not too distant may for mutual help and Concord meet in Councils And none should needlesly break their just Agreements because of the general Command of Concord But 1. They hold that these Councils be no representers of all the Christian World 2. Nor have any Universal Jurisdiction 3. Nor any true Governing Power at all over the absent or dissenters but an Agreeing Power 4. And if they pretend any such Power they turn Usurpers 5. And if on pretence of Concord they make Snares or Decree things that are against the Churches Edification Peace or Order or against the Word of God none are bound to stand to such Agreements These being the Judgment of Protestants what do these Men but abuse their words of Reverence to Councils and Submission to their Contracts as if they were for their Universal Soveraign Jurisdiction § 13. And next he saith Whereas Mr. B. doth usher in his Discourse with an intimation that this was only a Doctrine of the Gallican Church he cannot but know that this was the sence of the Church of England in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign Answ. 1. I honour the Gallican Papists above the Italian but I am satisfied that both do erre 2. There is a double untruth in Matter of Fact in your words 1. That I cannot but know that which I cannot know or believe 2. That yours was the sence of the Church of England which I have disproved But what is your proof D. S. For the 20th Article saith The Church hath Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith and the next Article doth suppose this Authority in General Councils Answ. The Church of England supposeth that Kingdoms should be Christian and the Magistrates and Pastors Power so twisted as that their Conjunction may best make Religion national as it was with the Jews But it never owned a foreign Jurisdiction or the Governing Power of the Subjects of one Kingdom over the Princes and People of another It followeth not that because the Church in England may Decree some Rites here that therefore foreign Churches may command us to use their Rites Our own Church Teachers no doubt have Authority in Controversies of Faith that is to teach us what is the truth and to keep Peace among Disputers but not to bind us to believe any thing against God's Word and therefore not meerly because it 's their Decree Therefore the Article cautelously calls the Church only a Witness and Keeper of holy Writ which we deny not And that besides Scripture they ought not to enforce any thing to be believed for Necessity to Salvation But you would have us believe the Soveraign Universal Jurisdiction of Councils yea and the lawfulness of all your Oaths and Impositions as necessary to escape damning Schism and is not that as necessary to Salvation 2. And one would think there needed no more than the next Articles to confute you which you cite as for you They knew that there had been Imperial General Councils which being gathered and authorized by the Emperors had the same Power in the Empire that National Councils have with us or in other Nations But there 's not a syllable of any Jurisdiction that they have out of the Empire Yea contrary it 's said 1. That they may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And therefore cannot Govern them without their Will nor have any Conciliar Power being no Council And one King cannot command the Subjects of another Indeed if Princes will make themselves Subjects to a Council or Pope who can hinder them 2. They are here declared to be Men not all governed by the Spirit and Word of God and such as may erre and have erred in things pertaining to God Therefore their meer Contracts and Advice are no further to be obeyed than they are governed by the Spirit and Word of God which we are discerning Judges of And it is concluded that things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture So that even their Expositions of the Articles of Faith which you make their chief Work hath no further Authority than it 's declared to be taken out of the Scripture it self nor yet their decision of the sence of controverted Texts And such proof must be received from a single Man § 14. Such another proof he fetcheth from the Statute 1 Eliz. c. 1. Forbidding to judge any thing Heresie but what hath been so judged by Authority of Canonical Scripture or the first four General Councils or any of them or any other General Councils Answ. As if forbidding private Heretication were the same with the Universal Soveraignty of Councils we are of the same Religion with all true Christians in the World and we are for as much Concord with all as we can attain But is Concord and Subjection all one or Contract and Government § 15. The like Inference he raiseth from a Canon 1571. forbidding any new Doctrine not agreeable to the Scripture and such as the Ancient Fathers and Bishops thence gathered Answ. And what 's this to an Universal Church Soveraignty § 16. The Church of England's Sence is better expounded Reform Leg. Eccles. c. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta Ut tamen ex eorum sententia de sacris literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Christianae doctrinae Regulae esse Judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes Lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit § 17. D. S. P. 358. Mr. B. saith The doubt is whom you will take for good Christians into your Communion But this can be no doubt when I except only the Jesuited part of the Roman and other Churches Answ. So you take in the Church of Rome which you cannot do without taking in the pretended Soveraignty Essential to it Was not that Church Papal before there were any Jesuites But hold Dr. It 's France that you are first Uniting with and they say that the Jesuites are there the Predominant part And are you against them there § 18. P. 360. He takes it ill that I suppose him to separate from the Church of England I have fully given him here my proof The Church of England took not it self for a part of an Universal humane Political Church But his Church doth and is thereby of another Political Species as a City differeth from a Kingdom I will not tire the Reader with following him any further Vain Contenders necessitate us to be over tedious § 19. I am loth here to answer the rest of his Book against our Nonconformity 1. Because I would not follow them that
c. to come to us in Consultation and let us know their Sence and many came And I remember not one Man that dissented from what we offered you first which was Archbishop Vsher's Primitive Form which took not down Archbishops Bishops or a farthing of their Estates or any of their Lordships or Parliamentary Power or Honour unless the Advice of their Presbyters and the taking the Church Keys out of the hands of Lay Chancellors cast you down 3. That when the King's Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs 1660. granted yet much less Power to Presbyters and left it almost alone in the Bishops we did not only acquiesce in this but all the London Ministers were invited to meet to give the King our joyful Thanks for it And of all that met I remember but two now both dead who refused to subscribe the Common Thanksgiving which with many Hands is yet to be seen in Print And those two exprest their Thankfulness but only said That because some things agreed not to their Judgments they dursâ— not so subscribe lest it signified Approbation but they should thankfully accept that Frame and peaceably submit to it All this being so I appeal with some sense of the Case of England to your self and common reason whether it be just and beseeming a Pastor or Christian or a Man to make the Nation believe 1. That we are Presbyterians 2. And against Bishops 3. And therefore that we are Schismaticks 4. And therefore that we must be Imprisoned or Banished as those that would destroy the Church and Land Would a Turk own such dealing with his Neighbour Is this the way of Peace Will this bring us to Conformity Was it Anti-Episcopal Presbytery which the King's Declaration 1660 determined of Nothing will Serve God and the Churches Peace but Truth and Honesty or at least that which hath some appearance of it II. I find that almost all the Strength of his Book as against Presbyterians who are his Fanaticks is his bare word saying that they are Schismaticks and that they forsake the Judgment and Practice of the Universal Church by forsaking Episcopacy And will this convince me who am certain that I am for that Episcopacy which Ignatius Tertullian Cyprian c. were for and am past doubt that the Episcopacy which I am against is contrary to the Practice of the whole Church for 200 Years and of all save two Cities Alexandria and Rome for a much longer time If I prove this true which I undertake must I then take his turn and desire the Banishment of the Contrary-minded Bishops as dangerous Schismaticks for forsaking the Practice of the Church III. I understand not in his Platform of the Rule which denominateth Dissenters Schismaticks Pag. 353. what he meaneth by the very highest Power most necessary to be understood in these words The Laws and Orders of the Church Vniversal to which every Provincial Church must submit What the Scots mean by a General Assembly I know and what the old Emperors and Councils meant by an Vniversal Council Viz. Universal as to that one Empire But I know no Vniversal Law-givers to the whole Church on Earth but Jesus Christ neither Pope nor Council If I am mistaken in this I should be glad to be convinced for it is of great moment And is the hinge of our Controversie with Rome IV. He doth to me after all give up the whole Cause and absolve me and all that I plead from the guilt of Schism and lay it on your Lordship and such as you if I can understand him when he saith Pag. 363. It is clear that in the Church of England there is no sinful Condition of Communion required nor nothing imposed but what is according to the Order and Practice of the Catholick Church there can be no pretence for any Toleration c. And Pag. 360. There is no Question to be made but where there is an interruption in the Churches Communion there is caused a Schism and it must be charged on them that make the breach which will lye at their Doors who by making their Communion unlawful do unjustly drive away good Christians from it neither doth such a Person that is driven away at present from the external Communion cease to be a Member of that Church but is a much truer Member thereof than that Pastor that doth unjustly drive him from his Communion This fully satisfieth me and if you will read my late small Book called The Nonconformists Plea for Peace you will see what it is that I think unlawful in the Impositions And if you will read a new small Book of your old troubled Neighbour Mr. Jo. Corbet called The Kingdom of God among Men I have so great an Opinion that by it you will better understand us and become more moderate and charitable towards us that I will take your reading it for a very obliging Kindness to Your Servant Ri. Baxter December 11. 1679. Add. V. His terms of Communion are not right as I have proved VI. He speaketh against Toleration so generally without distinction as if no one that dissented but in a word were tolerable which is intolerable Doctrine in a pretended Peace-maker VII He inferreth Toleration while he denieth it in that he is against putting us to Death How then will he hinder Toleration Mulcts will not do it as you see by the Law that imposeth 40 l. a Sermon For when Men devoted to the Sacred Ministry have no Money they will Preach and Beg Imprisonment must be perpetual or uneffectual for when they come out they will Preach again And it contradicteth himself for it will kill many Students being mostly weak as it kill'd by bringing mortal Sickness on them those Learned Holy Peaceable and Excellent Men Mr. Jos. Allen of Taunton Mr. Hughes of Plimouth and some have died in Prison And he that killeth them by Imprisonment killeth them as well as he that burneth them or hangeth them And the Prisons will be so full as will render the Causers of it odious to many and make such as St. Martin was separate from the Bishops the same I say of Banishment Dr. Saywell's Principles infer as followeth I. Schismaticks are not to be Tolerated They that are for the sort of Diocesane Prelacy which we disown are Schismaticks Ergo not to be Tolerated The Major is Dr. S's The Minor is proved thus They that are against that Episcopacy which the Primitive Universal Church was for and used are Schismaticks The foresaid Diocesane Party are against that Episcopacy which the Primitive Universal Church was for and used Ergo they are Schismaticks The Major is Dr. S's The Minor is thus proved I. They that are for the deposing of the Bishops that were over every single Church that had one Altar and those that were over every City Church and instead of them setting up only one Bishop over a Diocess which hath a Thousand or many Hundred Altars and many Cities are against the Episcopacy
sapientiam quae de terra est detruserunt usque in coenum Et quod ex toto non corruerit est ex gratia Dei salvatoris nostri Haec ego loquor eo liberius quia mihi Conscius sum non ex quaestu non ambitu non ad laudem propriam meae professionis sed pro assertione veritatis utilitâ—â—e publica haec dicere O happy England if Protestants had been as much in this against Popery and Error § 5. And here the Roman Deceivers and some peaceable Men of them have joyned to draw us to them on Pretences of Peace and Reconciliation Some honest peaceable Men have been destroyed by the rest for their Moderation The Learnedst Moderator that we have had was M. Ant. de dominis Archbishop of Spalato whose Books de Republ. Eccles. are full of both Learning and Judgment and so moderate that I cannot call him a Papist Though being enticed to Rome again by flattery he perished by their Cruelty What Leander was I am not fully acquainted Fr. de Sancta Clara alià s Davenport was a real Papist and designed on the pretence of Reconciliation to draw us over to them And hath shewed more acquaintance with Scotus and other Schoolmen than with the Protestants in his attempt to reconcile our Articles to their Doctrine Dr. Morley Bishop of Winchester tells us That in his Conference with the Jesuit F. Darcy he would have drawn him to them by perswading him that they are not unreconcileable but can abate us many things P. 5. The Father replied that perhaps we should not find them so stiff in all Points for in things of Positive and Ecclesiastical Constitution only the Church might in order to Christian Peace alter something which she had before Established and he doubted not but she would And his Instances were the Latine Service the Sacrament under one Species and the Caelibate of Priests But as for Matters of Faith they could not alter or abate any thing instancing in the Point of the Churches Infallibility And this is their ordinary Opinion and yet they would not grant the Cup to the Bohemians and to this day the Churches Peace hath not prevailed with them for such Alterations as they say are in their Power What of this Kind they offered in the Treaty with Archbishop Laud we shall see after The Book called The Catholick Moderator goeth this way But no man hath attempted it with so much ability of Judgment and Success of late as Hugo Grotius in his Votum Pro Pace Consultatio and Notes on Cassander his Annotations on the Revelations and De Antichristo and his Writings against Rivet The Dutch dealt hardly with him as an Arminian and Judged him to perpetual Imprisonment when they had not such another Man among them from which his Wife delivered him getting him carried out in a Trunk on pretence of carrying from him his Arminian Books And being escaped into France he was intimate with the Learned Jesuits especially Petavius and made the Queen of Sweden's Embassador who shortly after turned Papist and is yet living at Rome And it is no censoriousness to suspect that his great exasperation might have influence on his judgment And because he is the Man whom our English Defenders of a foreign Jurisdiction own I will next tell you what his late judgment was in his own words I confess I have a far greater honour for those Men that were bred in Popery and are Moderators than for those being bred Protestants revolt from Reformation to a Coalition I doubt not but Gerson was a very holy Man Cassander seemeth to have been an excellent Pious learned Man And I doubt whether most of our nominal Protestants that are for a foreign Jurisdiction be near so moderate as he He oft as de Officio Pii Viri p. 788 789 c maketh the Church of Rome to be but a part of the Universal Church He maintaineth that some called Schismaticks are not indeed departed from the Church for departing from Rome as long as they depart not from Christ the Head of the Church and that only defection of Love and not diversity of Rites and Opinions cuts Men off from Christ And that as long as they are joyned to Christ the Head by sound belief of him and by the Bond of Charity and Peace they are joyned to the Church and are not to be taken for Schismaticks and Aliens from the Church though they be rejected and seem separated from their Society and Communion by another more powerful part of the Church which doth obtain the Government How much more moderate and sound is Cassander than such as Mr. Dodwell And Pag. 791. he saith the same of the Oriental Churches and the Ethiopians that are not under the Pope And he still speaketh so cautelously that it is not easie to understand how far he took the Papacy to be necessary Yet sometime he only excuseth the unwilling departers from Rome and asserteth Consult de Pont. Rom. p 931. That it is not alien from the consent of the ancient Church that Obedience to our Chief or Supream Rector the Successor of St. Peter in Governing and Feeding the Church is required to the Unity of this external Church And it is not only Primacy of Order but Obedience to one Chief Ruler that he Pleads for And in his Epistle to Lindanus and frequently he still professeth only to desire some Reformation in the Roman Church but never to depart from it nor own those that do Chap. VI. Grotius's Judgment in his own Words § 1. TO give you Grotius's Judgment to the full would be to transcribe many Books I shall choose some plain Passages Discussione Apologet. Rivet p. 255. Those that knew Grotius knew that he always wished for the restitution of Christians into one and the same Body But he sometime thought even after he was known to the most excellent Vairius that it might be begun by a Conjunction of the Protestants among themselves Afterwards he saw that this was altogether unfeasible because besides that the Genius of almost all the Calvinists is most alien from all Peace the Protestants are not joyned among themselves by any common Government of the Church which are the Causes that the Parties made cannot be gathered into one Body of Protestants yea and that more and more Parties are ready to rise out of them Wherefore Grotius now absolutely judgeth and many with him that the Protestants cannot be joyned among themselves unless at once they be joyned to them that cohere to the See of Rome without which there can be no common Government hoped for in the Church Therefore he wisheth that the Division which fell out and the Causes of that Division were taken away The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons is none of these c. Ib. P. 185. Grotius professeth that he will so interpret Scripture God favouring him and Pious Men being consulted that he cross not the
