mr. Bifeild of Surrey in his Reply in a Discourse of Mr. Brerewoods of Cresham Colledg Anno 1631. to tax the Doctor as a spreader of wicked Doctrine and much to marvel with himself how either he durst be so hold to say Page 161. or having said it could be suffered to put it forth viz. That to establish the Lords day on the fourth Commandment were to incline too much to Judaism This the said M. Bifeild thinks to be a foul aspertion on this famous Church But in so thinking I conceive that he consulted more his own opinion and his private interest than any publick maintenance of the Churches cause which was not injured by the Doctor but defended rather But to proceed or rather to go back a little About a year before the Doctor thus declared his judgment one Tho. Broad of Gloucestorshire had published something in this kind wherein to speak my mind thereof he rather shewed that he disliked those Sabbath Doctrines than durst disprove them And before either M. Brerewood whom before I named had writ a learned Treatise about the Sabbath on a particular occasion therein mentioned but published it was not till after both Anno 1629. Add here to joyn them altogether that in the Schools at Oxon Anno 1628. it was maintained by Dr. Robinson now Archdeacon of Gloucester viz. Ludos Recreationis gratia in die Dominico non esse prohibitos Divina Lege That Recreations on the Lords day were not at all prohibited by the Word of God As for our neighbour Church of Scotland as they proceeded not at first with that mature deliberation in the reforming of that Church which had been here observed with us so did they run upon a course of Reformation which after was thought fitting to be reformed The Queen was young and absent in the Court of France the Regent was a desolate Widow a Stranger to the Nation and not well obeyed So that the people there possessed by Cnoxe and other of their Teachers took the cause in hand and went that way which came most near unto Geneva where this Cnoxe had lived Among the first things wherewithal they were offended were the Holy days Proceedings at Perth These in their Book of Discipline Anno 1560. they condemned at once particularly the observation of Holy days entituled by the names of Saints the Feasts of Christmas Circumcision Epiphany the Purification and others of the Virgin Mary all which they ranked awongst the abominations of the Roman Religion as having neither Commandment nor assurance in the Word of God But having brought this Book to be subsigned by the Lords of secret Counsel it was first rejected some of them giving it the Title of Devote Imaginations Cnoxe Hist of Scotl. p. 523. whereof Cnoxe complains Yet notwithstanding on they went and at last prevailed for in the middle of the Tumults the Queen Regent died and did not only put down all the Holy days the Lords day excepted but when an uprore had been made in Edenburg about a Robin-hood or a Whitson-Lord they of the Consistory excommunicated the whole multitud Now Proceedings at Perth that the holy days were put down may appear by this That in the year 1566. when the Confession of the Helvetian Churches was proposed unto them they generally approved the same save that they liked not of those Holy days which were there retained But whatsoever they intended and howsoever they had utterly suppressed those days which were entituled by the Names of particular Saints yet they could never so prevail but that the people would retain some memory of the two great and principal Feasts of Christs Nativity and Resurrection For in the year 1575. Complaint was made unto the Regent how in Dunfreis they had conveyed the Reader to the Church with Taber and Whissel to read Prayers all the Holy days of Zule or Christmas Thereupon Anno 1577. it was ordained in an Assembly of the Church That the Visitors should admonish Ministers preaching or ministring the Communion at Pasche or Zule or other like superstitious times under pain of deprivation to desist therefrom Anno 1587. it was complained of to his Majesty That Pasche and Zule were superstitiously observed in Fife and about Dunfreis and in the year 1592. the Act of the Queen Regent granting licence to keep the said two Feasts was by them repealed Yet find we by the Bishop of Brechin in his Discourse of the Proceedings at the Synod of Perth that notwithstanding all the Acts Civil and Ecclesiastick made against the superstitious observation and prophane abuse of Zule day the people could never be induced to labour on
of men 4. The like by Bardesanes and the Priscilianists the dangerous consequents thereof exemplified out of Homer and the words of S. Augustine 5. The error of the Maniches touching the servitude of the Will revived by Luther and continued by the rigid Lutherans 6. As those of Bardesanes and Priscilian by that of Calvin touching the Absolute Decree the dangers which lie hidden under the Decree and the incompetibleness thereof with Christs coming to Judgment 7. The large expressions of the Ancient Fathers touching the freedom of the Will abused by Pelagius and his followers 8. The Heresie of Pelagius in what it did consist especially as to this particular and the dangers of it 9. The Pelagian Heresie condemned and recalled the temper of S. Augustine touching the freedom of the Will in spiritual matters 10. Pelagianism falsly charged on the Moderate Lutherans How far all parties do agree about the freedom of the Will and in what they differ OF all the Heresies which exercised the Church in the times foregoing there never was any more destructive of humane Society more contrary to the rule of Faith and Manners or more repugnant to the Divine Justice and Goodness of Almighty God than that which makes God to be the Author of sin A blasphemy first broacht in terms express by Florinus Blastus and some other of the City of Rome about the year 180. encountred presently by that godly Bishop and Martyr S. Irenaeus who published a Discourse against them bearing this Inscription 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Viz. Hist Eccl. Euseb l. 5. c. 14. 19. That God was not the Author of sin And he gave this Inscription to it as the story telleth us because Florinus not content with those Vulgar Heresies which had been taken up before would needs break out into blasphemous Phrensies against God himself in making him the Author of all those sins which lewd men commit Which Doctrine were it once admitted not only the first sin of Adam but all the sins that have been hitherto perpetrated by his whole Posterity must be charged on God and he alone must be accountable for all Murthers Robberies Rapes Adulteries Insurrections Treasons Blasphemies Heresies Persecutions or any other Abominations which have been acted in the world since the first Creation For certainly there can be no reason why every man may not say on the committing of any sin whatsoever it be as did Lyconides in Plantus when he defloured old Eudio's Daughter Deus mihi impulsor fuit is me ad illam illexit it was God alone who tempted and provoked them to those wicked actions What Arguments the good Father used to cry down this Blasphemy for a Heresie is a name too milde for so lewd a Doctrine I cannot gather from my Author but such they were so operative and effectual in stopping the current of the mischief that either Florinus and the rest had no followers at all as most Hereticks had or such as never attained to the height of their Masters Impudence And so that damnable Doctrine the Doctrine of Devils I may call it seems to be strangled in the birth or to be buried in the same grave with the Authors of it never revived in more than thirteen hundred years after the death of Irenaeus when it was against by the Libertines a late brood of Sectaries whom each of the two opposite parties are ashamed to own This taught as did Florinus Calv. Advers Libertl c. 12. in the Primitive times Quicquid ego tu facimus Deus efficit nam in nobis est That whatsoever thing they did was Gods working in them and therefore God to be intituled to those wicked actions which themselves committed The time of their first breaking out affirmed to be about the year 1529. The Founders of this Sect Loppinus and Quintinus Flemmings both and this Prateolus affirms for certain to be the Progency of Calvin and other leading men of the Protestant Churches They came saith he Eschola nostrae tempestatis Evangelicorum Bellarmin somewhat more remisly Prateol Elench Haeve in Quintino Bellar. Omnino probabile est eos ex Calvianianis promanasse and makes it only probable that it might be so but not rightly neither The Libertines breaking out as before was said Anno 1527. when Calvin was of little credit and the name of Calvinists or Calvinians not so much as heard of And on the other side Paraeus Professor of Divinity in the University of Hidelberg writing some Animadversions on the Cardinals works assures us that they were both Papists acquaints us with the place of their Nativity and the proceedings had against them Nor was Calvin wanting for his part to purge himself from such an odious imputation not only by confuting their Opinions in a set discourse but making one Franciscus Porquius a Franciscan Fryer to be a chief stickler in the Cause Against which I know nothing that can be said but that the doctrine of the Libertines in this particular doth hold more correspondence with Calvins principles than any of the received Positions of the Fryers of S. Francis But whether it were so or not I shall make this Inference That the Doctrine must needs be most impious which both sides detested which the Papists laboured so industriously to father on the Schools of Calvin and the Calvinians no less passionatly to charge on some of our great Masters in the Church of Rome But so it is that though the Impiety was too gross to appear bare fac'd yet there have been too many both in the elder and these latter times who entertaining in their hearts the same dreadful madness did recommend it to the world under a disguise though they agreed not at all in that Masque or Vizard which was put upon it Of this sort Manes was the first by birth of Persia and Founder of the damnable Sect of the Manicheans Anno 273. or thereabouts This Wretch considering how unsuccesfully Florinus had sped before in making God who is all and only good to be the Author of sin did first excogitate two Gods the one good and the other evil both of like eternity ascribing all pious actions to the one all Sins and Vices to the other Which ground so laid he utterly deprived the will of man of that natural liberty of which it is by God invested and therefore that in man there was no ability of resisting sin or not submitting unto any of those wicked actions which his lusts and passions offered to him Prateol in Elench Haer. in Marich Condendebant item peccatum non esse à libero arbitrio sed à Daemone capropter non posse per liberum arbitrium impediri as my Author hath it Nor did they only leave mans will in a disability of hindering or resisting the incursions of sin but they left it also under an incapability of acting any thing in order to the works of Righteousness though God might graciously vouchsafe his assisting grace making no
