might even as well say that two or three common Soldiers of the Carthaginian Army and perhaps not one of them at the fight were the Authors of the Roman overthrow at Cannae It was the Universities that approved the separation unanimously It was the Synods that directed the separation It was the King that established the separation It was the Parliament that confirmed the separation How could two or three Privados without Negromancy have such an efficatious influence upon the Universities and Synods and Parliaments and the King himself Yet they might have an hand in it no nor so much as a little finger As much as the Flie that sate upon the Cart-wheel had in raising of the dust The two Houses of Parliament alone did consist of above 600. of the most able and eminent persons in the Kingdome what had these three been able to doe among them supposing they had been then Protestants and of the House Even as much as three drops of hony in a great vessell of vinegar or three drops of vinegar in a great vessell of hony But let us see what it is which he objects against Cranmer and the rest That Cranmer whom I will not deny to have been a friend and favourer of Protestants advised that the King should seek no more to the Court of Rome And that bidding adieu to the Court of Rome he should consult with the most learned in the Universities of Europe at home and abroad There was no hurt in all this There could be no suspicion that the most learned in all the Universities of Europe should be enemies to the just rights of the Roman Court But upon this saith he it was by Commission disputed by the Divines in both Universities And so he concludes triumphantly Behold Cranmer the first author of secession from the Pope I answer That this secession was no secession of the Church of England nor this disputation any disputation concerning the jurisdiction of the Roman Court over the English Church but only concerning a particular processe there depending between King Henâ—y and Queen Katherine about the validity or invalidity of their marriage and the Popes dispensation which Cranmer maintained to be determinable by Divine law not by Canon law The truth is this Doctor Stephens and Doctor Fox two great Ministers of King Henry and Doctor Cranmer chanced to meet without any designe at Waltham where discourse being offered concerning this processe Cranmer freely declared his judgement that the marriage of a Brother with his Brothers Wife was unlawfull by the Law of God and that the Pope could not dispense with it And that it was more expedient and more proper to seek to have this cause determined by the best Divines and Universities of Europe then by the dilatory proceeding of the Roman Court This was related to the King The King sent for Cranmer He offered freely to justifie it before the Pope And to demonstrate both that this was no separation from Rome and that Cranmer himself was no Protestant at that time it is acknowledged by all our Historiographers that after this Cranmer with others was sent as an Ambassador or Envoy to Rome and returned home in the Popes good Grace not without a mark of his favour being made his penitentiary Likewise saith another Cranmer that unworthy Archbishop of Canterbury was his the Earl of Hartfords right hand and chief assistant in the work although but a few moneths before he was of King Harries Religion yea a great Patron and Prosecutor of the six Articles That is as much as to say no friend no favourer of Protestants So this victorious argument failes on both sides Some other places he citeth concerning Cranmer That he freed the Kings conscience from the yoke of Papall dominion that is to say in that processe That by his counsell destruction was provided divinely to the Court of Rome that is occasionally and by the just disposition of Almighty God That the King was brought by Cranmers singular virtue to defend the cause of the Gospell that is in that particular case that the Pope cannot dispense contrary to the Law of God And lastly That the Papall power being discovered by King Henries authority and Cranmers did easily fall down I much doubt if I had the Book whether I should finde these testimonies such as they are cited Howsoever it may be true distinguendo tempora and referendo singula singulis They could not be spoken of the first separation when Cranmer had no more authority then a private Doctor but of the following times King Henry suppressed the Papall tyranny in England by his Legislative Power and Cranmer by his discovery of their usurpations and care to see the Lawes executed Against Crumwell he produceth but one testimony That it was generally conceived and truly as never thought That the politick waies for taking away the Popes authority in England and the suppression of Religious Houses were principally devised by Crumwell First this is but an argument from vulgar opinion Secondly when Archbishop Warham and the Synod did first give to King Henry the Supremacy and the Title of Head of the English Church Crumwell was no Protestant he had lately been Cardinall Wolsies Soliciter and was then Master of the Jewel House of no such power to doe any great good or hurt to the Protestants And at his death he professed that he was no Sacramentary and that he died in the Catholick Faith Lord Cherbury in H. 8. anno 1540. Holl. an 32. H. 8. fol. 242. But for the suppression of Religious Houses it is not improbable He might well have learned that way under Cardinall Wolsy when he procured the suppression of fourty Monasteries of good note for the founding of his two Colleges at Oxford and Ipswich In which businesse our historians say the Pope licked his own Fingers to the value of twelve Barrels full of Gold and Silver Lastly for Doctor Barnes poor man he was neither Courtier nor Councelor nor Convocation man nor Parliament man All the grace which ever he received from King Henry was an honourable death for his Religion He said That he and such other wretches as he had made the King a whole King by their Sermons If they did so it was well done The meaning of a whole King is an Head of the Church saith R. C. It may be so but the consequence is naught Perhaps he meant a Soveraign independant King not feudatory to the Pope which he that is is but half a King Not only of old but in later times the Popes did challenge a power Paramount over the Kings of England within their own dominions as appeareth by the Popes Bull sent to Iames the fifth King of Scotland wherein he declareth that he had deprived King Henry of his Kingdome as an Heretick a Schismatick an Adulterer a Murtherer a Sacrilegious person and lastly a Rebell and convict of laesae Majestatis for that he had risen
factious persons but by two or three Kings successively and by Theodore the Archbishop of Canterbury a Roman with the flower of the Clergy and the whole Councel of the English He proceedeth they never disliked that Profession of Saint Austins Fellowes that the See Apostolick had sent them to preach in Britanny as she is accustomed to doe in all the World First why should they dislike it they had no reason for it No good Christian can dislike the Husbandmans sowing of Wheat but every good Christian doth dislike the envious mans supersemination or sowing of Tares above the Wheat Or if there had been reason how could they dislike that which in probability they did not know The Letter out of which these words are cited was not written to the English Kings but to the Scotish Bishops by Laurentius Successor to Austin in the See of Canterbury and Melitus of London and Iustus of Rotchester which three were all the Bishâ—ps of the Roman Communion that were at that day in Britain But if perchance he imagine that the Popes sending Preachers into Britain doth either argue an ancient or acquire a subsequent Jurisdiction over Britain he erres doubly first they did nothing without the Kings licence for matter of fact they produced no Papall mandates which had been in vain to a Pagan King At their first arrivall the King commanded them to abide in the Isle of Thanet untill his further pleasure was known They did so Afterwards they were called in by his command he gave them an express licence to preach to his Subjects and after his own conversion majorem praedicandi licentiam a further and larger licence So the conversion of Kent was by the Popes endeavoures and the Kings authority Secondly for matter of right Conversion gives no just title to Jurisdiction How many Countries have been converted to the Christian Faith by the Britans and English over which they never pretended any authority It followeth they never disliked That Saint Gregory should subject all the Priests of Britain under Saint Austin and give him power to erect two Archiepiscopall Sees and twelve Episcopall Sees under each of them Whom could Ethelbert being himself a Novice in Christianity better trust with the disposing of Ecclesiasticall Affaires in his Kingdome then those who had been his Converters But either Saint Gregory in his projects or rather Austin in his informations did mightily over-shoot themselves for the twentieth part of Britain was not in Ethelberts power And all the other Saxon Kings were Pagans at that time We have seen that after the death of Austin and Gregory there were still but one Archbishop and two Bishops of the Roman Communion throughout the Britannick Islands The British and Scotish Bishops were many but they renounced all Communion with Rome The British Bishops professed plainly to Austin himself in their Synod that they would not acknowledge him for their Archbishop And the Scotish Bishops did so much abhorre from the Communion of the Bishops of the Roman Communion that as themselves complained Dagamus one of the Scotish Bishops refused to eat with them or to lodge with them in the same Inne And yet he tells us in great earnest that they never disliked it He addeth they never disliked that Saint Melit should bring the Decrees of the Roman Synod to be observed of the Church of England It may be so But whether it was so or not whether they liked them or disliked them whether they received them or rejected them Venerable Bede who is his Author speaketh not a word This is not proving but presuming And why might they not receive them if they found them to be equall and beneficiall non propter authoritatem Legislatoris sed propter aequitatem Legis not for the authority of the Roman Synod but for the equity of their Decrees And what were their Decrees Ordinationes de vita quiete Monachorum Orders for the good conversation and quiet of Monks A matter of no great importance but great or small the Decrees of the Roman Synod were of no force in England unless they were received by the King and Kingdome and if they were received by the King and Kingdome then they were naturalised and made the Lawes of England not of Pope Boniface an usurping and if we may trust Saint Gregory his Predecessors an Antichristian Prelate They willingly admitted a Bishop of Canterbury sent to them and chosen by the Pope Why should they not admit him seeing it was their own desire and request to the Bishop of Rome in respect of the great scarcity of Scholars then in England to send them one as appeareth by the very letter of Vitalianus hominem denique docibilem in omnibus ornatum Antistitem secundum vestrorum scriptorum tenorem minime valuimus nunc reperire We could not finde for the present such a complete Prelate as your letters require and by the reception of the King quâ—d cum Nuncii certò narrassent Regi Egberto adesse Episcopum quem petierant a Romano Antistite when King Egbert had certain notice that the Bishop Theodore was come whom they had desired of the Roman Prelate So he was not obtruded upon them against their wills which was the case of patronage between us and them They acknowledged that Saint Peter was the speciall Porter of Heaven whom they would obey in all things I understand not why he urgeth this except it be to expose the simplicity of those times to dirision The case was this there was a disputation between Coleman and Wilfrid about the observation of Easter Coleman pleaded a tradition from Saint Iohn upon whose bosom Christ leaned delivered to them by Columba their first Converter Wilfrid pleaded a different tradition from St. Peter to whom Christ gave the Keies of the Kingdome of Heaven The King demanded whether that which was said of Saint Peter was true They acknowledged it was And whether any thing of like nature was said to Saint Columb They said no. Thereupon the King concluded Hic est Ostiarius ille cui ego contradicere nolo c. ne forte me adveniente ad fores Regni Coelorum non sit quireseret averso illo qui Claves tenere probatur This is the Porter whom I will not contradict least peradventure when I come to the gates of Heaven there be none to open unto me having made him averse to me who is proved to keepe the Keies No man can be so simple as to beleeve that there are Gates and Keies and Porters in Heaven It were but a poor office for Saint Peter to sit Porter at the Gate whilest the rest were feasting within at the Supper of the Lamb. The Keies were given to Saint Iohn as much as to Saint Peter They publickly engraved in the front of their Churches that Saint Peter was higher in degree then Saint Paul Let them place St. Peter as high as they please