determinations is implicitely to renounce all the necessary Causes of this great Schism And to rest satisfied with their old Patriarchal Power and Dignity and Primacy of Order which is another part of my Proposition is to quit the Modern Papacy both Name and Thing Page 84. In the first place if the Bishop of Rome were reduced from his Universality of Sovereign Jurisdiction Jure Divino to his Principium Vnitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sence of the Councils of Constance and Basil and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we 2. If the Creed or necessary Points of Faith were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Councils according to the Decree of the third General Council admitting no additional Articles but only necessary Explications and those to be made by the Authority of a General Council or one so General as can be Convocated And lastly Supposing that some things from whence offence hath been either given or taken I say in case these three things were accorded whether Christians might not live in an Holy Communion and come in the same publick Worship of God free from all Schismatical Separation of themselves one from another c. We have no Controversie with the Church of Rome about a Primacy of Order but a Supremacy of Power I shall declare my sence in four Conclusions 1. That St. Peter had a fixed Chair at Antioch and after at Rome is a truth which no Man who giveth any credit to the Ancient Fathers and Councils can either deny or well doubt of 2. That St. Peter had a Primacy of Order among the Apostles is the unanimous voice c. 3. Some Fathers and School-men who were no Sworn Vassals to the Roman Bishops affirm that this Primacy of Order is affixed to the Chair of St. Peters Successors for ever c. Page 107. They who made the Bishop of Rome a Patriarch were the Primitive Fathers not excluding the Apostles and Christian Emperors and Oecumenical Councils What Laws they made in this case we are bound to obey for Conscience sake till they be repealed lawfully by virtue of the Law of Christ. Page 104. To my Objection that all Protestants must then pass for Schismaticks that take not the Pope for Principium Vnitatis and Patriarch c. he answereth still weaker and weaker Must a Man quit his just right because some dislike it Their dislike is scandal taken but the quitting of that which is right for their satisfaction should be the scandal given Whether is the worse 1. How are they forced to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks If they be forced any way it is by their own wilful Humours or erroneous Conscience Others force them not 2. I would have him consider which is worse and the more dangerous condition for Christians to fall under the reproach of Schismaticks or to fall into Schism it self Whosoever shall oppose the just Power of a Lawful Patriarch lawfully proceeding is a material Schismatick Reader I forbear confuting these things by the way being now but on the Historical relation of their Judgments You see how great necessity to avoid Schism they place in our subjection to a Forreign Jurisdiction The Confutation you shall have of all together Chap. IX The Judgment of Archbishop Laud as delivered by Dr. Heylin and by himself § 1. IN the Life of Archbishop Laud Pag. 414 415 416 412. Touching the Design of working a Reconciliation betwixt us and Rome I find it charged on him by another Writer Fuller Ch. Hist. lib. 11. p. 217. who holds it as unlawful to be undertaken as it was impossible to be effected Answ. If it be a Crime it 's Novum Crimen of a New stamp never coined before As to the Impossibility many Men of Eminence for Parts and Piety have thought otherwise Spalatensis and Sancta Clara are named as Reconcilers And if without prejudice to the Truth the Controversies might have been composed it is most probable that other Protestant Churches would have sued by their Agents to be included in the Peace If not the Church of England had lost nothing by it as being hated by the Calvinists and not loved by the Lutherans Admitting then that such a Reconciliation was endeavoured betwixt the Agents of both Churches Let us next see what our great Statesmen have discoursed upon that particular on what terms the Agreement was to have been made and how far they proceeded in it And first the Book entituled The Pope's Nuntio affirmed to have been written by the Venetian Embassador at his being in England doth discourse thus As to a Reconciliation saith he between the Churches of England and Rome there were made some general Propositions and Overtures by the Archbishop's Agents they assuring that his Grace was very much disposed thereto and that if it was not accomplished in his Life-time it would prove a work of more difficulty after his Death that in very truth for the last three Years the Archbishop had introduced some Innovations approaching nearer the Rites and Forms of Rome That the Bishop of Chichester a great Confident of his Grace the Lord Treasurer and Eight other Bishops of his Grace's Party did most passionately desire a Reconciliation with the Church of Rome That they did day by day recede from their ancient Tenets to accommodate with the Church of Rome That therefore the Pope on his part ought to make some Steps to meet them and the Court of Rome remit something of its rigour in Doctrine or otherwise no accord would be The Composition on both Sides in so good a forwardness before Pauzani left the Kingdom that the Archbishop and the Bishop of Chichester had often said that there were but two sorts of People like to hinder the Reconciliation the Puritans among the Protestants and the Jesuits among the Catholicks Let us see the Judgment and Relation of another Author in a Gloss or Comment on the former entituled The English Pope Printed at London the same Year 1643. And he will tell us that after Con had undertook the managing of Affairs the Matter began to grow towards some Agreement The King required saith he such a Dispensation from the Pope as his Catholick Subjects might resort to the Protestant Church and take the Oaths of Supremacy and Fidelity and that the Pope's Jurisdiction should be declared to be but of Human Right And so far had the Pope consented that whatsoever did concern the King should have been really performed so far as other Catholick Princes do usually enjoy and expect as their due and so far as the Bishops were to be Independent both from King and Pope There was no fear of breach on the Pope's part So that upon the Point the Pope was to content himself with us in England with a Priority instead of a Superiority over other Bishops and with a Primacy instead of a
Nice 1. Const. 1. Eph. 1. Chalced. Const. 2. de tribus Capitulis Const. 3. against the Monothelites III. You say that These six things are the Governing Acts of this Chief Power 1. To judge which are the true Books of Scripture and the true Copies and Readings 2. To judge what is the sence of the Fundamentals Baptism Creed whose words misunderstood will not save any 3. To judge and declare what is the true Church Government instituted by Christ and his Apostles or delivered by them 4. To judge and declare what are the instituted Ordinances e. g. Confirmation as it is a giving of the Holy Ghost by Imposition of Hands and not only an owning of our Baptismal Covenant which we do in every Sacrament and so of other Ordinances 5. A Judicial Power not of all individual Cases but that those e. g. that hold or do this or that be Excommunicate 6. A Legislative Power to make alterable Canons or Orders of the Church Vniversal This is the sum of all your Explicatory Discourses To which I answer § I. To your proofs that such a Universal Governing Church there is instituted 1. To Isai. 60.12 I say 1. It is not safe stretching dark Prophetical Texts farther than we can prove they are intended The New Testament plainlier tells us the Church State and Power than the Old 2. The Universal Church hath not expounded the Text whether it speak of the state of the Jews after the Captivity or of the State of the Catholick Church now or of the more Blessed State of it at the last when it is more perfected Therefore how are you sure that you have the true sence of it without the Churches Exposition 3. The words indeed are nothing for a Vicarious Soveraign Power Every Political Body is essentiated by the Pars imperans and the Pars subdita Christ is the only essentiating Pars imperans in Supream Power Christ then is the Prime part of the Church The word Church then is not put for Christ alone but for the Society consisting of King and Subjects and sometimes for the Subjects alone It 's oft said that many Nations served the Israelites we say many Countreys were subject to the Romans the Medes Persians Greeks Turks and we do not mean that either the Turkish Roman Persian c. Common Subjects did govern all these Nations nor that their Bashaws Judges Magistrates c. as one Persona Politica in summa potestate ruled them by a Major Vote If the King will say that all the Corporations in Middlesex shall be under London or obey or serve it Who would feign such a sense of it as to say that there must be therefore some Power to rule them by a Vicarious Supremacy beside the ordinary Government or that all the City must Govern by a Major Vote The sense is plain As we all 1. Obey the King as the Universal Constitutive Head 2. And the Judges Justices Mayors as ruling under him per partes in their several Places 3. And we serve all the Kingdom as we serve its common good which is the finis regiminis So other Countries served the Romans Greeks Turks c. And so all Kingdoms should serve the Church or Kingdom of Christ that is 1. Christ as the only Head and Universal Governour 2. All his Officers as particular Governours in their several Limits and Places but none as Rulers of the whole 3. And the bonum Commune or all the Church as the End of Government And how can we feign another sence § 2. To your second Proof I answer 1. The 70 Disciples were Christ's constant Attendants as his Family with whom he was to Eat the Passover 2. We all grant that none have Power to Celebrate the Eucharist or Govern the Church but the Apostles and those to whom the Spirit of Christ in them did Communicate it But we say that they Communicated it to the Order of Presbyters as I thought all had Confessed as some Councils do 3. The Apostles were not appointed as one Supream ruling College to give the Sacrament by their Votes to all the World but each one had Power to do it in his place Nor did they Ordain only as a College by such Vote as Vna persona Politica but each one had Power to do it alone Nor did they write the Scriptures as one Collective Person by Vote but each one had the Spirit and Power to do it as Paul did c. nor did they sit on one Throne or had the promise so to do to Judge the Tribes of Israel as one College by Vote but to sit on twelve Thrones Judging the twelve Tribes as under Christ the only Universal Head and Governour § 3. To your third I answer 1. I answered to that Act. 15. in my last to you 2. Paul and Barnabas had the same Infallible Spirit and had before said the same against the keeping of Moses Law But 1. Recipitur ad modum recipientis No wonder if among those that quarrelled with Paul the Consent of those that had received Christ's Mind from his own Mouth and Spirit did better satisfie the doubtful than one Man's word alone 2. And Christ's Work was to be done in Unity § 4. II. As to the Seat of this Power I answer 1. All the true Bishops of the World Govern the particular Churches as Kings Govern all the Kingdoms of the World under God one Universal Monarch But there is neither one Universal Monarchical Aristocratical or Democratical Soveraign Civil or Ecclesiastical under Christ But each hath his own part § 5. 2. I have shewed the impossibility of our judging of the Major Votes at our distances in most controverted Cases § 6. 3. And I have where I told you proved that there never were must or will be true Universal Councils much less are such the standing Governours of the Church But in Cases of need such as can well do it should come to help each other by Council and Concord without pretending to Universal Governing Power § 7. 4. 1. Who called them to Nice Ephesus Chalcedon Constantinople c. out of the Extra-Imperial Countries 2. Who shall call them now out of the Empire of the Turk Abassia the Mogul Tartary and the rest 3. If calling Men make the Council Universal though they come not is it a Council if none come or how many must it be to ascertain us that it is Universal Hath the Pope the Calling Power or who is it and how proved that they that obey it not may be unexcuseable § 8. 5. I have told you how unable I am to know what the Major part of all Christians or Bishops in the World receive save only by uncertain fame saving that while I know otherwise what is necessary truth I know that they are not the Church that receive it not whoever they be I am a Stranger to Abassia Armenia Georgia India Russia Mexico c. And what if I never knew that there are such
