called that which he was himself that the building of the eternal Temple might by the marvelous gift of God consist in Peter ' s firmness What is this undivided Unity Not of the Trinity I trow or natures in Christ. What then his Office of which he said a little before out of the Apostle that no Man can lay any other foundation but Iesus Christ. Yes that from Peter as a certain head he should as it were pour abroad his gifts into his whole body That the Church might stand upon Peter 's firmness This Foundation S. Paul knew not when he blamed I am of Cephas Peters infirmity cannot bear up the weight of such a building much less which we must remember the Romanists understand by this Iargon the Popes his Successors Such another interpretation is that of Pope Boniface that makes Vnum Ovile unus Pastor the Church and the Pope But it is plain our Saviour alludes to the Prophecies Ezek 34.23 and 37.24 where the Lord calls that one Pastor his servant David What blasphemy is this thus to usurp Christs Royalties What Father what Council what Catholick man ever interpreted this Text on this manner By which the Pope while he seeks the name of the Shepherd shuts himself out of Christs â—old Yea the same Pope calls the Church his Spouse also and so other Popes since S. Iohn the Baptist tells them that he that hath the Bride is the Bridegroom S. Paul prepared her to one Husband Christ. If she be the Popes Spouse with her will she is a Harlot if against her will he is a Ravisher and our Lord Jesus Christ will deliver her out of his lewd imbracements crying out of the violence which she suffers as it is to he hoped shortly That in the Churches power are two Swords the spiritual and temporal we are taught by the Words of the Gospel saith the same Boniface For when the Apostles said Behold there be two swords here to wit in the Church when the Apostles spake thus the Lord answered not that it was too much but enough Certainly he that denies the temporal Sword to be in Peter ' s power doth ill observe the Speech which our Lord utters Put up thy Sword into thy sheath No doubt an infallible Interpretation by which it should appear that both the Swords that were in our Saviours company hung by S. Peter's side or else that some other had the spiritual leaving none to S. Peter but that which he might not use The Exposition is S Bernards you will say But in an Epistle paraenetical to the Pope himself S. Bernard might have leave to use allusions and after his manner to be liberal of all that the See of Rome challenged that he might have the more Authority to reform the abuses of it As to grant Peter the temporal Sword but so as he must not use it Quid tu gladium denuo usurpare tentes quem semel jussus es ponere in vaginam and he shews how these two Swords be the Churches The one to be drawn out for the Church the other also by the Church This by the Priests that by the Souldiers hand but at the beck of the Priest and bidding of the Emperor But the Pope in a Decretal Epistle pretending to teach the World in a Point as he pronounces necessary to Salvation with such an Interpretation as this argues little reverence to the Word of God and a very mean Opinion of the Judgments and Consciences of Christen Men if they could not discern this to be a Strangers Voice not Christs Besides that he changes S. Bernards Words and clean perverts his meaning For exerendus he puts in exercendus For ille Sacerdotis is militis manu sed sanè ad nutum Sacerdotis jussum Imperatoris Pope Boniface thinking jussum too absolute in the Emperor makes him to be the executioner and joyns him with the Souldier on this manner Ille Sacerdotum is manu Regum Militum sed ad nutum patientiam Sacerdotis S. Bernard makes the executive power to be in the Souldier the directive in the Priest the commanding in the Emperor Pope Boniface makes the Kings and Souldiers to have only the executive the directive and permissive to be in the Priest Yea sword he saith must be under Sword For where the Apostle saith There is no power but of God quae autem sunt à Deo ordinati sunt more fully in the original Text the powers that are are ordained that is appointed of God The Interpreter here dreams of order and subordination and cites a saying of Dionysius that the lowest things are reduced to the highest by the middlemost a conceit that makes nothing to the purpose of the Apostle in that place He proceeds and tells us that of the Church and Power Ecclesiastical is verified the Prophecy of Jeremy Behold I have set thee this day over Kings and Kingdoms c. Tell me good Mr. Waddesworth what is to pervert the Scriptures if this be not to apply to the power Ecclesiastical that which is spoken of the Word and Calling Prophetical Yet more The Earthly Power if it swerve out of the way shall be judged of the power Spiritual but if the Spiritual that is lesser of that which is superior to it But if the highest it may be judged of God only not of Man the Apostle witnessing the Spiritual Man judgeth all things but himself is judged of none We are come at length as it were to the Fountains of Nilus to the Original of the Infallibility of your Iudge and if he have here rightly interpreted S. Paul we learn that no earthly power no Magistrate is a spiritual Man unless he be one of the Popes spiritualty For these be S. Paul's spiritual Men that judge all things Yet this must receive limitation For no Man may judge the Pope the Supreme Spiritual Man for of him it seems S. Paul meant it his authority he saith is not humane but divine by the divine Mouth given to Peter and his Successors when the Lord said to him Quodcunque ligaveris For conclusion Whosoever resists this power thus ordered of God resists the Ordinance of God unless as Manichaeus he feign two beginnings which saith he we judge to be false and heretical sith by Moses record not in the beginnings but in the beginning God created Heaven and Earth Who would not acknowledge the divine Authority and Infallibility of your Interpreter both in confirming his purpose and convincing heresies from so high a beginning as this first sentence of Holy Writ What rests now but after so many testimonies he inferr Furthermore to be under the Bishop of Rome we declare say define and pronounce that to every humane creature it is altogether of necessity of salvation Thus saith your infallible Judge and Interpreter of Scripture the center of your Conscience and foundation of your Faith not as a private Doctor but
Bishop of Ostuna interpretâ— Sacrificia pro populo tâ—o immaculata perficiat Marvel that he added not tam pro vivis quam pro defâ—nctis Sure if S. Paul Rom. 15.16 had not added the Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 he had sacrificed also This was the antient and Apostolick manner of Ordination if the Author be worthy of credit But that ye may perceive what tampering there hath been to bring Ordinations to the Form which the present Pontifical prescribes consider with me the Words of Amalarius Bishop of Triers in his second Book de Ecclesiast Officiis where in the Office of the Subdeacon he thus writes Miror quâ de re sumptus usus in Ecclesia c. I marvel whence the use was taken in our Church that very often the Subdeacon should read the Lesson at Mass since this is not found committed unto him by the Ministry given him in Consecration nor by the Canonical Writings nor by his name And streight after Nam primaevo tempore For in antient time the Deacon read not the Gospel which was not yet written but after it was enacted by our Fathers That the Deacons should read the Gospel they appointed also that the Subdeacon should read the Epistle or Lesson It appears then that in Amalarius time who lived with Charles the Great and Lewis his Son that ridiculous Form was not in the Pontifical where the Book of the Epistles is given to the Subdeacons and power to read them in the holy Church of God as well for the Quick as the Dead The same Author coming to speak of Deacons telleth of their consecration by Prayer and imposition of Hands and confuteth that in the present Pontifical which he saith he found in a little Book of Holy Orders made he knows not by what Author That the Bishop alone should lay Hands on the Deacon At last he adds There is one Ministry added to the Deacon viz. to read the Gospel which he saith doth well befit him quia Minister est But of the delivery of the Book of the Gospels with authority to read the Gospel for the Quick and Dead not one Word In the next Chapter of Presbyters he expounds their name and saith further hunc morem tenent Episcopi nostri Our Bishops have this Fashion they anoint the Hands of Presbyters with Oyl which Ceremony he declares touching imposition of Hands upon them he remits us to that he said before in the Deacon Then he shews out of Ambrose and Hierom That these are all one Order with Bishops and ought to govern the Church in common like Moses with the seventy Elders As for delivery of Chalice and Wine or Paten and Host with power to sacrifice so well for the Quick as the Dead he makes no mention Judge you whether these were thought to be the matter and essential Form of Priesthood in his time Yet one Author more will I name in this matter not only because he is a famous Schoolman and one of Luthers first Adversaries and therefore ought to be of more account with that side but because he professeth the end of his writing to be circa Sacramentum ordinis cautos reddere ne pertinax quisquam aut levis sit circa modum tradendi aut recipiendi ordines It is Cardinal Cajetane in the second Tome of his Opuscula Tit. De modo tradendi seu recipiendi Ordines Read the whole where these things I observe for our present purpose 1. If all be gathered together which the Pontificals or which Reason or Authority hath delivered the nature of all the rest of the Orders except Priesthood only will appear very uncertain 2. The lesser Orders and Subdeaconship according to the Master of the Sentences were instituted by the Church 3. The Deacons instituted by the Apostles Acts 6. were not Deacons of the Altar but of the Tables and Widows 4. In Deaconship there seems to be no certain Form for according to the old Pontificals the laying of Hands upon the Deacon hath no certain Form of Words but that Prayer Emitte quaesumus in eos S. Sanctum Which according to the new Pontificals is to be said after the imposition of Hands For the giving of the Book of the Gospels hath indeed a form of Words but that impresseth not the Character for before any Gospel was written the Apostles ordained Deacons by imposition of Hands 5. In the Subdeaconship also there is no Pontifical which hath not the matter without Form viz. the delivery of the empty Chalice c. These things with more which he there sets down he would have to serve to the instruction of the learned touching the uncertainty of this whole matter to teach Men to be wise to sobriety that is every Man to be content with the accustomed Pontifical of the Church wherein he is ordained And if ought be omitted of those things which be added out of the new Pontificals as for example that the Book of the Epistles was not given with those Words Take Authority to read the Epistles as well for the Quick as the Dead there is no need of supplying this omission by a new Ordination for such new additions make no new Law Learn then of your own Cajetane that the new additions of delivery of the Chalice with Wine and Paten with Hosts and authority to offer sacrifice for the Quick and the Dead make no new Law Learn to be content with the Pontifical of the Church wherein you were ordained Wherein first is verbatim all that which your Pontificals had well taken out of the holy Words of our Saviour Accipe Spiritum Sanctum quorum remiseris peâ—cata remittuntur eis quorum retinueris retentâ— sunt Which methinks you should rather account to contain the essential Form of Priesthood than the former both because they are Christs own Word and joyned with that Ceremony of laying on Hands which antiently denominated this whole action and do express the worthiest and principallest part of your Commission which the Apostle calls the Ministry of Reconciliation 2 Cor. 5.18 19. Then because this Office is not only deputed to consecrate the Lords Body but also to preach and baptize which in your Pontifical is wholly omitted in a larger and more convenient Form is added out of S. Paul 1 Cor. 4.1 and be thou a faithful Dispenser of the Word of God and of his holy Sacraments In the name of the Father c. As to that you add That we offer no Sacrifice for the Quick and Dead and therefore well may be called Ministers as all Lay-men are but are no Priests I have met with sundry that pull this Rope as strongly the other way and affirm that because by the very Form of your Ordination you are appointed Sacrificers for the Quick and the Dead well may ye be Mass-Priests as ye are called but Ministers of the New Testament after S. Paul 's Phrase ye are none For that Office stands principally in preaching the Word whereof in