kept their ancient bounds But now when the State of the Empire is altogether changed the Provinces confounded and the Dominions divided among lesser Kings who are sometimes in hostility one with another and the Subjects of one Prince cannot freely nor securely repair for Justice into the Dominions of a forrein Prince without prejudice to themselves and danger to their native Country It is very meet that the Subjects of every Soveraign Prince should have finall Justice within the Dominions of their own Soveraign as well in Ecclesiasticall causes as Politicall And this is agreeable with the fundamentall Lawes and Customes of England which neither permit a Subject in such cases to goe out of the Kingdome nor any forrein Commissioner to enter into the Kingdome without the Kings license Upon this ground the Bishops of Scotland were freed from their obedience to the Primate of York and the Bishops of Muscovia from the Patriarch of Constantinople But saith he That which is for the benefit of the Kingdome may be contrary to the good of the Church and should we prefer a Kingdome before the Church the Body before the Soul Earth before Heaven I answer that gain and losse advantage and disadvantage ought not to be weighed or esteemed from the consideration of one or two circumstances or emergents All charges damages and reprises must first be cast up and deducted before one can give a right estimate of benefit or losse If a Merchant doe reckon only the price which his commodity cost him beyond Sea without accounting Customes Freight and other charges he will soon perish his Pack If the benefit be only temporall and the losse Spirituall as to gain Gold and lose Faith which is more precious then Gold that perisheth it is no benefit but losse What should it advantage a man to gain the whole World and lose his own Soul The English Church and the English Kingdome are one and the same Society of men differing not really but rationally one from another in respect of some distinct relations As the Vine and the Elm that susteins it they florish together and decay together Bonum ex singulis circumstantiis that which is truely good for the Kingdome of England cannot be ill for the Church of England and that which is truely good for the English Church cannot be ill for the English Kingdome We may in reason distinguish between Alexanders friend who studies to please him and the Kings friend who gives him good advise The one is a friend to his person the other to his office But in truth whilest Alexander is King and the person and office are united he that is a true friend to Alexander is no enemy to the King and he who is a true friend to the King is no foe to Alexander Indeed if by the Church he understand the Court of Rome then that which was good for the Kingdome of England was prejudiciall to the Church in point of temporall profit But seeing as he confesseth The Soul is to be preferred before the Body it turns to their greater advantage by lessening the account of their extortions He addeth That a Kingdome is but a part of the Church and it is not in the power of any part only for its particular profit to alter what is instituted by the universall Church for her universall good no more then it is in the power of a part of the Kingdome as one Shire or Province to alter for its private inâ—erest what hath been decreed by Parliament for the good of the Kingdome His instance of a Shire or a Province is altogether impertinent for no particular Shire or Province in England hath Legislative authority at all as the Kingdome hath But particular Corporations being invested with power from the Crown to make Ordinances for the more commodious government of themselves may make and doe make ordinarily by Lawes and Ordinances not contra against the Acts of Parliament but praeter besides the Acts of Parliament And let him goe but a little out of the Kingdome of England as suppose into the Isle of Man or into Ireland though they be branches of the English Empire yet he shall finde that they have distinct Parliaments which with the concurrence of the King have ever heretofore enjoyed a power to make Lawes for themselves contrary to the Lawes of the English Parliament But we are so far from seeking to abrogate or to alter any institution of the universall Church or its representative a generall Councell in this case that on the contrary we crave the benefit of their Decrees and submit all our differences to their decision No generall Councell did ever give to the See of Rome Jurisdiction over Britain And though they had yet the state of things being quite changed it were no disobedience to vary from them in circumstances whilest we persist in their grounds To make my word good I will suppose the case to have been quite otherwise then it was That Protestants had made the separation That they had had no ancient Laws for presidents That the Britannick Churches had not enjoyed the Cyprian priviledge for the first six hundred years Yea I will suppose for the present That our Primates were no Primates or Patriarchs And that the Britannick Churches had been subjected to the Bishop of Rome by generall Councells Yet all this supposed upon the great mutation of the state of the Empire and the great variation of affairs since that time it had been very lawfull for the King and Church of England to substract their obedience from the Bishops of Rome though they had not quitted their Patriarchate and to have erected a new Primate at home among themselves Provided that what I write only upon supposition he doe not hereafter allege as spoken by way of concession We have seen formerly in this chapter that the establishment of Primates or Patriarchs and Metropolitans in such and such Sees was meerly to comply and conforme themselves to the Edicts and civill constitutions of Sovereign Princes for the ease and advantage of Christians and to avoid confusion and clashing of Jurisdiction That where there was a civill Exarch and Protarch established by the Emperour there should be an ecclesiasticall Primate or Patriarch And where a Citie was honoured with the name and priviledge of a Metropolis or mother Citie there should be a Metropolitan Bishop The practise of Bishops could not multiply these dignities but the Edicts of Emperors could And this was in a time when the Emperors were Pagans and Infidells Afterwards when the Emperours were become Christians if they newly founded or newly dignified an Imperiall Citie or a Metropolis they gave the Bishop thereof a proportionable ecclesiasticall preheminence at their good pleasure Either with a Councell as the Councels of Constantinople and Chalcedon with the consent and confirmation of Theodosius and Martian Emperours did advance the Bishop of Constantinople from being a mean Suffragan under the Metropolitan of
which continue in communion with it are the onely Churches which have true doctrine in vertue of the first principle above mentioned and the right governement in virtue of the second and consequently are the entire Catholick or Vniversall Church of Christians all others by misbelief or Schisme being excluded Our answer is ready that the Church of Rome or the Court of Rome have sophisticated the true doctrine of Faith by their supplementall Articles and erroneous additions contrary to the first principle and have introduced into the Church a tyrannical and unlawfull government contrary to the second principle and are so far from being the entire Catholick Church that by them both they are convicted to have made themselves guilty of supertio n and Schisme And lastly where he saith that my onely way to clear our Church from Schisme is either by disproving the former to be the necessary rule of unity in Faith or the latter the necessary bond of governement he is doubly mistaken First we are the persons accused our plea is negative or not guilty So the proof lieth not upon us but upon him to make good his accusation by proving us Schismaticks Secondly if the proof did rest upon our sides we do not approve ofâ—his adviâ—e It is not we who have altered the Doctrine or Discipline which Christ left to his Church by our substractions but they by their additions There is no doubt but Christs legacy ought to be preserved inviolable but we deny that Christ bequeathed spiritual Monarchy over his Church to S. Peter and that the Bishop of Rome is S. Peters heir by Christs ordination And that this was the constant beliefe of the Catholick world at any time This is his province let him either make this good or hold his peace Sect. 2. So his Prologue is ended now we come to his animadversions upon my arguments My first ground was because not Protestants but Roman Catholicks themselves did make the first separation To which his first answer is If it were so how doth that acquit us since continuance in a breach of this nature is as culpable as the beginning Many waies First it is a violent presumption of their guilt and our innocence when their best friends and best able to judge who preached for them and writ for them who acted for them and suffered for them who in all other things were great zeloâ—s of the Roman Religion and persecuted the poor Protestants with fire and Fagot did yet condemn thâ—m and justify this separation Secondly though it doth not alwaies excuse a tâ—to from all guilt and punishment to be misled by others into errour If the blind llead the blind both fall into the ditch yet it doth alwaies excuse a tanto it lesseneth the sin and extenuateth the guilt Persons misled by the example and authority of others are not so cuipable as the first authors and ringleaders in Schisme If this separation be an Errour in Protestants the Roman Catholicks do owe an account to God both for themselves and us did they find cause to turne the Pope out of England as an intruder and usurper and could Protestants who had no relation to Rome imagine that it was their duties to bring him in again Thirdly in this case it doth acquit us not onely a tanto but a toto not onely from such a degree of guilt but from all criminus Schisme so longas we seek carefuly after truth and do not violate the dictates of our Consciences If he will not believe me let himbeleeve S. Austin He that defends not his false opinion with pertinacious animosity having not invented it himself but learned it from his erring parents if he enquire carefully after the truth and be ready to embrace it and to correct his errours when he finds them he is not to be reputed an hereticke If this be true in the case of heresy it is more true in the case of Schisme Thus if it had been a crime in them yer it is none in us but in truth it was neither crime in them nor us but a just and necessary duty Secondly he answereth that it is no sufficient proof that they were no Protestants because they persecuted Protestants For Protestants persecute Protestants Lutherans Calvinists Zwinglians Puritans and Beownists persecute one another VVhat then were VVarham and Heath aud Thureleby Tunscall and Stokesley and Gardiner and Bonner c. all Protestants did Protestants enjoy Arch-Bishopricks and Bishopricks iâ— England and say Masses in those daies will he part so easily with the greatest Patrons and Champions of their Church and opposers of the Reformation If he had wriâ— thus much whilest they were living they would have been very angry with him Yet at the least if they were Protestants let him tell me which of these Sects they were of Lutheranâ— c. But he telleth us that the reouncing of the Pope is the most essentiall part of our reformation and so they had in them the quintessence of a Protestant He is mistaken This part of the reformation was done to our hands it was their reformation not ours But if he will needs have the kingdomes and Churches of England and Ireland to have been all Protestants in Henry the eighths daies onely for renouncing the Popes absolute universall Monarchy I am well contented we shall not lose by the bargain Then the Primitive Church were all Protestants then all the Grecian Russian Armenian Abyssen Christians are Protestants at this day then we want not store of Protestants even in the besome of the Roman Church it self Sect. 3. My second Ground saith he was because in the separation of England from Rome there was no new law made but onely their ancient Liberties vindicated This he is pleased to call notoriously false impudence it self because a law was made in Henry the eighths time and an oath invented by which was given to the King to be head of the Church and to have all the power the Pope did at that time possess in England Is this the language of the Roman Sâ—hooles or doth he think perhaps with his outcriâ—s and clamours as the Turks with their Alla Alla to daunt us and drive us from our cause Christian Reader of what Communion soever thou art be but indifferent and I make thee the Judge where this notorious falshood and impudence doth rest between him and me I acknowledge this was the Title of my fourth Chapter that the King and Kingdom of England in the separation from Rome did make no now law but vindicate their ancient Liberties It seemeth he confureth the Titles without looking into the Chapters did I say they made no new statutes No I cited all the new statutes which they did make and particularly this very statute which he mentioneth here Yet I said they made no new law because it was the law of the land before that statute was made The Customs and liberties of England are the ancient and common Law of the
land when soever these were infringed or an attempt made to destroy them as the liberties of the Crowne and Church of England had then been invaded by the Pope it was the manner to restore them or to declare them by a statute which was not operative to make or create new law but declarative to manifest or to restore ancient law This I told him expressely in the vindication and cited the judgement of our greatest Lawyers Fitz Herbirt and my Lord Cook to prove that this very statute was not operative to create new law but declarative to restore ancient law This appeareth undeniably by the statute it self That England is an Empire and that the King as head of the body politicke consisting of the spirituality and temporality hath plenary power to render finall Iustice for all matters Here he seeth expressely that the dolitcall supremacy or headship of the King over the spirituality as well as temporality which is all that we assert at this day was the an e nt fundamentall law of England And lest hâ—e should accuse this Parliament of partialiâ—y I produced another that was more ancient The Crowne of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no earthly subjection but immediately subjected to God in all things touching it's Regality and to no other and ought not to be submitted to the Pope Here the Kings politicall Supremacy under God is declared to be the fundamentall Law of the Land Let him not say that this was intended onely in temporall matters for all the grievances mentioned in that statute are expressely Ecclesiasticall What was his meaning to conceal all this and much more and to accuse me of impudence Secondly he saith that I bring diverse allegations wherein the Popes pretences were not admitted or where the Pope is expressely denied the power to do such and such things Do we professe the Pope can pretend no more then his right Doth he think a legitimate authority is rejected when the particular faults of them that are in authority are resisted He stileth the Authorities by me produced meer Allegations yet they are as authentick Records as England doth afford But though he be willing to blanch over the matter in generall expressions of the Popes pretences and such or such things as if the controversy had been onely about an handfull of goats wool I will make bold to represent some of the Popes pretences and their declarations against them And if he be of the same mind with his Ancestours in those particulars he and I shall be in a probable way of reconciliation as to this question They declared that it was the custom or common law of the land ut nullus praeter licentiam Regis appelletur Papa that no Pope might be appealed unto without the Kings licence They made a law that if any one were found bringing in the Popes letters or mandates into the kingdome let him be apprehended and let justice passe upon him without delay as a Traitor to the King and kingdome They exercised a legislative power in all ecclesiasticall causes concerning the external subsistence Regiment and regulating of the Church over all Ecclesiastical persons in all ages as well of the Saxon as of the Norman Kings They permitted not the Pope to endow Vicars nor make spiritual corporations nor exempt from the jurisdiction of the ordinary nor appropriate Churches nor to dispose Benefices