Regent Power in such Councils but what the Magistrate giveth them Monstra mihi inquit Hieron quisnam Imperatorum celebrari id Concilium jusserit saith Grotius ib. P. 168. Non ideo convocari Synodum quod in ea pars sit Imperii satis jam demonstratum arbitror Finis ergo ut Episcopus Wintoniensis recte notat hic est ut ad veritatis Pietatis amplificationem Consilium Principi praebeant hoc est Praeeant ipsi judicio directivo ut per Synodum stabiliâ—i testataque fieri possit Consensio Ecclesiae Omnium autem horum finium nullus est necessarius simpliciter Neque Synodus simpliciter ad illos fines necessaria This he goeth on to prove and more than so that Synods are oft hurtful as well as unnecessary Cum potius saith August rarissimae inveniantur haereses propter quas damnandas necessitas talis exstiterit I will not repeat saith Grotius the Complaint of almost all Ages that the chief Diseases were brought into the Church à Sacerdotibus citing Nazianzen he addeth Neque agit de Arianis duntaxat Synodis sed de omnibus suorum temporum praecipue quibus ipse interfuit Mr. Morrice might easily know this Nec pauca referri possunt si opus sit infoeliciorum conciliorum exempla quale fuit sub Constantino Antiochenum Caesariense Tyrium cujus conventus Episcopis scribens Constantinus nihil ait ab illis fieri nisi quod ad odia dissensiones serendas ad perniciem denique humani generis faciat Zanchy's way cited by him is oft better than Councils that the Magistrate command Ministers in Controversies 1. Vti non suis sed Scripturae vocibus 2. Et à publicâ damnatione abstinere And Pag. 209. saith Grotius The Church hath no Legislative Power by Divine Right What was written in Synods before Christian Emperors for Order and Ornament are not called Laws but Canons and have either only the force of advice as in things which rather belong to singular persons than to all or they oblige by way of Agreement c. But some Legislative Power may be given by humane Laws But perhaps some will say that Mr. Dodwell speaketh only of National or Provincial or Diocesane Councils and not of General ones and therefore by the fixed President meaneth not the Pope Answ. 1. I would he were willing and able to tell what he meaneth But he felt what a fine advantage he had under the Name of Bishops Presidency to please a Party and say more than every one of them shall at first perceive But he expresly maintaineth that the Universal Church is one Political Society and hath a visible Supreme humane Government that is Absolute and from which there is no appeal And that this Society hath Legislative Power and is bound but by the Laws made in its own Assemblies And that these Assemblies are Rebels and punishable if not called by the President And though Mr. D. had the Prudence to use the word President rather than Pope if ever he speak intelligibly it 's here And Mr. Thorndike whom he valueth as a sound Protestant Archbishop Bromhall and the rest of the Tribe do openly assert the due Presidence of the Pope as Principium Vnitatis and first Patriarch Saith Mr. Dodwell further Pag. 522 523. Supposing those Presbyters that chose the President had invested him in his Office by Prayer and Imposition of hands and no Bishops had any more to do in his Consecration than Kings have in the Inauguration of our ordinary Kings it will not follow that those Presbyters who chose and consecrated him must have any more Power over him Nor is it only true that this way may be so but indeed it must be so whenever the Person so invested is supposed to be invested in the Supreme Power and whenever the Society over which he is placed is also Independent on other Societies As the Universal Church is Such a Person can never be placed in his Power if not by them who must after be his Subjects unless by his Predecessor which no Society can safely depend on for a constant rule of Succession And doth any but the Pope pretend to this Soveraign place In his own Society he can have none of his own Order that can perform the Ceremony to him because we suppose Him to be Supreme and there cannot be two such in one Society True And you make it your fundamental that the Catholick Church is one such Society and so must have such a Supreme And it 's worth the noting which he adds And therefore I for my part am so little solicitous for any consequence that may be hence inferred to the prejudice of my Cause as that I am apt to think that this must have been the way at first in the making of Bishops how Absolute soever I conceive them to have been when they were once made Ans. Are we not beholden to the Universal Presidentship for this concession I forced Johnson alias Terret to the same And yet both these men cry down a Power resulting from God's Law or Charter to the person duly receptive when yet the Instance of the Papacy constraineth them to make it their foundation Why then must Presbyterian Ordination be Nullity if Inferiors only chuse and Consecrate the Pope and Presbyters only at first chose and Consecrated Bishops Obj. The difference is that such Inferiors are but Electors and Investing Ministers and not Donors of the Power but Popes and Prelates are Donors Ans. 1. Then no Prelate could be such but by the Popes or Councils donation 2. Doth not Mr. D. oft say that the Body is the seat of Power and so giveth it 3. But why should he think that we must take his word for this difference and the Prelatical Donation instead of Ministry Do not the Papists themselves more commonly hold that the Presbyters or Priests Office is of fixed Divine Institution and more unalterable than that the Bishops is The latter is disputed the former undisputable It may be Mr. D. will thus prove that he is no Papist But I had rather he be one than worse Nay what will you say if after all he be half an Independent P. 523. saith he This seems best to agree with the Absoluteness of Particular Churches before they had by compact united themselves under Metropolitanes and Exarchs into Provincial and Diocesan Churches And this seems to have been fitted for the frequent Persecutions of those earlier Ages when every Church was able to secure its own Suecession by its own power withoue depending on the certain opportunities of the meeting of the Bishops of the whole Province And the alteration of this practice the giving the Bishops of the Province an interest in the Choice of every particular Colleague seems not to have been so much for want of power in the particular Churches to do it as for the security of Compacts that they might be certain of such a Colleague as would observe
is King and the Law is his Law he being by the Constitution by Contract obliged to own it and Govern by it 2. And Parliaments have their part in the Legislation as Representatives or Trustees of the People and therefore the Laws are called those quas vulgus elegerit But the People die not at the dissolving of a Parliament 3. At least it 's of apparent necessity that the Supreme Executive Power survive or else the Laws die For whose Laws are they if we had no King or Soveraign Whom do we obey or disobey in obeying or disobeying such Laws But our opposers say that even the Supreme Executive as well as Legislative Power is in General Councils If so their Laws are dead a thousand years and we cannot disobey or obey dead men Therefore why do you press us to obey their Laws Arg. 5. If God would have had such Councils to be the Universal Soveraigns he would have notified this plainly in his Word or in Nature it being supposed the Constitutive Form of the Church or at least necessarily to be known for the common Duty and Concord of Christians Our opposers say There is no Concord nor avoiding damnable Schism but by obeying the Vniversal Governing Church But God hath notified no such thing in Nature or Scripture Arg. 6. If God would have his Church Universal to have had such a Soveraign he would have empowered some one or more to call such a Council and told us who hath the power to call them that we may know which have Authority and are to be obeyed For there have been many false and heretical General Councils so called and they have cursed and condemned one another But God hath given us no notice of any empowered to call such a Council nor any means how to know which of them is true and which false which to obey and which not whatever the Pope pretendeth Arg. 7. All the Inferior Officers derive their Power from the Supreme But all the particular Bishops and Presbyters do not derive their Power from General Councils ergo they are not Supreme The Major is undoubted with all Politick Writers It is one of the Jura Majestatis to be the Fountain of Inferior Power The Minor is notorious de facto in the common History of the Church By the National Orders of the Roman Empire Councils had a chief Power in case of difference to determine of the five Patriarchs but not necessarily to chuse them nor did they consecrate them nor was this without the Empire nor did these Patriarchs make the other Bishops The Papists dare not determine whether Election or Consecration necessarily make a Bishop or whether it must be both For which ever be necessary distinguished from invalid acts their Popes and Bishops are nulled much more if both But neither of them was appropriate to General Councils Arg. 8. The Soveraign Government of the Universal Church is supposed necessary to its Unity and to avoiding of Schism and deciding Controversies and therefore its Laws are necessary to be Preached to all the Flocks But none of this is true as to the Soveraignty of a Council â—or the Church had Unity mostly without it and subsists without it at this day and few Subjects know its Laws and few Preachers preach them or People think they are bound to learn them Arg. 9. Christ hath appropriated the Soveraignty and Universal Legislation and Judgment to himself alone Therefore it is not committed to a Council The Antecedent is proved fully by 1 Cor. 11.3 1 Cor. 12.27 c. Col. 1.18 2.10 17 19. Eph. 1.22 23. Eph. 4.3 4 5 6. to 16. 1 Cor. 6.16 17. Gal. 3.28 1 Cor. 3.3 4 5. 4.6 1 Cor. 10.16 17. Matth. 22.25 26. Luke 22.26 Arg. 10. They that will claim so great a Power as to be the Soveraigns of the Christian World must shew a clear Commission for it But Universal Councils can shew no such Commission Arg. 11. If an Universal Council of Bishops be the Supreme Governours of the Universal Church they that call them not or they that come not together live in most damnable sin For all Office consisteth in Obligation to do the duty as well as Power to do it And to neglect so many hundred years a work of such unspeakable need must be more damnable than to neglect a particular Flock so that this casts either all the Bishops of the World into damnation as most perfidious men or the Pope for not calling them Arg. 12. The necessity of such an Universal Supreme Senate is feigned and false therefore none such is of God 1. The great pretended necessity is of Universal Legislation But that is not necessary For Christ hath already given his Church as many Laws as are universally necessary No man can prove the necessity of one more 2. Nor is their Universal Judging Office necessary For Arg. 13. A General Council is not capable of Universal Supreme Government Therefore they were never by God appointed to it I. They are not capable of Universal Legislation 1. Because Christ hath made perfect Universal Laws and forbidden all addition to them that is at least all of the same kind To say that Christ hath left out any of universal necessity is to say that he hath done his work by the halves and men must mend it especially if it be in necessary things If it be but undetermined Circumstances or Accidents then 1. None can know which of them agree with all Countries on Earth 2. Those that agree this year may not be agreeable the next 3. Nor is an Agreement in more than Christ hath determined necessary at all So that here is no work for them to do 2. And what is the Judiciary Power that they can use No man can tell what 1. They cannot judge of particular Persons to be Baptized whether they are fit All the Bishops of the World must not meet to try a Catechumen 2. Nor yet of Persons that are to be Confirmed and admitted to adult Communion 3. Nor of Persons accused of Heresie or Scandal No one is so mad as to say that an Universal Council must be gathered out of all the Earth to judge whether A. do justly accuse B. of these Crimes and to hear all men speak for themselves and to Examine the Witnesses c. And whole Cities and Kingdoms are not fit for Church Censures because they are mixt of righteous and unrighteous and noxa Caput sequitur Every man must answer for his own Sin and every one must have his own Repentance And if whole Countries are to be Judged whole Countries of Witnesses must be heard And shall the Council come to them or they all go to the Council and whither and when If it be Causes and not Persons that they must judge what are they if they be no Persons Causes If only Cases of Doctrine and Conscience in general as the Expounding hard Texts of Scripture or Points of Divinity This is not properly
Master of a Colledge in Cambridge whom I take for his Mouth being himself present hath published what he would have the World to believe of our Discourse in a Book against me for Universal Jurisdiction And therefore he hath put some necessity on me to publish the Truth which I am confident will not be to the Readers loss of time who will peruse it When I had sent him my Book of Concord he sent me Dr. Saywell's first by Dr. Crowther of which I wrote to him my sence On this he desired me to come speak with him which having done three several days I thought it meet at Night to Recollect our Discourse and send him the Sum of all in Letters that neither he might forget it or any Man misrepresent it These four Letters I have therefore here annexed and with them an answer to Dr. Saywell's Reasons for a Forreign Jurisdiction XXIV I am so far from charging the Church of England with the guilt of this Doctrine or Design that I prove that the Church of England is utterly against it But then by that Church I do not mean any Men that can get heighth and confidence enough to call themselves the Church of England but those that adhere to the Articles of Religion the Doctrine Worship and Government by Law Established XXV And I am so far from uncharitable Censures of the Men whom I thus confute that I profess that I believe Mr. Thorndike Bishop Guning Mr. Dodwell c. to be Men that do what they do in an Erroneous Zeal for Unity and Government and are Men of great Labour Learning and Temperance and Religious in their way And I have the same Charity and Honour for many French Papists yea for such Papal Flatterers as Baronius who joyned with Philip Nerius in his first Oratorian Exercises and Conventicles Yea I cannot think that they that burn and torment Men for Religion could live in quietness if they did not confidently think that it is an acceptable Service to God And I fear not still to profess that were it in my power I would have no hurt done to any Papist which is not necessary to our own defence But I must say that I much more honour such as Gerson Ferus Espencaeus Monlucius Erasmus Vives Cassander Hospitalius Thuanus c. who among Papists drew nearer the Reformers than such among us as having better Company and Helps draw fromward them and nearer to the Deformers XVI And as to you Reverend Brethren Conformists who are true to the True Church of England I humbly crave of you but three things I. That you will by hard study and Ministerial diligence and holiness of life keep up to your power the common Interest of Christianity of Faith and serious Piety and Charity II. That you will heartily promote the Concord of all godly Protestants and therein follow such measures as Christ himself hath given us and as you would have others use towards you III. That you will openly and faithfully disown the dangerous Errour of Universal Legislative and Judicial Soveraignty and bringing the King and Church and Kingdom under any Forreign Jurisdiction Monarchical Aristocratical or Mixt and never stigmatize the Church of England and your sacred Order with the odious brand of Persidiousness after so many Imposed and Received Subscriptions Professions and Oaths against all Endeavours to alter the Government of Church or State XVII And as to the Nations fears of future Popish Soveraignty for my part I meddle no further than 1. To do the work of my own Office and Day 2. And to pray hard for the Nations Preservation 3. And to trust God and hope that he will perfect his wonders in such a deliverance as shall confirm our belief of his special care and providence for his Church But I must tell you that such Reasons as Bishop Gunings Chaplains should not be thought strong enough to make you so secure as to abate the fervour of your prayers His words are these more congruous far to him than to you and me page 282 283. The only means that is left to preserve our Nation from destruction and to secure us from the danger of Popery is to suppress all Conventicles c. Being by this method provided against having our People seduced by the Papists which as yet they are in great danger of the next thing is to consider how to prevent violence that those be not murdered and undone that cannot be perswaded to submit Now to secure this His Majestes gracious promises to conform any Bills that were thought necessary to preserve the Established Religion that did not intrench on the Succession of the Crown do make the way very easie if our People were united among themselves and in the Religion of the Church of England For matters may be so ordered that all Officers Ecclesiastical Civil and Military and all that are employed in Power and Authority of any kind be persons both of known Loyalty to the Crown and yet faithful Sons of the Church and firm to the Established Religion And the Laws that they act by may be so explained in favour of those that Conform to the Publick Worship and the discouragement of all Dissenters that we must reasonably be secure from any violence that the Papists can offer to force our submission For when All our Bishops and Clergy are under strict Obligations and Oaths and the People are guided by them and all Officers Civil and Military are firm to the same Interest and under severe penalties if they act any thing to the contrary Then what probable danger can there be of any violence or disturbance to force us out of our Religion when all things are thus secured and the Power of External Execution is generally in the hands of men of our own Perswasion Nay moreover the Prince himself will by his Coronation Oath be obliged to maintain the Laws and Liberties of the Kingdom so Established I am not of a Calling fit to debate the Reasons of these Reverend Fathers some will read them with a Plaudite some with a Ridete some with a Cavete and I with an Orate And he that will abate the fervour of his prayers by such securing words is one whose Prayers England is not much beholden to The words with all their designs are edifying as Diagnostick and Prognostick I only say Seeing we receive a Kingdom which cannot be moved let us have grace whereby we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear for our God is a consuming fire Heb. 12.28 29. March 28. 1682. Chap. I. The Protestant Church of England is against all Humane Vniversal Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical and so against all Forreign Church Jurisdiction I Prove this I. From the Oath of Supremacy which saith thus I do utterly testifie and declare in my Conscience That the King's Highness is the only Supream Governour of this Realm and of all other His Highness Dominions and Countreys as well in all
Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal And that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have ANY JURISDICTION Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forreign Jurisdiction Priviledges Preheminence and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Successors or united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Here all the Kingdom swears That none have or ought to have any Jurisdiction here who is Forreign Yet some Papists have been encouraged to take this Oath by this Evasion Obj. No Jurisdiction is here disclaimed of Forreigners but what belongs to the King But Spiritual Jurisdiction called the Power of the Keys belongs not to the King Ergo. Ans. For securing the King's Jurisdiction All Forreign Jurisdiction is renounced signifying that there is no such thing as a Jurisdiction over this Realm but the King 's and his Officers The Power of the Keys or Spiritual Power is not properly a Jurisdiction as that word includeth Legislation but only a Preaching of Christ's Laws and administring his Sacraments and judging of mens capacity for Communion according to those Laws of Christ And this under the Coercive Government of the King Much like that of a Tutor in a Colledge or a Physician in his Hospital What can be more expresly said than this here that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate have or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm Is that of Pope or Councils neither Ecclesiastical nor Spiritual Is not the word Prelate purposely put in to exclude that Power hence which Prelates claim Though the King claim not the Power of the Keys he knew that by the claim of that Power the Pope and Councils of Forreigners had been the disturbers of his Government And therefore all theirs here is excluded as a necessary means to secure his own 1. Popes and Councils have claimed a Legislative Power over us and all the Church But the Laws of this Land know no such but in Christ over all and in King and Parliament under him over this Land And therefore the Oath excludeth the Power claimed by Popes and Councils 2. As to Judicial Power these Forreigners claim a Power of Judging who in England shall be taken for a true Bishop and Minister who shall have Tythes Church-Lands and Temples whether the Kings Lords and all Subjects shall be judged capable of Church-Communion or be Excommunicate And our Laws declaring that all this Forreign Claim is Usurpation fully proveth that it was the sense of the Oath to exclude them They claim also a Power of Judging who shall pass here for Orthodox and who for Hereticks And in their Laws the consequence is who shall be burned for a Heretick or be exterminated or after Excommunication deposed from their Dominions and their Subjects absolved from their Allegiance But certainly the Oath excludeth them from all this The most of the Papists claim no Power directly due to their Pope but that which they call Ecclesiastical or Spiritual the rest is but by consequence and in ordine ad Spiritualia But if this be not excluded in the Oath then they intended not to exclude the Papacy And then what was the Oath made for or what sense hath it or what use And who can believe this If the meaning of the Oath be not to exclude the Pope's Ecclesiastical Power then they that take it may yet hold that the Pope is Head of all the Churches on Earth and hath the Authority to call and dissolve and approve or reprobate General Councils and may Ordain Bishops for England and his Ordinations and his Missionaries be here received and Appeals made to him and Obedience sworn to him his Excommunications Indulgences imposed Penances Silencings Absolutions Prohibitions here received All which our Statutes Articles Canons c. shew notoriously to be false It is evident therefore that this Oath renounceth all Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction II. The second proof is from many Acts of Parliament Those which prohibit all that receive Orders beyond Sea from the Pope or any Papists to come into England on pain of death Those that forbid the Doctrine Worship and Discipline both of Popes and Councils The words of 25 H. 8. c. 21. are these Whereas this Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but the King hath been and is free from Subjection to any man's Laws but only such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the wealth thereof or to such other as the People of this Realm have taken at their free liberty by their own consent to be used among them and have bound themselves by long use and custom to the observance of the same not to the observance of the Laws of any Forreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the accustomed and antient Laws of this Realm originally Established as Laws of the same by the said sufferance consent and custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural equity and good reason c. that they may abrogate them c. Moreover the Laws of England determine that no Canons are here obligatory or are Laws unless made such by King and Parliament And if it be true which Heylin and some others say that the Pope's Canon-Laws are all here in force still except those that are contrary to some Laws of the Realm that is but as the Roman Civil Law is in force not as a Law of the Pope or old Romans but as made Laws to us by King and Parliament The Roman Senate and Emperor give us the Matter of the Civil Law and the Pope and Councils of the Canon-Law but the Soveraign Power here giveth them the Form of a Law as the King coineth Forreign Silver III. The Articles of Religion prove the same 1. The twenty first Article saith General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not governed by the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometime have erred even in things pertaining to God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the Holy Scriptures Here note 1. That General Councils so called in the Empire had no power to meet much less to Rule without the Commandment of Princes And so those called by the Emperor had no power over the Subjects of other Princes 2. And true Universal Councils will never be Lawfully called till either all the Earth have One Humane Monarch or all the Heathen Infidel Mahometan Papist Heretical and Protestant Princes agree to call them For one hath not Power over the Dominions of all the rest And so the Aristocratical Party put the
have no right to Salvation presently on their Baptism then it is not lawful to say that the contrary is undoubtedly certain by the Word of God But I confess Mr. D's Proposition is false as I have formerly proved to him And perhaps necessity will force himself to deny it as to Baptism though it overthrow his assertion about Ordination Specially if he be for Laymen and Womens Baptizing as the Papists are in case of danger But the Name of the Church will warrant such Lords to prove all such Declarations Subscriptions Oaths not only sinless but necessary to Order Peace Obedience Ministry and I think to Salvation For they make Schism Damning and such Obedience necessary to escape Schism But he hath one cleanly shift Though the Corporation Declaration be that there is no Obligation from the Covenant on me or any other person and a Man think that some are obliged by it against Schism Popery and Prophaneness and to repent of Sin He saith no Man is forced to take these Declarations Vestry Oaths c. For he may chuse and none constraineth him to be in Corporation trust or a Vestry-man and so a Minister so the Act was to appropriate this sweet Morsel of so Swearing declaring c. to themselves And to themselves let it be appropriated for me And yet when all the Corporations Vestries and Ministry are constituted as they are this is the necessary Unity But Obedience to the Church solveth all I once askt a Convocation man what were the Words of God by which this Article was proved and past in the Convocation and he could not name me any Text that perswaded the Convocation to pass it but told me Dr. P. Guning urged it so hard that they yielded to him without much contradiction I was not willing to believe that the Church of England would pass an Article of Faith against their Judgments to avoid striving with one man when in imposing it they must strive against and silence thousands and condemn most of the Reformed Churches but rather that really they contradicted him not because they thought as he And yet I was loth to think them so uncharitable as to put all Ministers to declare such a thing to be in the Word of God and never tell them where to find it Between both what to think I know not But if really Dr. G. was the Church the reverence of his Name Church shall never make me add to the Word of God or corrupt his Ordinance nor subscribe to his Book or to a Foreign Jurisdiction if he Father it on the Church The main strength of all his condemnations of us and justifications of himself is that They are the Church and our lawful Rulers and we must obey and be Sworn never to endeavour any alteration of Church Government not excepting Church depopulation by large Dioceses nor the use of the Keys by Lay Chancellors And if you ask for the proof of all this and that they are not Vsurpers nor Church-destroyers nor Subverters of Episcopacy it self nor grand Schismaticks you must be content with 1. Ipse dixit and 2. Episcopacy is ancient 3. And the people have neither an Electing or necessary Consenting Vote and yet when not only Mr. Clerkson and I but also Dr. Burnet have fully proved that for twelve hundred or thirteen hundred years the peoples Consent was requisite these great dependents on Antiquity and the Church can wash all off with a torrent of words If the Letters in the Caballa and other History be credible how great a hand had G. Duke of Buckingham in making the Church of England in his days Read but what Heylin saith of Bishop Laud's preferment and the Letters of some Bishops to Buckingham in the Caballa and judge what made the Church of England How basely do they sneak and beg of him for Preferment◠e. g. Theophilus Bishop of Landaffe is a most miserable Man if his Grace help him not to a better Bishoprick Mountagues place at Norwich was of little worth since Henry the Eighth stole the Sheep and scarce for God's sake gave the trotters as he saith in his Letter to Laud. And this was the way So the Church of England is Jure Divino made by the Civil Powers But yet a few words can prove just as he proveth all the rest that the Dean and Chapiter chuse the Bishops and not the King As Heathens made Images of the Gods and thought the Gods did actuate them so men make the Images of Bishops and Councils and some Spirits actuate them whatever they be whether those Noble Lords Knights and Gentlemen that at their death lamented that they lived Atheists and Infidels repented that as Patrons they chose Parish Church men I know not But while these Drs know that many Great Councils have decreed the nullity of those Bishops that got in by Secular help and favour and Damned the Seekers and Accepters of it and yet would perswade the Church that all Gods Word is insufficient for Universal Laws without the addition of Soveraign Councils I will regard them as they deserve and not as they expect Why answer they not my late Book of English Nonconformity The True Sum. Popery is I. The turning a National Univerglity or Catholicism of Councils Church Power into a Terrestrial Universality II. Turning Confederacy and Communion into Political Regency III. Deponing Kings and States from their Sacred office of Supream Government and sole forcible Government of the Church or Persons and things Ecclesiastical the Clergy having only the Power of the Keys Word and Sacraments to work on Conscience without corporal face Chap. XV. The first Letter to Bishop Peter Guning upon his sending me Dr. Saywell's Book My Lord I Thankfully received from you by Dr. Crowther Dr. Saywell's Book and a motion for Conference with him which I yet more thankfully accept I read over the Book presently and think it meet to give you this account of the Success I. 1. I perceive that it doth not concern me nor many if any that I converse with For it is Presbyterians Separatists Quakers and Fanaticks that he accuseth and I am conversant with few such 2. And yet the strein of his Book is such as will make Readers undoubtedly think that by Presbyterians and Nonconformists or Conventiclers he meaneth the same Persons and speaketh of the common Case of the present ejected silenced Ministers Of whom I must again and again say 1. That I have had opportunity by Acquaintance and Report of knowing a great part of the silenced Ministers of England and I know but of few of them that are Presbyterians and Judge most of them to be Episcopal Lawyers and Gentlemen indeed incline to place all the Government in the King and Magistrates 2. That in 1661. when we were Commissioned to endeavour Concord with you not only those named in the Commission but all the Ministers of London were invited by Mr. Calamy and Dr. Reinolds and Mr. 〈◊〉 and Dr. Wallis
specially Universal in a College or a Council or a Pope or a Council and College under the Pope as President their Subscription to our Articles and their usage of Oaths would be no invitation to Dissenters to imitate them or Conform Chap. XIX Mr. Henry Dodwell's Leviathan further Anatomized § 1. I Have already elsewhere in two Books detected the Schismatical and Tyrannical Doctrine of Mr. Dodwell in his tedious voluminous Accusation of the Reformed Churches as damnable Schismaticks that Sin against the Holy Ghost and have No right to Salvation by Christ. I recite now a few Passages that shew the Constitution of the Church he Pleads for Pag. 73. The Essential work of the Ministry according to my Principles is to transact between God and Man to Seal Covenants on behalf of God and to accept of those which are made by Men and to oblige them to perform their part of the Covenant by otherwise authoritatively excluding them from God's part Hence results the whole Power of Ecclesiastical Government And for this No great Gifts and Abilities are Essential All the Skill that is requisite essentially is only in general to know the Benefits to be performed on God's part and the Duties to be performed on Mans and the Nature and Obligation of Covenants in general and the particular Solemnities of Ecclesiastical Covenants And of this how any Man can be uncapable who is but capable of understanding the common Dealings of the World Pag. 72. He sheweth that Immoralities of Life are not sufficient to deprive them of this High Power And of the Power it self he saith Pag. 80 81. It is not stated in Scripture but to be measured by the Intention of the Ordainers and that the Hypothesis of God's setling in Scripture is irreconcileable with Government in this Life by permitting Men to appeal to Writings against all the visible Authority of this Life On the contrary saith he Our Hypothesis obliging inferiour Governours to prove their Title to their office and the extent of it from the intention of their Superiour Governours doth oblige all to a strict dependance on the Supreme visible Power so as to leave no place for Appeals concerning the Practice of such Government which as it lasts only for this life so it ought not to admit of Disputes more lasting than its Practice from them and that upon rational and consciencious Principles for how fallible soever they may be conceived to be in expounding Scripture yet none can deny them to be the most certain as well as the most competent Judges of their own Intentions As certainly therefore as God made his Church a visible Society and constituted a visible Government in it so certain their Hypothesis is false P. 83. How can Subjects preserve their due Subordination to their Superiours if they practice differently They may possibly do it notwithstanding Practices of