was in Scotland in the Year one thousand six hundred thirty and three to the Bishoprick of Edenburgh that was then founded by him so that that glorious King said on good grounds that he had found out a Bishop that deserved that a See should be made for him he was a grave and eminent Divine my Father that knew him long and being of Council for him in his Law-matters had occasion to know him well has often told me That he never saw him but he thought his Heart was in Heaven and he was never alone with him but he felt within himself a Commentary on these Words of the Apostles Did not our Hearts burn within us while he yet talked with us and opened to us the Scriptures He preached with a zeal and vehemence that made him often forget all the measures of time two or three Hours was no extraordinary thing for him those Sermons wasted his Strength so fast and his ascetical course of life was such that he supplyed it so scantly that he dyed within a Year after his Promotion so he only appeared there long enough to be known but not long enough to do what might have been otherwise expected from so great a Prelate That little remnant of his that is in Print shews how Learned he was I do not deny but his earnest desire of a general Peace and Union among all Christians has made him too favourable to many of the Corruptions in the Church of Rome but tho' a Charity that is not well ballanced may carry one to very indiscreet things yet the Principle from whence they flowed in him was so truly good that the errors to which it carried him ought to be either excused or at least to be very gently censured Another of our late Bishops was the noblest born of all the Order being Brother to the Lord Boid that is one of the best Families of Scotland but was provided to the poorest Bishoprick which was Argile yet he did great things in it He found his Diocess overrun with ignorance and barbarity so that in many places the name of Christ was not known but he went about that Apostolical Work of planting the Gospel with a particular industry and almost with equal success He got Churches and Schools to be raised and endowed every where and lived to see a great blessing on his endeavours so that he is not so much as named in that Country to this day but with a particular veneration even by those who are otherwise no way equitable to that Order The only answer that our angry people in Scotland used to make when they were pressed with such Instances was that there were too few of them But some of the severest of them have owned to me that if there were many such Bishops they would all be Episcopal I shall not add much of the Bishops that have been in that Church since the last re-establishing of the Order but that I have observed among the few of them to whom I had the honour to be known particularly as great and as exemplary things as ever I met with in all Ecclesiastical History Not only the practice of the strictest of all the Antient Canons but a pitch of Vertue and Piety beyond what can fall under common imitation or be made the measure of even the most Angelical rank of Men and saw things in them that would look liker fair Ideas than what Men cloathed with Flesh and Blood could grow up to But of this I will say no more since those that are concerned are yet alive and their Character is too singular not to make them to be as easily known if I enlarged upon it as if I named them But of one that is dead I may be allowed to say somewhat with whom the See of Aberdeen was as happy in this Age as it was in his worthy Predecessor Forbes in the last both in the number of the Years for he sat seventeen Years in that Chair and in the rare qualities that dignified them both almost equally He also saw his Son fill the Divinity Chair as the other had done but here was the fatal difference that he only lived long enough to raise the greatest expectation that I ever knew upon any of that Nation of his standing for when all hoped to se in him a second Dr. Forbes or to bring it nearer home another Bishop Scougall for that was his Fathers name he dyed very young The endearing gentleness of the Father to all that differed from him his great strictness in giving Orders his most unaffected humility and contempt of the World were things so singular in him that they deserved to be much more admired than his other Talents which were also extraordinary a wonderful strength of Judgment a dexterity in the conduct of Affairs which he imployed chiefly in the making up of Differences and a Discretion in his whole deportment For he had a way of Familiarity by which he gave every body all sort of freedom with him and in which at the same time he inspired them with a veneration for him and by that he gained so much on their affections that he was considered as the common Father of his whole Diocess and the Dissenters themselves seemed to esteem him no less than the Conformists did He took great pleasure in discoursing often with young Divines and set himself to frame in them right and generous Notions of the Christian Religion and of the Pastoral Care so that a Set of Men grew up under his Labors that carry still on them clear Characters of his spirit and temper One thing more I will add which may afford a more general Instruction Several years ago he observ'd a great heat in some young Minds that as he believed had very good intentions but were too forward and complained much of abuses calling loudly and not very decently for a Reformation of them upon which he told them the noise made about reforming abuses was the likeliest way to keep them up for that would raise Heats and Disputes and would be ascribed to envy and faction in them and ill-minded Men that loved the abuses for the advantages they made by them would blast and misrepresent those that went about to correct them by which they would fall under the jealousie of being ill affected to the Church and they being once loaded with this prejudice would be disabled from doing the good of which they might otherwise be the Instruments Therefore he thought a Reformation of Abuses ought to be carried on by every one in his station with no other noise than what the things themselves must necessarily produce and then the silent way of conviction that is raised by great Patterns would speak louder and would recommend such Practices more strongly as well as more modestly Discourses work but upon speculative people and it has been so long the method of factious and ill designing Men to accuse publick Errors that he wished those to
late King He communicated to him the inwardest thoughts of his Heart and profesed that he had learnt more from him in all the parts of Divinity whether Speculative or Practical than from any he had ever conversed with in his whole life So great an intimacy with so extraordinary a person is enough to raise a Character were there no more to be added P. Paulo went further for he assisted him in acquiring the Italian Tongue in which Bedell became such a Master that he spoke it as one born in Italy and penned all the Sermons he then preached either in Italian or Latine in this last it will appear by the productions of his Pen yet remaining that he had a true Roman Stile inferior to none of the Modern Writers if not equal to the Ancients In requital of the Instruction he received from P. Paulo in the Italian Tongue he drew a Grammar of the English Tongue for his use and for some others that desired to learn it that so they might be able to understand our Books of Divinity and he also translated the English Common-prayer Book into Italian and P. Paulo and the seven Divines that during the Interdict were commanded by the Senate both to preach and write against the Popes authority liked it so well that they resolved to have made it their pattern in case the differences between the Pope and them had produced the effect which they hoped and longed for The intimacy between them grew so great and so publick that when P. Paulo was wounded by those Assassinates that were set on by the Court of Rome to destroy so redoubted an Enemy upon the failing of which attempt a Guard was set on him by the Senate that knew how to value and preserve so great a Treasure and much precaution was used before any were admitted to come to him Bedell was excepted out of those rules and had free access to him at all times They had many and long discourses concerning Religion He found P. Paulo had read over the Greek New Testament with so much exactness that having used to mark every Word when he had fully weighed the importance of it as he went through it he had by going often over it and observing what he past over in a former reading grown up to that at last that every word was marked of the whole New Testament and when Bedell suggested to him critical explications of some passages that he had not understood before he received them with the transports of one that leapt for joy and that valued the discoveries of divine Truth beyond all other things During his stay at Venice the famous Ant. de Dominis Archbishop of Spalata came to Venice and having received a just character of Mr. Bedell he discovered his secret to him and shewing him his ten Books De Republica Ecclesiastica which he afterwards printed at London Bedell took the freedom which he allowed him and corrected many ill applications of Texts of Scripture and Quotations of Fathers For that Prelate being utterly ignorant of the Greek Tongue could not but be guilty of many mistakes both in the one and the other and if there remain some places still that discover his ignorance of that Language too plainly yet there had been many more if Bedell had not corrected them but no wonder if in such a multitude some escaped his diligence De Dominis took all this in good part from him and did enter into such familiarity with him and found his assistance so useful and indeed so necessary to himself that he used to say he could do nothing without him A passage fell out during the Interdict that made greater noise than perhaps the importance of it could well amount to but it was suited to the Italian Genius There came a Jesuite to Venice Thomas Maria Caraffa who printed a Thousand Theses of Philosophy and Divinity which he dedicated to the Pope with this extravagant Inscription PAULO V. VICE-DEO Christianae Reipublicae Monarchae invictissimo Pontificiae Omnipotentiae conservatori accerrimo To Paul the U. the Uice-God the most invincible Monarch of the Christian Common-wealth and the most zealous asserter of the Papal Omnipotency All people were amazed at the impudence of this Title but when Mr. Bedell observed that the numeral Letters of the first Words PAVLO V. VICE-DEO being put together made exactly 666. the number of the Beast in the Revelation he communicated this to P. Paulo and the Seven Divines and they carried it to the Duke and Senate it was entertained almost as if it had come from Heaven and it was publickly preached over all their Territories that here was a certain evidence that the Pope was Antichrist And it is like this was promoted by them more because they found it took with the Italians than that they could build much upon it though it was as strong as the like computation from the Greek Word 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 upon which some of the Ancients laid some weight This flew so over Italy that lest it should take too much among the people the Pope caused his Emissaries to give it out every where That Antichrist was now born in Babylon and was descended of the Tribe of Dan and that he was gathering a vast Army with which he intended to come and destroy Christendome and therefore all Christian Princes were exhorted to prepare all their Forces for resisting so great an Invasion And with this piece of false news that was given out very confidently the other conceit was choaked But though Mr. Bedell makes use of it in his Book against Wadsworth yet he was too modest a Man to claim the discovery of it to himself but Sir Henry Wotton assured King Iames That he first observed it Here I must add a passage concerning which I am in doubt whether it reflected more on the sincerity or on the understanding of the English Ambassadour The breach between the Pope and the Republick was brought very near a Crisis so that it was expected a total separation not only from the Court but the Church of Rome was like to follow upon it It was set on by P. Paulo and the Seven Divines with much zeal and was very prudently conducted by them In order to the advancing of it King Iames ordered his Ambassadour to offer all possible assistance to them and to accuse the Pope and the Papacy as the chief Authors of all the mischiefs of Christendome The Prince and Senate answered this in words full of respect to King Iames and said That they knew things were not so bad as some endeavoured to make the World believe on design to sow discord between Christian Princes and when the Popes Nuncio objected That King Iames was not a Catholick and so was not to be relyed on The Duke answered The King of England believed in Jesus Christ but he did not know in whom some others believed Upon which P. Paulo and the Seven Divines pressed Mr. Bedell to move