Learning And as for Barns the far most learned of the three he had been once Prior of the Augustinian Fryers in Cambridge whose Doctrines he had sucked in at his first coming thither and therefore might retain them to the very last without relation to the Zuinglian or Calvinian Tenents or any differences then on foot between the Protestant Doctors and the Church of Rome Besides being of the same Order which Luther had quitted he might the more willingly encline to Luthers first opinion touching servitude of the will mans inability in co-operating with the Grace of God and being forcibly drawn in his own conversion velut inanimatum quiddam like a stock or stone in which he was tenaciously followed by the rigid Lutherans though he had afterwards changed his judgment touching that particular So that beholding Dr. Barns either as one that followed Luther in his first Opinions or travelled the Dominican way in the present points as an Augustinian it is no marvel if we find somewhat in his Writings agreeable to the palate of the Calvinists and rigid Lutherans From whence it is Dise of Free-will p. 278. that laying down the Doctrine of Predestination he discourseth thus viz. But yet sayst thou that he giveth to the one mercy and the other none I answer what is that to thee is not his mercy his own is it not lawful for him to give it to whom he will is thine eye evil because his is good take that which is thine and go thy way for if he will shew his wrath and make his power known over the vessels of wrath ordained to damnation and to declare the riches of his glory unto the vessels of mercy Id. ib. which he hath prepared and elected unto Glory what hast thou therewith to do But here will subtil blindness say God saw before that Jacob should do good and therefore did he choose him he saw also that Esau should do evil therefore did he condemn him Alas for blindness what will you judg of that which God foresaw how know we that God saw that and if he saw it how know we that it was the cause of Jacobs Election These Children being unborn they had done neither good nor bad and yet one of them is chosen and the other is refused St. Paul knoweth no other cause but the will of God and will you needs discuss another He saith not I will have mercy on him that I see shall do good but I will shew mercy to whom I will He saith not I will have compassion on him that shall deserve it de congruo but Of him of whom I will have compassion Now as he followeth the Dominicans or rigid Lutherans in laying down the grounds and method of Predestination so he draws more to them also and the Zuinglians also touching Gods workings on the will than possibly may be capable of a good construction Ib. p. 281. Gods saith he of his infinite power letteth nothing to be exempted from him but all things to be subject unto his action and nothing can be done by them but by his principal motion So that he worketh in all manner of things that be either good or had not changing their nature but only moving them to work after their natures So that good worketh good and evil worketh evil and God useth them both as instruments and yet doth he nothing evil but evil is done alone through the will of man God working by him but not evil as by an instrument Which last Position notwithstanding all the subtilty in the close thereof how far it is from making God to be the Author of sin I leave to be determined by men of more Sholastical and Metaphysical heads than my simplicity can pretend to For Tyndal next though I shall not derogate in any thing from his great pains in translating the Bible nor from the glory of his suffering in defence of those Truths for which he died yet there were so many Heterodoxes in the most of his Writings as render them no fit rule for a Reformation no more than those of Wicklif before remembred the number and particulars whereof I had rather the Reader should look for in the Acts and Monuments where they are mustered up together about the latter end of the Reign of King Henry the eighth than expect them here That which occurreth in him touchin Predestination is no more than this Prolog in Epist to the Romans p. 42. 1. Grace saith he is properly Gods favour benevolence or kind mind which of his own self without our deservings he reacheth to us whereby he was moved and inclined to give Christ unto us with all other gifts of Grace Which having told us in his Preface to Sr. Pauls Epistle to the Romans he telleth us not long after that in the 9 10 11. Chapters of the Epistle the Apostle teacheth us of Gods Predestination From whence it springeth altogether whether we shall believe or not believe be loosed from sin or not be loosed By which Predestination our Justifying and Salvation are clear taken out of our hands and put into the hands of God only which thing is most necessary of all for we are so weak and so uncertain that if it stood in us there would of truth no man be saved Ibid. 15. the Devil no doubt would deceive him but now God is sure of his Predestination neither can any man withstand or let him else why do we hope and sigh against sin Discoursing in another place of the act the Will hath on the Understanding he telleth us That the Will of man followeth the Wit that as the Wit erreth so doth the Will and as the Wit is in captivity so is the Will neither is it possible that the Will should be free when the Wit is in bondage c. as I err in my Wit so I err in my Will when I judg that to be evil which is good then indeed do I hate that which is good and then when I perceive that which is good to bee evil then indeed do I love the evil Finally in the heats of his Disputation with Sir Thomas Moor who had affirmed That men were to endeavour themselves and captivate their understandings if they would believe He first cryes out lib. 3. Hist Moor p. 306. How Beetle-blind is fleshly reason and then subjoyns that the Will hath no operation at all in the working of faith in my soul no more than the Child hath in begetting of his Father for saith Paul it is the gift of God and not of us my Wit must conclude good or had yet my Will can leave or take my Wit must shew me a true or an apparent cause why yet my Will have any working at all I had almost forgot John Frith and if I had it had been no great loss to our rigid Calvinists who not content to guide themselves in these Disputes by Gods Will revealed have too audaciously pried into the
Free-will can do without Grace is but sin c. fol 269. In which passages of those godly Martyrs as there is nothing in it self not Divine and Orthodox so find we somewhat in their writings which doth as truly and Religiously express the workings of Gods Spirit in the heart of man without depriving him of the ability of co-operation which afterwards was taught and countenanced by the Church of England Of which thus Tyndal in his Path-way Collection of his works sol 382. When the Evangelion is preached saith he the Spirit of God entreth into them whom God hath ordained and appointed to Everlasting life and openeth their inward eyes and worketh such a belief in them when the woful Consciences feel and taste how sweet a thing the bitter death of Christ is and how merciful and loving God is through Christs Purchasing and Merits so that they begin to love again and consent to the Law of God how that it is good and ought so to be and that God is righteous that made it and desire to fulfil the Law as a sick man desireth to be whole According to which Doctrine 19. Sund. after Trin. the Church hath taught us to pray thus viz. O God forasmuch as without thee we are not able to please thee grant that that working of the Spirit may in all things direct and rule our hearts through Christ our Lord Amen More of which Prayers might be produced to the same effect were not this enough the point concerning the necessity of Gods grace towards mans Conversion not being in Dispute between the Parties Now for Gods Grace according as it is set forth in the Church of England we shall consider it in the general offer and extent the efficacious workings of it and the concurrence of mans will in the beginning and accomplishment of his own Conversion And first as to the general offer of the Grace of God we find Bishop Hooper thus discoursing in the sixth Chapter of his Exposition of the Ten Commandments Thus did S. Paul saith he convince the Gentiles of sin because they knew the evil they did was condemned by the testimony of their own Conscience for the Law of God to do well by is naturally written in the heart of every man He that will diligently search himself Exposi cap. 6. shall sometime find the same and in case man should behold his own misery both in body and soul although there were no Law correcting nor no Heavens over our heads to testifie the justice and judgment of God and the equity of an honest life mans Conscience would tell him when he doth well and when he doth evil Further saith he the judgment and discovery of Reason directs not only to live just in this World but also to live for ever in Eternal felicity without end And that cometh by the similitude of God which remaineth in the soul since the sin of Adam whereby we plainly see that those excuses of ignorance be damnable when man sees that he could do well if he followed the judgment of his own Conscience Our Articles indeed say nothing to this particular but our Liturgy doth and somewhat is found also of it in the Book of Homilies For what can be more clear and full than that clause in the Collect where it is said if God Almighty That he sheweth to all men being in errour the light of his truth to the intent they may return to the way of righteousness c. What more comfortable to a man deprived of the outward benefit of the Word and Sacraments than that clause in the Homily where it is said Exhortation to Holy Scripture Hom. p. 5. That if we lack a Learned man to instruct and teach us God himself from above will give light unto our minds and teach us those things which are necessary for us If then it be demanded How it comes to pass that this general Overture of Grace becomes so little efficacious in the hearts of men we shall find Bishop Hooper ascribing it in some men to the lack of faith and in others to the want of repentance Touching the first Pres to the Expost of the Law he tells us this That S. Paul concludes and in a manner includeth the Divine Grace and Promise of God within certain terms and limits that only Christ should be profitable and efficacious to those that apprehend and receive this abundant Grace by faith and to such as have not the use of faith neither Christ nor Gods Grace to appertain After which he proceedeth in this manner toward the other sort of men which make not a right use of this general Grace for want of Repentance d. ib. Howbeit saith he that we know by the Scripture that notwithstanding this imperfection of faith many shall be saved and likewise notwithstanding that Gods promise be general unto all people of the world yet many shall be damned These two points must therefore diligently be discussed first how this faith being unperfect is accepted of God then how we be excluded from the promise of grace that extendeth to all men c. To which first it is thus answered That S. Paul S. John and Christ himself damneth the contemners of God or such as willingly continue in sin and will not repent these the Scripture excludeth from the general promise of Grace Here then we have the Doctrine of the Church of England delivered in the Liturgy and the Book of Homilies more punctually pressed and applied in the words of godly Bishop Hooper concerning Universal Grace and somewhat also of the reasons of its not being efficacious in all sorts of men relating to that liberty which remains in man of closing or contending with it as he is either ruled by reason or else misguided by the tyranny of his lusts and passions But before I come unto this point we may behold the necessary workings of Gods Grace preventing man by the inspirations of his holy Spirit and the concurrence or co-operation of mans will being so prevented which is the Celestial influences of the Grace of God Of which the Church hath spoken so fully in all the Authentick Monuments and Records thereof that no true English Protestant can make question of it Artic. 10. For thus she tells us in the tenth Article of her Confession viz. That the condition of man after the fall of Adam is such that he cannot turn and prepare himself by his own natural strength and good works to faith and calling upon God Wherefore we have no power to do good works pleasant and acceptable unto God without the Grace of God by Christ preventing us that we may have a good will and working with us when we have that good will In the first clause the Church declares her self against the old Pelagians and some of the great School-men in the Church of Rome and in the last against the Manichees and some of the more rigid Lutherans in the