by lapse nor to receive the revenues in the vacancy but the King did all these things as I shewed at large in the vindication They permitted not the Popes canon law to have any place in England further then they pleased to receive it They gave the king the last appeal of all his subjects they ascribed to him the patronage of Bishopricks and investitures of Bishops They suffered no subject to be cited to Rome without the Kings license They admitted no Legates from the Pope but meerly upon courtesy and if any was admitted he was to take his oath to doe nothing derogatory to the King or his Crowne If any man did denounce the Popes excommunication in England without the Kings consent or bring over the Popes bull he forfeited all his goods So the laws of England did not allow the Pope to cite or excommunicate an English Subject nor dispose of an English Benefice nor send a Legate a latere orso much as an authoritative bul into England nor to reâ—eive an appeal out of England without the kings license But saith he To limit an authority implies an admittance of it in cases to which the rsstraints extend not This was not meerly to limit an authority but to deny it VVhat lawfull Jurisdiction could remain to him in England who was not permitted by law to receive any appeal thence nor to send any Citation or sentence thither nor execute any authority over an English Subject either at Rome by himself or in England by his deputies without licence That he exercised all these acts at sometimes there is no doubt of it But he could not exercise them lawfully without consent Give us the same limitation which our Ancestours alwayes claimed that no forraign authority shall be exercised in England withour leave and then give the Pope as much authority as you please volenti non fit injuria consent takes away error He is not wronged who gives leave to another to wrong him He demandeth first were not those bawes in force in the beginning of Henry the eighths raign Yes but it is no strange matter to explaine or confirm or renew ancient laws upon emergent and subsequent abuses as we see in magna Charta the statute of proviso's and many other Statutes Secondly he asketh whether we began our Religion there that is at that time when these ancient lawes were made no I have told him formerly that these statutes were onely declarative what was the ancient common law of the kingdome VVe began our Religion from Joseph of Arimathea's time before they had a Church at Rome But it is their constant use to make the least reformation to be a new Religion Lastly he enquireth whether there be not equivolent laws to these in France Spaine Germany and Italy it self and yet they are Catholicks and hold communication with the Pope Yes there are some such laws in all these places by him mentioned perhaps not so many but the liberties of the French Church are much the same with the English as I have shewed in the vindication And therefore the Popes friends do exclude France out of the number of these Countries which they term Pays d' obedience loyall Countries VVhat â—use some other Countries can make of the Papacy more then we in England concerns not me nor this present discourse And here to make his conclusion answerable to his preface in this section he cries out How ridiculous how impudent a manner of speaking is this to force his Readers to renounce their eyes and
Alan Apol. c. 4. p. 59. Sond de Schism p 103 b. Denique nulla in re a side Catholica discessit nisi libidinis luxuâ—iâ— causa Sect. 4. A full justification of our penall Laws L 3. L. 1. de Orator Leg. 12. tal Aen Gaz. in Theo. phâ—asium Cont Aristâ—câ—aetem Timocratem Sand de Schis l. 1. Camd Annal Eliz. l. 2. p. 7. Id. l. 2. p. 98. Id l 4. p. 145 p. 150. p 164. Câ—md Annal l 3 p. 11 Ibid. l. 3. p. 44. l. 3. p. 74. Camd. An. l. 3. p. 132 Apol. Marc. p. 329. Camd. An. l 3. p. 11. Apr. 1. El. 23. ex Apol. Mart. Edm. Camp epist. ad Conc. R. Aug. pag. 127. Camb. Annal Eliz an 1581. Camb. Annal. Eliz an 1581. Sect. 1. The Kings of England alwaies politicall Heads of the English Church Not only acts of Papall Power but the Power it self contrary to our Laws Jurisdiction is from Ordination but Princes apply the matter Jurisdidiction enlarged and fortified with coercive power by Princes Henry the eighth not exempt from the power of the Keyes An. 25. H. 8. C. xxi Sect. 2. Saint Wilfrid Spel. conc An. 705. Bed l. 5. Ecc. hist c. 20. St. Austin and his â— Fellowes Bed l. 2. c 4. Bed l. 1. e. 25. See Speed l. 6 c. 9. 11.22 Fed. l. 1. c. 29. Bed l. 2. c. 2. Bed l. 2. c. 4. St. Melit L. 2. c. 4. Ibidem Bed l. 3. c 29. An Aâ—ch bâ—shop sent from Rome L. 4 c. 1. Bed l. 3. c 25. St. Peter Poâ—ter of Heaven Camd. Brit. p. 165. St Peter Superior to Saint Paul L. 2. Flor. c. 11. St. Peter a Monarch Bed l. 4 c. 18. John the precentor Malm. l 2â— Reg. c 9. Bishoprickâ— erâ—cted in England by the Pope answered Wil Malmes l. 1. Reg. c. 6. L. 2â— Floâ— c. 11. Edgar apud Ealred in orati ad Episcopos withred a pud Speim Conc p. 192 Clergy-men not exempted from seculaâ— Judges Plat. in politico Ibâ—dem 〈◊〉 Ser. 25 in 14 c 〈◊〉 Rome hath no certainâ—y of iâ—tallibilitiâ— Bell. de Ro. Pont. l. 4. â— 4. Aclred de vita Mirac Edw. Conf. superseriptions to Popes 2 Cor. 11. 28. Aclred ibidem Walsing Aâ— 133 How the Pope presideth above all Creatures Wâ—lsiâ—g â— An 1343. 25 E. 3. Wals. An. 1343. Wals. ibidem Aust. Ep. 50. Sect. 2. Patriarchs indâ—pâ—ndent upon a single Superior Socrat. l. 2. â— 11 Cypr. Epist. l. 1. Ep. 3. Conc. â—â—hâ—sia part 1. act 7. Bâ—itain enjoyed the Cyprian pâ—iviledge Math Paris in H 3. an 1238. Itineâ—az Caâ—â—b l 2. c 1. Bellarmine maâ—â—s the Apostles all equal in power I. 4 de Rom. Pont. c. 23. L. 4 de Ro. pont c. 16. L 1. de Ro Pont. c. 12. Cypr. de unit Ecclesiae Cont. Iovin l. 1. c. 14. How Peter head of the rest A superiority of Order is sufficient to prevent Schisme The rest Pastors as well as Peter De Rom. Pont. l. 4. c. 25. l. 1. c. 9. Sect. 2. Universality an incommunicable qualification of the Apostles 9 c. 8. s. 2. Bel l. 4. de Ro. Pont c â—4 All Episcopall jurisdiction is not derived from the Pope Sect. 3. The Chair of St. Peter not fixed to Rome by Divine right l. 2. de Pont. Ro. c. 12. Bel. de Pont. Ro. l. â—â— c. 23. Io 21.18 Bel de Râ— Poâ— 2. c. 12. Ibidem Nor by humane right Sect. 4. Gild. in Prol. Whether St. Peter converted Britain Onuph Of Eleutherius his sending into Engand And Victors into Scotland Ninian Bed l. 3â— c. 4. Palladius and S. Patrick Bed in viâ—a St. Patriâ— l. 1. Germanus and Lupus Prosp. in Chron. Constant de vita Germ. l. 1. Bed l 1. c. 17. Baron an 429. Constant l. c. 19. Idem c. 23 Austine Dubritius St. Samson Vind. p. 150. Pol. Virg. l 13 hist. Angl. Itiâ— Camb l. 1. c. 1. Râ—g â—â—ved An. anno 1â—99 King Iames. Matrix Ecclesia Sect. 5. Bed l. 2. c. 2. â—ed l. 3. c. 25. Vind. p. 115 116. Aqui. ◠〈◊〉 2.2 quaest 88. Art 2. 10. A King hath all power needfull for the preservation of his Kingdome A respective necessity is a sufficient ground of a Reformation Act. 15.28 Act. 21 20 Senec. Our Reformation was necessary Hall 24. Hen. 8. sol 205. The Regiment of the Church conformed to that of the Commonwealth conc chalc c. 11. vel 12. Dist. 99. In gain or losse all circumstances to be considered 1 Pet. 1.7 Our Reformation not contrary to the Decrees of generall Councels Novell 11 131. p. 127. But in pur suance of them King Henries Divorce lawfull but no ground of the Reformation Hall in Hen. 8. an 20. sol 180. b. an 21 f. 182. All the Cardinals of Rome opposed the Dispensation Hall An. 1. H. 8. Acworth emt Sand 1 2. c 13. 14 Hall An. 19. H 8. fâ—l 161. Sand de Schism p. 11. 12. Steph. Wint. de vera Obedientia apnd Gild. t. 1. p. 721. Ld. Cherb in Hen 8. An 1530. p. 303. Sufficere sant alioqui debuisset causae ipsius c. The Parliament not forced Idem p. 334. Anno. 1530. De vera Obedien tia Ibâ—dem p. 719. King Henry did not act against conscience c 3. s. 5. Ld. Cherb H. 8. an 1530. p. 305. Consilio divino Sand. de Sâ—hism p. 102. Lord Cherb fol. 398. P 128. Our separation from the Papacy was not for the faults of Popes but of the Papacy it self Luk. 13.7 whether Popes have done more good or hurt to England not materiall 2 King 18.4 Sect. 2. Conc. Turor Râ—sp ad Art 3. 48. It was lawfull to withdraw obedience from Papâ—ll Authority corrupted Princes the last Judges of the injuries done to their Subjâ—cts by Popes Bish. Epist. ad Reg. Iocob p. 11. Rom. 13.1 2. Prov. â— 15 Kingly Authority from God not Papal Sect. 3. The grounds of our sâ—paration An. 30. Sect. 4. The Popes new Articles of Faith a just cause of separation The deâ—â—ining of the Cup in the Sacrament a just cause of separation Odoardus Barlosa forma Celebrandi c. Papists right Heirs of the Donatists Optat. l. 2. Whether Protestants and Papists differ in Essentials Psal. 139.16 Sect. 5. Papists acknowledge possibility of our salvation as much as we of theirs Sect. 6. Our separation only from errors Math. 15.9 We arrogate to our selves no new Church c. Whether our Religion be the same with theirs or not we are no Schismaticks Quaest 14. de side Aâ—t 1. Justification by speciall faâ—â—h no Aâ—â—icle of our Church Probl. 22. Probl. 26. Our negatives no Articles of Faith Sect. 7. An implicite submission to the Catholick Church sufficient to salvation 〈…〉 Papists agree not what is their infallâ—ble proponent Aust. epist. 48. The name of Catholick from universall Communion not right beleefe c. 2 sect 6. More dangerous to exclude then to include others in our Communion The politick Supremacy of Princes in
A Replication TO THE BISHOP of CHALCEDON HIS Survey of the Vindication OF THE CHVRCH of ENGLAND FROM Criminous Schism Clearing the English Laws from the aspertion of Cruelty With an Appendix in answer to the exceptions of S. W. By the right Reverend JOHN BRAMHALL D. D. and Lord Bishop of Derry LONDON Printed by K. H. for Iohn Crook at the signe of the Ship in St. Pauls Church-yard 1656. To the Christian Reader CHristian Reader of what Communion soever thou beest so thou beest within the Communion of the oecumenicall Church either in act or in desire I offer this second Treatise of Schism to thy serious view and unpartiall Iudgment The former was a Vindication of the Church of England this later is a Vindication of my self or rather both are Vindications of both In vindicating the Church then I did vindicate my self And in vindicating my self now I doe vindicate the Church What I have performed I doe not say I dare not judg the most moderate men are scarcely competent judges of their own works No man can justly blame me for honouring my spiritual Mother the Church of England in whose wombe I was conceived at whose brests I was nourished and in whose bosome I hope to die Bees by the instict of nature doe love their hives and Birds their nests But God is my witness that according to my uttermost talent and poor understanding I have endeavored to set down the naked truth impartially without either favor or prejudice the two capital enemies of right judgment The one of which like a fals mirror doth represent things fairer and straighter then they are the other like the tongue infected with choler makes the sweetest meats to taste bitter My desire hath been to have truth for my chiefest friend and no enemy but error If I have had any byasse it hath been desire of peace which our common Saviour left as a Legacy to his Church that I might live to see the re-union of Christendome for which I shall alwaies bow the knees of my heart to the Father of our Lord Iesus Christ. It is not impossible but that this desire of unity may have produced some unwilling error of love but certainly I am most free from the willfull love of error In questions of an inferior natu re Christ regards a charitaable intention much more then a right opinion Howsoever it be I submit my self and my poor indeavors first to the judgment of the Catholick oecumenicall essentiall Church which if some of late daies have indeavored to hisse out of the Schools as a fancy I cannot help it From the beginning it was not so And if I should mistake the right Catholick Church out of humane frailty or ignorace which for my part I have no reason in the World to suspect yet it is not impossible when the Romanists themselves are divided into five or six severall opinions what â—his catholick Church or what their infallible Iudg is I doe implicitly and in the preparation of my minde submit my self to the true catholick Church the Spouse of Christ the Mother of the Saints the Pillar of Truth And seeing my adherence is firmer to the infallible rule of Faith that is the holy Scriptures interpreted by the catholick Church then to mine own private judgment or opinions although I should unwittingly fall into an error yet this cordiall submission is an implicite retractation thereof and I am confident will be so accepted by t he Father of merâ—â—â—s both from me 〈…〉 and sincerely 〈…〉 â—th Likew◠〈…〉 reprâ—sentative 〈…〉 generall Councell or so generall as can be procured and untill then to the Church of England wherein I was baptized or to a nationall English Synod To the determination of all which and each of them respectively according to the distinct degrees of their authority I yeeld a conformity and compliance or at the least and to the lowest of them an acquiescence Finally I crave this favor from the courteous Reader that because the Surveier hath overseen almost all the principall proofs of the cause in question which I conceive not to be so clearly and candidly done he will take the pains to peruse the Vindication it self And then in the name of God let him follow the dictate of right reason For as that scale must needs settle down whereinto most weight is put so the minds cannot chuse but yeeld to the weight of perspicuous demonstration An Answer to R. C. the Bishop of Chalcedons preface I Examine not the impediments of R. C. his undertaking this survey Only I cannot but observe his complaint of extreme want of necessary Books having all his own notes by him and such store of excellent Libraries in Paris at his command then which no City in the World affords more few so good certainly the main disadvantage in this behalf lies on my side Neither will I meddle with his motives to undertake it I have known him long to have been a Person of great eminence among our English Roman Catholicks and doe esteem his undertaking to be an honour to the Treatise Bos lassus fortiùs pedem figit said a great Father The weary Oxe treadeth deeper Yet there is one thing which I cannot reconcile namely a fear least if the answer were longer deferred the poison of the said Treatise might spread further and become more incurable Yet with the same breath he tels us that I bring nothing new worth answering And in his answer to the first Chapter that no other English Minister for ought he knows hath hitherto dared to defend the Church of England from Schisme in any especiall Treatise Yes diverse he may be pleased to inform himself better at his leisure What is the Treatise so dangerous and infectious Is the way so unbeaten And yet nothing in it but what is triviall Nothing new that deserves an answer I hope to let him see the contrary He who disparageth the work which he intends to confute woundeth his own credit through his adversaries sides But it seemeth that by surveying over hastily he did quite oversee all our principall evidence and the chiefest firmaments of our cause I am sure he hath quite omitted them I shall make bold now then to put him in mind of it Hence he proceedeth to five observable points which he esteemeth so highly that he beleeveth they alone may serve for a full refutation of my Book Then he must have very favourable Judges His first point to be noted is this that Schisme is a substantiall division or a division in some substantiall part of the Church And that the substantiall parts of the Church are these three Profession of Faith Communion in Sacraments and Lawfull Ministery I confesse I am not acquainted with this language to make Profession of Faith Communion in Sacraments and lawfull Ministery which are no substances to be substantiall parts of any thing either Physicall or Metaphysicall He defineth the Church to be a Society can these be