Humane Infirmity and disavowed by themselves But how can they do it while they defend their Practices and pretend Divine Authority for it Yea and pretend to Authority and Offices unaccountable to them which must justifie a whole course of different Practices P. 84. If their Authority be immediately received from God and the Rule of their Practices be taken from the Scriptures as understood by themselves what reason can there be of subjection to any humane Superiours I Must intreat the Reader that he will not call any of these men Papists till they are willing to be so called You are not their Godfathers Do not then make Names for them But I must confess that once I thought the stablished French Religion had been Popery and I see no reason to recant it But if Brierwood's Epistles mis-describe them not Mr. Dodwell is not so much of their Mind for the Supremacy of a General Council as I thought he had been Will you know my Evidence It shall be only in his own words I. Separation of Churches c. Pag. 102. The Church with whom this Covenant is made is a Body Politick as formerly though not a Civil one and God hath designed all Persons to enter into this Society Pag. 98. Faith and Repentance themselves on which they so much insist are not available to Salvation at least not pleadable in a Legal way without our being of the Church And the Church of which we are obliged to be is an external Body Politick So that it 's clear it is the Universal Church and a visible Humane Politie which he meaneth Pag. 107. The design of God in erecting the Church a Body Politick thus to oblige men to enter into it and to submit to its Rules of Discipline however the secular State should stand affected It is more easie for the vulgar Capacity whatsoever to prove their interest in a visible Church than in in an invisible one consisting only of elect Persons In these and many places of both his Books he tells us that the Catholick Church is One Body Politick and hath on Earth a Supreme humane Government which I have noted in his words in my Answer to him II. Pag. 488. Only the Supreme Power is that which can never be presumed to have been confined Of which more in his words which I have confuted III. That the Intention of the Ordainers is the true measure of the Power of the Ordained he copiously urgeth and proveth as much as the Ringing a Bell will prove it by loudness and length Pag. 542. Therefore the Power actually received by them must not be measured by the true sence of the Scripture but that wherein the Ordainers understood them Now the Ordainers of the first Protestants never intended them Power to abrogate the Mass or Latin Service or Image-worship or to renounce the Pope or gave them any Power but what was in Subordination to the Pope but bound them to him and his Canons and to the Mass and the other parts of Popery To prove this he saith Pag. 489. It is very notorious that at least a little before the Reformation Aerius and the Waldenses and Marsilius of Padua and Wickliff were Condemned for Hereticks for asserting the Parity of Bishops and Presbyters And it is as notorious that every Bishop was then obliged to Condemn all Heresies that is all those Doctrines which were then censured for Heretical by that Church by which they were Ordained to be Bishops Our Protestants themselves do not pretend to any Succession in these Western Parts where themselves received their Orders but what was conveyed to them even by such Bishops as these were And Pag. 484 485 486. he sheweth at large That All the Authority which can be pretended in any Communion at the present must be derived from the Episcopal especially of that Age wherein the several Parties began Within less than Two Hundred Years since there was no Church in the World wherein a Visible Succession was maintained from the Apostles which was not Episcopally Governed And the first Inventers of the several
Sects were at first Members of these Episcopal Churches and received both their Baptism in them and all the Orders they received There was then no other Communion that could give this Authority Our Adversaries will not deny but that their Orders were received by them were actually received by their Forefathers in the Episcopal Communion They have actually received no more Power from God than they have received from their Ordainers For their Ordainers are they and they alone who have represented Gods Person in dealing with them 2. They have actually received from their Superiors nothing but what their Superiors did actually intend to give them One would think this should be very clear To the Objection that They ought to have given more Power he answers That only proveth that we have no more if they wronged us Where now is all the Reformers Power Did the Pope or his Bishops intend them any against himself IV. But yet he perceived that some might say Particular Ordainers might have singular Intentions And I cannot tell him that as Richardus Armachanus and abundance more thought Bishops and Presbyters to be ejusdem Ordinis so did Jacobus Armachanus of late and Bishop Downame and many other Bishops and declared that Presbyters had Power of Ordination but for Order sake it should not be without the Bishop save in cases of necessity To this he saith That the Ordainers must be presumed to do according to the common sense of the Church and Canons But what if they declare the contrary As Bishop Edw. Reinolds openly declared that he Ordained Presbyters into the same Order with Bishops who were but the prime Presbyters and that he was of Dr. Stillingfleet's Judgment that no Form of Government was Jure Divino necessario Saith he Pag. 487. The Law is alway charitable to presume that every Man intends as becomes him to intend Very good But it 's prudent to presume his actual Intention not from what others do think will become him no nor from what will really become him in the Judgment of God Therefore they must not judge of the Intention of the Bishop by the real Will of God Supposing us to be Proud of the Suffrages of the Schoolmen pag. 492.493 He suspecteth It was rather Picque than Conscience that brought them to it Alas Were not the Schoolmen Prelatical enough Many of them were Bishops and one was a Pope at least And the Council at Basil that allowed Presbyters deciding Votes and St. Jerome and the Reformers all fall under his Censure for the like viz. That Necessity put them on it as a Shift or else the Pope by the Vote of Bishops would have carried it and he justifieth not the Necessities choice but concludeth Pag. 496 497. If it be suspicious whether the Men who then followed these Principles did embrace them out of a sincere sense of their Truth then they cannot be presumed to have been Principles of Conscience Which if they were not this is sufficient to shew that they are not fit Measures of the Power that was actually given by the Bishops of that Age. I confess I had thought that the Papist Bishops Intention had not been the Measure of the Power of Bishops or Presbyters And that Mr. Dodwell had not been so much against the Council of Basil as unjust Conspirators by ill means to overtop the Pope He saith truly Pag. 505. Most certainly they who were of this Opinion the Papists could not intend to follow the Doctrine of the Wicklefists and Waldenses who had been lately censured for maintaining the Equality of Bishops and Presbyters No nor the Doctrine of Luther Cranmer or such as the Church of England hath held V. Yet being forced to confute himself he saith p. 52. It is sufficient for my purpose that Ecclesiastical â—ower be no otherwise from God than that is of every Supreme Civil Mugistrate It is not usual for Kings to be invested in their Offices by other Kings but by their Subjects Yet when they are invested that doth not in the least prejudice the Absoluteness of their Monarchy where the fundamental Constitutions of the respective places allow to them And hath not God's fundamental Law as much Power much less doth it give any Power over them to the persons by whom they are invested If the Power of Episcopacy be Divine and all that men can do in the case be only to determine the Person not to confine his Power c. what kept the man from seeing how great a part of his Book he here confuteth Doth he not confess now that God's Law may give the Power which men may not alter but only determine of the Person to receive it In the case of the Presbyters Office he will have it otherwise because the Bishops are forsooth not only the Investers but the Donors who give just what they please and he proveth it fully by saying it confidently and copiously Because God giveth it not immediately Yes he immediately by his Spirit in the Apostles instituted the species though he do not immediately chuse the Receiver But who giveth the Bishops their Power The Council is above them Do they give them their Power Who giveth them theirs And who giveth the Pope his Power If his may be given by Divine Charter without a Humane Donor but a meer Invester why may not a Presbyters VI. But it is the Vicedeity that is his great foundation Pag. 543. saith he Nor is there any reason for them to oppose God and the Church as they do on this and other occasions If the Churches Authority be received from God then what is done by Her is to be presumed to come from him the same way as what is done by any man's Proxy is presumed to be his own act And as what is done by an Inferior Magistrate by virtue of his Office is presumed to come from the Supreme This is in Answer to an Objection That the Powers united by God are inseparable by any Humane Authority But the Power of Ordination is by God united to the other Rights of Scripture Presbyters c. He answers If our Adversaries mean that those Presbyters who had both those Powers united in them by God could not be deprived of the one without the other nor of any by any Humane Authority this if it should prove true is a case wherein our present Ordinations are not concerned which were not received in those times wherein our Adversaries pretend to prove that these two Powers were inseparably united They may be separated de facto tho' they who separate them be to blame for so doing If they were then united by God because they were united by the men who represented God why are they not disunited by God now when men alike impowered by him have disunited them Why should they not oblige God in one case as well as the other Readers you see here the Core of the Churches disease and chief of our
them And he thinks it probable that it was in imitation of the Philosophers Successions that these Ecclesiastical Successions were framed And when the Philosophers failed to nominate their own Successors then the Election was in the Schools Ans. What could be said more gently by such a man 1. Then the first Churches were like Philosophers Schools very good not many score or hundred Schools as the first and least Order 2. The Government of Churches was much like that of Philosophers in their Schools 3. Bishops and much more Presbyters might be made then without Bishops by the Election and Consecration of Presbyters 4. This was the old way in time of Persecution 5. This alteration was not for want of Power in the Particular Churches c. 6. But it was made to secure Observance in the Colleagues 7. And Church Successions framed in imitation of Philosophers We shall in due time enquire whether we are all bound to stand to these changes on pain of all the scorn and sufferings that the followers of them will lay upon us Will you know more of this Self-confutation In his Preface he saith P. 4. I suppose all Churches Originally equal and that they have since submitted to prudential Compacts But are not all we poor nothings then obliged on pain of damnation to stand to all that our Fore-fathers did And must we not take the Imperial Subjects of Asia Africa and Europe we know not who for our Fore-fathers in Brittain and be of that Heathens mind that drew back from Baptism when he heard his Fore-fathers were in Hell and said that he would be where they were No this moderate man tells you Though they may oblige them as long as the reason of these Compacts lasts and as far as the equity of those Compacts may hold as to the true design of those that made them and as far as those Compacts have meddled with the alienable Rights of Particular Churches yet where any of these Conditions fail there the Particular Churches are at liberty to resume their Antient Rights Obj. Yea but who shall judge when any of of these Conditions fail He answers next And I suppose the power of judging when these Conditions fail to be an unalienable Right of Particular Churches and not only to judge with the Judgment of private discretion but such a Judgment as may be an authentick measure of her own practice We thank you Sir that you give us so fair quarter But if you had not had we known where we should have commenced a Suit for our Native and Christian Birth-right and put you to prove quo jure John Thomas Peter c. meeting a thousand years ago we know not why nor when nor by what Authority did give away the Birth-right and the Souls of an hundred millions not then in being that never consented or heard of their names nor were bound to know that there was such a City as Rome Nice c. or such men as Leo Tharasius c. in the World And if you had answered us according to the Roman genius with Gaols or Fire and Faggot we would have appealed to God whether you and all such will or not and when God judgeth do your worâ—t But would you think what a stress this Humane Catholick layeth on innovating Prelates Compacts He adds after all this P. 6. Whoever they were that nominated the persons whether the People the Clergy or the Prince or the Pope yet still they were the Bishops that performed the Office of Consecration which was that which was then thought immediately to confer the Power Ans. You were not then in being and therefore did not then think it And you know mens thoughts so long before you were born no better than others Oportet fuisse memorem Had you not memory enough to make your Preface meet with your Book where you say that Presbyters did Consecrate Bishops and yet did not give them the Power and say that as to the Supreme President we know his name it must still be otherwise Yet this fundamental Humanist concludeth p. 11. They must be guilty of disobedience to the Divine Government Guilty of giving or abetting a Divine Authority in Men to whom God has never given such Authority nay in opposition to all the Authority he has really established among men They must be guilty of forging Covenants in Gods Name and counterfeiting the great Seals of Heaven in ratification of them And what can be more Treasonable by all the Principles of Government What is more provoking and more difficultly pardonable They must be guilty of sinning against the Holy Ghost and unto Death and of the sins described in the passages of the Epistle to the Hebrews with which none do terrifie the Consciences of ignorant unskilful persons more than they do They must be guilty of such sins which as they need pardon more than others so do they in the nature of the things themselves more effectually cut off the offender from all hopes of pardon in an ordinary way By being disunited from the Church he loses his Union with Christ and all the Mystical benefits consequent to that Vnion He has therefore no Title to the Sufferings or Merits or Intercession of Christ or any of those other blessings which were purchased by those Merits or which may be expected from those Intercessions He has no Title to pardon of sin to the gifts and assistants of the blessed Spirit or to any Promises of future Rewards though he should perform ALL OTHER PARTS OF HIS DVTY besides this of uniting himself again to Christ's Mystical Body in a VISIBLE COMMVNION Till then there are no promises of acceptance of any Prayers which either he may offer for himself or others may offer for him And how disconsolate must the condition of such a person be And pag. 20. Suppose I were mistaken why should they take it ill to be warned of a danger Ans. 10. What harm was it for those Act. 15. to say Except ye be circumcised and keep the Law of Moses ye cannot be saved And yet did Paul rail when he said Beware of evil-workers beware of Dogs beware of the Concision What Sect cannot easily without a Doctors degree thus dispute You are all damned that be not of our mind or Sect. But the Devil hurts those most whom he least affrighteth Ans. 2. What if we put this to wise men to tell us 1. How he can prove that all the Christian World agreed to the Compacts that bring us under these hellish consequences I provoke him again to answer my proof against Terret that they were the Compacts but of one Empire 2. How proveth he that we Brittains are under such Compacts when our Ancestors and the Scots renounced Communion with the Romanists 3. If our Ancestors after turned to Popery or Church-Tyranny how proveth he that we are any more bound to sin as they did than if they had turned to Arianism or Turcism when Ezek. 18. 33.