works of the spirit 2. More plainly doth he speak in the second place of Universal Redemption Id. in cap. 1 6. telling us that all men which either for their Original sin or for their Actual sin were out of Gods favour and had offended God should by Christ only be reconciled to Gods favour and have remission of their sins and be made partakers of everlasting life that Christs death was a full and sufficient satisfaction for the sins of the whole World Id Ibid. 〈◊〉 1. and for all them that shall be sanctified and saved that Christ by his death once for all Id. Ibid. 〈…〉 hath fully and perfectly satisfied for the sins of all men and finally that there re this is an undoubted truth ever to be believed of all Christians that Christ by his Passion and Death hath taken away all the sins of the World In the next place he puts the question with reference to the application of so great a benefit for what causes God would not have his Word preached unto the Gentiles till Christs time and makes this answer thereunto First That it is a point not to be too curiously searched or enquired after Secondly That it is enough for us to know that it was so ordered by Gods Will Id. Ibid. G. 2 3. But thirdly That it might yet be done either because by their sins they had deserved their blindness and damnation as indeed they had or that God saw their hard hearts or their stiff necks and that they would not have received it before Christs comings if the Gospel had been preached unto them or finally that God reserved that mystery unto the coming of our Saviour Christ that by him all goodness should be known to come to us Id. cap. 2. H. 7. c. As for the necessary influences of Gods Grace and mans co-working with the same he telleth us briefly That no man ought to ascribe the good works that he dâ—th â—s himself or to his own might and power but to God the Author of all goodness but then withal that it is not enough for men to have knowledge of Christ and his benefits but that they must encrease in the knowledge of God Idâ—â— cap. 4. which knowledge cometh by Gods Word And finally as to the point of falling away he gives us first the example of Demas who as long as all things were prosperous with S. Paul was a faithful Minister to him and a faithful Disciple of Christ but when he saw Paul cast into Prison he forsook Paul and his Doctrine and followed the World then he inferreth that many such there be in the World c. of whom speaketh Christ Matth. 13. Many for a time do believe but in time of tribulations they shrink away And finally he concludes with this advice That he that standeth should look that he did not fall and that he do no trust too much to his own might and power for if he did he should deceive himself and have a fall as Demas had And so much for the judgment and opinion of Master L. Ridley in the points disputed who being Arch-deacon of Canterbury as before was said may be presum'd to be one of those who concurred in Convocation to the making of the Articles of K. Edwards book 1552. to find the true and natural meaning of which Articles we have taken this pains CHAP. XV. Of the Author and Authority of King Edwards Catechism as also of the judgment of Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr in the Points disputed 1. The Catechism published by the Authority of King Edward VI. Ann. 1553. affirmed to have been writ by Bishop Poinet and countenanced by the rest of the Bishops and Clergy 2. Several passages collected out of that Catechism to prove that the Calvinian Doctrines were the true genuine and ancient Doctrines of the Church of England 3. With a discovery of the weakness and impertinency of the Allegation 4. What may most probably be conceived to have been the judgment of Bishop Pointer in most of the Controverted Points 5. An Answer to another Objection derived from Mr. Bucer and Peter Martyr and the influence which their Auditors and Disciples are supposed to have had in the Reformation 6. That Bucer was a man of moderate Counsels approving the first Liturgy of King Edward VI. assenting to the Papists at the Dyet of Ratisbone in the possibility of falling from grace and that probably Peter Martyr had not so far espoused the Calvinian quarrels when he lived in Oxon. as after his return to Zurick and Calvins Neighbourhood 7. The judgment of Erasmus according as it is delivered in his Paraphrases on the four Evangelists proposed first in the general view and after more particularly in every of the Points disputed SEcuri de salute de gloria certemus Having shewed the cause by so many pregnant Evidences derived from the Articles and Homilies Tacit in vita Agric. and backt by the consenting Testimonies of Learned men and godly Martyrs it would add something at the least in point of Reputation if not of glory also to gain Bishop Poinet to the side of whom as to his personal capacity we have spoken already and must now look back upon him in relation to a Catechism of his setting forth Printed by Wolfe in Latine and by Day in English Anno 1553. being the next year after the Articles were agreed upon in the Convocation a Catechism which comes commended to us with these advantages that it was put forth by the Authority of King Edward VI. to be taught by all School-masters in the Kingdom By another of the same persuasion Prin. Anti-Armin Pag. 44. that the King committed the perusal of it to certain Bishops and other Learned men whom he much esteemed by whom it was certified to be agreeable to the Scripture and Statutes of the Realm that thereupon he presixt his Epistle before it in which he commands and charges all School-masters whatsoever within his Dominions as they did reverence his Authority Anti-Armin Page 48. and as they would avoid his Royal displeasure to teach this Catechism diligently and carefully in all and every their Schools that so the youth of the Kingdom might be setled in the grounds of true Religion and furthered in Gods worship The Church Historian seems to give it some further countenance Ch Hist lib. 7. fol. 421. by making it of the same extraction with the book of Articles telling us that by the Bishops and Learned men before-mentioned we are to understand the Convocation and that it was not commanded by his Majesties Letters Patents to all School-masters only but by him commended to the rest of the Subjects which cost these several Authors have bestowed upon it out of an hope of gaining some greater matter by it towards the countenancing and advancing of the Calvinian Doctrine Predestination as the true genuine and ancient Doctrine of this Church certain I am that both Mr.
us and to banish him violently out of our souls And instead of him in whom is all grace and vertue to receive the ungracious spirit of the Devil the founder of all naughtiness and mischief than which there can be nothing more direct and positive to the point in hand And as for the co-operation of mans will with the grace of God either in accepting or resisting it when once offered to him besides what may be gathered from the former passages it is to be presumed as a thing past question in the very nature of the book for what else are those Homilies but so many proofs and arguments to evince that point For to what purpose were they made but to stir up the minds of all men to the works of piety And what hopes could the Authors of them give unto themselves of effecting that which they endeavoured had they not presupposed and taught that there was such a freedom in the will of man such an assistance of Gods grace as might enable them to perform these works of piety as in all and every one of the said Homilies are commended to them More for the proof of which points might be gathered from the said second book of Homilies established by the Articles of Queen Elizabeth's time as before is said were not these sufficient Proceed we therefore from the Homilies and the publick Monuments of the Church to the judgment of particular persons men of renown and eminent in their several places amongst which we find incomparable Jewel then Bishop of Salsbury thus clearly speaking in behalf of Universal Redemption viz. Ceerto animis nostris persuademus c. We do assuredly persuade our minds saith he that Christ is the obtainer of forgiveness for our sins Bishop Jewels Defâ—n Apolog c. 18. Devis 1. and that by his bloud all our spots of sins be washed clean that he hath pacified and set at one all things by the bloud of his Cross that he by the same one only Sacrifice which he once offered upon the Cross hath brought to effect and fulfilled all things and that for the cause he said it is finished By which word saith he he plainly signified persolutum jam esse pretium pro peccato humani generis that the price or ransom was now fully paid for the sin of mankind Now as Bishop Jewel was a principal member of the House of Bishops so Mr. Nowel was the Prolocutor for the House of the Clergy in which the Articles were debated and agreed upon In which respect his favour is much sought by those of the Calvinian party as before was shewn But finding no comfort for them in his larger Catechism let us see what may be found in his Latin Catechism authorized to be taught in Schools and published by his consent in the English Tongue Anno 1572. And first he sheweth that as God is said to be our Father for some other reasons Catec Edition c. 1â—54 p. 19 so most specially for this quod nos divine per spiritum sanctum generavit per fidem in verum suum atque naturalem filium Jesum Christum nos elegit sibique Filios regni Coelestis atque sempiternae vitae heredes per eundem instituit that is to say because he hath divinely regenerated us or begotten us again by the Holy Ghost and hath elected us by Faith in his true and natural Son Christ Jesus and through the same Christ hath adopted us to be his Children and Heirs of his heavenly Kingdom and of life everlasting And if Election come by our faith in Christ as he saith it doth enither a Supra-lapsarian nor a Sub-lapsarian can find any comfort from this man in favour of that absolute and irrespective decree of Predestination which they would gladly father on him in his larger Catechism and then as for the method of Predestination he thus sets it forth viz. Deus Adamum illis honoris insignibus ornavit Ibid. 22. ut ea cum sibi tum suis id est toto humano generi aut servaret aut amitteret c. God saith he indued Adam with those Ornaments that is to say those Ornaments of Grace and Nature which before we spake of that he might have them or lose them for himself and his that is to say for all mankind And it could not otherwise be but that as of an evil Tree evil fruits do spring so that Adam being corrupted with sin all the issue that came of him must also be corrupted with that original sin For delivery from the which there remained no remedy in our selves and therefore God was pleased to proise that the seed of the Woman which is Jesus Christ should break the head of the Serpent that is of the Devil who deceived our first Parents and so should deliver them and their posterity that believed the same Where first we have mans fall Secondly Gods mercy in his restitution Thirdly This restitution to be made by Jesus Christ and fourthly to be made to all which believe the same Proceed we next to a Lermon preached at St. Pauls Cross Octob. 