be ashamed of what is evident truth We expected thanks for our moderation and behold reviling for our good will He might have been pleased to remember what himself hath cited so often out of my vindication That our Church since the Reformation is the same in substance that it was before If the same in substance then not substantially separated Our comfort is that Caleb and Ioshua alone were admitted ino the Land of promise because they had been Peace-makers in a seditious time and indeavoured not to enlarge but to make up the breach He addes that the chiefest Protestants doe confess that they are substantially separated from the Roman Church Who these chiefest Protestants are he tel's us not nor what they say but referrs us to another of his Treatises which I neither know here how to compass nor if I could deem it worth the labor When these principall Protestants come to be viewed throughly and seriously with indifferent eies it will appear that either by substantially they mean really that is to say that the differences between us are not meere logomachies or contentions about words and different formes of expression only but that there are some reall controversies between us both in credendis and agendis and more and more reall in agendis than in credendis Or secondly that by substance they understand not the old Essentials or Articles of Christian Religion wherein we both agree but the new Essentials or new Articles of Faith lately made by the Romanists and comprehended in the Creed of Pius the fourth about which we doe truly differ So we differ substantially in the language of the present Romanists But we differ not substantially in the sense of the primitive Fathers The generation of these new Articles is the corruption of the old Creed Or lastly if one or two Protestant Authours either bred up in hostility against new Rome as Hanniball was against old Rome or in the heat of contention or without due consideration or out of prejudice or passion or a distempered zeal have overshot themselves what is that to us Or what doth that concern the Church of England He saith St. Austine told the Donatists that though they were with him in many things yet if they were not with him in few things the many things wherein they were with him would not profit them But what were these few things wherein St. Austine required their communion Were they abuses or innovations or new Articles of Faith No no the truth is St. Austine professed to the Donatists that many things and great things would profit them nothing not only if a few things but if one thing were wanting videant quam multa quam magna nihil prosint si unum quidem defuâ—rit videant quid sit ipsum unum And let them see what this one thing is What was it Charity For the Donatists most uncharitably did limit the Catholick Church to their own party excluding all others from hope of salvation just as the Romanists doe now who are the right successours of the Donatists in those few things or rather in that one thing So often as he produceth St. Austine against the Donatists he brings a rod for himself Furthermore he proveth out of the Creed and the Fathers that the communion of the Church is necessary to salvation to what purpose I doe not understand unlesse it be to reprove the unchristian and uncharitable censures of the Roman Court. For neither is the Roman Church the Catholick Church nor a communion of Saints a communion in errours His sixth and last point which he proposeth to judicious Protestants is this that though it were not evident that the Protestant Church is Schismaticall but only doubtfull Yet it being evident that the Roman Church is not schismaticall because as Doctor Sutcliff confesseth they never went out of any known Christian Society nor can any Protestant prove that they did it is the most prudent way for a man to doe for his Soul as he would doe for his lands liberty honour or life that is to chuse the safest way namely to live and die free from schism in the communion of the Roman Church I answer first that he changeth the subject of the question My proposition was that the Church of England is free from schism he ever and anon enlargeth it to all Protestant Churches and what or how many Churches he intendeth under that name and notion I know not Not that I censure any forrein Churches with whose lawes and liberties I am not so well acquainted as with our own But because I conceive the case of the Church of England to be as cleer as the Sun at noon-day and am not willing for the present to have it perplexed with heterogeneous disputes So often as he stumbleth upon this mistake I must make bold to tell him that he concludes not the contradictory Secondly I answer that he disputes ex non concessis laying that for a foundation granted to him which is altogether denied him namely that it is a doubtfull case whether the Church of England be schismaticall or not Whereas no Church under Heaven is really more free from just suspicion of schism then the Church of England as not censuring nor excluding uncharitably from her communion any true Church which retains the essentials of Christian Religion Thirdly I answer that it is so far from being evident that the Roman Church is guiltlesse of schism that I wish it were not evident that the Roman Court is guilty of formall schism and all that adhere unto it and maintain its censures of materiall schism If it be schism to desert altogether the communion of any one true particular Church what is it not only to desert but cast out of the Church by the bann of excommunication so many Christian Churches over which they have no jurisdiction three times more numerous then themselves and notwithstanding some few perhaps improper expressions of some of them as good or better Christians and Catholicks as themselves who suffer daily and are ready to suffer to the last drop of their blood for the name of Christ. If contumacy against one lawfull single superiour be schismaticall what is rebellion against the soveraign Ecclesiasticall Tribunall that is a generall Councell But I am far from concluding all indistinctly I know there are many in that Church who continue firm in the doctrine of the Councels of Constance and Basile attributing no more to the Pope then his principium unitatis and subjecting both him and his Court to the jurisdiction of an Oecumenicall Councell Fourthly I answer that supposing but not granting that it was doubtfull whether the Church of England were schismaticall or not and supposing in like manner that it were evident that the Church of Rome was not schismaticall yet it was not lawfull for a son of the Church of England to quit his spirituall mother May a man renounce his due obedience to a lawfull Superiour
upon uncertain suspicions No. In doubtfull cases it is alwaies presumed pro Rege lege for the King and for the Law Neither is it lawfull as a Father said some Virgins who cast themselves desperately into a River for fear of being defloured to commit a certain crime for fear of an uncertain Yea to rise yet one step higher though it were lawfull yet it were not prudence but folly for a man to thrust himself into more more apparent more real danger for fear of one lesser lesse apparent and remoter danger Or for fear of Charybdis to run headlong into Scylla He who forsakes the English Church for fear of Schism to joyn in a stricter communion with Rome plungeth himself in greater and more reall dangers both of Schism and Idolatry and Heresy A man may live in a schismaticall Church and yet be no Schismatick if he erre invincibly and be ready in the preparation of his mind to receive the truth whensoever God shall reveal it to him nor want R. C. himself being Judge either Faith or Church or Salvation And to his reason whereby he thinks to free the Church of Rome from Schism because they never went out of any Christian Society I answer two waies first It is more schismaticall to cast true Churches of Christ out of the communion of the Catholick Church either without the Keies or Clave errant with an erring Key then meerly and simply to goe out of a particular Church This the Romanists have done although they had not done the other But they have done the other also And therefore I add my second answer by naming that Christian Society out of which the present Church of Rome departed even the ancient primitive Roman Church not locally but morally which is worse by introducing corruptions in Faith Liturgy and use of the Sacraments whereby they did both divide themselves schismatically from the externall communion of the true primitive uncorrupted Church of Christ and became the cause of all following separation So both waies they are guilty of Schism and a much greater Schism then they object to us All that followes in his preface or the most part of it is but a reiteration of the same things without adding one more grain of reason to enforce it If I did consider that to divide any thing in any of its substantiall parts is not to reform but to destroy the essence thereof c. If I did consider that there are three substantiall parts of a true Church in substance c. If I did consider that any division of a true Church in any substantiall part thereof is impious because it is a destruction of Christs mysticall body c. If I did consider all these things c. I should clearly see that the English Protestant Church in dividing her self from the substance of the Roman Church in all her formall substantiall parts committed damnable sinne and that I in defending her therein commit damnable sinne I have seriously and impartially weighed and considered all that he saith I have given him a full account of it that we have neither separated our selves from the mysticall body of Christ nor from any essentiall or integrall part or member thereof I have shewed him the originall of his mistake in not distinguishing between sacred institutions and subsequent abuses between the genuine parts of the body and wenns or excrescences And in conclusion waving all our other advantages I doe not for the present finde on our parts the least shadow of criminous Schism He praies God to open my eies that I may see this truth I thank him for his charity in wishing no worse to me then to himself But errours goe commonly masked under the cloak of truth Fallit enim vitium specie virtutis umbra I pray God open both our eies and teach us to deny our selves that we may see his truth and preferre it before the study of advancing our own party For here the best of us known but in part and see as through a glasse darkly that we may not have the faith of Christ in respect of persons That which followes is new indeed To communicate with Schismaticks is to be guilty of Schism But the English Church joynes in communion of Sacraments and publick Praiers with Schismaticks namely Puritans and Independants This is inculcated over and over again in his book But because this is the first time that I meet with it and because I had rather be before hand with him then behind hand I will give it a full answer here And if I meet with any new weight added to it in any other place I shall endeavour to cleer that there without wearying the reader with tautologies and superfluous repetitions And first I deny his proposition To communicate with hereticks or Schismaticks in the same publick Assemblies and to be present with them at the same divine offices is not alwaies Heresy or Schism unlesse one communicate with them in their hereticall or schismaticall errours In the primitive Church at Antiâ—ch when Leontius was Bishop the Orthodox Christians and the Arrians repaired to the same Assemblies but they used different formes of doxologies the orthodox Christians saying Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the holy Ghost And the Arrians saying Glory be to the Father by the Son in the Spirit At which time it was observed that no man could discerne what form the Bishop used because he would not alienate either party So they communicated with Arrians but not in Arrianism with hereticks but not in Heresy Take another instance the Catholicks and Novatians did communicate and meet together in the same Assemblies Illo autem tempore parum aberat quin Novatiani Catholici penitus conspirassent Nam eadeâ— de Deo sentientes communiter ab Arrianis agitati in similibus calamitatibus constituti se muâ—ua complecti benevolentia in unum convenire pariter orare caeperunt And further decreverunt deinceps inter se communicare At that time it wanted little that the Novatians and Catholicks did not altogether conspire in one for having both the same Faith concerning God suffering the same persecution from the Arrians and being both involved in the same calamities they began to love one another to assemble together and to pray together And they decreed from that time forward to communicate one with another The primitive Catholicks thought it no Schism to communicate with Novatians that is with Schismaticks so long as they did not communicate with them in their Novatianism that is in their Schism Have the English Protestants matriculated themselves into their congregational Assemblies Have they justified the unwarrantable intrusion of themselves into sacred Functions without a lawfull calling from Christ or his Church Or their dispensing the greatest mysteries of religion with unwashen or it may be with bloody hands As for communicating with them in a schismaticall Liturgy it is impossible they have