religious qualities of those he ordained as well as he satisfied himself by his Examination of their capacity and knowledge He had alwayes a considerable number of his Clergy assisting him at his Ordinations and he alwayes Preached and administred the Sacrament on those occasions himself And he never ordained one a Presbyter till he had been at least a year a Deacon that so he might have a good account of his behaviour in that lower degree before he raised him higher He lookt upon that power of Ordination as the most sacred part of a Bishop's trust and that in which the Laws of the Land had laid no sort of imposition on them so that this was intirely in their Hands and therefore he thought they had so much the more to answer for to God on that account and he weighed carefully in his thoughts the importance of those Words Lay hands suddenly on no Man and be not a partaker of other Mens Sins Therefore he used all the precaution that was possible for him in so important an affair He was never prevail'd on by any recommendations nor importunities to ordain any as if Orders had been a sort of Freedom in a Company by which a Man was to be enabled to hold as great a portion of the Ecclesiastical Revenue as he could compass when he was thus qualified Nor would he ever ordain any without a title to a particular Flock For he thought a title to a maintenance was not enough as if the Church should only take care that none in Orders might be in want but he saw the abuses of those emendicated titles and of the Vagrant Priests that went about as Journeymen plying for Work to the great reproach of that sacred Imployment and in this he also followed the Rule set by the fourth general Council that carried this matter so high as to annul all Orders that were given without a particular designation of the Place where the person was to serve For he made the Primitive times his Standard and resolved to come as near it as he could considering the corruption of the Age in which he lived He remembred well the grounds he went on when he refused to pay Fees for the Title to his Benefice in Suffolk and therefore took care that those who were ordained by him or had Titles to Benefices from him might be put to no charge For he wrote all the Instruments himself and delivered them to the persons to whom they belonged out of his own Hands and adjured them in a very solemn manner to give nothing to any of his Servants And that he might hinder it all that was possible he waited on them alwayes on those occasions to the Gate of his House that so he might be sure that they should not give any gratification to his Servants He thought it lay on him to pay them such convenient wages as became them and not to let his Clergy be burthened with his Servants And indeed the abuses in that were grown to such a pitch that it was necessary to correct them in so exemplary a manner His next care was to observe the behaviour of his Clergy he knew the lives of Churchmen had generally much more efficacy than their Sermons or other labours could have and so he set himself much to watch over the Manners of his Priests and was very sensibly touched when an Irishman said once to him in open Court That the Kings Priests were as bad as the Popes Priests These were so grosly ignorant and so openly scandalous both for drunkenness and all sort of lewdness that this was indeed a very heavy reproach Yet he was no rude nor morose Reformer but considered what the times could bear He had great tenderness for the weakness of his Clergy when he saw reason to think otherwise well of them and he helpt them out of their troubles with the care and compassion of a Father One of his Clergy held two Livings but had been cousened by a Gentleman of Quality to farm them to him for less than either of them was worth and he acquainted the Bishop with this Who upon that writ very civilly and yet as became a Bishop to the Gentleman perswading him to give up the bargain but having received a sullen and haughty answer from him he made the Minister resign up both to him for they belonged to his Gift and he provided him with another Benefice and put two other worthy Men in these two Churches and so he put an end both to the Gentleman 's fraudulent bargain and to the Churchman's Plurality He never gave a Benefice to any without obliging them by Oath to perpetual and personal residence and that they should never hold any other Benefice with that So when one Buchanan was recommended to him and found by him to be well qualified he offered him a Collation to a Benefice but when Buchanan saw that he was to be bound to Residence and not to hold another Benefice he that was already possessed of one with which he resolved not to part would not accept of it on those Terms And the Bishop was not to be prevailed with to dispense with it though he liked this Man so much the better because he found he was akin to the great Buchanan whose Paraphrase of the Psalms he loved beyond all other Latin Poetry The Latin form of his Collations will be found at the end of this Relation which concluded thus Obtesting you in the Lord and enjoyning you by vertue of that obedience which you owe to the great Shepherd that you will diligently feed his Flock committed to your care which he purchased with his own Blood that you instruct them in the Catholick Faith and perform Divine Offices in a Tongue understood by the people and above all things that you shew your self a pattern to Believers in good Works so that the adversaries may be put to shame when they find nothing for which they can reproach you He put all the Instruments in one whereas devices had been found out for the increase of Fees to divide these into several Writings nor was he content to write this all with his own hand but sometimes he gave Induction likewise to his Clergy for he thought none of these Offices were below a Bishop and he was ready to ease them of charge all he could He had by his zeal and earnest endeavours prevailed with all his Presbyters to reside in their Parishes one only excepted whose name was Iohnston He was of a mean Education yet he had very quick Parts but they lay more to the Mechanical than to the Spiritual Architecture For the Earl of Strafford used him for an Engineer and gave him the management of some great Buildings that he was raising in the County of Wicklo But the Bishop finding the Man had a very mercurial Wit and a great capacity he resolved to set him to work that so he might not be wholly useless to the Church and therefore
more a grievâ—nce to the Countrey none were now grieved by it but the Chancellour and the other Officers of the Court who saw their Trade was sunk and their Profits were falling and were already displeased with the Bishop for writing the Titles to Benefices himself taking that part of their Gain out of their Hands Therefore the Lay Chancellour brought a Suit against the Bishop into Chancery for invading his Office The matter was now a common Cause the other Bishops were glad at this step our Bishop had made and encouraged him to go on resolutely in it and assured him they would stand by him and they confessed they were but half Bishops till they could recover their authority out of the hands of their Chancellours But on the other hand all the Chancellours and Registers of Ireland combined together they saw this struck at those Places which they had bought valuing them according to the Profits that they could make by them and it cannot be denyed but they had reason to move That if their places were regulated the Money by which they had purchased that right to squeeze the Countrey ought to have been restored The Bishop desired that he might be suffered to plead his own Cause himself but that was denyed him which he took ill But he drew the Argument that his Council made for him for it being the first Suit that ever was of that sort he was more capable of composing his Defence than his Councel could be He went upon these Grounds That one of the most essential parts of a Bishop's duty was to govern his Flock and to inflict the Spiritual Censures on obstinate Offenders That a Bishop could no more delegate this power to a Lay-man than he could delegate a power to Baptize or Ordain since Excommunication and other Censures were a suspending the Rights of Baptism and Orders and therefore the judging of these things could only belong to him that had the power to give them and that the delegating that power was a thing null of it self He shewed That feeding the Flock was inherent and inseparable from a Bishop and that no Delegation he could make could take that power from himself since all the effect it could have was to make another his Officer and Deputy in his absence From this he went to shew how it had been ever lookt on as a necessary part of the Bishop's Duty to Examine and Censure the Scandals of his Clergy and Laity in Ancient and Modern times That the Roman Emperours had by many Laws supported the Credit and Authority of these Courts that since the practices of the Court of Rome had brought in such a variety of Rules for covering the corruptions which they intended to support then that which is in it self a plain and simple thing was made very intricate So that the Canon Law was become a great study and upon this account Bishops had taken Civilians and Canonists to be their Assistants in those Courts but this could be for no other end but only to inform them in points of Law or to hear and prepare matters for them For the giving Sentence as it is done in the Bishops name so it is really his Office and is that for which he is accountable both to God and Man and since the Law made those to be the Bishops Courts and since the King had by Patent confirmed that Authority which was lodged in him by his Office of governing those Courts he thought all Delegations that were absolute and exclusive of the Bishop ought to be declared void The Reader will perhaps judge better of the force of this Argument than the Lord Chancellour of Ireland Bolton did who confirmed the Chancellours right and gave him an hundred Pound Costs of the Bishop But when the Bishop asked him How he came to make so unjust a Decree he answered That all that his Father had left him was a Register's place so he thought he was bound to support those Courts which he saw would be ruined if the way he took had not been checkt This my Author had from the Bishop's own mouth But as this matter was a leading Case so great pains were taken to possess the Primate against the Bishop but his Letters will best discover the Grounds on which he went and that noble temper of mind that supported him in so great an undertaking The one is long but I will not shorten it Right Reverend Father my honourable good Lord I Have receiv'd your Grace's Letters concerning Mr. Cook and I do acknowledge all that your Grace writes to be true concerning his sufficiency and experience to the execution of the Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction neither did I forbear to do him right in giving him that Testimony when before the Chapter I did declare and shew the nullity of his Patent I have heard of my Lord of attempt and I do believe That if this Patent had due form I could not overthrow it how unequal soever it be But failing in the essential parts besides sundry other defects I do not think any reasonable creature can adjudge it to be good I shall more at large certifie your Grace of the whole matter and the reasons of my Councel herein I shall desire herein to be tryed by your Grace's own Iudgment and not by your Chancellors or as I think in such a case I ought to be by the Synod of the Province I have resolved to see the end of this matter and do desire your Grace's favour herein no farther than the equity of the Cause and the good as far as I can judge of our Church in a high degree do require So with my humble Service to your Grace and respectful commendations to Mrs. Usher I rest Kilmore Octob. 28. 1629. Your Grace's in all duty Will. Kilmore Most reverend Father my honourable good Lord THe report of your Grace's indisposition how sorrowful it was to me the Lord knows Albeit the same was somewhat mitigated by other News of your better estate In that fluctuation of my mind perhaps like that of your health the Saying of the Apostle served me for an Anchor That none of us liveth to himself neither doth any dye to himself For whether we live we live to the Lord or whether we dye we dye to the Lord. Whether we live therefore or dye we are the Lords Thereupon from the bottom of my Heart commending your estate and that of the Church here which how much it needs you He knows best to our common Master though I had written large Letters to you which have lain by me sundry Weeks fearing in your sickness to be troublesome I thought not to send them but to attend some other opportunity after your present recovery to send or perhaps bring them When I understood by Mr. Dean of his journey or at least sending an express Messenger to you with other Letters putting me also in mind That perhaps it would not be unwelcome to you to hear from me though
fearfulest Blindness of Mind and strong delusions to believe Lyes that they may be damned that believed not the Truth but had pleasure in unrighteousness But you hope better things of them accompanying Salvation and this Message of our Lord Jesus Christ if you will be pleased to deliver accompanying it with those General and common goods of Charity and Meekness Integrity good Example and the special furtherance which your Callings and Places in State Church or Family can give it doubtless to Christs people it will not be uneffectual Blessed be God that hath long ago stirred up the Spirits of our Princes like Cyrus to give liberty to God's People to go out of Babylon and to give large Patents with Darius and Artaxerxes for the building of the Temple and establishing the Service of God And blessed be God and his Majesty that hath sent us another Nehemiah to build up the Walls of Jerusalem and to procure that the Portion of the Levites should be given them Give me leave Right Honourable to put you in mind That this also belongeth to your Care to cooperate with Christ in bringing his People out of the Romish Captivity And if to help away a poor Captive out of Turky hath been Honourable to some Publick Ministers What shall it be to help to the enlarging of so many thousand Souls out of the bondage of Mens Traditions and gaining to his Majesty so many entire Subjects Your wisdom my Lord is such as it needeth not to be advised and your Zeal as it needeth not to to be stired up yet pardon me one Word for the purpose of helping Christ's People out of Babylon They are called by himself often in Scripture His Sheep and verily as in many other so in this they are like to Sheep which being cooped up in a narrow Pent though they find some pressure and the Passage be set open are not forward to come out unless they be put on but strain Courtesie which should begin yet when they are once out with a joyful frisk they exult in their Freedome yea and when a few of the foremost lead the rest follow I shall not need to make Application Do according to your wisdom in your place and Christ whose Work it is shall be with you and further your endeavours The like I say unto you the rest of my Lords Fathers and Brethren help your Friends Followers and Tenants out of Babylon what you may in your places you have the Examples of Abraham Ioshua Cornelius praised in Scripture for propagating the Knowledge and Fear of God in their Families and Commands with the report of God's accepting it and rewarding it and this to the use of others But shall you not carry away something for your selves also yes verily take to your selves this Voyce of our Saviour Come out of Babylon you