27. 1854. by Samuel Harsnet then fellow of Pembrook Hall in Cambridg and afterwards Master of the same preferred from thence to the See of Chichester from thence translated unto Norwich and finally to the Archiepiscopal See of York For the Text or subject of his Sermon he made choice of those words in the Prophet Ezekiel viz. As I live saith the Lord I delight not in the death of the wicked Chap. 33. v. 11. In his Discourse upon which Text he first dischargeth God from laying any necessity of sinning on the sons of men and then delighting in their punishment because they have sinned he thus breaks out against the absolute decree of Reprobation which by that time had been made a part of the Zuinglian Gospel Mr. Harnets Sermon at Pauls Cross bound up at the end of Dr. Stewards three Sermons printed 1â—58 p. 1â—3 c. and generally spread abroad both from Press and Puipit There is a conceit in the World saith he speak little better of our gracious God than this and that is that God shoould design many thousands of souls to Hell before they were not in eye to their faults but to his own absolute will and power and to get him glory in their damnation This Opinion is grown high and monstrous and like a Goliah and men do shake and tremble at it yet never a man reacheth to Davids sing to cast it down In the name of the Lord of Hosts we will encounter it for it hath reviled not the Host of the living God but the Lord of Hosts First That it is directly in opposition to this Text of holy Scripture and so turns the truth of God into a lye For whereas God in this Text doth say and swear that he doth not delight in the death of man this Opinion saith that not one or two but millions of men should
and approbation published the Exposition or Analysis of our Articles in which he gives the Calvinist as fair quarter as can be wished But first beginning with the last so much of the Objection as concerns Bishop Bancrost is extreamly false not agreeing to the Lambeth Articles not being Bishop of London when those Articles were agreed unto as is mistakingly affirmed and that Analysis of Explication of our English Articles related to in the Objection being published in the year 1585. which was ten years before the making of the Lambeth articles and eighteen years before Bancroft had been made Archbishop And secondly It is not very true that King James liked that is to say was well pleased with the putting of those Articles into the confession of the Church of Ireland though the said Confession was subscribed in his name by the Lord Deputy Chichester is plainly enough not without his consent for many other things were in the Confession to which the Lord Deputy subscribed and the King consented as affairs then stood which afterwards he declared no great liking to either of the Tenor or effect thereof For the truth is that the drawing up of that Confession being committed principally to the care of Dr. Vsher and afterwards Lord Primate of Ireland a professed Calvinian he did not only thrust into it all the Lambeth Articles but also many others of his own Opinions as namely That the Pope was Antichrist or that man of sin that the power of sacerdotal Absolution is no more than declaratory as also touching the morality of the Lords day Sabbath and the total spending of it in religious Exercises Which last how contrary it is to King Jame's Judgment how little cause he had to like it or rather how much reason he had to dislike it his declaration about lawful Sports which he published within three years after doth express sufficiently so that the King might give confent to the confirming of these Articles amongst the rest though he liked as little of the one as he did of the other And he might do it on these Reasons For first The Irish Nation at that time were most tenaciously addicted to Errors and corruptions of the Church of Rome and therefore must be bended to the other extream before they could be sireight and Orthodox in these points of doctrine Secondly It was an usual practice with the King in the whole course of his Government to ballance one extream by the other countenancing the Papist against the Puritan and the Puritan sometimes against the Papist that betwixt both the true Religion and Professors of it might be kept in safety With greater Artifice but less Authority have some of our Calvinians framed unto themselves another Argument derived from certain Questions and answers printed at the end of the Bible published by Rob. Barker his Majesties own Printer in the year 1607. from whence it is inferred by the Author of the Anti-Arminianism Anti-Armin p. 54. and from him by others that the said Questions and Answers do contain a punctual Declaration of the received doctrine of this Church in the points disputed But the worst is they signifie nothing to the purpose for which they were produced For I would fain know by what Authority those Questions and Answers were added to the end of the Bible If by Authority and that such Authority can be produced the Argument will be of force which it takes from them and then no question but the same Authority by which they were placed there at first would have preserved them in that place for a longer time than during the sale of that Edition The not retaining them in such Editions as have followed since the sale of that shews plainly that they were of no anthority in themselves nor intended by the Church for a rule to others and being of no older standing than the year 1607. for ought appears by Mr. Prin who first made the Objection they must needs seem as destitute of antiquity as they are of authority so that upon the whole matter the Author of the Book hath furnished those of different Judgment with a very strong argument that they wrre foisted in by the fraud and practice of some of the Emissaries of the Puritan Faction who hoped in time to have them pass as currant amongst the people as any part of Canonical Scripture Such Piae fraudes as these are we should have too many were they once allowed of Some prayers were also added to the end of the Bible in some Editions and others at the end of the publick Liturgy Which being neglected at the first and afterwards beheld as the authorized prayers of the Church were by command left out of those Books and Bibles as being the compositions of private men not the publick acts of the Church and never since added as before But to return unto King James we find not so much countenance given to the Calvinians by the fraud of his Printer as their opposites received by his grace and favour by which they were invested in the chief preferments of the Church of England conferred as openly and freely upon the Anti-Calvinians as those who had been bread up in the other persuasions Tros Tyriusque mihi nullo discrimine habentur as we know who said For presently upon the end of the Conference he prefers Bishop Bancroft to the Chair of Canterbury and not long after Dr. Barlow to the See of Rochester On whose translation unto Lincoln Dr. Richard Neil then Dean of westminster succeeds at Rochester and leaves Dr. Buckridge there for his successour at his removal unto Lichfield in the year 1609. Dr. Samuel Harsnet is advanced to the See of Chichester and about ten years after unto that of Norwich In the beginning of the year 1614. Dr. Overald succeeds Neil then translated to Lincoln in the See of Coventry and Lichfield Dr. George Mountein succeeded the said Neil then translated to Durham in the Church of Lincoln In the year 1619. Dr. John Houson one of the Canons of Christs Church a professed Anti-Calvinist is made Bishop of Oxon. And in the year 1621. Dr. Valentine Cary Successor unto Overald in the Deanry of St. Paul is made Bishop of Exon and on the same day Dr. William Laud who had been Pupil unto Buckridge as before said is consecrated Bishop of St. Davids By which encouragements the Anti-Calvinians or old English Protestants took heart again and more openly declared themselves than they had done formerly the several Bishops above-named finding so gracious a Patron of the learned King are as being themselves as bountiful Patrons respect being had to the performants in their nomination to their Friends and followers By means whereof though they found many a Rub in the way and were sometimes brought under censure by the adverse party yet in the end they surmounted all difficulties and came at last to be altogether as considerable both for power and number as the Calvinists were Towards which