assenting to the erecting of it And I aske how it was not legally established which was established by soveraign authority according to the direction of the Convocation with the confirmation of the Parliament What other legall establishment can there be in England By the Lawes of England a Bishop had but his single vote either in Parliament or Convocation Some Bishops were imprisoned indeed but neither the most nor the best of the English Bishops whether for not assenting or for other reasons will require further proof than his bare assertion This is certain that every one of them had freely renounced the Pope and Papacy in the reign of Henry the eighth He saith I should have added that Church which was suppressed by the last Parliament under King Charles Why should I add a notorious untruth as contrary to my conscience as to my affections I might have said oppressed I could not say suppressed The externall splendor was abated when the Baronies of the Bishops and their votes in Parliament were taken away but the Order was not extinguished So far from it that King Charles himself suffered as a Martyr for the English Church If his meaning be that it was suppressed by an ordinance of one or both Houses without authority royall he cannot be so great a stranger in England as not to know that it is without the sphere of their activity Yet he is pleased to stile it a dead Church and me the Advocate of a dead Church even as the Trees are dead in Winter when they want their leaves or as the Sun is set when it is behinde a Cloud or as the Gold is destroyed when it is melting in the Furnace When I see a seed cast into the ground I doe not aske where is the greeness of the leaves where is the beauty of the flowers where is the sweetnes of the fruit but I expect all these in their due season Stay a while and behold the Catastrophe The rain is fallen the wind hath blown and the floods have beaton upon their Church but it is not fallen for it is founded upon a Rock The light is under a Bushell but it is not extinguished And if God in justice should think fit to remove our Candlestick yet the Church of England is not dead whilest the Catholick Church survives Lastly he denies that the English Church is under persecution And though some of the Church doe suffer yet it is not for Religion but matters of State What can a man expect in knotty questions from them who are so much transported with prejudice as to deny those things which are obvious to every eie If it be but some that have suffered it is such a some as their Church could never shew wherein he that desires to be more particularly informed may read the Martyrology of London or the List of the Universities and from that paw guess at the proportion of the Lion But perhaps all this was for matters of State No our Churches were not demolished upon pretence of matters of State nor our Ecclesiasticall Revenues exposed to sale for matters of State The refusall of a schismaticall Covenant is no matter of State How many of the orthodox Clergy without pretence of any other delinquency have been beggered how many necessitated to turn Mechanicks or day-Laborers how many starved how many have had their hearts broken how many have been imprisoned how many banished from their native Soil and driven as Vagabonds into the merciless World No man is so blinde as he that will not see His tenth Section is a summary or repetition of what he hath already said wherein I finde nothing of weight that is new but onely one authority out of St. Austin That Catholicks are every where and Hereticks every where but Catholicks are the same every where and Hereticks different every where If by Catholicks he understand Roman Catholicks they are not every where not in Russia nor in Aethiopia and excepting some hand-fulls for the most part upon toleration not in any of the Eastern Churches The words of Saint Austin are these Vbicunque sunt isti illic Catholica sicut in Africa ubi vos non autem ubicunque Catholica est aut vos istis aut Heresis quaelibet earum Wheresoever they are there is the Catholick Church as in Africa where you are but wheresoever the Catholick Church is you are not nor any of those Heresies St. Austins scope is to shew that the Catholick Church is more diffused or rather universall than any Sect or all Sects put together If you please let this be the Touchstone between you and us But you will say that you are united every where and we are different every where Nothing less You are united in one pretended head which some of you acknowledge more some less We are united in the same Creed the same Sacraments and for the most part the same discipline Besides of whom doth St. Austin speak in that place of the Novatians Arrians Patripassians Valentinians Patricians Apellites Marcionites Ophites all which condemned all others but themselves and thereby did separate themselves Schismatically from the Catholick Church as it is to be feared that you doe Our case is quite contrary we reform our selves but condemn no others CHAP. 3. Whether Protestants were Authors of the separation from Rome WE are now come from stating the Question to proofs where we shall soon see how R. C. will acquit himself of the province which he hath undertaken To shew that Protestants were not the Authors of the Separation from Rome but Roman Catholicks I produced first the solemn unanimous resolution of our Universities in the point that the Bishop of Rome had no greater Jurisdiction within England conferred upon him by God in the Scripture than any other forrein Bishop Secondly the decrees of two of our nationall Synods Thirdly six or seven Statutes or Acts of Parliament Fourthly the attestation of the prime Roman Catholick Bishops and Clergy in their printed Books in their Epistles in their Sermons in their Speeches in their Institution Fiftly the unanimous consent of the whole Kingdome of England testified by Bishop Gardiner and of the Kingdome of Ireland proved out of the Councell Book Lastly the Popes own Book wherein he interdicted and excommunicated the whole Church of England before the reformation made by Protestants So as apparently we were chased away from them Heare the judgement of a Stranger This year the Pope brake the wise patience or rather dissimulation which for four years together he had used towards England And sent against the King a terrible thundring Bull such as never was used by his Predecessors nor imitated by his Successors It will cost him some tugging to break such a six-fold cord as this is What doth he answer to all this Not one word And so I take my first ground pro confesse That Protestants were not Authors of the separation of the English
just And if the Subject will not obey his blood is upon his own head The only question is whether there was at that time not only a pretended but a reall necessity to make those Laws which they call sanguinary or bloody for the preservation of the Common wealth This is the case between the Romanists and us upon these two hinges this controversy is moved Then to leave the Thesis and come unto the Hypothesis and to shew that at that time there was a reall necessity for the making of those Laws First let it be observed that after the secession of the English Church from the Court of Rome the succeeding Popes have for the most part looked upon England with a very ill eye Witness that terrible and unparalleled excommunication and interdiction of England a deprivation of Henry the eighth formerly mentioned published at Dunkirk because they durst bring it no neerer Witness the Bull of Anathematization and deprivation by Pius the fifth against Queen Elizabeth and all her adherents absolving all her Subjects from their oaths of Allegiance without so much as an admonition preceeding Witness the Popes negotiations with the English Spanish French and Portugheses to have Queen Elizabeth taken away by murther and the frame of the Government altered published at Rome by Hieronimo Catena Secretary to Cardinall Alexandrino in the time and with the priviledge of Sixtus the fifth Witness the Logantine authority given to Sanders and the hollowed Banner sent with him and Allen two Romish Priests to countenance the Earl of Desmond in his Rebellion And the Phaenix plume sent to Terowen to incourage him likewise in his Rebellion and a plenary Indulgence for him and all his adherents and assistants from Clement the eighth Lastly witness the two Briefs sent by the same Pope to exclude King Iames from the inheritance of the Crown of England unless he would take an Oath to promote the Roman catholick Interest This is not all In the second place the Popes to have the greater influence upon England did themselves found or conserve severall Colleges or Seminaries of English Priests at Rome at Rhemes at Doway where the English youth were trained up more for the advantage of the Pope than of their Prince and native Countrie What those Principles were which were then infused into them I have neither means at present nor in truth desire to inquire because I hope that at this day they are disclaimed by all or the most learned and moderate persons of those Societies Only for the justification of my native Countrie give me leave to set downe some of them in the words of the former learned Historiographer Suspicions also were daily raised by the great number of Priests creeping more and more into England who privily felt mens mindes spread abroad That Princes excommunicate were to be deposed and whispered in corners That such Princes as professed not the Roman Religion had forfeited their Title and Regall Authority That those men which had entered into holy Orders were by a certain ecclesiasticall freedome exempted from all Iurisdiction of Princes and not bound by their Laws nor ought to reverence their Majesty And that the Bishop of Rome hath supreme authority and most full power over the whole World yea even in temporall matters And that the Magistrates of England were no lawfull Magistrates and therefore not to be accounted for Magistrates Yea that all things whatsoever done by the Queens authority from the time that the Bull declaratory of Pius quintus was published were by the Laws of God and Man altogether void and to be esteemed nothing And some of them dissembled not that they were returned into England with no other intent then by reconciling in confession to absolve every one in particular from all oathes of allegiance and obedience to the Queen Judg how such Emissaties deserved to be welcomed into a Kingdome More might be added but this it self is enough or too much Lastly View all the Treasons and Rebellions that were in Queen Elizabeth's time and see from what source they did spring Parsons proposed to Papists the deposing of the Queen so far forth that some of them thought to have delivered him into the Magistrates hands And wrote a Book under the name of Doleman to intitle the Infanta of Spain to the Crown of England Of Sanders I have spoken formerly Only let me add this That when he was found dead they found in his pouch Orations and Epistles to confirme the Rebells with promise of assistance from the Bishop of Rome and others Parre confessed That that which finally setled him in his treasonable purpose to kill the Queen was the reading of Allens Book that Princes excommunicated for Heresie were to be deprived of life Ballard was himself a Priest of the Seminarie of Rhemes See his conspiracy I pass by the commotions raised in Scotland by Bruce Creiton and Haies Squire accused Walpoole for putting him upon it to poyson the Queen I speake not of the confession of Iohn Nicholas nor the testimonie of Eliot mentioned in their own Apology because they are not of undoubted faith This is most certain That when Campian was interrogated before his death whether Queen Elizabeth were a lawfull and rightfull Queen he refused to answer And being asked If the Pope should send forces against the Queen whether he would take part with the Queen or the Pope he openly professed and testified under his hand that he would stand for the Pope The same Author addeth That his fellows being examined in like manner either refused to answer or gave such ambiguous and prevaricatory answers that some ingenuous Catholicks began to suspect that they fostered some treachery Lay all these together their disloyall answers their seditious tenets so many treacherous attempts so many open Rebellions so many depositions and deprivations and exclusions so many Books brim-full of prodigious treason At such a time when the seditious opinions of that party were in their Zenith when seditious persons crowded over daily in such numbers when the Heir apparent of the Crown of England was a Roman Catholick And let any reasonable man judge whether the Kingdome of England had not just cause of feare whether they were not necessitated to provide nequid detrimenti caperet Respublica that the Commonwealth should sustain no loss whether our Statesmen who did then sit at the sterne were not obliged to their Prince and to their Countrie to provide by all means possible for the security of their Prince and tranquility of their Countrie which could not be done at that time without the exclusion of such Bigots and Bowtifeus from among them nor they be possibly excluded but by such severe Lawes These are the very reasons given in the Edict it self That it did plainly appear to her Majesty and her Councell by many examinations by their own Letters and confessions and by the actuall conspiracies of the like