will say we have done it already God be thanked we are good Christians good Protestants some of us Preachers and that call upon others to come out of Babylon But if S. Paul prayed the converted Corinthians to be reconciled to God And S. Iohn writing to Believers sets down the Record of God touching his Son That they might believe in the Name of the Son of God Why may not I exhort in Christ's Name and Words even those that are come out of Babylon to come out of her Qui monet ut fâ—â—ias c. He that perswades another to that which he doth already in perswading incourageth him and puts him on in his performance but if there be any yet unresolved and halting or hanging between two as the people did in Elias time that present their bodies at such meetings as this is when their hearts are perhaps at Rome or no where If any are in some points rightly informed and cleared and in others doubtful to such Christ speaks Come out of her my people press on by Prayer Conference Reading if Christ's Voyce be to be heard If Rome be Babylon Come out of her And let it be spoken with as little offence as it is delight we that seem to be the forwardest in Reformation are not yet so come out of Babylon as that we have not many shameful badges of her Captivity witness her Impropriations being indeed plain Church-robberies devised to maintain her Colonies of idle and irregular Regulars idle to the Church and State zealous and pragmatical to support and defend her power pomp and pride by whom they subsisted witness her Dispensations or dissipations rather of all Canonical Orders bearing down all with her Non obstante her Symoniacal and Sacrilegious Venality of holy things her manifold Extortions in the exercise of Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction which we have not wholly banished Let each of us therefore account it as spoken to himself Come out of her my people In this Journey let us not trouble and cast stumbling blocks before God's people that are ready to come out or hinder one another with Dissentions in matters either inexplicable or unprofitable Let it have some pardon if some be even so forward in flying from Babylon as they fear to go back to take their own goods for haste and let it not be blamed or uncharitably censured if some come in the Rear and would leave none of Christ's people behind them No man reacheth his hand to another whom he would lift out of a Ditch but he stoops to him Our ends immediate are not the same but yet they meet in one final intention The one hates Babylon and the other loves and pities Christ's people The one believes the Angel that cast the Milstone into the Sea in the end of this Chapter with that Word so shall Babylon rise no more The other fears the threatning of our Saviour against such as scandalize any of the little ones believing in him that it is better for such a one to have a Milstone hanged upon his neck and be cast into the Sea himself Finally let us all beseech our Lord Iesus Christ to give us Wisdom and opportunity to further his work and to give success unto the same himself to hasten the judgment of Babylon to bring his people out of this bondage that we with them and all his Saints in the Church Triumphant may thereupon sing a joyful Hallelujah as is expressed in the next Chapter Salvation and Honour and Glory and Power be unto the LORD our GOD Amen Hallelujah He preached very often in his Episcopal habit but not alwayes and used it seldome in the Afternoon nor did he love the pomp of a Quire nor Instrumental Musick which he thought filled the ear with too much pleasure and carried away the mind from the serious attention to the matter which is indeed the singing with grace in the Heart and the inward melody with which God is chiefly pleased And when another Bishop justified these things because they served much to raise the affections he answered That in order to the raising
His Devotion in his Closet was only known to him who commanded him to pray in secret In his Family he prayed alwayes thrice a day in a set Form though he did not read it This he did in the Morning and before Dinner and after Supper And he never turned over this duty or the short Devotions before and after Meat on his Chaplain but was always his own Chaplain He lookt upon the Obligation of observing the Sabbath as moral and perpetual and considered it as so great an Engine for carrying on the true ends of Religion that as he would never go into the liberties that many practised on that day so he was exemplary in his own exact observation of it Preaching alwayes twice and Catechising once and besides that he used to go over the Sermons again in his Family and sing Psalms and concluded all with Prayer As for his Domestick concerns he married one of the Family of the L' Estranges that had been before married to the Recorder of S. Edmondsbury she proved to be in all respects a very fit Wife for him she was exemplary for her life humble and modest in her Habit and behaviour and was singular in many excellent qualities particularly in a very extraordinary reverence that she payed him She bore him four Children three Sons and a Daughter but one of the Sons and the Daughter dyed young so none survived but William and Ambrose The just reputation his Wife was in for her Piety and Vertue made him choose that for the Text of her Funeral Sermon A good name is better than Oyntment She dyed of a Lethargy three years before the Rebellion broke out and he himself preached her Funeral Sermon with such a mixture both of tenderness and moderation that it touched the whole Congregation so much that there were very few dry Eyes in the Church all the while He did not like the burying in the Church For as he observed there was much both of Superstition and Pride in it so he believed it was a great annoyance to the Living when there was so much of the steam of dead Bodies rising about them he was likewise much offended at the rudeness which the crowding the dead Bodies in a small parcel of Ground occasioned for the Bodies already laid there and not yet quite rotten were often raised and mangled so that he made a Canon in his Synod against burying in Churches and as he often wisht that Burying-Places were removed out of all Towns so he did chuse the most remote and least frequented place of the Church-Yard of Kilmore for his Wife and by his Will he ordered that He should be laid next her with this bare Inscription Depositum Gulielmi quondam Episcopi Kilmorensis Depositum cannot bear an English Translation it signifying somewhat given to another in Trust so he considered his Burial as a trust left in the Earth till the time that it shall be called on to give up its dead The modesty of that Inscription adds to his Merit which those who knew him well believe exceeds even all that this his zealous and worthy Friend does through my hands convey to the World for his memory which will outlive the Marble or the Brass and will make him ever to be reckoned one of the speaking and lasting Glories not only of the Episcopal Order but of the Age in which he lived and of the two Nations England and Ireland between whom he was so equally divided that it is hard to tell which of them has the greatest share in him Nor must his Honour stop here he was a living Apology both for the Reformed Religion and the Christian Doctrine And both he that collected these Memorials of him and he that copies them out and publishes them will think their Labours very happily imployed if the reading them produces any of those good effects that are intended by them As for his two Sons he was satisfied to provide for them in so modest a way as shewed that he neither aspired to high things on their behalf nor did he consider the Revenue of the Church as a property of his own out of which he might raise a great Estate for them He provided his eldest Son with a Benefice of Eighty Pound a Year in which he laboured with that fidelity that became the Son of such a Father and his second Son not being a Man of Letters had a little Estate of 60 l. a year given him by the Bishop which was the only Purchace that I hear he made and I am informed that he gave nothing to his eldest Son but that Benefice which he so well deserved So little advantage did he give to the enemies of the Church either to those of the Church of Rome against the marriage of the Clergy or to the dividers among our selves against the Revenues of the Church The one sort objecting that a married state made the Clergy covetous in order to the raising their Families and the others pretending that the Revenues of the Church being converted by Clergymen into Temporal Estates for their Children it was no Sacriledge to invade that which was generally no less abused by Churchmen than it could be by Laymen since these Revenues are trusted to the Clergy as Depositaries and not given to them as Proprietors May the great Shepherd and Bishop of Souls so inspire all that are the Overseers of that Flock which he purchased with his own Blood that in imitation of all those glorious patterns that are in Church-History and of this in the last Age that is inferior to very few that any former Age produced they may watch over the Flock of Christ and so feed and govern them that the Mouths of all Adversaries may be stopt that this Apostolical Order recovering its Primitive spirit and vigour it may be received and obeyed with that same submission and esteem that was payed to it in former times and that all differences about lesser matters being laid down Peace and Truth may again flourish and the true ends of Religion and Church-Government may be advanced and that instead of biting devouring and consuming one another as we do we may all build up one another in our most holy Faith Some Papers related to in the former History Guilielmus Providentiâ Divinâ Kilmorensis Episcopus dilecto in Christo A. B. Fratri Synpresbytero salutem AD Vicariam perpetuam Ecclesiae Parochialis de C. nostrae Kilmorensis Dioecesios jam legitimè vacantem ad nostram collationem pleno jure spectantem praestito per te prius juramento de agnoscenda defendenda Regiae Majestatis suprema potestate in omnibus causis tam Ecclesiasticis quam Civilibus intra ditiones suas deque Anglicano ordine habitu Lingua pro Viribus in dictam Parochiam introducendis juxt a formam Statutorum hujus Regni necnon de perpetua personali Residentia tua in Vicaria praedicta quodque nullum aliud Beneficium Ecclesiasticum una
answers and the same in Consultations which Themistocles was in Action as will appear unto you in a Passage between him and the Prince of Conde The said Prince in a voluntary journey toward Rome came to Venice where to give some vent to his own humours he would often devest himself of his greatness and after other less laudable curiosities not long before his departure a desire took him to visit the famous obscure Servite to whose Cloyster coming twice he was the first time denied to be within at the second it was intimated That by reason of his daily admission to their deliberatives in the place he could not receive the visit of so illustrious a personage without leave from the Senate which he would seek to procure This set a great edge on the Prince when he saw he should confer with one participant of more than Monkish Speculations So after leave gotten he came the third time and there besides other voluntary discourse which it were a tyranny over you to repeat he assailed with a question enough to have troubled any Man but himself and him too if a precedent accident had not eased him The question was this He desired to be told by him before his going away who was the true unmasked Author of the late Tridentine History You must know that but newly advertisement was come from Rome That the Archbishop of Spalato being there arrived from England in an interview between him and the Cardinal Ludovisio Nephew to Gregory XV. the said Cardinal after a complemental welcoming of him into the Lap of the Church told him by order from the Pope That his Holiness would expect from him some Recantation in Print as an antidote against certain Books and Pamphlets which he had published whilst he stood in revolt namely his first Manifesto Item Two Sermons preached at the Italian Church in London Again a little Treatise intituled Scogli And lastly His great Volumes about Church Regiment and Controversies These were all named for as touching the Tridentine History his Holiness saith the Cardinal will not press you to any disavowment thereof though you have an Epistle before the Original Edition because we know well enough that Fryer Paulo is the Father of that Brat Vpon this last Piece of the aforesaid Advertisement the good Father came fairly off for on a sudden laying all together that to disavow the Work was an untruth to assume it a danger and to say nothing an Incivility he took a middle Evasion telling the Prince That he understood he was going to Rome where he might learn at ease who was the Author of that Work as they were freshly intelligenced from thence Thus without any mercy of your time I have been led along from one thing to another while I have taken pleasure to remember that Man whom God appointed and furnished for a proper Instrument to anatomize that Pack of reverend Cheaters Among whom I speak of the greater part Exceptis senioribus Religion was shuffled like a Pair of Cards and the Dice so many Years were set upon us And so wishing you very heartily many good years I will let you breath till you have opened these inclosed ERRATA PAg. 79. Margent for 1. read 2. p. 105. l. 29. after Correction del p. 115. l. 13. for Vnderstanding r. an undertaking p. 122. l. 16. after Oath r. not l. ult for Baily's Clerk r. Baily p. 129. l. 18. for 1630 r. 1638. p. 132. l. 18. before as r. such p. 142. l. 12. for those Articles r. these Articles p. 150. l. 15. for ther r. their p. 206. l. 10. after carried r. themselves l. 25. for Forker r. Forbes THE COPIES OF CERTAIN LETTERS Which have passed between SPAIN ENGLAND In