is Christ the Bishop or Pastor confers them only as his Instruments So others As all Power is of God and must be obeyed so Usurpation is of Satan and the higher the worse and the word Antichrist is supposed by many to signifie one that is a Vsurping Christ that is a Usurper of Vniversal Soveraignty which none but Christ is capable of Mr. Jos. Glanviles Character of Devils or Evil Spirits in his Sadducâ—ismus Triumphatus is considerable p. 33. and 42. Edit 2. The meanest and basest in the Kingdom of darkness having none to Rule and Tyrannize over within the Circle of their own Nature and Government they affect a proud Empire over us the desire of Dominion and Authority being largely spread through the whole circumference of degenerated Nature especially among those whose Pride was their Original Transgression Every one of these desireth to get him Vassals to pay him Homage The good Angels have no such ends to prosecute as the gaining any Vassals to serve them they being Ministring Spirits for our good and no self-designers for a proud and insolent Dominion over us But I think no Devil but Beelzebub the Prince aspireth so high as to be Ruler of all the World or Church And when Cardinal Bertrand told Philip King of France that God had not been Wise if he had not set up one as his Vicegerent visibly to Rule all the World I do not find that he set up that Vice-god so far above God himself as to forbid obeying him before his Viceroy or to deny Gods Universal Laws to be above Mans and to deny all Appeals to God and his Word or to say that the President of Counsels must be obeyed without excepting If Gods Laws and his be inconsistent Since the Writing of all foregoing Mr. Dodwell hath Published the Second Part of his Leviathan called A Discourse of one Altar and one Priesthood as against us whom he calleth Schismaticks and me in particular It is much of the Complexion of the First Part His Schismatical Book being a Chain of many linked Propositions of which many are false and many falsly shaped and applied But put off with a confident Affirmation that he hath proved them true And his former Method is defended by as confident an Affirmation that all that is said against them invalidates not his proof The shortest way I confess of defending himself and answering others and saveth the labour of much Writing and Reading And I think if the tedious Discourses of his two Volumes had been just so abbreviated it had been a Kindness to his Readers § 2. Whether he reserve his Answer to my last Book against him to another Treatise or mean to overpass it by saying it is contemptible I know not nor much desire to know I find him here in his Preface doing that which may serve his turn much better than an answer viz. 1. Many angry Charges that I slander him 2. An attempt to prove it agreeable to his Method 3. Confident Affirmation that I write not accurately nor answer his Proofs And to those that read his Books and not mine this is enough § 3. His Proof of my Slander is mostly by way of question Where did I say this or that Where 1. Those things that I spake of others he feigneth me to say of him Joyning divers late Writers together I mention what is said among them some one part and some another and he takes all to himself 2. When I mention the clear Consequences of his Doctrine 3. And when in my Letters I recite his Verbal Discourse with me he asks Where have I said it Did I not find him a designed Hider I would not suspect designed Fraud but should be very glad that he so much as intimateth in his Questions a denial of so many Errors But who can choose but suspect his Sincerity in such seeming Denials who findeth some of them unsincere E. g. He asketh Pref. Where did I once call Thomas Aquinas a Saint This startleth me Many times have my Ears heard him call him Saint Thomas and never once heard him call him otherwise And doth he now seem to deny it I never said that he so wrote but so called him Had I not reason to believe that when he oft calls the Church of Christ in the singular Number One Political Body under One humane Government which all must obey and not question whether it's Laws be agreeable to the Law of God that he meant the Church Catholick and not a Diocess There are Thousands of Diocesses but the Church that he spake of is but One. Had I any reason to believe that when he talkt of the sole right of the President to call Councils or Assemblies to make Church Canons that he meant only Diocesans When as a Diocesane hath no Bishops under him to Convocate And whether it be not Convocate Bishops to whom he appropriateth this Legislation let the Reader judge as he seeth cause § 4. But I abhor making any Man thought to own what he disowneth And I gladly receive his intimated Denyals in these Questions and tender them to the Consideration of all that are for a foreign Jurisdiction 1. Mr. Dodwell denieth by intimation all humane Vniversal Church Supremacy and consequently all humane Power of Legislation or Judgment over the whole Church He denieth the Government of the Catholick Church Collectively ought to be either Monarchical or Aristocratical in Pope or Council 2. He denieth the Pope to have any Primacy or Presidentship in General Councils or that it belongs to him to call them It was but a Diocesans Power to Convocate his Presbyters that he meant 3. He taketh the French Church for Papists while they own the Popish Communion though many are not so in their Principles But it is Mens Principles that I spake of and not their Communion 4. He denieth Communion with any part of the Roman Church Doth Dr. Saywell do so 5. He taketh the Councils of Constance and Basil for Papists and hath no Communion with those that own them as being Papists 6. He proveth the French Church guilty of the Hildebrandine Doctrine of deposing Princes and Aquinas too 7. He disowneth the terms of Cassander and Grotius as not sufficient to a lasting Peace 8. He odly dreamed that when I deny a Governing College of Bishops I thought the Lord Bishop of Ely had meant such as our University Colleges cohabiting this is no Slander in him yet he declareth that by such a College he means but Bishops ejusdem Speciei governing the Church by parts and not any One Numerical Soveraign Company But that they should hold all due Communion which he may see I still grant And he falsly fancies that I am against Cyprian's naming of Colleagues or his sence § 5. But if Mr. Dodwell be sincere he makes himself one of the greatest Separatists in the World Consider how narrow his Communion is and the Church which he owneth 1. He hath no Communion with the rigid
fully proved to them that it signified no Councils above the Imperial or National But distinguished those that were Universal in that one Empire from the Provincial 2. The Reformed Church of England taketh the Parish Communicants to be true Churches and the Pastors to have as much of the Oversight as is necessary to the Constitution of a true Political Church Though their Canons sinfully fetter them in the Exercise But the Foreigners hold the Diocesses to be the least or lowest Churches and the Parishes to be no true Churches for want of Bishops in them but only Parts of a Church that hath a Bishop over them all 3. The Old Church of England owned the Foreign Protestant Churches as true Churches and their Ministers as true Pastors and own Communion with them But the Innovators say that they have no true Bishops because they have not Diocesans and are no true Pastors if they have not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesane Ordination from the Apostles whereas for some Hundred Years after the Apostles there was no such Bishops known in the World as were not either Congregational Parochial Bishops or Apostolick Overseers of such and no Diocesans over many Hundred or Score Parish Churches that had no Bishops under them § 12. When you consider what Power the New Foreigners had at Court and with the Parliament that made the Act of Uniformity and required Re-ordination and that made all the other persecuting Acts and with the Justices that executed them And when we see how they promoted the Roman Interest and when we see how potently and obstinately they frustrated all attempts of the Protestant Union here and read how they reviled the old Reforming Bishops from Parker to Abbots and the Parliaments as going too far from Rome And when we consider that we have not one Bishop but who was chosen by K. Charles II. and K. James and what Men they may be supposed to choose we Contradict not these Men when they call themselves the Church of England But when we consider that the old Homilies Apology Articles Liturgy Canons c. were never yet repealed and that they are all Sworn to Endeavour no Alteration of Government of Church or State we have cause to think that the old Party have more right to be called The Church the altering Endeavours having not changed its Essentials By this much the Reader may Expound whom I speak of in my Treatise of Episcopacy § 13. The Church is nothing but the Men that constitute the Church If 1. It be denominated by their Numbers no man can tell which Party hath the greater Number till they are further put upon the tryal 2. If they are denominated by Laws the better part are rather to be called the Church because the Old Laws against Popery are not yet Repealed Though yet some late Laws are to the Old as poyson to a living Man So if they be Denominated by Power the Innovators have been the Church at least these 31 Years For that Party Ruled and had the Countenance of the Kings who chose them And indeed in the Days of the differing Emperors Constantine Constantinus Valens Theodosius Arcadius Marcian Leo Zeno and the rest that usually went for the Church or Orthodox party which the Emperor owned The uppermost will have the Name § 14. Though the French and English aforesaid designed a Coalition the long possession of their different ways unavoidably hindered them from an immediate Union But they were forced to approach by leisurely Degrees England would not suddenly turn the Liturgy to a Mass-Book nor France suddenly turn the Mass-Book Corrected into French But what fair Approaches were made and what further intended Grotius his Counsel Magnified by both Churches and the present practices of the French declare The Council of Grotius was to bring down the Pope to Moderation that he might Rule but by the Canons and not be above Councils nor deprive Kings nor Bishops of their Rights and that the Lives of the Clergy be Reformed and School Niceties left indifferent and the Lutheranes as Reconcileable Courted to a Concord and the unreconcileable Calvinists brought down by force But the Lutheranes are not so Reconcileable as they imagined Princes that are once free are loth to become Subjects to a Foreign Priesthood § 15. And how much the French meant to bring down the Pope their late Transactions shew a little but their Doctrines much more Mr. Jurieu himself in his Posteral Letters Engl. p. 216.217 thus Describeth them 1. That the Church of Rome is no more than a Particular Church as other Churches are 2. That St. Peter had nothing but a Primacy of Order and Presidence above the Apostles 3. That St. Peter could give to his Successor over other Bishops no more but that Primacy which he had over the Apostles 4. That the Bishop of Rome Originally and by Divine Right had no Power over the Universal Church 5. That he did not receive Appeals in the first Age of the Church 6. That he had no Right to Assemble General Councils 7. That he could take Cognizance of the Affairs of no other Provinces but his own no not by Appeals 8. That he had no Right to take Knowledge of Matters of Faith to make Decisions therein which should oblige the whole Church 9. That before the Council of Nice and after he had no inspection over other Churches but those which were in the Neighbourhood of Rome 10. That he could not Excommunicate other Bishops otherwise than the other Bishops could Excommunicate him 11. That a Man might separate himself from the Bishop of Rome without being a Schismatick and out of the Church 12. That the Pope had no Right over other Bishops 13. That the Council of Sardica is the Fountain of that Right of receiving Appeals which the Pope claimeth 14. That the Rights which the Pope hath at this Day excepting his Primacy are by Human Laws and because he hath assumed them to himself and because they have bin conceded to him 15. To which they add he is not Infallible nor Superior to Councils nor Master to the Temporalities of Kings This is the French Religion and who would think that this is Popery No wonder if the Pope be more hearty for other Friends than for France § 15. Lay all this together and it 's Notorious that though Whetgift and some other Calvinists were too much guilty of the Persecutions to keep up the Dominion and Preferments which they were jealous of yet it was the French Reconcilers that have set and to this Day kept on foot our present increased Divisions and Dangers Since Le Strange new-named them the old Church Protestants are called Trimmers and are Men that love not Division or Persecution and would fain see a Coalition of Protestants though they have not zeal enough save too few to put it on openly lest they provoke the opposites But the Laudians called Tories are still as much against the Removal of the Dividing
of a more speedy way of Success So that he resolved to put it to a speedy upshot and would have all or none which brought the Changes which we have since seen § 8. But is the Church of England yet delivered from all the Inclination to a Foreign Jurisdiction and the French Government The Oath of Supremacy made it seem hard to perjure the whole Land that had renounced all foreign Jurisdiction But many devised an Expository Evasion that only a Civil Jurisdiction was meant though the Ecclesiastick also was named Should there be but a new attempt by such as the former Rulers probably made is it not like that Men of the French or Grotian Principles will promote it yea and be glad of French assistance I doubt they that would Perjure the Kingdom by a foreign Jurisdiction will debate this odd Question Qu. Whether all that Profess or Swear that it is Vnlawful on any Pretence whatever to resist the King or any Commissioned by him in the Execution of that Commission may resist a French Army if they Invade the Land by K. J 's Commission Or will they turn Nonconformists Chap. XXIII Postscript to the Reverend Dr. Beveridge SIR § 1. THough you were Bishop Guning's Witness with Dr. Saywell his Chaplain when he conferred with me I was not willing to believe that you were of his mind for a Foreign Jurisdiction either Aristocratical or Democratical or Monarchical but to my grief am now convinced of it by your published Convocation Sermon Having too copiously here and elsewhere confuted it specially in my two Books against William Johnson alias Terret the Papist I shall go on the supposition that you will there take notice of it Especially of these two Reasons against it 1. That the Kingdom and Church is sworn against it 2. That a pretended Universal Humane Soveraignty or Legislative and Judicial Power over the whole Church on Earth is the Grand Usurpation of Christs Prerogative which no Mortal Men are capable of And if this be not Popery there is no such thing as Popery And if the Pope be justly called Antichrist or at least a Trayterous Usurper against the Right of Christ and Kings it is by this And if such a Power be really given to any the Pope cannot be excluded at least from the Universal Primacy § 2. I doubt not but the Love of Unity and the sense of the woful case of the Church by Sects and sad Dissentions engaged Bishop Guning and you in the Opinions you took up And no doubt but the Consciencious part of the Learned and Religious Papists are fixed by the same