was the Authority of the Ephori erected in the time of King Theopompus about 130 years after the death of Lycurgus A second reason which induced those Kings to ordain these Ephori was to ease themselves and delegate upon them that remainder of the Royal power which could not be exercised but within the City For the Kings having little or no command but in Wars abroad cared not for being much at home and thereupon ordained these Officers to supply their places Concerning which Cleomenes thus discourseth to the Spartans after they had destroyed the Ephori and suppressed the Office Id in Agis Cleomenes informing them that Lycurgus had joyned the Senators with the Kings by whom the Common-wealth was a long time governed without help of any other Officers that afterwards the City having great Wars with the Messenians the Kings were always so imployed in that War that they could not attend the affairs of the State at home and thereupon made choice of certain of their friends to sit in judgment in their stead whom they called the Ephori 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and for a long time did govern only as the Kings Ministers though afterwards by little and little they took unto themselves the supreme Authority Another reason hath been given of the institution which is that if a difference grew between the two Kings in a point of judgment there might be some to arbitrate between them and to have the casting voice amongst them when the difference could not be agreed And this is that which Lisander and Mandroclidas two that had been Ephori suggested unto Agis and Cleombrotus the two Kings of Sparta declaring Id. ibid. That the Office of the Ephori was erected for no other reason 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. But because they should give their voices unto that King who had the best reason on his side when the other would wilfully withstand both right and reason and therefore that they two agreeing might lawfully do what they would without controlment that to resist the Kings was a breach of Law considering that the Ephori by Law had no power nor priviledge but only to arbitrate between them when there was any cause of jar or controversie And this was so received at Sparta for an undoubted truth that Cleomenes being sole King upon the death of Agis of the other house recalled Archidamus the Brother of Agis from his place of Banishment with an intent to make him King not doubting but they two should agree together and thereby make the Ephori of no power nor use So then we have three reasons of the institution and more than these I cannot find of which there is not one that favoureth the device of Calvin or intimateth that the Authority of the Ephori was set up to pull down the Kings And to say truth it is a most unlikely matter that the Kings of Sparta having so little power remaining should need more Officers to restrain them than they had before that they should make a new rod for their own poor backs and add five Masters more to those eight and twenty which Lycurgus had imposed upon them Which makes me wonder much at Tully who doth acknowledge that the Ephori were ordained by Theopompus as both Aristotle and Plutarch do affirm and yet will have them instituted for no other cause nisi ut oppositi sint Regibus but to oppose and curb the Kings Aristot Polit. l. 5. c. 11. Cicero de legibus l. 3. but more that Plato who had so much advantage of him both in time and place should ascribe the institution to Lycurgus and tell us that he did not only ordain the Senate 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plato Ep. 8. edit gr lat To. 3. but that he did also constitute the Ephorate for the strength and preservation of the Regal power For out of doubt it is affirmed by Plutarch confirmed by Scaliger and may be gathered from some passages in Eusebius Chronicon and the Authority of Aristotle Plut. in Lycurgo Scalig. animadvers in Euseb Chron. who refers the same to Theopompus as before was shewed that the first Institution was no less than 130 years after the death of Lycurgus Who was the first that bore this Office hath been made a question but never till these later times when men are grown such Sceptics as to doubt of every thing Plutarch affirms for certain 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the first Ephorus that is to say the first 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch in Lycurgo who had the name of Ephorus by way of excellency for otherwise there were five in all was called Elatus and hereto Scaliger did once agree as appears expresly pag. 67. of his Annotations on Eusebius where he declares it in these words Primus Elatus renunciatur 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 But after having a desire to control Eusebius he takes occasion by some words in Diogenes Laertius to cry up Chilo for the man first positively Primus 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 fuit Chilon and next exclusively of Elatus Quibus animadversis non fuerit Elatus primus Ephorus sed Chilon To make this good being a fancy of his own and as his own most dearly cherished he produceth first the testimony of Laertius and afterwards confirms the same by a new emendatio temporum a Calculation and accompt of his own inventing The words produced from Laertius are these verbatim 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Which is thus rendred in the Latine Diogen Lat. 1. l. 1. in Chilo and I think exactly Fuit autem Ephorus circa quinquagessimam quintam Olympiada Porro Pamphila circa sextam ait primumque Ephorum fuisse sub Euthydemo autore Sosicrate primumque instituisse ut Regibus Ephori adjungerentur Satyrus Lycurgum dixit If it be granted in the first place that Chilo was not made Ephorus until the 55. Olympiad as 't is plain it was not and Scaliger affirms as much it must needs follow upon true account that either Chilo was not the first Ephorus or that the Ephori were not instituted in more than twice an hundred and thirty years after Lycurgus had new molded the Common-wealth contrary unto that which is said by Plutarch and out of him repeated by Joseph Scaliger For from the time wherein Lycurgus made his Laws which was in the 25 year of Archelaus the eighth King of the Elder House unto the death of Alcamenes which was the year before the first Olympiad Euseb Chron. lib. post p. 114. of Scaligers edit were 112 years just none under From thence unto the last year of the 55. 220 years compleat which put together make no fewer than 332 years full a large misreckoning Whereas the second year of the fifth Olympiad in which Eusebius puts the Institution of the Ephori both in the Greek and Latine Copies set out by Scaliger himself Pag. 117. of the Latin and 35 of the Greek Edition that second
the matter so aimed at by his Predecessors The Tribunes had been insolent enough in the former times but the obtaining of these Laws made them more unsufferable Before they used to quarrel all the greatest Officers as if the State could not consist but by their contentions there being no Magistrate so great nor man so innocent whom they exposed not sometimes to contempt and scorn and made not subject to their Tyranny The renowned Scipio himself the very Atlas of the State when it was in danger a man in whom there was not any thing but brave and gallant could not scape so clear but that he was accused by these factious Tribunes and forced to live retired in his Countrey-house Livie hist lib. 28. far from the employments of that State which did not otherwise subsist but by his abilities Nor could they look on their Dictators but with eyes of malice although they had as much Authority as that State could give them or any of their Kings had enjoyed before whom they endeavour to make subject to their pride and Tyrenny by all means imaginable And to that end sometimes denied him the honour of a Triumph though he had deserved it in all mens judgments but their own and sometimes making their Magister Equitum Id. lib. 22. to be of equal power and authority with him and finally sometimes they declaim against him Id. ibid. to make him of no reputation with the common people And for their dealing with the Consuls in had been a complaint of old even if the dawning of the day of their new Authority Consulatum captum oppressum à Tribunitia postestate Id. lib. 2. that the Consulship was suppressed and captivated by the power of the Tribunes and we can no where find that they improved their modesty as they did their power Nor did they only quarrel with the Consuls and proceed no further though that had been an high affront to the Supream Magistrate but threatned to commit them to the Prison also and many times their threatnings were not made in vain Plutarch in Mario For thus we read that Caius Marius being Tribune threatned to send Cotta the Consul unto Prison but afterwards was taken off by fair persuasions and Sulpitius one as violent as he though not so valiant assaulted both the Consuls as they sat in the Senate-house Id. ibid. and killed one of their sons there who was not so quick of foot as to scape his hands Which though they were but bare attempts were yet lewd enough sufficiently to the dishonour of such eminent Magistrates and to the infamy and disgrace of the publick Government And therefore to make sure work of it and that the world might see they could more than threaten Quintius will tell you in the Dialogue with his Brother cicero Brutum P. Scipionem tales tantos viros hominum omnium infimum sordidissimum Trib. Pl. C. Curiatium in vincula conjecisse Cicero de Legibus lib. 3. that C. Curiatius a most base and unworthy person had caused such gallant men as Brutus and P. Scipio to be cast into Prison And if we make a further search we shall quickly find that M. Drusus being Tribune caused Philip the Consul to be cast headlong out of his Seat to the no small danger of his life only for interrupting him in the middle of a factious Speech which was an insolency beyond imprisonment To speak of their behaviour towards the other Magistrates were a thing impertinent For if the Consuls and Dictators could not scape their hands there is no question to be made b ut that the Praetors Censors Quaestors yea the Pontifices themselves were most abundantly debased and insulted on by these popular Tyrants Thus have we brought the Tribunes to as great an height both for power and insolency as were the Ephori before and thereby made them ready for the greater fall A sall which was not long acoming after they had made up the measure of their pride and Tyranny For Lucius Sylla having brought the Estate of Rome under his command and knowing full well how dangerous these men would be to him if they were suffered to continue in their former power set forth a Law by which they were reduced to their ancient bounds inabled only to relieve not to wrong the Subject Sylla Tribunis Plebis lege sua injuriae faciendae potestatem ademit auxilii ferendi reliquit as we read in Tully Id. ibid. A thing that much displeased the people and the Tribunes more But Sylla was no 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 no great applyer of himself to the peoples humers and therefore cared but little how they took the matter Pompey succeeding him in power and in purpose too took a course quite contrary and re-established them in that Authority whereof Sylla had of late deprived them For finding that the common people longed for nothing more than to see the Office of the Tribunes in the height again and being resolved to lay the foundation of his greatness on the affections and dependence of the common people Platarch in Pompeio 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he gratified them in that point and thought himself a happy man to find so fair an opportunity to oblige them to him On which deceitful grounds for they proved no other he set them in their power again as before was said for which he stands accused by Quintus Cicero de Legibus l. 3. and I think deservedly Certain I am that Pompey bought the short affection and applause of the common people at no less a price than his own destruction Plutarch in I. Caesare the Tribunes being the very men which pulled down his pride and set up Caesar to oppose him who going the same way to work that Sylla did and knowing that a Tribune and a Tribunitian spirit were no friends to Monarchy left them the name but nothing else The power and priviledg of the Office he kept unto himself for his own security as one that understood none better how many notable advantages he should gain thereby Dion histor Som. lib. 53. for the confirming of his Empire Which Course Augustus followed also taking the Tribunitian power into his own hands posito Triumviri nomine as soon as the Triumvirate was expired by the death of his Partners Tacitus Annal lib. 1. and from thence reckoned the years of his Government as Tribunitiae potestatis tertium quartum c. which his Successors did after his Example till the time of Constantine when the name of Tribune was laid by as a thing forgotten Rosin Antiq. Rom. The Empire was then cast into another kind of mould than it had been formerly new Offices ordained new Forms of Government introduced and a new Rome built and to what purpose should they keep the name when the thing was gone Let us look back on all that is said before and we shall find but little reason to