matter of RELIGION CONCERNING The general Motives to the ROMAN OBEDIENCE BETWEEN Mr. Iames Waddesworth a late Pensioner of the holy Inquisition in Sevil and W. Bedell a Minister of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in Suffolk LONDON Printed in the Year MDCLXXXV To the most HIGH EXCELLENT PRINCE Prince CHARLES I Should labour much in my excuse even to my own Judgment of the highest boldness in daring to present these Papers to your Highness if there were not some relieving Circumstances that give me hope it shall not be disagreeable to your higher Goodness There is nothing can see the light which hath the name of Spain in it which seems not now properly yours ever since it pleased you to honour that Country with your presence And those very Motives to the Roman obedience which had been represented unto you there in case you had given way to the propounding them are in these Letters charitably and calmly examined Between a couple of Friends bred in the same Colledge that of the foundation of Sir Walter Mildway of blessed Memory whom with Honour and Thankfulness I name chosen his Scholars at the same Election lodged in the same Chamber after Ministers in the same Diocess And that they might be matchable abroad as well as at home Attendants in the same rank as Chaplains on two honourable Ambassadours of the Majesty of the King your Father in Foreign parts the one in Italy the other in Spain Where one of them having changed his Profession and received a Pension out of the Holy Inquisition House and drawn his Wife and Children thither was lately often in the Eyes of your Highness Very joyful I suppose to see you there not more I am sure than the other was solicitous to miss you here These passages between us I have hitherto forborn to divulge out of the hope of further answer from Mr. Waddesworth according to his Promise though since the receipt of my last being silent to my self he excused him in sundry his Letters to others by his lack of Health Nor should I have changed my resolution but that I understand that presently after your Highnesses departure from Spain he departed this Life Which News though it grieve me as it ought in respect of the loss of my Friend yet it somewhat contenteth me not to have been lacking in my endeavour to the undeceiving a well-meaning man touching the state of our differences in Religion nor as I hope to have scandalized him in the manner of handling them And conceiving these Copies may be of some publick use the more being lifted up above their own meanness by so high Patronage I have adventured to prefix your Highnesses name before them Humbly beseeching the same that if these Reasons be too weak to bear up the presumption of this Dedication it may be charged upon the strong desire some way to express the unspeakable joy for your Highnesses happy return into England of one amongst many thousands Of your Highnesses most humble and devoted Servants W. Bedell THE CONTENTS 1. A Letter of Mr. Waddesworth containing his Motives to the Roman Obedience Dated at Sevil in Spain April 1. 1615. printed as all the rest out of his own Hand-writing p. 265. 2. Another
Letter from him requiring answer to the former from Madrid in Spain April 14. 1619. p. 282. 3. The Answer to the last Letter Dated Aug. 5. 1619. p. 284. 4. A Letter from Mr. Waddesworth upon the receipt of the former From Madrid dated Octob. 28. 1619. received May 23. 1620. p. 291. 5. The Answer to the last Letter June 15. 1620. p. 294. 6. A Letter from Mr. Waddesworth from Madrid June 8. 1620. p. 298 7. A Letter of Mr. Dr. Halls sent to Mr. Waddesworth and returned into England with his Marginal Notes p. 300. 8. A Letter returning it inclosed to Mr. Dr. Hall p. 304. 9. A Letter sent to Mr. Waddesworth together with the Examination of his Motives Octob. 22. 1620. p. 307. 10. The Examination of the Motives in the first Letter p. 308. The Heads of the Motives reduced unto twelve Chapters answering unto the like Figures in the Margent of the first of Mr. Waddesworth's Letters OF the Preamble The titles Catholick Papist Traytor Idolater The uniformity of Faith in Protestant Religion p. 311. Of the contrariety of Sects pretended to be amongst Reformers Their differences how matters of Faith Of each pretending Scripture and the Holy Ghost p. 319. Of the want of a humane external infallible Iudge and Interpreter The Objections answered First That Scriptures are oft matter of Controversie Secondly That they are the Law and Rule Thirdly That Princes are no Iudges Fourthly Nor a whole Council of Reformers The Pope's being the Iudge and Interpreter overthrown by Reasons And by his palpable miss-inâ—erpreting the Scriptures in his Decretals The stile of his Court His Breves about the Oath of Allegeance p. 328. Of the state of the Church of England and whether it may be reconciled with Rome Whether the Pope be Antichrist PAULO V. VICE-DEO OUR LORD GOD THE POPE The Relation de moderandis titulis with the issue of it p. 358. Of the safeness to joyn to the Roman being confessed a true Church by her Opposites Mr. Wotton's perversion printed at Venice The Badge of Christs Sheep p. 372. Of fraud and corruption in alledging Councils Fathers and Doctors The falsifications imputed to Morney Bishop Jewel Mr. Fox Tyndals Testament Parsons four Falshoods in seven Lines A tast of the Forgeries of the Papacy In the antient Popes Epistles Constantines Donation Gratian The Schoolmen and Breviaries by the complaint of the Venetian Divines The Father 's not untoucht Nor the Hebrew Text. p. 384. Of the Armies of evident Witnesses for the Romanists Whence it seems so to the unexpert Souldier The Censure of the Centurists touching the Doctrine of the Antients Danaeus of S. Augustines opinion touching Purgatory An instance or two of Imposture in wresting Tertullian Cyprian Augustine p. 409. Of the Invisibility of the Church said to be an Evasion of Protestants The Promises made to the Church and her glorious Titles how they are verified out of S. Augustine falsly applyed to the whole Visible Church or Representative or the Pope p. 422. Of lack of Vniformity in matters of Faith in all Ages and Places What matters of Faith the Church holds uniformly and so the Protestants Of Wickliff and Hus c. whether they were Martyrs p. 426. Of the original of Reformation in Luther Calvin Scotland England Whether King Henry the Eighth were a good Head of the Church Of the Reformers in France and Holland The original growth and supporting of the Popes Monarchy considered p. 429. Of lack of Succession Bishops true Ordinations Orders Priesthood The fabulous Ordination at the Nags-Head examined The Statute 8 Elizabeth Bonners slighting the first Parliament and Dr. Bancrofts answer to Mr. Alablaster The Form of Priesthood enquired of p. 453. Of the Conclusion Master Waddesworth's Agonies and Protestation The Protestation and Resolution of the Author and conceipt of Mr. Waddesworth and his accompt p. 481. THE COPIES OF Certain LETTERS Which have passed between SPAIN and ENGLAND In matter of RELIGION Salutem in Crucifixo To the Worshipful my good Friend Mr. William Bedell c. Mr. Bedell MY very loving Friend After the old plain fashion I salute you heartily without any new fine complements or affected Phrases And by my inquiry understanding of this Bearer that after your being at Venice you had passed to Constantinople and were returned to S. Edmundsbury in safety and with health I was exceeding glad thereof for I wish you well as to my self and he telling me further that to morrow God willing he was to depart from hence to imbark for England and offering me to deliver my Letters if I would write unto you I could not omit by these hasty scribled lines to signifie unto you the continuance of my sincere love never to be blotted out of my breast if you kill it not with unkindness like Mr. Ioseph Hall neither by distance of place nor success of time nor difference of Religion For contrary to the slanders raised against all because of the offences committed by some we are not taught by our Catholick Religion either to diminish our natural obligation to our native Country or to alter our moral affection to our former friends And although for my change becoming Catholick I did expect of some Revilers to be termed rather than proved an Apostata yet I never looked for such terms from Mr. Hall whom I esteemed either my Friend or a modester Man whose flanting Epistle I have not answered because I would not foil my Hands with a poetical Railer more full with froth of Words than substance of Matter and of whom according to his beginning I could not expect any sound Arguments but vain Flourishes and so much I pray let him know from me if you please Unto your self my good Friend who do understand better than Mr. Hall what the Doctors in Schools do account Apostasie and how it is more and worse than Heresie I do refer both him and my self whether I might not more probably call him Heretick than he term me at the first dash Apostata But I would abstain from such biting Satyrs And if he or any other will needs fasten upon me such bitter terms let them first prove that In all points of Faith I have fallen totally from Christian Religion as did Iulian the Apostata For so is Apostasie described and differenced from Heresie Apostasia est error hominis baptizati contrarius Fidei Catholiae ex toto and Haeresis est error pertinax hominis baptizati contrarius Fidei Catholicae ex parte So that he should have shewed first my errors in matters of Faith not any error in other Questions but in decreed matters of Faith as Protestants use to say necessary to Salvation Secondly That such errors were maintained with obstinate pertinacy and pertinacy is where such errors are defended against the consent and determination of the Catholick Church and also knowing that the whole Church teacheth the contrary to such opinions yet
Church and ancient Councils there is no succession of true Pastors But among Protestants the said due Form and right intention are not observed ergo no succession of true Pastors The said due Form and right intention are not observed among Protestants in France Holland nor Germany where they have no Bishops and where Laymen do intermeddle in the making of their Ministers And for England whereas the Councils require the Ordines minores of Subdeacon and the rest to go before Priesthood your Ministers are made per saltum without ever being Subdeacons And whereas the Councils require three Bishops to assist at the consecration of a Bishop it is certain that at the Nags-Head in Cheapside where consecration of your first Bishops was attempted but not effected whereabout I remember the controversie you had with one there was but one Bishop and I am sure there was such a matter And although I know and have seen the Records themselves that afterward there was a consecration of Dr. Parker at Lambeth and three Bishops named viz. Miles Coverdal of Exceter one Hodgeskin Suffragan of Bedford and another whose name I have forgotten yet it is very doubtful that Coverdal being made Bishop of Exceter in King Edward's time when all Councils and Church-Canons were little observed he was never himself Canonically consecrated and so if he were no Canonical Bishop he could not make another Canonical And the third unnamed as I remember but am not sure was only a Bishop elect and not consecrated and so was not sufficient But hereof I am sure that they did consecrate Parker by vertue of a Breve from the Queen as Head of the Church Who indeed being no true Head and a Woman I cannot see how they could make a true Consecration grounded on her Authority Furthermore making your Ministers you keep not the right intention for neither do the Orderer nor the Ordered give nor receive the Orders as a Sacrament nor with any intention of Sacrificing Also they want the Matter and Form with which according to the Councils and Canons of the Church holy Orders should be given namely for the Matter Priesthood is given by the delivery of the Patena with Bread and of the Chalice with Wine Deaconship by the delivery of the Book of the Gospels and Subdeaconship by the delivery of the Patena alone and of the Chalice empty And in the substantial form of Priesthood you do fail most of all which Form consists in these Words Accipe potestatem offerendi Sacrificium in Ecclesia pro Vivis Mortuis which are neither said nor done by you and therefore well may you be called Ministers as also Laymen are but you are no Priests Wherefore I conclude wanting Subdeaconship wanting undoubted Canonical Bishops wanting right intention wanting Matter and due Form and deriving even that you seem to have from a Woman the Head of your Church therefore you have no true Pastors and consequently no true Church And so to conclude and not to weary my self and you too much being resolved in my understanding by these and many other Arguments That the Church of England was not the true Church but that the Church of Rome was and is the only true Church because it alone is Ancient Catholick and Apostolick having Succession Vnity and Visibility in all Ages and Places yet what Agonies I passed with my Will here I will over-pass Only I cannot pretermit to tell you That at last having also mastered and subdued my will to relent unto my understanding by means of Prayer and by God Almighty's Grace principally I came to break through many tentations and impediments and from a troubled unquiet Heart to a fixed and peaceable tranquillity of Mind for which I do most humbly thank our sweet Lord and Saviour Iesus before whom with all reverence I do avouch and swear unto you as I shall answer it in the dreadful Day of Judgment when all Hearts shall be discovered That I forsook Protestant Religion for very fear of Damnation and became a Catholick with good hope of Salvation and that in this hope I do continue and increase daily And that I would not for all the World become a Protestant again And for this which here I have written unto you in great hast I know there be many Replyes and Rejoynders wherewith I could never be satisfied nor do I desire any further Disputation about them but rather to spend the rest of my life in Devotion yet in part to give you my dear good Friend some account of my sel◠having now so good an occasion and fit a Messenger and by you if you please to render a reason of my Faith to Mr. Hall who in his said printed Epistle in one place desires to know the Motives thereof I have thus plainly made relation of some Points among many Whereunto if Mr. Hall will make any Reply I do desire it may be directly and fully to the Points and in friendly Terms upon which condition I do pardon what is past and of you I know I need not require any such circumstances And so most seriously intreating and praying to our gracious Lord to direct and keep us all and ever in his holy Truth I commend you unto his heavenly Grace and my self unto your friendly love Your very affectionate and true loving Friend James Waddesworth Sevil in Spain April 1. 