Motives in their way I may say fixed and very confident or else they durst not carry it on as they have done in France and all other Popish Countreys And I can say that I have not fixed on the denial of a Humane Universal Jurisdiction without thinking seriously Forty years of what I could find said for it as well as against it nor out of an inclination to any contrary extreme Could I have found but any Humane capacity in One or Many for such a Soveraignty Legislative and Judicial and but a possibility of such a thing and any probability that it was of Christs Institution the Love of Unity and Hatred of Unruliness and Divisions and their Effects had long ago made me a hot defender of it But the contrary Truth had contrary Effects § 3. That you may not think that I differ from you more than I do I here premise I. That I doubt not but that the Universal Church visible is One Body or Society of professed Christians As the Universal Church as Regenerate and Spiritual is One Body of sincere Christians II. That the Unity and Concord of it as Professors and as sincere must be maintained to the utmost of our power by all due lawful means III. That a wise Correspondency between all those Churches which by nearness are capable of Acquaintance and Communication is a due means to preserve their Love and Concord IV. That seasonable and duly chosen Synods of many conjunct that live within the reach of such Acquaintance and Communication may in case of true need be a fit means of such Concord V. That where such Synods cannot be had with due equality Letters and Messengers from the several Nations or Provinces or Churches may be used to that end VI. That the General Law of Christ commanding Love Concord and Edification maketh it a sin for any to affect causless singularity and to chuse any way which tendeth to Division And that where there is an Equality and no Regent power yet just Contracts for Concord ought to be observed VII That if in National Churches that is Christian Kingdoms or Commonwealths the Soveraign Power give one Seat or Bishop a Primacy or peculiar Priviledge in the Circa Sacra the Circumstantials of Sacred Offices which are within the Magistrates Power it ought to be obeyed VIII If I had lived in the Christian Empire when it sometime gave the Bishop of Rome and sometime the Bishop of Constantinople this preheminence of degree and the other Patriarchs of Alexandria Antioch and Jerusalem their several Priviledges and Powers not contrary to the Word of God I would have obeyed that which the Emperor by his Law preferred IX The Roman Empire was so great a part of the known Civilized World and so Potent that I quarrel not with the Titles of Orbis Romanus and Ecclesia Vniversalis given to that Dominion and Church which was meerly National or Imperial so be it we understand the true meaning X. Had the Empire continued one Polity and had made the Bishop of Rome the Primate as to his Seat in Councils and the said Bishop had been a capable Person and had not Challenged the Government or Primacy in order of Regiment over the whole Christian World but in the Empire only as the Archbishop of Canterbury doth in England I would have been none of his opposers All this I grant you § 4. But premising for the Explication of Terms that we take the words Regiment Laws Authority c. in the proper political sense and not equivocally for meer advice or consent I add as followeth 1. That as the Universal Church on Earth hath but one Soveraign Jesus Christ so it is one Body Politick in relation to no one Vnifying Head but Christ and hath no one Substitute Vicarious Christ or Substitute Soveraign Government Monarchical Aristocratical Democratical or Mixt. II. The Soveraignty of one Christian King Emperor or Senate in Aristocracy over an United or Confederate Christian Clergy and Laity as Subjects each keeping to their own Place and Work is the Unifying Headship of a National Church which is nothing but such a Christian Kingdom or Republick And that Christ hath owned such National Church Power and hath instituted and owned no Power of Humane Government over it on Earth And therefore as pretending to Universal Jurisdiction is Treason against Christ so the claim
to be the authoriser of the Majority for Government For they will think that they have more of the Holy Ghost than you and therefore must Govern you I would all Rulers had the Holy Ghost but it 's somewhat else that must give them Authority XV. Your instance of the Easter Controversie is against you The difference undecided for 300 Years and Apostolical Tradition urged on both sides tells us that it was no Apostolick Law And Socrates and Sozomen tell us that in that and many such like things 〈◊〉 Churches had freely differed in Peace 〈◊〉 you seem to intimate contrary to them and to Irenâ—â—us that the Asians were Schismaticks till they Conformed And why name you Asia alone Were our Brittish Churches and the Scottish no Churches Or do you also Condemn them as Schismaticks for about 300 Years after the Nicene Council What could the Papists say more against them XVI How impossible a thing do you make Church Union to be while the Essentials or great Integrals of Religion are made insufficient to it and so many Ceremonies and Church Laws are feigned necessary which no man ever comes to the true knowledge of that he hath the right ones and all XVII If the Patriarchs must be the Soveraign College I beseech you give us some proof in a Case so weighty 1. How many there must be 2. Where seated 3. Who must choose and make them 4. And quo jure 5. And whether we have now such a College or is there no Church XVIII What Place will you give the Pope in the College I suppose with your Brethren you will call him 1. Principium Vnitatis But that 's a Name of Comparative Order what is his work as such a Principium How is he the Principium if he have no more Power than the rest Must not he call the Councils Though our Articles say General Councils may not be gathered without the Will of Princes Shall he not choose the Place and Time Tell us then who shall Must he not be President Must he not be Patriarch of the West And so Govern England as our Patriarch and Principium unitatis Vniversalis also XIX I pray tell us whether the French be Papists And how their Church-Government as Described from themselves by Mr. Jurieu differeth from that which you are for Tell me not of their Mass and other Corruptions It is Government that is the Form of Popery And they will abate you many other things And must we be Frenchified If the French restore those that we called Papists will disowning the Name and calling them the Church of England chosen by Papist Princes make us sound and safe And when we find Arch-Bishop Laud Arch-Bishop Bromhall Bishop Guning Bishop Sparrow Dr. Saywell Dr. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Bishop S. Parker and many more were for a Foreign Jurisdiction can we think if the French bring in the late Governours that such Churchmen would not embrace the French Church Government and call it the Church of England when since Lauds days they have endeavoured a Coalition If they be Defeated we may thank King James who could not bear delays and would have all or none when Grotius way would have been a surer Game XX. You tell us of Penalties made by Church Laws Deposing Ministers and Anathematizing the Laity But while the Clergy hath no power of the Sword who will feel such Penalties When Rome Excommunicates the Greeks the Greeks will Excommunicate them again What Penalty is it to Protestants to be Excommunicated by the Pope or his Council How commonly did they that were for and against the Chalcedon Council Excommunicate each other And those that were for and against Images And for Photius and for Ignatius Cheat not Magistrates to be your Lictors and Cursing will go round as Scolding at Billingsgate Who is hurt by a causeless curse but the Curser I confess that Dr. Saywell sayeth well If single persons must be punished shall not Nations also Yes But by whom By God the Universal King and not by an Universal Human Soveraign whether a King or Pope or a Senate of Foreign Subjects XXI We are promised by a trifling Pamphleteer that some of you are answering Mr. Clerksons two Books about the Primitive Episcopacy and Liturgies I pray you procure them also to answer my Treatise of Episcopacy and my English Non-conformity and not with the Impudent Railing Lyars to say it is answered already while we can hear of no such thing And see that they prove that all these things following are Traditions of the Vniversal Church received from the Apostles and used ab omnibus ubique semper 1. That most particular Churches for two Hundred or three Hundred years and so down consisted of many Congregations that had no personal presential Communion 2. That Churches infimi ordinis were Diocesan having many Hundred or Score Parishes under them 3. That these Diocesans undertook the sole Pastoral Care of all these Parishes as to Confirmation Censure Absolution and the rest 4. That all these Parishes were no true Churches as having no Bishops but the Diocesans and were but Chappels or parts of a Church 5. That the Incumbents were no true Pastors or Bishops but one Bishops Curates And that there were not then besides Diocesan Arch-Bishops in each single Church Episcopi Gregis and Episcopi praesides 6. That Bishops Names were used by Lay-men that had the Decretive Power of Excommunication and Absolution 7. That such Secular Judicatories far from the Parishes rather than the particular Pastors Tryed and Judged the unknown people 8. That Parish Ministers Swear Obedience to the Diocesans and they to Metropolitans 9. That all People that would have Licenses to keep Ale-houses or Taverns or that would not lye in Jail were Commanded to receive the Sacrament as a Sealed Pardon of their Sins 10. That from the beginning all Churches were forced to use the same form of Liturgy and not every Church or Bishop to choose as he saw Cause 11. That Kings chose Bishops and Deans without the Consent of the Clergy and People 12. That all Ministers were to be Ejected and forbidden to Preach the Gospel that durst not Subscribe that there is nothing contrary to Gods Word in such as our three imposed Books 13. That all Lords Magistrates Priests and People that affirm the contrary be ipso facto Excommunicate 14. That Lay-Patrons that are but Rich enough to buy an Advowson how Vicious soever did choose all the Incumbent Ministers to whom the People must commit the Ministerial Care of their Souls 15. That they that dare not trust such Pastors as are chosen by Kings though Papists and such Patrons and dare not Conform to every imposition like ours must live like Atheists in forbearance of all publick Worship and Church Communion 16. That all may Swear that an Oath or Vow of Lawful and Necessary things bindeth not our selves or any others if it be but unlawfully imposed and taken and had any unlawful part
and Jesus Christ which I add because some think they may lawfully be subject to those Bishops that are subjected only to Universal Councils or Church Parliaments so they do but disclaim the Roman Papacy X. Though some may think that subjection to a pretended Universal Council may stand with Loyalty to Christ because such a Council is a Chimera or Non Ens and never will be in the World and so can do no harm as one may be true to the King who yet Sweareth Obedience to an Assembly of Mortal Angels yet the case is otherwise For 1. These Men that profess Subjection to Councils cannot be supposed to take such Councils for Chimera's or things impossible without being taken for mad Men. Therefore it is not a true General Council but something possible that they mean And they use to say themselves or as General as can be well had So that such a one as that at Trent or as they will call General as they do the old Imperial Councils will serve their turn 2. And let them disclaim Popery never so loudly they mean still that the Pope must be the ordinary Caller and President of these Councils and the Chief Patriarch and Principium Vnitatis Vniversalis And so all will come but to a limited Pope instead of an Absolute One And is he not a Monarch though he must Rule by Law For they intend not that there be no Catholick Church all the time that there are no Councils and therefore they intend some Unifying Constitutive Executive Supreme XI Obj. But if we may not own a Bishop that subjecteth himself to the Pope or other Foreign Vsurper of Vniversal Government then if the King be a Papist it will follow that we must not be subject to him Which all Protestants confess to be false Ergo so is the Antecedent as of Bishops Ans. I deny the Consequence speaking only of such a Kings Religion Nero was a Heathen and it was lawful for Christians to be subject to him for Conscience sake But it was not lawful to subject themselves to Heathen Bishops a contradiction A Heathen may be Gods Minister to preserve the common Peace and Execute the Laws of God in Nature and the Just Subordinate Laws But the Office of a Bishop consisteth in another matter viz. In teaching the true Doctrine and Laws of Christ and guiding the Church by them and keeping out all that is against them And therefore no other man can be a Bishop that doth not this as to the Essentials If the King command us to be Papists we must disobey him But if he command us to do things good and lawful we must obey True Christianity is Essential to a Bishops Office but not to a Kings as King But if any put the Question Whether a Ruler of a Protestant Kingdom who taketh himself bound by the Laterane or other Council on pain of Damnation to destroy all his Kingdom that will not forsake their Religion be Publicus Hostis And whether by the Law of Nature every Nation have a right of self-defence against open Enemies I meddle with no such Cases as these XII To conclude I advise all Christians to live peaceably in their places but to take care whom they trust with the Pastoral Conduct of their Souls and not to be seduced to enter into a Confederacy against Christs Prerogative by any pretences of Humane Authority or Catholick Vnity which really are against Divine Authority and the true Unity of the Church in Christ For a thousand years experience even by our Bishops confession who own but the Six first Councils have told us by the sad confusions of the Christian World that such Pretenders to Unity in a Humane Universal Soveraignty have but caused divisions and offences contrary to the Apostolical Doctrine not serving Christ but their own bellies and by good words and fair speeches deceived the hearts of the simple Our Unity consisteth in One Head Jesus Christ One God one Body or Church of Christ one Faith one Baptism one Hope one Gospel and Universal Law of Christ and that we live in Love and Peace and Order in Learning and in Worshipping God in several Congregations under their respective Guides as consenting Volunteers and that the conjunction of such under Christian Kings makes Christian Kingdoms where by the Counsels of Pastors in their own Dominions they may keep that Church-Peace and external Order which is left to the trust of their determination and that in cases of need the Counsel and Help of Foreign Churches be desired and that Communion in Christianity be professed with all the true Christian World and that we wait for perfect Unity in Heaven But that Princes and Kingdoms be not brought under a Foreign Jurisdiction specially if pretended Universal instead of Foreign Counsel Communion Peace and Aid Chap. VII Of the second Part of the Design to bring the Papists into our Communion as they were in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign § 1. Dr. Heylin saith That this was much of A. Bishop Laud's design and that it was in order to this that he made the Changes which he made And Dr. Burnet saith That even Queen Elizabeth thought that if she could some how bring all her Subjects into one Communion tho' of different Opinions in one Age they would come to be of one mind And therefore she was desirous to have kept up Images and other such things in the Churches till the reasons and importunity of some Divines prevailed with her § 2. If this be done it must be either by the Papists turning Protestants or the Protestants turning Papists or by meeting in some third State of Religion between both or by continuing in the same Church-Communion without change of their Religion § 3. I. If the Papists come into our Churches by Conversion it is not then Papists but Protestants that come in There is no true Protestant that is not earnestly desirous of this But bare coming in to our Churches and Communion is not a renunciation of Popery § 4. II. That the Protestants should turn Papists for Union is not openly pleaded for by them that we have to do with The name of Papists they earnestly disown § 5. III. If it must be by meeting in some middle way it must be by a change in the Papists or by a change in the Protestants or both 1. If the Papists change any thing of theirs it must be either the Essentials of Popery or also the grosser errours and sins which are its most corrupt Integral part or only some mutable Accidents or lesser faults and errours 1. If the Papists hold still that there ought to be one Universal Soveraign Power of Legislation and Judgment under Christ on Earth and that either the Pope himself with a General Council or a Council where the Pope is President and Principium Vnitatis is this Soveraign this is the Essence of Popery continued 2. If the Papists should quâ—t this Universal Soveraignty and yet