Princes of the line of Cecrops now it began to be Elective Tacit. hist l. 1. and to be given to them who best pleased the people Et loco libertatis erat quod eligi coeperunt and it was some degree of liberty and a great one too that they had power to nominate and elect their Princes But long they did not like of this although no doubt a great intrusion on the Regal dignity The Princes were too absolute when they held for life not so observant of the people as it was expected because not liable to accompt nor to be called unto a reckoning till it was too late till death had freed them from their faults and the peoples censure And therefore having tried the Government of thirteen of these perpetual Archontes of which Medon the son of Codrus was the first and the last Alemaeon In decem annos Magistratuum consuetudo conversa est they introduced another custom Euseb in Chr. Asrican apud Euseb Chronâ— and every tenth year changed their Governors These they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or Decennial Archontes of which they had but seven in all and then gave them over and from that time were governed by nine Officers or Magistrates chosen every year who for that cause were called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or the Annual Magistrates And yet it is to be observed that in both these changes the Archon whosoever he was and whether he was for term of life or for ten years only had all the power which formerly was belonging to the Kings save the very name in which regard Eusebius doth not stick to call them by the name of Kings where speaking of the institution of these Annual Magistrates he doth thus express is Euseb Chron. Athenis Annui principes constituti sunt cessantibus Regibus as S. Hierom renders it Now for these Annual Magistrates they were these that follow that is to say 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Jul. P. 〈◊〉 in Onomast l. 8. c. 9. which we may call the Provost who 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 was called the Archon the Bishop or High Priest the Marshal and the six Chief Justices Of these the Provost was the chief 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 of whom they did denominate the ensuing year and by whose name they dated all their private Contracts and Acts of State Id ibid. Sect. 2. To him it appertained to have a care of celebrating the Orgies of Bacchus and the great Festival which they termed Thargelia consecrated to Apollo and Diana as also to take cognizance of misdemeanors and in particular to punish those who were common Drunkards and to determine in all cases which concerned matter of inheritance and furthermore to nominate Arbitrators for the ending of Suits and private differences to appoint Guardians unto Orphans and Overseers unto Women left with child by their Husbands The 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 whom we call the Bishop or High Priest had the charge of all the sacred mysteries 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Id. ibid. Sect. 3. and the administration of the usual and accustomed Sacrifices together with the cognizance of sacriledg prophaneness and all other actions which concerned Religion as also power to interdict litigious persons or Common Barretters as we call them from being present at the celebration of the holy Mysteries And he retained the name of 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 because that anciently their Kings as in all places else had the chief hand in matters which related to the publick service of the Gods and the solemn Sacrifices On the which reason and no other the Romans had their Regem Sacrificulum whom Plutarch calls 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 in imitation of the Latine but Dionysius 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Plutarch in Problemat Dionys Halicarnas hist l. 5. Livie hist Roman lib. 2. in the true Greek phrase of which Livie thus Rerum deinde divinarum habita cura quia quaedam publica sacra per ipsos Reges factitata erant necubi Regum desiderium esset Regem Sacrificulum creant But to proceed the Polemarchus whom we English by the name of Marshal sat Judg in cases of sedition and such whereby the grandeur of the State might suffer detriment as also in all actions which concerned either Denizens or Merchant-strangers and unto him it appertained to sacrifice to Diana and to Mars the two military Deities Jul. Pollux in Onomast l. 8. c. 93. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and to prescribe the funeral pomp for such as lost their lives in their Countreys service Each of these had their two Assessors Id. ibid. Sect. of their own Election but so that they were bound to chuse them out of the Senate of five hundred from no lower rank Finally for the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 who we call Chief Justices they were six in number 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Suidas in Lex and had authority to give Judgment absolutely in all Civil pleas to judg of strangers which abused the priviledges which they had in the City of Bribery Conspiracies false inscriptions in cases of Adultery and publick crimes in points of Trade Jul. Pollux in Onomast ll 4. c. 9. sect 1. and actions which concerned the Stannaries as also to review the sentence of the Provost and the decrees of the Senate if occasion were and to give notice to the people 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 as Julius Pollux if any man preferred a Law which was not profitable and expedient for the Common-wealth Such were the Officers and such the duty of those Officers ordained at Athens upon the last alteration of the Government which before we spake of and amongst these we find not any popular Magistrate who was to have a care of the common people and to preserve them in their rights and liberties from the oppression of the greater and more powerful Citizens much less set up of purpose to oppose the Senate And to say truth we must not look for any such amongst the Nine nor in these times in which this alteration of the Government was first established They could not fall immediately from a Regal State to a Democratical but they must take the Aristocratie in the way unto it They had been under Kings at first or such as had the power of Kings although not the name And when they chose these Annual Officers they chose them ex nobilibus urbis out of the Nobles only Euseb Chron. Scaliger in Aâ—imadveâ—s as Eusebius hath it which Scaliger is forced to grant to be so at first though out of a desire to confute his Author he would very fain have had it otherwise Whether or no they had such Officers as Calvin dreams of when they had setled their Democratie we shall see anon having first shewn by whom and by what degrees the Government of the State was cast on the peoples shoulders and the form thereof made meerly popular or Democratical For certainly it is most true that never
great 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Philo de vita Mosis or Court of Sanhedrim And this is that which Casaubon doth also tell us from the most learned and expert of the Jewish Rabbins Non nisi nobilissimos è sacerdotibus Levitis caeteroque populo in lege peritissimos in Sanhedrim eligi Casaub Exercit in Baron 1. Sect. 3. that is to say that none but the most eminent of the Priests the Levites and the rest of the People and such as were most conversant in the Book of the Law were to be chosen into the Sanhedrim But to return again to the Book of God the power and reputation of this Court and Consistory having been much diminished in the times of the Kings of Judah was again revived by Jehosaphat Of whom we read that he not only did appoint Judges in the Land throughout all the fenced Cities of Judah 2 Chron. 19.5 but that he established at Hierusalem a standing Council consisting of the Levites and of the Priests and of the chief of the Fathers of Israel for the judgments of the Lord Ibid. r. 8. and for controversies according to the model formerly laid by God himself in the Book of Deuteronomy Which Court or Council thus revived continued in full force authority and power during the time of the captivity of Babilon as appears plainly by that passage in the Prophesie of Ezekiel where it is said of the Priests even by God himself Ezek. 44. v. 24. in controversie they shall stand in judgment compared with another place of the same Prophet where he makes mention of the Seventy of the Antients of the House of Israel Id. c. 8. v. 11. and Jaazaniah the Son of Shaphan standing in the midst as Prince of the Senate And after their return from that house of bondage they were confirmed in this authority by the Edict and Decree of Artaxerxes who gave Commission unto Ezra to set Magistrates and Judges over the People not after a new way of his own devising Ezra 6.7 v. 25. but after the wisdom of his God declared in the foregoing Ages by his Servant Moses In which estate they stood all the times succeeding until the final dissolution of that State and Nation with this addition to the power of the holy Priesthood that they had not only all that while their place and suffrage in the Court of Sanhedrim as will appear to any one who hath either read Josephus or the four Evangelists but for a great part of that time till the Reign of Herod the Supream Government of the State was in the hands of the Priests In which regard besides what was affirmed from Synesius formerly it is said by Justin Morem esse apud Judaeos ut eosdem Reges sacerdotes haberent that it was the custom of the Jews for the same men to be Kings and Priests Justin hist l. 36. and Tacitus gives this general note Judaeis Sacerdotu honorem firmamentum potentiae esse that the honour given unto the Priesthood amongst the Jews did most espeeially conduce to the establishment of their power and Empire And yet I cannot yield to Baronius neither Tacit. hist l. 3. where he affirms the better to establish a Supremacy in the Popes of Rome Summum Pont. arbitrio suo moderari magnum illud Concilium Baron Annal. An. 57. c. that the High Priest was always President of the Council or Court of Sanhedrim it being generally declared in the Jewish Writers that the High Priest could challenge no place at all therein in regard of his offence and descent but meerly in respect of such personal abilities as made himself to undergo such a weighty burden for which see Phagius in his notes on the 16 of Deuteronomy Thus have we seen of what authority and power the Priests were formerly as well amongst the Jews as amongst the Gentiles we must next see whether they have not been employed in the like affairs under the Gospel of Christ and that too in the best and happiest times of the Christian Church In search whereof it is not to be looked for by the ingenuous Reader that we should aim so high as the first 300 years after Christs Nativity The Prelates of the Church were suspected then to have their different aims and interesses from those