1615. ✚ To the Worshipful his respected Friend Mr. William Bedell at his House in S. Edmundsbury or at Horinger be there delivered in Suffolk Kind Mr. Bedel MIne old acquaintance and Friend having heard of your health and worldly well-fare by this Bearer Mr. Austen your Neighbour and by him having opportunity to salute you with these few Lines I could not omit though some few years since I wrote you by one who since told me certainly he delivered my Letters and that you promised answer and so you are in my debt which I do not claim nor urge so much as I do that in truth and before our Lord I speak it you do owe me love in all mutual amity for the hearty affectionate love which I have and ever did bear unto you with all sincerity For though I love not your Religion wherein I could never find solid Truth nor firm hope of Salvation as dow I do being a Catholick and our Lord is my Witness who shall be my Judge yet indeed I do love your person and your ingenuous honest good moral condition which ever I observed in you nor do I desire to have altercations with Mr. Ioseph Hall especially if he should proceed as Satyrically as he hath begun with me nor with any other Man and much less would I have any debate with your self whom I do esteem and affect as before I have written nor would I spend the rest of my life which I take to be short for my Lungs are decaying in any Questions but rather in Devotion wherein I do much more desire to be hot and
sever not For it is not by humane but râ—ther divine power that spiritual marriage is dissolved when as by translation or cession by the authority of the Bishop of Rome whom it is plain to be the Vicar of Iesus Christ a Bishop is removed from his Church An admirable interpretation of the Text Quos Deus conjunxit by which the Pope not only challengeth that which is proper to Gods judgment only as he saith viz. to dissolve the Bond of spiritual Wedlock but because that is the stronger of carnal it seems also when it shall please him The anointing of a Prince since Christs coming is translated from the Head to the Shoulder by which Principality is fitly designed according to that which is read Factus est principatus super humerum ejus for signifying also whereof Samuel caused the shoulder to be set before Saul Who should ever have understood these Texts if your infallible Interpreter had not declared them But this is nothing yet to the exposition of those Texts which the Pope interprets in his answer to the Emperour of Constantinople as Subditi estote omni humanae Creaturae propter Deum c. He tells him that S. Peter wrote that to his own Subjects to provoke them to the merit of humility For if he had meant thereby to lay the yoke of subjection upon Priests it would follow that every Servant were to rule over them since it is said Omni humanae creaturae After It is not barely set down Regi praecellenti but there is put between perhaps not without cause tanquam And that which follows ad vindictam malefactorum laudem verò bonorum is not to be understood that the King or Emperor hath received the power of the Sword upon good and evil Men save only those who using the sword are committed to his jurisdiction according to that which the Truth saith They which take the Sword shall perish with the Sword For no Man ought or can judge anothers Servant since the Servant according to the Apostle standeth or falleth to his own Lord. For the love of God consider this Interpretation and compare it with S. Chrysostome upon Rom. 13. Nay do but read the Text attentively and judge of the infallibility of your interpreter Straight after he tells the Emperor That he might have understood the prerogative of Priesthood out of that which was said not of every Man but of God not to the King but to the Priest not to one descending of the Royal Stock but of the Priestly Linage of the Priests to wit which were in Anathot Behold I have set thee over Nations and Kingdoms to pull up and destroy to build and to plant See the Prerogative of the Priesthood out of Ieremies calling to be a Prophet O if he had been high Priest This had been a Text for the nonce But he goes on It is said in Gods Law also Diis non detrahes Principem populi tui non maledices Which setting Priests before Kings calls them Gods and the other Princes Compare this exposition with David's and Paul's Psal. 82. and Acts 23.5 and ye shall see how the Interpreter hath hit the mark Again you ought to have known quod fecit Deus duo magna luminaria c. See the Exposition and the difference between the Pope and Kings both in the Text and Gloss. Now although the Gloss-Writer were no excellent Calculator yet out of Clavius the account may be cleared who tells us the Sun exceeds the Moon 6539. times and a Fifth I let pass the collection out of Pasce oves meas that he belongs not to Christs Fold that doth not acknowledge Peter and his Successors his Masters and Pastors out of Quodcunque ligaveris that nothing is excepted Indeed the Pope excepts nothing but looseth Vows Contracts Oaths the Bond of Allegiance and Fealty between Subjects and their Princes The Commandment of Christ Drink ye all of this c. But our Lord expounds himself Iohn 20. Whose sins ye remit they are remitted c. Ex ore sedentis in Throno procedebat gladius bis acutus This is saith the Pope the Sword of Solomon which cuts on both sides giving every Man his own We then who albeit unworthy hold the place of the true Solomon by the favour of God do wisely exercise this Sword when such causes as in our audience are lawfully canvassed we do with Iustice determine This interpretation first corrupts the Text for it hath not out of the Mouth of him that sate on the Throne but that sate on the Horse next it perverts it for it is not the Sword of Iustice but of Christs Word which is more piercing than any two-Edged Sword that issueth out of his Mouth As for that of Iustice he never assumed it but renounced it rather when he said Man who made me a divider to you Luke 12.14 ¶ To prove that in other Regions besides the patrimony of the Church the Pope doth casually exercise temporal Iurisdiction it is said in Deuteronomy Si difficile sit ambiguum c. And because Deuteronomy is by interpretation the second Law Surely by the force of the Word it is proved that what is there decreed should be observed in the New Testament For the place which the Lord did chuse is known to â—e the Apostolick See For when as Peter fleeing went out of the City the Lord minding to call him back to the place he had chosen being asked of him Lord whither goest thou answered I go to Rome to be crucified again The Priests of the Tribe of Levi are the Popes coadjutors The high Priest or Iudge he to whom the Lord said in Peter Quodcunque ligaveris c. His Vicar who is a Priest for ever after the Order of Melchisedeck appointed by God the Iudge of quick and dead He that contemns the Popes Sentence is to be excommunicated for that is the meaning of being commanded to be put to death Doth not this well follow out of the word Deuteronomy And Rome is the place that Christ did choose because he went he said to be crucified there Only there is a scruple of the High Priest for as much as he that is High Priest after Melchisedeck's Order 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 hath a Priesthood that passes not into another Heb. 7. He adds there that Paul that he might declare the fulness of power writing to the Corinthians saith Know ye not that ye shall judge the Angels how much more the things of the World Is this then the Popes plenitude of Power to judge secular things or was Corinth the Apostolick See and so many Popes there even of the meanest of the Church What shall we say to that Exposition of the famous Text Tu es Petrus super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam The Lord he saith taking Peter into the fellowship of the undivided Vnity would have him to be
use any more Words Believe then if you please that the Commemoration of Christs Sacrifice in the Lords Supper or the Oblations of the faithful are to be made for all that decease after Baptism in the attempting of whatsoever sin they dye yea suppose in final impenitence of any deadly crime That such as be damned may thereby have their damnation made more tolerable Believe that without any impropriety of Speech the same form of Words may be a thanksgiving for one and an appeasing of Gods wrath for another Believe also if you can beieve what you will that S. Tecla delivered the Soul of Falconilla out of Hell and S. Gregory the Soul of Trajan and that as may seem saying Mass for him sith he was forbidden thenceforth to offer any Host for any wicked Man Believe that Macarius continually praying for the Dead and very desirous to know whether his Prayers did them any good had answer by miracle from the Scull of a dead Man an Idolater that by chance was tumbled in the way O Macarius when thou offerest Prayers for the Dead we feel some ease for the time Believe that on Easter even all the damned Spirits in Hell keep Holy day and are free from their torments S. Augustine such is his modesty will give you leave to believe this as well as Purgatory if you please as he is not unwilling to give as large scope to other Mens Opinions as may be so they reverse not the plain and certain grounds of Holy Scripture In all these you may if you please follow Authors also as S. Damascene Paladius Prudentius Sigebert and others But give the same liberty to others that ye take Compel no Man to follow your Opinion if he had rather follow Danaeus's Reasons For my self I would sooner with S. Augustine himself whose words touching S. Cyprian Danaeus here borrowed confess this to be naevum candidissimi pectoris coopertum ubere Charitatis than be bound to justifie his conceit touching the commemoration of the Dead in the Lords Supper And as he saith of S. Cyprian so would I add Ego hujus libri Authoritate non teneor quia literas Augustini non ut Canonicas habeo sed eas ex Canonicis considero quod in iis divinarum Scripturarum authoritati congruit cum laude ejus accipio quod non congruit cum pace ejus respuo Which Words I do the rather set down that they may be Luthers justification also against F. Parsons who thinks he hath laid sore to his charge when he cites very solemnly his Epistle ad Equitem Germ. Anno Domini 1521. where he saith He was tyed by the authority of no Father though never so holy if he were not approved by the judgment of Holy Scripture Surely this is not to deny and contemn as he calls it or as you to controll the Fathers to account them subject to humane infirmities which themselves acknowledge But the contrary is to boast against the Truth to seek to forejudge it with their mistakings which needs not so much as require their Testimonies I will forbear to multiply words about that whether the testimonies of Antiquity which favour the Protestants be many or few whether they do indeed so or onely seem prima facie whether they be wrested or to the purpose whether all this may not by juster reason be affirmed of the passages cited by the Romanists out of Antiquity setting aside matters of ceremony and government which your self confess by and by may be divers without impeaching unity in Faith and opinions ever to be subjected to the trial of Scriptures by their own free consent and desire Judge by an instance or two that this matter may not be a meer skirmish of generalities Tertullian in his latter times whether as Saint Hierome writes through the envy and reproach of the Roman Clergy or out of the too much admiring chastity and fasting became a Montanist and wrote a Book de Pudicitia blaming the reconciling of Adulterers and Fornicators In the very entrance almost thereof he hath these words Audio etiam edictum esse propositum quidem peremptorium Pontifex scil Maximus Episcopus Episcoporum dicit Ego moechiae fornicationis delicta poenitentia functis dimitto Pamelius in his note upon this place writes thus Bene habet annotatu dignum quod etiam jam in haerest constitutus adversus Ecclesiam scribens Pontificem Romanum Episcopum Episcoporum nuncupet infra Cap. 13. bonum Pastorem benedictum Papam Cap. 21. Apostolicum Thus Pamelius and presently lanches forth into the Priviledges of the See of Rome and brings a number of testimonies for that forgery of Constantines donation The like note he hath in the life of Tertullian where he makes the Pope thus set forth the former Edict to have been Zephyrinus's quem saith he Pontificem Maximum etiam jam haereticus Episcopum Episcoporum appellat Baronius also makes no small account of this place and saith The title of the Pope is here to be noted And indeed prima facie as you say they have reason But he that shall well examine the whole web of Tertullians discourse shall find that he speaks by a most bitter and scornful Ironie as Elias doth of Baal when he saith he is a God The word scilicet might have taught them thus much Yea the title Pontifex Maximus which in those days and almost two ages after was a Pagan term never attributed to a Christian Bishop first laid down by Gratian the Emperour as Baronius also notes in the year of our Lord 383. because it savoured of Heathenish superstition though it had been as a title of Royalty used by the former Christian Emperours till that time This title I say might have made them perceive Tertullians meaning unless the immoderate desire of exalting the Papacy did so blind their eyes that seeing they saw and yet perceived not In the same character though with more mildness and moderation is the same title for the other part of it used by Saint Cyprian in his Vote in the Council of Carthage Neque n. quisquam nostrum se esse Episcopum Episcoporum constituit aut tyrannico terrore ad obsequendi necessitatem Collegas suos adigit Bellarmine saith he speaks here of those Bishops that were in the Council of Carthage and that the Bishop of Rome is not included in that sentence who is indeed Bishop of Bishops What! and doth he tyrannously inforce his Colleagues to obedience also For it is plain that Cyprian joyns these together the one as the presumptuous title the other as the injurious act answering thereto which he calls plain tyranny And as plain it is out of Firmilianus's Epistle which I vouched before that Stephanus Bishop of Rome heard ill for his arrogancy and presuming upon the place of his Bishoprick Peters Chair to sever himself from so many Churches and break the bond of peace now with the Churches of the