persons sent into Ireland by the Pope that the end and scope of sending them into her Majesties Dominions was to prepare the Subjects to assist forrein invaders to excite the People to Rebellion and to deprive her Majesty of her Crown and dignity and life it self Yet may we not accuse all for the faults of some Though many of them who were bred in those Seminaries were Pensioners of the Pope the King of Spain or the Duke of Guise all which at that time were in open hostility with the Crown of England Is it not lawfull to forbid Subjects to be bred in an enemies Countrie or to turn their Pensioners or if they doe goe out of themselves to exclude them from their native Soyle Yet in other places and it may be in those Colleges also many others preserved their principles of loyalty At the same time Doctor Bishopp one of the Roman communion writ a Book to prove that the constitution obtruded upon the world under the name of the Lateran Councell upon which the Popes authority of deposing Princes and absolving Subjects from their allegiance is founded was not decreed by the Fathers nor ever admitted in England but was a private Decree of Pope Innocent the third If all his Fellowes had held the same moderation there had been no need of such Lawes But it is a remediless misery of Societies that when distinction cannot be made between the guilty and the Innocent publick Justice which seeks to prevent the common danger looks upon the whole Society with one eie And if any innocent persons suffer they must not blame the Law but their own Fellowes who gave just occasion for the making of such severe Lawes So we see how many things here were of their own election First they were warned by an Edict not to study in those Seminaries which were founded and maintained by such as were at that time in publick hostility with the Crown of England Nevertheless they would not doe it They were commannded to return home by a prefixed time They would not doe it This alone had been sufficient to punish them as Traitors by the ancient lawes of the Land Yet further they were commanded upon pain of death not to return into England nor to exercise their priestly Functions there Yet they did it And one of them writ a letter to the Lords of the Councel That he was come over and would not desist untill he had either turned them to be Roman Catholicks or died upon their Lances To conclude if we view the particular Lawes we shall finde that they looked more upon the Court of Rome then the Church of Rome The Act and Oath of Supremacy were framed in the daies of Henry the eighth by Roman Catholicks themselves The first penall Lawes of this nature that I finde made by Queen Elizabeth were in the sixth year of her reign against those who should maintain the authority of the Pope thrice by word or writing or refuse the Oath of â—upremay twice The second in the fourteenth year of her reign against those who should pronounce the Queen to be an Heretick Schismatick or Infidell And likewise those who brought over Bulls from the Bishop of Rome to reconcile any of the Queens Subjects or Indulgences or Agnus Dei or the like Yet was this never put in execution for six years untill the execution of it was extorted All this either concerned the Court of Rome or such Acts as were not necessary to a Roman Catholick for the injoyment of his conscience A man might beleeve freely what his conscience dictated to him or practise his own religion so he prated not too much nor medled with others Afterwards in the twenty third year of her reign issued out the Proclamation against the English Seminaries wherein her Subjects were bred Pensioners to the enemies of her Crown The last Lawes of this kinde were made in the twenty fourth year of her â—eign against those who should diswade English Subjects from their obedience to their Prince or from the Religion established or should reconcile them to the Church of Rome In all these Lawes though extorted from the Queen by so many rebellions and treasons and deprivations and extremest necessity there was nothing that did reflect upon an old quiet Queen Maryes Priest or any that were ordained within the land by the Romish Bishops then surviving so they were not over busie and medled with others These might have sufficed or officiating to Roman Catholicks if the Pope had pleased But he preferred his own ends before their safty Non his juvenius orta parentibus infecit aequor sanguine These were not principled for his purpose nor of that temper that his affaires required And therefore he erected new Seminaries and placed new Readers according to his own minde And in conclusion forced the Queen to use necessary remedies so save her selfe and the Kingdome These things being premised it will not be difficult to answer to all which R. C. saith First he saith that in all the pretended cases of treason there is no election but of matters of Religion and that they suffer meerly for matters of Religion without any shew of true Treason I confess that Treason is complicated with Religion in it But I deny that they suffer meerly for Religion any more then he that poisoned an Emperour or a Prior in the Sacrament could have been said to suffer for administring the Sacrament and not rather for mixing poison with the Sacrament or then he who out of blinde obedience to his Superior kills a man can be said to suffer death for his conscience or he who being infected with the Plague and seeking to infect others if he be shot dead in the attempt can be said to suffer for his sickness In so many designs to take away the Queens life in so many rebellions in so many seditious tenets in so many traitorous books and lastly in adhering unto and turning Pensioner to a publick professed Enemy of their Prince and native Country can he see no treason nothing but matters of Religion If he cannot or will not yet they who were more nearly concerned in it had reason to look better about them He asks how I can tearm that politicall Supremacy which is Supremacy in all causes to wit Ecclesiasticall or Religious I answer very well As the King is the Keeper of both Tables to see that every one of his Subjects doe his duty in his place whether Clergy-man or Lay-man and to inflâ—ct politicall punishment upon them who are delinquent And where he saith that Queen Elizabeth challenged more he doth her wrong She Challenged no more And moreover in her first Parliament tooke order to have the head of the English Church left out of her Title He demands further whether Nero by the same right might not have condemned St. Peter and St. Paul of Treason for coming to Rome with forbidden Orders and seeking to seduce his Subjects from the
Religion estabished No for no Orders were forbidden in Rome by law true or false Neither did those blessed Apostles seduce Subjects when they converted them from vanities to serve the living God Let him shew that Saint Peter by his declaratory Bull did deprive Nero of his Empire and absolve his Subjects from their allegiance or had his Emissaries to incite them to rebellion or sent hollowed banners and Phenix plumes and plenarie indulgences to those who were in Arms against him or plotted how to take away his life or that Christians in those dayes did publish any such seditions books or broach Opinions so pernicious to all civil government And then his question will deserve a further answer Untill then it may suffice to tell him the case is not the same Still he confounds politicall Supremacy with ecclesiasticall and the accidentall abuses of holy Orders with holy Orders themselves Upon this mistake he urgeth an Enthymeme against us Popish Priesthood and Protestant Ministry are the same in substance Therefore if the one be treasonable the other is treasonable also His consequence is just such another as this Thomas and Nicholas are both the same creatures in substance that is men therefore if Thomas be a Traitor Nicholas is another How often must he be told that their Treason did not lie in the substance of their holy Orders but in the abuses and in the treasonable crimes of the persons constituted in holy Orders in their disobedience to the Lawes in being Pensioners to publick enemies of the Kingdome c. But he presseth this Argument yet further If Popish Priests can be lawfully forbidden by Protestants to return into England contrary to the Lawes under pain of Treason then Protestant Ministers may be also forbidden by Puritans and Independents to return into England contrary to their Lawes upon pain of Treason Hoc Ithacus velit magno mercentur Achivi This is that which many of them desire They doubt not at long running to deal well enough with the rest but the English Protestants are a beam in their eie To his Argument I answer by denying his consequence which halts downright upon all fower First Let him shew that those whom he tearms Puritans and Independents have the same just power Secondly That there is such a Law in force Thirdly That there are as just grounds now for such a Law as there were then That the Protestant Clergy on this side the Seas are so formidable either for their number or for their dependency upon the Pope or forrein Princes Let him shew that they left the Kingdome contrary to Law and have been bred here in such Seminaries contrary to Law and are so principled with seditious opinions which threaten such imminent aâ—d unavoydable danger and ruin to the Kingdome If he fail in any one of these as he will doe in every one of them his consequence falls flat to to the ground In the close of this Chapter he produceth two testimonies beyond exception to prove that Popish Priests in England died for Religion The one of King Iames in his Apology for the Oath of Allegiance I doe constantly maintain that which I have said in my Apology that no man either in my time or in the late Queens ever died here for his conscience Priests and Popish Church-men only excepted that receive Orders beyond Seas The other of Queen Elizabeth that she did think that most of the poor Priests whom she executed were not guilty of Treason and yet she executed them for Treason What saâ—â—sfaction he will make to the Ghosts of these two great Princes I know not This is apparent that he hath done them both extrâ—am wrong First to King Iames by coupling together two divided and disjointed sentences and likewise by cutting off his sentence in the middest For evident proof whereof I will here lay down the sentence word for word as they are in the French edition for I have neither the Latine nor the English by me I maintain constantly and it is most true which I said in my Apology that never neither in the time of the late Queen nor in my time any man whatsoever hath been executed simply for Religion Here is a full truth without any exception in the World Then followes immediately For let a man be as much a Papist as he will let him publish it abroad with as much constancy and zeal as he pleaseth his life never was nor is in danger for it Provided that he attempt not some fact expresly contrary to the Lawes nor have an hand in some dangerous and unlawfull enterprise Then followes the exception Priests and Popish Church-men excepted which receive their Orders beyond the Seas Which exception is not referred to the former clause never hath been executed simply for Religion but to the later clause his life never was nor is in danger for it Their lives were in danger indeed being forfeited to the Law but they were never executed by the grace and favour of the Prince The words following which he hath altogether clipped off doe make the fraud most apparent who which Priests for many and many treasons and attempts which they have kindled and devised against this estate being once departed out of the Kingdome are prohibited to return render pain of being reputed attainted and convicted of the crime of treason And neverthelesse if there were not some other crime besides thâ—ir simple return into England never any of them were executed We see plainly that these penall Lawes were not made in Order to Religion but out of necessary reason of Estate to prevent treason Nor was any man executed for disobedience to those penall Lawes unlesse it was complicated with some other crime To come to Queen Elizabeth If that which he saith here be true then that flower of Queens was a tyrant worse then Nero to thirst not only after humane blood but after innocent blood yea after the blood of those who were designed to the service of God Shall we never have one testimony ingenuously cited Reader I beseech thee take the pains to pâ—ruse the place and thou shalt finde that nothing was more mercifull then that Royall Queen and nothing more cruell then the Pope and their Superiors who sacrificed those poor Priests to the ambition of the Roman Court having first blindfolded them with their vow of obedience and exposed them to slaughter as the Turks doe their common Souldiers only to fill up Ditches with their Carkasses over which themselves may mount the Walls First the Author alledged doth testifie That the Queen never thought mens consciences were to be forced no sign of purposed cruelty quaeque dolet quoties cogitur esse ferox Secondly that she complained many times that she was driven of necessity to take these courses unlesse she would see the destruction of her self and her Subjects under colour of conscience and the Catholick Religion Tell me who are the supream Judges of the publick dangers
and necessities of England Is not the Prince At least with his Councel and the representative body of the whole Kiâ—gdome When all these unanimously have declared that there is a necessity and have prescribed the best means that possibly they could devise to prevent the danger shall a forrein Prelate and he not only interessed but the very source of all the danger have power to contradict it and to send his suspected Emissaries more frequently then ever into the Kingdome A Pit is digged true but the Authors of these seditious opinions and practises are they who digged it The Queen did what she could to cover it by her Proclamations and Acts of Parliament to premonish every one of the danger If the Pope and their Superiors would be so cruell to thrust out their Emissaries upon desperate attempts upon their vow of blinde obedience and a promise of Celestiall rewards their blood is upon their heads The Queen said further That for the most part of these silly Priests she did not believe them to be guilty of practising the destruction of their Country but their Superiors were they whom she held to be the instruments of this foul crime for as much as they who were sent committed the full and free disposition of themselves to their Superiors So first R. C. inserts these words into the Queens speech whom she executed she executed none she condemned none Those who were executed in her long reign of above fourty four yeers were not so many This expression would have fitted the short reign of Queen Mary much better Secondly he adds these words were guilty of treason whereas the Queen said no such thing but were guilty of practising the destruction of their Country Can none have an hand in the destruction of their Country but only they who are practisers and plotters and contrivers of it Are none guilty of treason but only they who practised the destruction of their Country There are Instruments in treason as well as Engeniers who are not privy to the intrigues of the conspiracy And yet suffer justly for acting their parts in it Yea without practising or acting the very concealment of treason alone is sufficient by the Law of England and by the Law of Nations to condemn a person for not discovering it Lastly he leaves out these words which are a clear exposition of the whole sentence But their Superiors were they whom she held to be the Instruments of this foul crime for as much as the Emissaries did commit the whole disposure of themselves to their Superiors So she makes the Superiors and some others who weâ—e most busie most subtil and most affected among them to be the contrivers and grand traitors But for the most part of the silly Priests she took them to be but executers of the designes of their Superiors to shâ—ot those Bolts which they had made and to pull the Chesnuts out of the fire with their naked fingers for their Superiors to eat What dealing may others expect from them in citations who are not afraid to cast undeserved durt upon Majesty and prevaricate with their naturall Pâ—incesse under the gratious protection of whose just government they first beheld the light It may serve as one instance of his undue citing testimonies and authorities that whereas I say that dangerous and bloody positions and practises produce severe Lawes And that I wish all seditious opinions and over-rigorous Statutes with the memory of them buried in perpetuall oblivion he inferreth that I seem to confesse that the Lawes made against Catholicks were cruell and unâ—ust He did well to say it seemeth for I neither say the one nor the other though my wishes be the same they were On the