who had the government of the Civil State and therefore thought uncapable of trust and imployment in it But after that according to that memorable maxim of Optatus Deschismat Donatist l. 3. Ecclesia erat in Republicâ the Church became a part of the Common-wealth and had their ends and aims united there followed these two things upon it first that the Supream Government of the Church depended much upon the will and pleasure of the Supream Magistrate Scorat Eccl. hist lib. 5. c. 1. insomuch as Socrates observeth 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that the greatest Councils have been called by their authority and appointment And 2ly That the Governours and Rulers of the Church of God came to have place and power in disposing matter that appertained to the well ordering of the Civil State And this they did not our of any busie or pragmatical desire to draw the cognizance of secular causes into their own hands or to increase their power and reputation with the common People but meerly for the ease and benefit of those who did repair unto them for their help and counsel and to comply with the command of the Apostle who imposed it on them S. Austin tells us of S. Ambrose with how great difficulty he obtained an opportunity of conversing with him privately and at large as his case required Secludentibus eum ab ejus aure atque ore catervis negociosorum hominum August Confes l. 6. c. 3. the multitude of those who had business to him and suits to be determined by him debarring him from all advantages of access and conference Which took up so much of his time that he had little leisure to refresh his body with necessary food or his mind with the reading of good Authors And Posidonius tells us of S. Austin causas audisse diligenter pie that he diligently and religiously attended such businesses as were brought before him not only spending all the morning in that troublesome exercise Posidon in vita August c. 19. but sometimes fasting all day long the better to content the suitor and dispatch the business The like S. Austin tells us of himself and his fellow Prelates first that the Christians of those times pro secularibus causis suis nos non raro quaererent August in Psal 118. serm 74 Epist 147. did ordinarily apply themselves unto them for the determining of secular causes and chearfully submitted unto their decisions next that the Prelates did comply with their earnest solicitations and desires therein Tu multuosissimas eausarum alienarum perplexitates patiendo Id. de opere Monach. c. 29. by
expresly and in terminis to represent the three Estates of the Realm of England did recognize the Queens Majesty to be their true lawful and undoubted Sovereign Liege Lady and Queen This makes it evident that the King was not accounted in the times before for one of the three Estates of Parliament nor can be so accounted the present times For considering that the Lords and Commons do most confessedly make two of the three Estates and that the Clergy in another Act of Parliament of the said Queens time are confessed to be one of the greatest States of the Realm which Statute being still in force Statut. 8. Eliz. cap. 1. doth clearly make the Clergy to be the third either there must be more than three Estates in this Kingdom which is against the Doctrine of the present times or else the King is none of the Estates as indeed he is not which was the matter to be proved But I spend too much time in confuting that which hath so little ground to stand on more than the dangerous consequences which are covered under it For if the King be granted once to be no more than one of the three Estates how can it choose but follow from so sad a principle that he is of no more power and consideration in the time of Parliament than the House of Peers which sometimes hath consisted of three Lords no more or than the House of Commons only which hath many times consisted of no more than eighty or an hundred Gentlemen but of far less consideration to all intents and purposes in the Law whatever than both the Houses joyned together What else can follow hereupon but that the King must be co-ordinate with his two Honses of Parliament and if co-ordinate then to be over-ruled by their joynt concurrence bound to conform unto their Acts and confirm their Ordinances or upon case of inconformity and non-compliance to see them put in execution against his liking and consent to his foul reproach And what at last will be the issue of this dangerous consequence but that the Lords content themselves to come down to the Commons and the King be no otherwise esteemed of than the chief of the Lords the Princeps Senatus if you will or the Duke of Venice at the best no more which if Sir Edward Dering may be credited as I think he may in this particular seems to have been the main design of some of the most popular and powerful Members then sitting with him for which I do refer the Reader to his book of Speeches Which dangerous consequents whether they were observed at first by these who first ventured on the expression or were improvidently looked over I can hardly say Certain I am it gave too manifest an advantage to the Antimonarchical party in this Kingdom and hardned them in their proceeding against their King whom they were taught to look on and esteem no otherwise than as a Joint-tenant of the Sovereignty with the Lords and Commons And if Kings have partners in the Sovereignty they are then no King such being the nature and Law of Monarchy that si divisionem capiat interitum capiat necesse est Laciant Institut Div. l. 1. c. if it be once divided and the authorities thereof imparted it is soon destroyed Such is the dangerous consequence of this new Expression that it seemeth utterly to deprive the Bishops and in them the Clergy of this Land of all future hopes of being restored again to their place in Parliament For being the Parliament can consist but of three Estates if the King fall so low as to pass for one either the Bishops or the Commons or the Temporal Lords must desert their claim the better to make way for this new pretension and in all probability the Commons being grown so potent and the Nobility so numerous and united in bloud and marriages will not quit their interesse and therefore the poor Clergy must be no Estate because less able as the World now goeth with them to maintain their Title I have often read that Constantine did use to call himself 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Bishop or superintendent of his Bishops Euseb de vita Constant and I have often heard our Lawyers say that the King is the general Ordinary of the Kingdom but never heard nor read till within these few years that ever any King did possess himself of the Bishops place or Vote in Parliament or sat there as the first of the three Estates as anciently the Bishops did to supply their absence By which device whether the Clergy or the King be the greater losers though it be partly seen already future times will shew This Rub removed we next proceed to the examination of that power which by our Author is conferred on the three Estates which we shall find on search and tryal to be very different according to the constitution of the Kingdom in which they are For where the Kings are absolute Monarchs as in England Scotland France and Spain Bod in de Repuô l. 1. c. the three Estates have properly and legally little more Authority than to advise their King as they see occasion to present unto his view their common grievances and to propose such remedies for redress thereof as to them seem meetest to canvass and review such erroneous judgments as formerly have passed in inferiour Courts and finally to consult about and prepare such Laws as are expedient for the publick In other Countreys where the Kings are more conditional and hold their Crowns by compact and agreement between them and their Subjects the reputation and authority of the three Estates is more high and eminent as in Polonia Denmark and some others of the Northern Kingdoms where the Estates lay claim to more than a directive power and think it not enough to advise their King unless they may dispose of the Kingdom also or at least make their King no better than a Royal Slave Thus and no otherwise it is with the German Emperors who are obnoxious to the Laws Thuan. hist sui temp l. 2. and for their Government accomptable to the Estates of the Empire insomuch that if the Princes of the Empire be persuaded in their consciences that he is likely by his mal-administration to destroy the Empire and that he will not hearken to advice and counsel ab Electorum Collegio Caesaria potestate privari potest Anonym Script ap Philip. Paraeum in Append ad Rom. 13. he may be deprived by the Electors and a more fit and able man elected to supply the place And to this purpose in a Constitution made by the Emperor Jodocus about the year 1410. there is a clause that if he or any of his Successors do any thing unto the contrary thereof the Electors and other States of the Empire sine rebellionis vel infidelitatis crimine libertatem babeant Goldast Constit Imperial Tom. 3. p. 424. should be at liberty
Page 477 6. The prosecution of the former story and ill success therein of the undertakers ibid. 7. Restraint of worldly business on the Lords day and the other Holy-days admitted in those times in Scotland Page 478 8. Restraint of certain servile works on Sundays Holy-days and the Wakes concluded in the Council of Oxon under Henry III. ibid. 9. Husbandry and Legal process prohibited on the Lords day first in the Reign of Edward III. Page 479 10. Selling of Wools on the Lords day and the solemn Feasts forbidden first by the said King Edward as after Fairs and Markets generally by King Henry VI. Page 480 11. The Cordwainers of London restrained from selling their Wares on the Lords day and some other Festivals by King Edward IV. and the repealing of that Act by King Henry VIII Page 481 12. In what estate the Lords day stood both for the doctrine and the practice in the beginning of the Reign of the said King Henry ibid. CHAP. VIII The story of the Lords day from the Reformation of Religion in this Kingdom till this present time 1. The doctrine of the Sabbath and the Lords day delivered by three several Martyrs conformably to the judgment of the Protestants before remembred Page 483 2. The Lords day and the other Holy-days confessed by all this Kingdom in the Court of Parliament to have no other ground than the Authority of the Church Page 484 3. The meaning and occasion of that clause in the Common-Prayer-book Lord have mercy upon us c. repeated at the end of the fourth Commandment Page 485 4. That by the Queens Injunctions and the first Parliament of her Reign the Lords day was not meant for a Sabbath day Page 486 5. The doctrine in the Homilies delivered about the Lords day and the Sabbath ibid. 6. The sum and substance of that Homily and that it makes not any thing for a Lords day Sabbath Page 487 7. The first original of the New Sabbath Speculations in this Church of England by whom and for what cause invented Page 489 8. Strange and most monstrous Paradoxes preached on occasion of the former doctrines and of the other effects thereof Page 490 9. What care was taken of the Lords day in King James his Reign the spreading of the doctrines and of the Articles of Ireland Page 491 10. The Jewish Sabbath set on foot