by the learned and truly noble Lord of Plessis in his Mysterium iniquitatis But his Book I suppose you cannot view and it would require a just volume to shew it though but shortly It shall be therefore if you will the task of another time And yet because I do not love to leave things wholly at random consider a few Instances in some of these Pope Boniface III. obtained that proud and ambitious Title of Oecumenical so much detested by S. Gregory Pope Constantine and Gregory II. revolted Italy from the Greek Emperors Obedience forbidding to pay Tribute or obey them Pope Zachary animated Pipine High Steward of France to depose Chilperick his Lord and dispensed with the Oaths of his Subjects Pope Stephen II. most treacherously and unjustly perswaded the same Pipine not to restore the Exarchate of Ravenna to the Emperor after he had recovered it from Astulfus King of Lombards but to give it to him Pope Nicholas II. and Gregory VI. parted the prey with the Normans in Calabria and Apulia creating them Dukes thereof to hold the Constantinople's Country in Vassalage of them This latter also was the first as all Historians accord that ever attempted to depose the Emperor against whom he most impiously stirred up his own Children which most lamentably brought him to his end Pope Paschal II. would not suffer for the full accomplishment of this Tragedy his Son to bury him Pope Adrian IV. demanded Homage of the Emperor Frederick Alexander III. trod on his neck Celestine III. crowned Henry VI. with his Feet Innocent IV. stirred up Frederick II. his own Servants to poison him practised with the Sultan of Aegypt to break with him This is that Innocent of whose Extortions Matthew Paris relates so much in our Story whom the learned zealous and Holy Bishop of Lincoln on his Death-bed proved to be Antichrist and in a Vision stroke so with his Crosier-staff that he died Boniface VIII challenged both Swords pretended to be superior to the King of France in Temporal things also Clement V. would in the vacancy of the Empire that all the Cities and Countries thereof should be under his disposition made the Duke of Venice Dandalus couch under his Table with a Chain on his neck like a Dog e're he would grant Peace to the Venetians This Clement V. commanded the Angels to carry their Souls to Heaven that should take the Cross to fight for the Holy Land What shall I say more I am weary with writing thus much and yet in all this I do not insist upon private and personal Faults Blasphemies Perjuries Necromancies Murthers barbarous Cruelties even upon one another alive and dead nor on Whoredoms Incests Sodomies open Pillages besides the perpetual Abuse of the Censures of the Church I insist not upon these more than you did upon King Henry's Passions I tell you not of him that called the Gospel a Fable or another that instituted his Dei's to strangle Sin like Christ's Blood Of him that dispensed with one to marry his own Sister for the Uncle to marry with the Neece or a Woman to marry two Brothers a Man two Sisters by Dispensation is no rare thing at this day The Faculty to use Sodomy the Story of Pope Joan are almost incredible and yet they have Authors of better Credit than Bolseck It may be said that Iohn XXII called a Devil incarnate that Alexander VI. the Poisoner of his Cardinals the Adulterer of his Son-in-laws Bed incestuous Defiler of his own Daughter and Rival in that villany to his Son sinned as Men which empeacheth not the Credit of their Office That Paulus V. Vice-deus takes too much upon him when he will be Pope-almighty but the Chair is without Error Wherein not to insist for the present but admitting it as true that wickedness of mens Persons doth not impeach the Holiness of their Functions which they have received of God nor make Gods Ordinances as his Word and Sacraments of none effect But tell me for Gods love Master Waddesworth is it likely that this Monarchy thus sought thus gotten thus kept thus exercised is of God Are these men that wholly forsaking the feeding of the Flock of God dream of nothing now but Crowns and Scepters serve to the Church to no use in the World unless it be to break the ancient Canons and oppress with their Power all that shall but utter a free word against their Ambition and Tyranny are they I will not say with you good Heads of Gods Church but Members of it and not rather Limbs of Satan Consider those Texts My Kingdom is not of this World Vos autem non sic Consider the Charge which S. Peter gives to his fellow Presbyters 1 Pet. 5.2 3 4. Now I beseech our Lord deliver his Church from this Tyranny and bless you from being a Member of such a Head CHAP. XI Of lack of Succession Bishops true Ordinations Orders Priesthood I Come now to your Motive from Succession Where I marvel first that leaving the Succession of Doctrine which is far more proper and intrinsecal to the Churches being you stand upon that of Persons and Offices Yea and about them too immediately pass from that which is of Essence to the external Formalities in Consecration and Ordination according to the ancient Councils Have you forgotten what you said right now that matters of Ceremony and Government are changeable Yea but in France Holland and Germany they have no Bishops First what if I should defend they have because a Bishop and a Presbyter are all one as S. Ierom maintains and proves out of Holy Scripture and the use of Antiquity Of which Judgment as Medina confesseth are sundry of the ancient Fathers both Greek and Latin S. Ambrose Augustine Sedulius Primasius Chrysostome Theodoret Oecumenius and Theophylact which point I have largely treated of in another place against him that undertook Master Alablaster's Quarrel Besides those Churches in Germany have those whom they call Superintendents and general Superintendents as out of Doctor Bancroft by the Testimony of Zanchius and sundry German Divines you might perceive Yea and where these are not as in Geneva and the French Churches yet there are saith Zanchius usually certain chief Men that do in a manner bear all the sway as if order it self and necessity led them to this course And what are these but Bishops indeed unless we shall wrangle about names which for reason of State those Churches were to abstain from As for that you say Lay-men intermeddle there with the making of their Ministers if you mean the election of them they have reason for anciently the People had always a right therein as S. Cyprian writes to the Churches of Leon and Astorga there in Spain Plebs ipsa maxime habet potestatem vel eligendi dignos Sacerdotes vel indignos recusandi and in sundry places of Italy this usage doth continue to this day If ye mean it in Ordination ye are deceived and wrong these Churches
as Bellarmine himself will teach you lib. De Clericis cap. 3. For amongst the Lutherans and Calvinists also saith he which have taken away almost all Ecclesiastical Rites they only lay on hands and make Pastors and Ministers who though they be not Pastors and Bishops indeed would be so accounted and called In England you miss first the lesser orders and say we are made Ministers per saltum as if all that are made Priests among you were Psalmists Sextons Readers Exorcists Torch-bearers Subdeacons and Deacons before Remember I pray what the Master of the Sentences saith of Deaconship and Priesthood Hos solos primitiva Ecclesia legitur habuisse de his solis praeceptum Apostoli habemus He means in the Epistles to Timothy and Titus Again Subdiaconos vero Acolâ—thos procâ—donte tempore Ecclesia sibi constituit What and were the Primitive and Apostolick Churches no true Churches or need we to be ashamed to be like them Besides those Councils that ye speak of it should seem were of no great either Antiquity or Authority when not only Presbyters without pasâ—â—â—g through any order but Bishops wiâ—â—â—ut being so much as baptized were ordained As Nectarius of Constantinople Synesius of Cyrene Ambrose of Millaine Constantine II. of Rome it self This therefore is a very slight Exception Your next is well worse touching the Ordination at the Nags-head where the Consecration of our first Bishops as you say was attempted but not effected It is certain you say and you are sure there was such a matter although you know and have seen the Records themselves that afterward there was a Consecration of Doctor Parker at Lambeth Alas Master Waddesworth if you be resolved to believe Lies not only against publick Acts and your own eye sight but against all Probability who can help it I had well hoped to have found that Ingenuity in you that I might have used your Testimony unto others of that side touching the Vanity of this Fable as having shewed you the Copy of the Record of Doctor Parker's Consecration which I had procured to be transcribed out of the Acts which your self also at your return from London told me you saw in a Black Book Now I perceive by your perplexed Writing and enterlining in this part of your Letter you would fain discharge your Conscience and yet uphold this Lye perhaps as loth to offend that side where you now are and therefore you have devised this Temper that the one was attempted the other effected But it â—ill not be For first of all if that at the 〈◊〉 head were but attempted what is that to the purpose of our Ordinations which are not derived from it but from the other which as you say was effected at Lambeth And are you sure there was such a Matter How are you sure Were you present there in Person or have you heard it of those that were present Neither of both I suppose but if it were so that some body pretending to have been there present told you so much how are you sure that he lied not in saying so much more when you have it but at the third or fourth hand perhaps the thirtieth or fortieth But consider a little is it probable that men of that sort in an action of that Importance and at the beginning of the Queens Reign when especially it concerned both them and her to provide that all things should be done with Reputation would be so hasty and heedless as to take a Tavern for a Church Why might they not have gone to the next Church as well They thought to make the old Catholick Bishop drunken Thus the Wisbich and Framyngham Priests were wont to tell the tale Is it likely that they would not forethink that possible this good old Man would not drink so freely as to be drunken and if he were yet would not be in the humour to do as they would have him For who can make any Foundation upon what another would do in his Cups What a scorn would this be to them Men are not always so provident in their Actions True but such men are not to be imagined so Sottish as to attempt so solemn an Action and joyned commonly with some great Feast and as you observed well out of the Acts with the Queens Mandate for the Action to be done and hang all upon a drunken fit of an old man Besides how comes it to pass that we could never understand the names of the old Bishop or of those whom he should have consecrated or which consecrated themselves when he refused to do it For so do your men give it out howsoever you say it was not there effected And in all the space of Queen Elizabeths Reign wherein so many set themselves against the Reformation by her established is it possible we should never have heard word of it of all the English on that side the Seas if it had been any other than a flying Tale After forty five years there is found at last an Irish Jesuit that dares put it in print to prove by it as now you do that the Parliamentary Pastors lack holy Orders But he relates sundry Particulars and brings his Proofs For the purpose this ordainer or consecrater he saith was Laudasensis Episcopus homo senex simplex His name Nay that ye must pardon him But of what City or Diocess was he Bishop For we have none of that Title Here I thought once that by errour it had been put for Landaffensis of Landaffe in Wales save that three times in that Narration it is written Laudasensis which notwithstanding I continued to be of the same mind because I found Bishop Bonners name twice alike false written Bomerus But loe in the Margent a direction to the Book De Schismate fol. 166. where he saith this matter is touched and it is directly affirmed that they performed the Office of Bishops without any Episcopal Consecration Again that great labour was used without an Irish Archbishop in Prison at London to ordain them but he could by no means be brought thereto So it seems we must pass out of Wales into Ireland to find the See of this Bishop or Archbishop But I believe we may sail from thence to Virginia to seek him for in Ireland we shall not find him Let us come to those that he should have ordained what were their names Candidati if that will content you more you get not Why they might have been remembred as well as the Nags-Head as well as Bonners name and his See and that he was Dean of the Bishops he means of the Archbishoprick sede vacante and that he sent his Chaplain his name also is unknown to forbid the Ordination At least their Sees To cut the matter short Quid plura Scoraeus Monachus post Herefordensis pseudo-episcopus caeteris ex caeteris quidam Scoraeo manus imponunt fiuntque sine patre filii pater à filiis procreatur res seculis omnibus