contrary I justifie them upon this undeniable ground that no Kingdome is destiture of necessary remedies for its own conservation That which I said I spake indifferently both of their Lawes and ours That Law which was justly enacted may be over-rigorously executed when that necessity which was the only ground of the Law is abated I wish the necessity had not been then so great as to require Lawes written in blood and that a lesser coercion would have sufficed then for a remedy The necessity being abated I wish the rigor may be likewise abated To divide their Lawes and our Lawes or the necessity and the remedy is a fallacy and contrary to what I said when I wished all seditious opinions and over-rigorous Statutes were buried in oblivion He addeth That perhaps mine own persecution hath taught me this lenity At last he confesseth that we suffer persecution which even now he denied The Earl of Strafford then Lieutenant of Ireland did commit much to my hands the politicall regiment of that Church for the space of eight yeers In all that time let him name one Roman Catholick that suffered either death or imprisonment or so much as a pecuniary mulct of twelve pence for his Religion upon any penall Statute If he cannot as I am sure he cannot then it is not my present persecution that taught me that lenity I remember not one Roman Catholick that suffered in all that time but only the titular Archbishop of Cashells who was indeed imprisoned for three or four daies not only upon suspicion but upon information out of Spain that he was a pensioner of the Catholick Kings and being found to be no such dangerous person upon my representation was dismissed Let no man hence imagine that we neglected our duties We did our work by more noble and more successefull means then penall Lawes by building of Churches and mansion Houses for Ministers by introducing a learned Clergy by injoyning them residence by affording them countenance and protection and means of hospitality by planting and ordering Schools for the education of youth and by looking carefully to the education and marriages of the Kings Wards To look to the Ecclesiasticall Regiment was the care of particular Bishops To look to the publick safety of the Kingdome and to free it from sedition masked under the Visard of Religion was the care of the Soveraign Magistrate CHAP. 4. IN the fourth Chapter of the vindication I set forth the dignitie of Apostolicall Churches he great influence they had upon their neighbour Churches yet without any legall jurisâ—iction over them especially the Roman Church in the West I shewed how they endeavored to convert this honorable Presidency into Monarchicall power But that the power which they endeavored to usurpe was in it self uncapable of prescription And if it had been capable yet they had no prescription for it That the British Saxon Danish and Norman Kings successively were the onely Patrons and Protectors of the Church within their Dominions and disposed of all things concerning the externall regiment thereof by the advise of their Prelats called ecclesiasticall Synods made ecclesiasticall Laws punished ecclesiasticall persons prohibited ecclesiasticall Judges received Appeales from ecclesiasticall Courts rejected the ecclesiasticall Laws of
the Popes at their pleasures gave legislative interpretations of other of their ecclesiasticall Laws as they thought good in order to their own Dominions made ecclesiasticall Corporations appropriated ecclesiasticall Benefices translated episcopall Sees forbid Appeals to Rome rejected the Popes Bulls protested against his Legats questioned both the Legates and all those who acknowledged them in the Kings Bench condemned the Excommunications and other sentences of the Roman Court enlarged or restrained the priviledges of the Clergy prescribed the endowment of Vicars set down the wages of Priests and made Acts to remedy the oppressions of the Roman Court And all this was shewed evidently not out of the single testimonies of some obscure Authors but out of the Customes and Common Law of the Realm out of the Reports of our Judges and greatest Lawyers out of the Laws of Edward the Confessor the Statutes of Clarendon and Carlile the Articles of the Clergy the Statutes of Provisors and many other Statutes made with the generall consent of the whole Kingdome It is not possible in any cause to produce more authenticall proofs then these are To all which in particular R. C. answers not one word So as once more I take it for granted that Henry the eight did nothing in his separation from the Court of Rome but what his most renowned Ancestors had chalked forth unto him All that he saith with any shew of opposition to this is first That whatsoever Kings doe is not lawfull Whereas I spake not of any single Kings but of the whole succession of British Eâ—glish Danish and Norman Kings nor of Kings alone but of them with the consent and concurrence of the whole Kingdome Clergy and Laity whiâ—h proves irrefragably that what they did was the Custome and common fundamentall Law of the Kingdome And that there is no Prescription nor can be against it That they did it de facto is enough to make good my assertion that Henry the eight did no new thing but what his Predecessors in all ages had done before him Secondly he saith That Kings may resist the exercise or Acts of Papall power sometimes and yet acknowledge the power Whereas the Laws and testimonies which I produced doe not only speak against some acts of Papall power but against the power it self against the Popes power to make Laws to send Legats or Bulls or Excommunications without license the power to receive Appeals the power to make ecclesiasticall Coâ—porations the power to dispose of ecclesiasticall Benefices c. What lawfull power had the Pope in the eye of the Law of England who by the Law of England could neither send a Legate thither to doe Justice there nor call the Delinquents or Litigants to Rome to doe Justice there without license Our Laws speak not only against Pandulphus or this or that Legate but against all Legates that come without license nor against the Bull or Excommunication of Paul the third alone but against all Bulls and Excommunications which were brought from Rome into the Kingdome without license Frustranea est ea potentia quae nunquam deduci potest in actum In vain is an absolute power given to a single person to execute that which he cannot execute without another mans license Lastly our Laws do ascribe this very power to the King which the Pope doth challenge The Patronage of the Church the power to make ecclesiasticall Laws the power to call ecclesiasticall Synods the power to dispose of all things which concern the externall regiment of the Church by the advise of his Clergy and Councell within his own Dominions In vain doth he distinguish between the acts or exercise of Papall power and the power it self seeing our ancient Law doth not only forbid the exercise of Papall power but deny the power it self He saith If I would indeed prove that Henry the eight did but vindicate his ancient liberty I should prove that English Kings before him did challenge to be heads of the Church immediatly under Christ by which headship as it was expressed in King Edwards time all Iurisdiction both in spirituall and temporall causes descended from the Crown To prove that Henry the eighth did but vindicate his ancient Liberty it is not necessary that I should justifie all the extravagant expressions or oylie insinuations of parasiticall flatterers Our Kings neither doe challenge nor ever did challenge all Jurisdiction in spirituall causes nor any part of the power of the Keyes either to their own use or to derive it to others Great Pallaces seldome want their Moths or great Princes their Flatterers who are ready to blow the coals of ambition and adorn their Masters with stollen plumes such as the Canonists were of old to the Popes It is not much to be wondred at if some Protestants did overshoot themselves in some expressions upon this subject having learned that language from a Roman Catholick before them Bishop Bonner being the Kings Embassador with Clement the seventh did so boldly and highly set forth his Masters Supremacy in the Assembly of the Cardinalls that they thought of burning him or casting him into a vessell of scalding lead if he had not provided for his own safety by flight Acworth contra Monarch Sanderi l. 2. p. 195. It would better become him and me if any such thing had beene to give unto Caesar that which is Caesars and unto God that which is Gods It is enough to my purpose to have shewed that all King Henries Predecessors did both challenge and enjoy this politicall headship of the Church as I have shewed throughout all the parts branches thereof if he could see wood for trees These very flowers and jewels of the Crown enumerated by me in this Chapter and demonstrated out of our Laws in my vindication doe make up that politique headship that is a power paramount to see that all persons doe their duties in their callings and that all things be acted by fit Agents which are necessary to that great and Architectonicall end that is the safety and tranquility of the Commonwealth This is that title which Edward the Confessor did enjoy before the Conquest namely The Vicar of God to govern the Church within his own Dominions which is neither more nor lesse then the politicall head of the Church In a great Family there are severall offices as a Divine a Physitian a Schoolmaster and every one of these is supreme in his own way yet the Master of the Family hath an oeconomicall power over them all to see that none of them doe abuse their trust to the disturbance of the Family Our Parliament Rolles our ecclesiasticall Registers the Records of the Kings Bench and Common Pleas doe all prove that it is no innovation for our Kings to interpose in ecclesiasticall affairs I doe confesse that some of these flowers which were peculiar to the King as the Patronage and investitures of Bishops in later dayes were snatched from the Crown by the violence of
case they make themselves Judges of the difference between them and the Court of Rome as whether the Pope have invaded their priviledges or usurped more Authority then is due unto him or in contemning his censures which the Councell of Towers doth expresly allow them to doe and judging whether the Popes Key have erred or not Yeeld thus much and the question is at an end That sovereign Princes within their own Dominions are the last Judges of their own Liberties and of papall oppressions and usurpations and the validity or invalidity of the Popes censures There is one thing more in this discourse in this place which I may not omit That Papall Authority is instituted immediately by God but not Regall Cujus contrarium verum est He was once or seemed to be of another minde For of almighty God his meer bounty and great grace they Kings receive and hold their Diadems and Princely Scepters Saint Paul saâ—th expresly speaking of civill Powers The Powers that be are ordeined of God and whosoever resisteth the Power resisteth the Ordinance of God and they that resist shall receive to themselves damnation The eternall Wisdome of the Father hath said By me Kings reign and Princes decree Iustice. If they be ordeined by God and reign by God then they are instituted by God Therefore they are justly stiled the living Images of God that saveth all things He who said by me Kings reign never said by me Popes reign Kings may inherit by the Law of man or be elected by the Suffrages of men But the Regall Office and Regall Power is immediately from God No man can give that which he himself hath not The People have not power of Life and Death That must come from God By the Law of nature Fathers of Families were Princes and when Fathers of Families did conjoyn their power to make one Father of a Country to whom doth he owe his power but to God from whom Fathers of Families had their power by the Law of nature As for the Pope he derives his Episcopall power from Christ his Patriarchall power from the Church and Monarchicall power from himself After this in the vindication I descended to severall new considerations as namely the power of Princes to reform new Canons by the old Canons of the Fathers the subjection of Patriarchall power to Imperiall which I shewed by a signall example of Pope Gregory who obeied the command of Mauritius the Emperor though he did not take it to be pleasing to Almighty God the erection of new Patriarchates by Emperors and the translation of primacies by our Kings And so I proceeded to the grounds of their separation first the intolerable rapine and extortions of the Roman Court in England Secondly their unjust usurpations of the undoubted rights of all orders of men and particularly how they made our Kings to be their vassals and the Succession to the Crown arbitrary at their pleasures Thirdly because our Ancestors found by experience that such forrein jurisdiction was destructive to the right ends of Ecclesiasticall discipline Fourthly sundry other inconveniences to have been dayly subject to the imposition of new Articles of Faith to be exposed to manifest perill of Idolatry to have forsaken the Communion of three parts of Christendome to have approved the Popes rebellion against generall Councels and to have their Bishops swear to maintain him in his rebellious usurpations Lastly the priviledge of the Britannick Churches the Popes disclaiming all his Patriarchall authority and their challenging of all this by Divâ—ne right which made their sufferings irremediable from Rome Lastly I shewed that our Ancestors from time to time had made more addresses to Rome for remedy then either in duty or in prudence they ought to have done All this he passeth by in silence as if it did not concern the cause at all Only he repeats his former distinction between the Pope the Papacy and the Roman Church which hath been so often confuted already and blameth Protestants for revolting from the Roman Church for the faults of some few Popes As if all these things which are mentioned here and set down at large in the vindication were but some infirmitives or some petty faults of some few Popes I have shewed him clearly that the most of our grounds are not the faults of the Popes but the faults of the Papacy it self And as for forsaking the Church of Rome he doth us wrong I shewed him out of our Canons in this very place that we have not forsaken it but only left their Communion in some points wherein they had left their Ancestors we are ready to acknowledge it as a Sister to the Britannick Church a Mother to the Saxon Church but as a Lady or Mistrisse to no Church Afterwards he descendth to two of the grounds of our Reformation to shew that they were insufficient The new Creed of Pius the 4 th and the withholding the Cup from the Laity Two of two and twenty make but a mean induction He may if he please see throughout this Treatise that we had other grounds bâ—sides these Yet I confesse that in his choise he hath swerved from the rules of prudence and hath not sought to leap over the Hedge where it was lowest First saith he The new Creed could not be the cause of the separation because the separation was made before the Creed He saith true if it had been only the reduction of these new mysteries into the form of a Creed that did offend us But he knoweth right well that these very points which Pius the 4 th comprehended in a new Symball or Creed were obtruded upon us before by his predecess ors as necessary Articles of the Roman Faith and required as necessary conditions of their Communion So as we must either receive these or utterly lose them This is the only difference that Pius the 4 th dealt in grosse his predecessors by retaile They fashioned the severall rods and he bound them up into a bundle He saith That the new Creed is nothing but certain points of Catholick Faith proposed to be sworn of some Ecclesiasticall Catholick persons as the 39 Articles were in the Protestants new Creed proposed by them to Ministers Pius the 4 th did not only injoyn all Ecclesiasticks Seculars and Regulars to swear to his new Creed but he imposed it upon all Christians as veram fidem Catholicam extra quam nemo salvus esse potest they are the very words of the Bull as the true Catholick Faith without believing of which no man can be saved This is a greater Obligation then an Oath and as much as the Apostles did impose for the reception of the Apostolicall Creed We doe not hold our 39 Articles to be such necessary truths extra quam non est salus without which there is no Salvation nor injoin Ecclesiastick persons to swear unto them but only to subscribe them as theologicall