and of King James his Declaration about Lawful sports on the Lords day Page 493 11. What Tracts were writ and published in that Princes time in opposition to the doctrines before remembred ibid. 12. In what estate the Lords day and the other Holy-days have stood in Scotland since the Reformation of Religion in that Kingdom Page 494 13. Statutes about the Lords day made by our present Sovereign and the misconstruing of the same His Majesty reviveth and enlargeth the Declaration of King James Page 496 14. An exortation to obedience unto his Majesties most Christian purpose concludes this History Page 497 Historia Quinqu-Articularis Or a Declaration of the Judgment of the Western Churches and more particularly of the Church of England in the five Controverted Points c. CHAP. I. The several Heresies of those who make God to be the Author of Sin or attribute too much to the Natural freedom of Man's Will in the Works of Piety 1. God affirmed by Florinus to be the Author of sin the Blasphemy encountred by Irenaeus and the foul Consequents thereof Page 505 2. Revived in the last Ages by the Libertines said by the Papists to proceed from the Schools of Calvin and by the Calvinists to proceed from the Schools of Rome Page 506 3. Disguised by the Maniches in another dress and the necessity thereby imposed on the Wills of men ibid. 4. The like by Bardesanes and the Priscilianists the dangerous consequents thereof exemplified out of Homer and the words of St. Augustine Page 507 5. The Error of the Maniches touching the servitude of the Will revived by Luther and continued by the rigid Lutherans ibid. 6. As those of Bardesanes and Priscilian by that of Calvin touching the Absolute Decree the dangers which lie hidden under the Decree and the incompatibleness thereof with Christs coming to Judgment ibid. 7. The large expressions of the Ancient Fathers touching the freedom of the Will abused by Pelagius and his followers Page 508 8. The Heresie of Pelagius in what it did consist especially as to this particular and the dangers of it ibid. 9. The Pelagian Heresie condemned and recalled the temper of S. Augustine touching the freedom of the Will in spiritual matters ibid. 10. Pelagianism falsly charged on the Moderate Lutherans How far all parties do agree about the freedom of the Will and in what they differ Page 509 CHAP. II. Of the Debates amongst the Divines in the Council of Trent touching Predestination and Original Sin 1. The Articles drawn from the Writings of the Zuinglians touching Predestination and Reprobation Page 510 2. The Doctrine of Predestination according to the Dominican way ibid. 3. As also the old Franciscans with Reasons for their own and against the other Page 511 4. The Historians judgment interposed between the Parties ibid. 5. The middle way of Catarinus to compose the differences ibid. 6. The newness of St. Augustines Opinion and the dislike thereof by the most Learned men in the Ages following Page 512 7. The perplexities amongst the Theologues touching the absoluteness of the Decrees ibid. 8. The judgment of the said Divines touching the possibility of falling from Grace ibid. 9. The Debates about the nature and transmitting of Original Sin ibid. 10. The Doctrine of the Council in it Page 513 CHAP. III. The like Debates about Free-will with the Conclusions of the Council in the five Controverted Points 1. The Articles against the Freedom of the Will extracted out of Luther's Writings Page 314 2. The exclamation of the Divines against Luther's Doctrine in the Point and the absurdities thereof ibid. 3. The several judgments of Marinarus Catarinus and Andreas Vega ibid. 4. The different judgment of the Dominicans and Franciscans whether it lay in mans power to believe or not to believe and whether the freedom of the Will were lost in Adam ibid. 5. As also of the Point of the co-operation of mans Will with the Grace of God Page 515 6. The opinion of Frier Catanca in the point of irresistibility ibid. 7. Faintly maintained by Soto a Dominican Fryer and more cordially approved by others but in time rejected ibid. 8. The great care taken by the Legates in having the Articles so framed as to please all parties Page 516 9. The Doctrine of the Council in the five Controverted Points ibid. 10. A Transition from the Council of Trent to the Protestant and Reformed Churches Page 517 CHAP. IV. The judgment of the Lutherans and Calvinians in these five Points with some Objections made against the Conclusions of the Council of Dort 1. No difference in Five Points betwixt the
the Article to the present Established Doctrine in the Church of Rome ibid. CHAP. XIII The Doctrine of the Church of England concerning the certainty or uncertainty of Perseverance 1. The certainty of Grace debated in the Council of Trent and maintained in the Affirmative by the Dominicans and some others Page 573 2. The contrary affirmed by Catarinus and his adherents ibid. 3. The doubtful resolution of the Council in it Page 574 4. The Calvinists not content with certainty of Grace quoad statum praesentem presume upon it also quoad statum futurum ibid. 5. The bounds and limits wherewith the judgment in this point ought rationally to be circumscribed Page 575 6. The Doctrine of the Church of England in the present Article ibid. 7. Justified by the testimonies of Bishop Latimer Bishoop Hooper and Master Tyndal Page 576 8. And proved by several arguments from the publick Liturgie ibid. 9. The Homily commends a probable and stedfast hope Page 577 But 10. Allows no certainty of Grace and perseverance in any ordinary way to the Sons of men ibid. CHAP. XIV The Plain Song of the second Homily touching the falling from God and the Descants made upon it 1. More from some other Homilies touching the possibility of falling from the grace received Page 578 2. The second Homily or Sermon touching falling from God laid down verbatim Page 579 3. The sorry shifts of Mr. Yates to illude the true meaning of the Homily plainly discovered and consuted Page 581 4. An Answer unto his Objection touching the passage cited from the former Homily in Mr. Mountagues Appeal ibid. 5. The judgment of Mr. Ridley Arch-Deacon of Canterbury in the points of Election and Redemption Page 582 6. As also touching the reasons why the Word was not preached unto the Gentiles till the coming of Christ the influences of grace the co-workings of man and the possibility of falling from the truth of Christ ibid. CHAP. XV. Of the Author and Authority of King Edwards Chatechism as also of the judgment of Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr in the Points disputed 1. The Catechism published by the Authority of King Edward VI. Anno 1553. affirmed to have been Writ by Bishop Poinet and countenanced by the rest of the Bishops and Clergy Page 583 2. Several passages collected out of that Catechism to prove that the Calvinian Doctrins were the true genuine and ancient Doctrins of the Church of England Page 584 3. With a discovery of the weakness and impertinency of the Allegation Page 585 4. What may most probably be conceived to have been the judgment of Bishop Poinet in most of the Controverted Points Page 586 5. An Answer to another Objection derived from Mr. Bucer and Peter Martyr and the influence which their Auditors and Disciples are supposed to have had in the Reformation ibid. 6. That Bucer was a man of moderate Counsels approving the first Liturgy of King Edward VI. assenting to the Papists at the Dyet of Ratisbone in the possibility of falling from grace and that probably Peter Martyr had not so far espoused the Calvinian quarrels when he lived in Oxon as after his return to Zurick and Calvins Neighbourhood Page 587 7. The judgment of Erasmus according as it is delivered in his Paraphrases on the four Evangelists proposed first in the general view and after more particularly in every of the Points disputed Page 588 PART III. CHAP. XVI Of the first breakin gs out of the Predestinarians and their Proceedings in the same 1. The Predestinarians called at first by the name of Gospellers Page 589 2. Campney's a professed Enemy to the Predestinarians but neither Papist nor Pelagian Page 590 3. The common practices of the Calvinists to defame their Adversaries the name of Free-will men to whom given why ibid. 4. The Doctrine of John Knox in restraining all mens actions either good or evil to the determinate Will and Counsel of God Page 591 5. The like affirmed by the Author of the Table of Predestination in whom and the Genevian Notes we find Christ to be excluded from being the foundation of mans Election and made to be an inferiour cause of salvation only ibid. 6. God made to be the Author of sin by the Author of a Pamphlet entituled against a Privy Papist and his secret Counsels called in for the proof thereof both by him and Knox with the mischiefs which ensued upon it ibid. 7. The Doctrine of Robert Crowly imputing all mens sins to Predestination his silly defences for the same made good by a distinction of John Verons and the weakness of that distinction shewed by Campneys Page 592 8. The Errours of the former Authors opposed by Campneys his Book in answer to those Errours together with his Orthodoxie in the point of universal Redemption and what he builds upon the same ibid. 9. His solid Arguments against the imputing of all actions either good or evil to Predestination justified by a saying of Prosper of Aquitain Page 593 10. The virulent prosecutions of Veron and Crowly according to the Genius of the sect of Calvin Page 594 CHAP. XVII Of the disputes amongst the Confessors in Prison in Queen Maries days and the resetling of the Church on her former principles under Queen Elizabeth 1. The Doctrine of Predestination disputed amongst the Confessors in Prison in Queen Maries days Page 595 2. The Examination of John Carelese between Dr. Martin in reference to the said Disputes ibid. 3. Considerations on some passages in the conference betwixt Dr. Martin and the said John Carelesse Page 596 4. Review made of the publick Liturgie by the command of Queen Elizabeth and the â—araphrases of Erasmus commended to the reading both of Priest and People Page 597 5. The second Book of Homilies how provided for and of the liberty taken by the Gospellers and Zuinglian Sectaries before the reviewing and confirming of the Book of Articles by the Queens Authority ibid. 6. Of the reviewing and authority of the Book of Articles Anno 1562. and what may be from thence inferred Page 598 7. An Answer from the Agreement drawn from omitting the ninth Article of King Edwards Book the necessity of giving some content to the Zuinglian Gospellers and the difficulty wherewith they were induced to subscribe the Book at the first passing of the same ibid. 8. The Argument taken from some passages in the English Catechism set forth by Mr. Alexander Nowel and the strength thereof Page 599 9. Several considerations on the said Catechism and the rest of the Authors making and what his being Prolocutor in the Convocation might add to any of them in point of Orthodoxie ibid. 10. Nothing to be collected out of the first passage in Mr. Nowels Catechism in favour of the Calvinian doctrine of Predestination and the points depending thereupon and less than nothing in the second if it be understood according to the Authors meaning and the determination of the Church Page 600 CHAP. XVIII A Declaration of the