Bonner laid against the First Parliament in Queen Elizabeths time to be true of all the rest Then that he accounts Bishop Bonner to have excepted against this Parliament because the Bishops there were no Bishops as not canonically ordained Where it was because there was no Bishops true or false there at all His last proof is That Dr. Bancroft being demanded of Mr. Alablaster whence their first Bishops received their Orders answered That he hoped a Bishop might be ordained of a Presbyter in time of necessity Silently granting That they were not ordained by any Bishop And therefore saith he the Parliamentary Bishops are without order Episcopal and their Ministers also no Priests For Priests are not made but of Bishops whence Hierome Quid facit c. What doth a Bishop saving Ordination which a Presbyter doth not I have not the means to demand of D. Alablaster whether this be true or not Nor yet whether this be all the answer he had of Dr. Bancroft That I affirm that if it were yet it follows not that D. Bancroft silently granted they had no Orders of Bishops Unless he that in a false Discourse where both Propositions be untrue denies the Major doth silently grant the Minor Rather he jested at the futility of this Argument which admitting all this lying Legend of the Nags-head and more too suppose no Ordination by any Bishops had been ever effected notwithstanding shews no sufficient reason why there might not be a true consecration and true Ministers made and consequently a true Church in England For indeed necessity dispenses with Gods own positive Laws as our Saviour shews in the Gospel much more then with Mans And such by Hieroms Opinion are the Laws of the Church touching the difference of Bishops and Presbyters and consequently touching their Ordination by Bishops only Whereof I have treated more at large in another place for the justification of other reformed Churches albeit the Church of England needs it not To confirm this Argument it pleaseth F. Halywood to add That King Edward the Sixth took away the Catholick Rite of Ordaining and instead of it substituted a few Calvinistical Prayers Whom Queen Elizabeth followed c. And this is in effect the same thing which you say when you add That Coverdale being made Bishop of Exceter in King Edward 's time when all Councils and Church Canons were little observed it is very doubtful he was never himself canonically consecrated and so if he were no canonical Bishop he could not make another Canonical To F. Halywood I would answer That King Edward took not away the Catholick Rite of Ordaining but purged it from a number of idle and superstitious Rites prescribed by the Popish Pontifical And the Prayers which he scoffs at if they were Calvinistical sure it was by Prophecie for Calvin never saw them till Queen Mary's time when by certain of our English Exiles the Book of Common Prayer was translated and shewed him if he saw them then Some of them as the Litany and the Hymn Veni Creator c. I hope were none of Calvin's devising To you if you name what Councils and Church Canons you mean and make any certain exception either against Bishop Coverdale or any of the rest as not Canonical Bishops I will endeavour to satisfie you Mean while remember I beseech you That both Law and Reason and Religion should induce you in doubtful thingâ— to follow the most favourable sentence and not rashly out of light surmises to pronounce against a publick and solemn Ordination against the Orders conferred successively from it against a whole Church Wherein I cannot but commend Doctor Carriers modesty whose Words are these I will not determine against the succession of the Clergy in England because it is to me very doubtful And the discretion of Cudsemius the Jesuite which denies the English Nation to be Hereticks because they remain in a perpetual succession of Bishops And to take away all doubt from you that some of these Ordainers were only Bishops elect and unconsecrated besides Miles Coverdale in King Edward's time Bishop of Exceter cast in Prison by Queen Mary and released and sent over Sea to the King of Denmark know that William Barlow was another in King Edward's days Bishop of Bath and Wells in Queen Mary's beyond the Seas in the company of the Dutchess of Suffolk and Mr. Bertie her Husband at the time of Dr. Parker's Ordination Elect of Chichester A third was Iohn Scory in King Edward's time Bishop of Chichester and at the time of the said Ordination Elect of Hereford A fourth was Iohn Hodgeskin Suffragan of Bedford And these four if they were all ordained according to the Form ratified in King Edward's days were presented by two Bishops at least to the Archbishop and of him and them received Imposition of Hands as in the said Form is appointed One Scruple yet remains which you have in That these Men did consecrate Doctor Parker by vertue of a Breve from the Queen as Head of the Church who being no true Head and a Woman you see not how they could make a true Consecration grounded on her Authority But to clear you in this also you must understand the Queens Mandate served not to give Power to ordain which those Bishops had before intrinsecally annexed to their Office but Leave and Warrant to apply that Power to the person named in that Mandate A thing unless I have been deceived by Reports used in other Countrys yea in the Kingdoms of his Catholick Majesty himself Sure I am by the Christian Emperors in the Primitive Church as you may see in the Ecclesiastical Histories and namely in the Ordination of Nectarius that I spake of before Yea which is more in the Consecration of the Bishops of Rome as of Leo the Eighth whose Decree with the Synod at Rome touching this matter is set down by Gratian Dist. 63. c. 23. taken from the example of Hadrian and another Council which gave to Charles the Great Ius potestatem eligendi Pontifâ—cem ordinandi Apostolicam Sedem as you may see in the Chapter next before See the same Dist. c. 16 17 18. and you shall find that when one was chosen Bishop of Reate within the Popes own Province by the Clergy and people and sent to him by Guido the Count to be consecrated the Pope durst not do it till the Emperors Licence were obtained Yâ—â— that he writes to the Emperour for Colonus That receiving his Licence he might consecrate him either there or in the Church of Tusculum which accordingly upon the Emperours bidding he performed Yet another Exception you take to the making our Ministers That we keep not the right intention First Because we neither give nor take Orders as a Sacrament By that Reason we should have no true Marriages amongst us neither because we count not Matrimony a Sacrament This Controversie depends upon the definition of a Sacrament
East in Asia now of the South in Africk And he was in as ill conceit with Cyprian for his breaking good order and communicating with Basilides and Martialis justly deprived in Spain as Saint Cyprian was with him when he stiled him a false Christ and a false Apostle But that holy Martyr was of a more patient and calm spirit than to be moved with such reproaches nay he took occasion as it should seem thereby to write of patience From this mildness it was that he so closely taxed the presumption of him that made himself Bishop of Bishops and by terror which what it was Firmilianus's Epistle shews threatning Excommunication would compel his Colleagues to his own opinion None of us saith he doth thus As the Apostle we preach not our selves we commend not our selves We are not as many that adulterate the Word of God c. Bellarmine takes the first kindly No marvel saith he for this is the Bishop of Rome's due But they go together he must be content to take both or leave both Such another place there is in Saint Augustine Epist. 86. the words are Petrus etiam inquit Apostolorum Caput coeli janitor Ecclesiae fundamentum Where in the Margent the Divines of Lovaine the overseers of Plantines edition set this note Petrus Ecclesiae fundamentum Why might they not The words ye will say of the Text. But these words of the text be not Saint Augustines whose opinion is well enough known That it is Christ confessed by Peter that is the foundation of the Church but they are the words of an undiscreet railer of the City of Rome against whom Saint Augustine in all that Epistle most vehemently inveighs This arrogant Author endeavours so to defend the Roman custome of fasting on the Saturday as he reproaches all other Churches that used otherwise And that we may see with what Spirit he was led he brings the same text that is brought in Pope Siricius and Innocentius's Epistles against the marriage of Clergy-men Qui in carne sunt Deo placere non possunt and many other Scriptures wrested and far from the purpose at last comes the authority of Peter and his tradition very Pope-like alledged Peter he saith the head of the Apostles porter of heaven and foundation of the Church having overcome Simon the Sorcerer who was a figure of the Devil not to be overcome but by fasting thus taught the Romans whose faith is famous in the whole world I remit you to Saint Augustine's answer to this tradition This I note that where your Censors do rase out of the Margents of former editions such notes as do express the very opinions of the Ancients and in their own words here they can allow and authorize such marginal notes as are directly contrary to their meaning Yea which are earnestly oppugned by them when they seem to make for the authority of the Pope Good sir examine well this dealing and judge if this be not wresting the Fathers and applying them clean from their purpose In fine you found your self you say evidently convinced Perswaded I believe rather than convinced Else if the force and evidence of the Arguments and not the pliableness of your mind were the cause of your yielding methinks they should work like effect in others no less seriously seeking for truth and setting all worldly respects aside earnestly minding their own salvation than your self Which I well know they do not neither those which hitherto have been examined nor those which yet remain to be considered in the rereward CHAP. VIII Of the Invisibility of the Church said to be an evasion of Protestants THE first whereof is the dislike of the Protestants evasion as you call it by the invisibility of their Church Give me leave here to tell you plainly ye seem to me not to understand the Protestants doctrine in this point Else ye would have spared all that The Catholick Church must ever be visible as a City set on a hill otherwise how should she teach her children convert Pagans dispense Sacraments All this is yielded with both hands The Congregations of which the Catholick Church doth consist are visible But the promise made to this Church of victory against the gates of Hell the titles of the house of God the base and pillar of Truth an allusion as I take it to the bases and pillars that held up the veil or curtains in the Tabernacle the body of Christ his Dove his undefiled are not verified of this Church in the whole visible bulk of it but in those that are called according to Gods purpose given to Christ and kept by him to be raised up to life at the last day This doctrine is Saint Augustine's in many places which it would be too tedious to set down at large In his third book De doctrina Christiana among the rules of Tychonius there is one which he corrects a little for the terms De Domini corpore bipartito which he saith ought not to have been called so for in truth that is not the Lords body which shall not be with him for ever but he should have said of the Lords true body and mixt or true and feigned or some such thing Because not only for ever but even now hypocrites are not to be said to be with him though they seem to be in his Church Consider those resemblances taken out of the holy Scripture wherein that godly Father is frequent of chaff and wheat in the Lords floor of good and bad fishes in the net of spots and light in the Moon Of the Church carnal and spiritual of the wicked multitudes of the Church yet not to be accounted in the Church Of the Lilly and the Thorns those that are marked which mourn for the sins of Gods people and the rest which perish which yet bear his Sacraments Consider the last Chapter of the book De Vnitate Ecclesiae and that large Treatise which he hath of that matter Epist. 48. The place is long which deserves to be read for the objection of the Universality of Arianisme like to that of Papisme in these last ages which Saint Augustine answers in the fifth book De Baptismo contra Donatistas cap. 27. That number of the just who are called according to Gods purpose of whom it is said The Lord knoweth who are his is the inclosed garden the sealed fountain the well of living waters the orchard with Apples c. The like he hath l. 5. c. 3. 23. he concludes that because such are built upon the Rock as hear the Word of God and do it and the rest upon the sand now the Church is built upon the Rock all therefore that hear the Word of God and do it not are out of question without the Church In the seventh book cap. 51. Quibus omnibus consideratis Read and mark the whole Chapter Out of these and many more like places which I forbear to mention it appears that albeit