Common Prayer from the beginning as an appendix to it Upon this pretended omission Bishop Bonner excepts against Bishop Horne's Ordination nor against the validitie of it what have Parliaments to doe with the essentials of Ordination but against the legality of it as to the Realm of England by reason of the former pretended omission So to take away scruple the Parliament enacted that it should be deemed good in the eye of our English Law The Parliament knew well that they had no power to make that Ordination valid in it self which was invalid in it self nor to make that invalid which was valid This had been to alter the essentials of Ordination But they had power for more abundant caution which never doth hurt to take away that scruple which was occasioned by a Statute of Queen Mary which in truth was sufficiently removed before What is this now to our Registers whether they be authentick or not No we beg no help from any civil Acts or Sanctions to maintain our Ordinations either for matter or form But we are ready to justifie them by those very rules which he saith the Councel of Trent offered to the Protestants namely Scripture Tradition Councels Fathers and especially the practice of the catholick Church But he saith we are not ordered to offer true substantial sacrifice Not expresly indeed No more were they themselves for eight hundred years after Christ and God knows how much longer No more are the Greek Church or any other Christian Church in the World except the Roman at this day Yet they acknowledg them to be rightly ordeined and admit them to exercise all offices of their Priestly Function in Rome it self which was alleged by me in the vindication and is passed over in silence by R. C. in this survey The Greeks have no more mention of a Sacrifice in their Ordination then we The grace of God promotes such a venerable Deacon to be a Presbyter yet the Church of Rome approveth their Ordination and all their other Rites so they will but only submit to the Popes spiritual Monarchy as we have seen in the case of the Patriarch of Muzall and the Russians subject to the Crown of Polonia and the like favour was offered to Queen Elizabeth upon the same condition It is not so long since Pope Gregory erected a Greek College at Rome to breed up the youth of that Nation where they have liberty of all the Greekish Rites only acknowledging the Supremacy of the Pope But though we have not express words for offering of Sacrifice nor the tradition of the Patine and the Chalice no more had their own Ancestors for a thousand yeers yet we have these words Receive the holy Ghost whose sins thou doest remit they are remitted c. Be thou a faithfull dispenser of the Word and Sacraments then which the Scriptures and Fathers did never know more which their own Doctors have justified as comprehending all essentials which being jointly considered doe include all power necessarie for the exercise of the Pastoral Office We acknowledge an Eucharistical Sacrifice of Praise and Thanksgiving a commemorative Sacrifice or a memorial of the Sacrifice of the Cross a representative Sacrifice or a representation of the Passion of Christ before the eies of his heavenly Father an impetrative Sacrifice or an impetration of the fruit and benefit of his Passion by way of reall Prayer and lastly an applicative Sacrifice or an application of his merits unto our soules Let him that dare goe one step further then we doe and say that it is a suppletorie Sacrifice to supply the defects of the Sacrifice of the Cross. Or else let them hold their peace and speak no more against us in this point of Sacrifice for ever Yet in his margent he hath placed a cloud of our Doctors Whitakers Morton Chillingworth Potter Fulke Reinolds Latimer without citing a syllable of what they say saving only Latimer and Reynolds that the name of Priest importeth Sacrifice or hath relation to Sacrifice In good time to doe him a courtesie we will suppose that all the rest say as much Such Sacrifice such Priest Let the Reader learn not to fear dumb shews There is nothing which any of these say which will either advantage his cause or prejudice ours Here he professeth to omit the survey of my last chapter yet because he toucheth some things in it upon the by I am obliged to attend his motion First I wonder why he should term us fugitives If we be fugitives what is he himself No we are Exules excluded out of our Countrie not profugi fugitives of our own accord from our Countrie And we hope that he who goeth on his way weeping and beareth forth good seed shall return with joy and bring his sheaves with him If not God will provide a resting place for us either under heaven or in heaven We praise thee O God we acknowledg thee to be the Lord. In the conclusion of my Treatise I proposed three ready meanes for the uniting of all Christian Churches which seemed to me very reasonable One of them was That whereas some Sects have contracted the Christian Faith over much by reviving some Heresies condemned by the primitive Church and on the other side the Church of Rome had enlarged the Christian Faith over much by making or declaring new Articles of Faith in this last age of the World the Creed or Belief of the Church containing all points of Faith necessary to be known of all Christians should be reduced to what it was in the time of the first four generall Councells I might adde and many ages after No man dare say that the Faith of the primitive Fathers was imperfect or insufficient Against this he maketh three objections first That there are no such fundamentall points of faith as Protestants imagine sufficient to salvation though other points of faith sufficiently proposed be not beleeved This objection is compounded of truth and falsehood That there are such fundamentals he himself confesseth elsewhere which are necessary not only necessiate paecepti but necessitate medii And if he did not confess it the authority of the Apostle would evince it That the belief of these alone is sufficient for the salvation of them to whom no more is revealed he dare not denie And that the beleef of these is sufficient to them who doe not beleeve other truths which are reveled unto them no Protestants did ever imagine Observe how cunningly he confounds the state of the question The question is not what is necessarie for a man to beleeve for himself This is as different as the degrees of mens knowledg but what may lawfully be imposed upon all men or what may be exacted upon other men to whom it is not revealed or to whom we doe not know whether it be revealed or not Then if he would have objected any thing materiall to the purpose he should have said That the beleef of
ears and all evidence Nay Reader it is not I that about to force thee to renounce thy Eyes or Ears or thy evidence but it is he that is troubled for fear thou shouldest use thine Eies and Ears to look upon the evidence And therefore like the Priests of Cybele on purpose makes all this noise to deaf thine Ears lest thou shouldest hear the lowde cries of our laws Sect. 4. The scope of my fifth Chapter was to shew that the Britannique Churches that is the Churches of the Britannique Ilands were ever exempted from Forreigne Jurisdiction for the first six hundred years and so ought to continue His first exception to this is How the Britannique priviledges do belong to us Have we any Title from the Britannique Churches otherwise then by the Saxon Christians who onely were our Ancestors c. Yes well enough First VVales and Cornwall have not onely a locall but a personall succession No man can doubt of their right to the priviledges of the Britannique Churches Secondly there is the same reason for the Scots and Picts who were no more subjected to Forreign Jurisdiction then the Britons themselves All these put together Britons Scots and Picts did possess about two third parts of the Britannique Ilands after the Saxon Conquests were consummated Thirdly among the Saxons themselves the great kingdomes of Mercia and North umberland were converted by the ancient Scots and had their Religion ordination first from them afterwards among themselves without any forreign dependance and so were as free as either Britons or Scots and ought to continue so Fourthly throughout the rest of England a world of British Christians after the Conquest did still live mixed with the Saxons such as they had no need to fear such as might be serviceable to them as it commonly falle h out in all Conquests otherwise the Saxons had not been able to people the sixth part of the Land Who can deny these poor conquered Christians and their Christian posterity though mixed with Saxons the just priviledges of their Ancestours Lastly the Saxon Conquest gave unto them as good Title to the priviledges as to the lands of the Brittons so soon as they were capable of them And so at their first conversion they were free and continued free further then themselvs pleased to consent ought to continue free for ever Secondly he objecteth that this pretended execution of the British Churches is false For nothing is more evident in History then that the British Churches admitted appellation to Rome at the Councell of Sardica Before he can alledge the authority of the Councell of Sardica he must renounce his divine institution of the Papacy For that Canon submitteth it to the good pleasure of the Fathers and groundeth it upon the memory of S. Peter not the institution of Christ. Further how doth it appear that the Brittish Bishops did assent to that Canon This is meerly presumption without any proofe The Councell of Sardica was no generall Councell after all the Easterne Bishops were departed as they were before the making of that Canon Neither were the Canons of the Councell of Sardica ever received in England or incorporated into the English laws and without such incorporation they did not bind English Subjects Lastly this Canon is contradicted by the great generall councell of Chalcidon which our Church receiveth There appeareth not the least footstep of any Papal Jurisdiction exercised in England by Elutheri ns but the contrary for he referred the Legislative part to king Leucius and the British Bishops And if Pope Coelestin had sent S. Germain into Britain to free the Brittains from Pelagianisme or converted some of the Scots by Paladius as we have very little reason to believe either the one or the other yet it maketh nothing at all for the exercise of any Papall Jurisdiction in Britain Preaching and Converting Baptizing Ordaining are acts of the key of order not of Jurisdiction But these instances and whatsoever he hath in answer to the Brittish observation of Easter are pressed more home by the Bishop of Chalcedon and clearly satisfied in my reply to him Whither I refer the Reader But saith he that which is mainly to the purpose is that since this priviledge he meaneth the Supremacy descends upon the Pope as successour to S. Peter how far it was executed may be unknowne but that it was due none can be ignorant Words are but wind when they are utterly destitute of all manner of proofe We acknowledge the Pope to be successour of S. Peter and if he do not forfeit it by his own fault we are ready to pay him such respect as is due to the Bishop of an Apostolical Church but for any spiritual Monarchy or Universal Jurisdiction we know no manner of Title that he hath His pretence is more from Phocas the Usurper then from St. Peter And here though I know not this hereditary priviledge of the Pope descended from St. Peter there is no knowledge of that which hath no being and the burthen of proving it lyes upon him yet he taxeth me for leaving it and spending my time about the Popes Patriarchal power I observe how ready they are all to decline all manner of discourse concerning the Popes Patriarchal power And yet for a long time it was the fairest flower in their Garland I know not what is the Reason but we may well conjecture because they find that their spiritual Monarchy and this Patriarchal dignity are inconsistent the one with the other in the same subject They might as well make a King to be a Sheriffe of a Shiere or a President of a particular Province within his own Kingdom as make a spiritual Monarch to be a Patriarch And yet a Patriarch he was and so alwayes acknowledged to be and they cannot deny it Among other proofs of the Brittish Liberty I produced the answer of Dionothu to Austin no obscure person as he makes him but a man famous for his Learning Abbot and Rector of the famous University of Bangor wherein there were at that time above 2100 Monks and Students at the very close of the first six hundred yeares That he knew no obedience due to him whom they called the Pope but obedience of Love And that under God they were to be governed by the Bishop of Caerâ—eon This Record he calleth a piece of a worne Welch manuscript and a manifest forgery of a Counterfeit knave And to prove it counterfeit he produceth three reasons First That the word Pope without any addition is put for the Bishop of Rome which if our great Antiquaries can shew in these daies he will confess himself surprized I shall not need to trouble any of our great Antiquaries about it It will suffice to commit him and his friend Cardinal Bellarmine together about it I see friends are not alwaies of one mind Thus he Cum absolute pronunciatur Papa ipse solus intelligitur ut patet ex confilio chalcedonensi