confirm their Doctrine have none of the extraordinary Apostolical work to do The Commands which Christ gave his Apostles to teach the World are already told us and recorded by the Apostles They left not part of that work undone for others after them to do If they had how could the Bishops have known but from the Apostles themselves what Christ Commanded And what means have they to know it but what all other men have The Scripture now added to the Law of Nature containeth all that can pretend to be an Universal Law For no Law but of a Universal Lawgiver can be Universal And if all Bishops pretend to Apostolick Inspiration they must prove it by Miracles or pass for Fanaticks And methinks those among us who deride even the pretence of Praying by the Spirit when it meaneth no Enthusiasm but the illuminating quickning and sanctifying influx of the Spirit should hardly believe that all or most of the ignorant and erroneous Bishops of the World have Apostolick Inspiration If they have are not their Decrees and Writings God 's Word and equal to the Scriptures God's Law is not so imperfect a thing nor Christ so imperfect a Law-giver as that more and more must be added to it and no man can tell by whom nor when it will be perfect Nothing unnecessary is fit for an Universal Law And all that is Universally necessary Christ hath done already An Universal Law-giver is a Christ If a false pretender he is a false Christ. But all Pastors are Successors to the Apostles as ordinary Ministers in that ordinary part of their work viz. To Preach Christ and make and baptize Disciples and teach them to observe all that Christ commanded the Apostles as Official Guides of their several Flocks And to do this in order decently and to edification And being the Church-Guides it is their Office to judge of their own acts that is when where in what words to Preach and Pray and whom to Baptize and to whom to deliver the Sacraments of Communion c. § 6. III. But the next doubt is of the extent of the Apostles Office and next of the Bishops and ordinary Pastors And 1. It is evident that what the Apostles did in delivering Christ's Commands in writing in the Scriptures though at first and most immediately it was for the use of particular Persons and Churches yet was intended for all the Christian World as being the Word of the Universal Bishop and King 2. But their Personal Vocal Preaching was confined by natural necessity Their Mandate or Commission was but indefinite or limitedly universal Christ never bound them to go to every Nation or Person in the World else how greatly had they sinned They went not into the fourth part of the Earth And in those parts not to one person of many hundred or thousands Yet their Commission had no positive prohibition restraining them from any one place or person But Natural Incapacity restrained them They were to go as far as they could and speak to as many in the World as they could And this Mandate was given to each one nor do we read that ever they went abroad all twelve together nor ever met when dispersed to consult nor ever judged any cause or persons as a College after It was easie for them to meet when they dwelt together and easie to govern all Christians when they were all before them or at hand And easie to record Christ's Laws and Doctrine by which all must be governed to the end being thereunto inspired by his Spirit But as the Church grew greater they increased the number of Pastors but gave them no Universal Soveraignty § 7. And now what pretence can ordinary Ministers or Bishops have for Universality of Soveraignty Legislation and Judgment in an Aristocratical Senate or Council If they were Apostles they must but teach men to observe all Christ's Commands They may do their proper work as far as they have capacity and ability If they can Preach at the Antipodes we shall pray for their success But sure they will not do it as a Senate or Church Parliament To leave them no excuse Christ hath left no Universal Legislation or Judgment to do The continuance of the Question so oft answered How shall Controversies be ended And who shall Judge When they never attempt to confute our answer sheweth that they are so full of themselves that they have not room for the plainest Truth that comes from others Judgment of Controversies is Private or Publick that is either Private Mens Discerning Judgment or Governors Deciding Judgment The Private is either that of each single person for himself and this is every mans as he is a Rational Moral Agent who cannot do his Duty undiscerned or it is for the guidance of Charity to others And that is either the Judgment of an Arbitrator or of a private Instructer or Reprover Hitherto there is no difficulty who shall Judge Publick Judgment supposeth a forum Tribunal and a Ruling Judge And every one is Judge in proprio foro in his own Court The Magistrates in their several Degrees are Judges in their several Courts who shall suffer or be Protected by them And the Pastors in their several Churches who shall be Baptized and used as of their Communion and who not But there is no Vniversal forum or Court to judge all the World but Christs None out of this Kingdom are publick Judges of King or Subjects Other Princes and Prelates all over the World have a judicium privatum whether they will take our King and Kingdom for Christians and Communicate with them or not and such a judgment have we towards any other Nation But a Ruling Publick Judgment none hath out of the Kingdom Civil or Ecclesiastick All Controversies shall be ended by Christ at last It 's Madness to think of ending all till then so that there is no Judgment but Christ's that is Vniversal and Final for the ending of Controversies or deciding any Cause by Government And were there nothing but a double incapacity 1. NATURAL and 2. POLITICAL or Accidental by the restraint of the Princes of the Earth I have oft shewed here that a Dream of an Universal Soveraign Council or Senate yea or Pope is utterly irrational § 8. But if the Apostolick Succession prove not such a Soveraignty will not the Antient General Councils do it No I have oft enough proved that General Councils were but General in the Empire While they kept sober and humble they never claimed more Nor was there any on Earth that had power to call them out of all the World And when they claimed more they broke the Church and by Usurpation brought on Desolation There is neither Scripture nor reason nor obliging example for extending the Ecclesiastick jurisdiction beyond the Civil but much of all these against it § 9. And what man can think that a claim is the proof of a title in those Councils which began to transgress the
that Popery called Antichristianity is no worse a thing than these and so honour Popery and deride its Accusers I would these named were all the wrongs that Protestants have done to the Protestant Cause of Reformation and all that they have ignorantly done for Popery But we hope our great Intercessor will procure forgiveness for them that know not what they do But must the Church still suffer so much by its zealous Friends Chap. XIII What is the Duty of all other Christians towards the Papists in order to the Promoting of the Common Interest of Christianity THough I have distinctly answered this Question in the Second Part of my Key for Catholicks I will here answer it again lest I be thought to run into Extreams or encourage the Extreams of others by all that I have here and elsewhere said And as to the chat of Ignorant Faction that will say I contradict my self I will answer it with Contempt and Pity § I. First we must lay deep in our Minds and inculcate on our Hearers the common Fundamental Truths and Duty That Love is the Second great Commandment like to the First That it is the fulfilling of the Law That he that dwells in Love dwells in God and God in him That he that loveth not his Brother whom he hath seen loveth not God whom he never saw That some love belongs to Enemies and much more to Brethren That as much as in us lyeth we must live peaceably with all Men Yea and follow Peace with all men And that these are Duties that nothing can dispense with § II. We must acknowledge and commend all that is good among them and must truly understand in what we are agreed That is They acknowledge all the same Books of Scripture to be the true Word of God which we acknowledge They own all the Articles of the Creed which we own and of the Nicene and Constantinopolitan Creed They own all the Lord's Prayer and all the Ten Commandments saving that they take the Second to be but part of the First and divide the Tenth into two They teach in their Catechisms all the Beatitudes Math. 5. and the Moral Virtues and the Graces of Faith Hope and Love c. And he that practically and sincerely doth all this hath many Promises of Salvation in the Scripture § III. We must not untruly fasten on them any Errour which they hold not nor put a false sence on their words though we may find many Protestants that so charge them nor may we charge that on the Party which is held but by some whom others contradict How far many Protestants herein mistake and rashly wrong them In the Doctrine of Predestination Free-will Grace Merits Justification Redemption Perseverance c. I have freely shewed in my Catholick Theology and End of Doctrinal Controversies And Ludovicus le Blank after others hath excellently opened § IV. We must not take all the Laity to own all that the disputing Clergy write for when they neither understand it nor consent to it § V. As we must distinguish between the Essentials of Popery and their Integrals or other Corruptions so we must not charge any with the first meerly for being guilty of many of the other Else we must call all the Greeks Moscovites Abassines Armenians c. Papists § VI. We must still distinguish between Christs Catholick Church unifyed by his own Headship only and the Papal Church unifyed by a pretended Universal Humane Head Monarchical or Aristocratical And so we must distinguish between a Christian as such and a Papist as such And we must hold Communion with Papists in Christianity though not in Popery And must grant that those that hold Christs Headship and Christianity more firmly and practically than the Pope's Headship and Popery and seeing not the Contradiction would renounce the Papacy if they saw it may be saved § VII To profess utter averseness to all Reconciliation with them and to declare them no Christians but Antichristians that must be the Objects only of our Hostility is to be Adversaries to the first mentioned Fundamentals and to the common interest of Peace and Christianity § VIII We must disclaim their opinion that say that the Church became Antichristian in 300 or 400 or 600 or any time before the Popes claimed Universal Jurisdiction over the Christian World as well as in the Roman Empire And then the Papal revolt did not reach one half the Church § IX We must not impute the Papal or Patriarchal Vices and Pride to the generality of the inferior Bishops though in Councils too many were very Factious For even a Heathen Amm. Marcellinus tells us the great difference by Papal Pride and lower Bishops Humility and Virtue § X. We must not take the Question whether the Pope be Antichrist as more necessary than it is Nor make the Decision an Article of Faith nor lay more of the stress of our difference on it than we ought For we have many far clearer Arguments against them from plainer Scriptures § XI Therefore we must not force the vulgar to Disputes with Papists without cause on forced Expositions and Suppositions that turn the Revelations against Rome Papal as the Babylon and Antichrist there meant when so much may be said and is by some Protestants to make it likely that it is but Rome Pagan that is there meant We must not give their Disputers the advantage of Challenging us before the Vulgar to name one Man for a Thousand Years and more after Christ that expounded the Revelation as we do or that took the Pope to be Antichrist § XII We must not imitate the great Novel Expositors of the Revelation that make the seven Churches to be seven States and Ages of the Universal Church and two of them to be in the World to come after the Conflagration and consequently that if by the Angel of each Church be meant the Bishop either alone or with his Elders as most think old and new Expositors then an Universal Humane Head is of Gods Institution And if that be true then Pâ—pery will be right in its Essentials and we in the wrong We must take heed therefore of the ignorant factious Zeal of over-doers that make men Papists by false opposing them § XIII We must take heed lest we make any one falshood a part of the Protestant Religion and Reformation much less many plain falshoods as too many do For when Papists find any such Untruths they will judge of our Religion in the main by those § XIV We must see that in the Form of our Government and Worship we own not Principles of Confusion and set not up our selves our devised terms of Church Admittance and Communion and thereby seem to justifie such Additions among Papists and others § XV. We must live in Love and Peace and Concord among our selves that our Fractions Sects and Errours and envious Oppositions make us not a scorn and make not Papists think that we are mad and
animo supplex veneror ut illi spiritum suum mentemque meliorem det And in another Epistle to Salmasius p. 196. he saith being ask'd his Judgment of his last Books Tantum abest ut omnia probem ut vix aliquid in co reperiocui sine conditione calculum apponam meum Verissimè dixit ille qui dixit Grotium papizare Vix tamen in isto scripto aliquid legi quod mirarer quodve 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 occurreret Nunquid enim omnes istiusmodi authoris lucubrationes erga Papistarum errores perpetuam 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 erga Jesuitas amorem erga nos plusquam vatinianum odium produnt clamant In voto quod ejus nomen praeferebat an veritus est haec 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 profiteri And how far he was familiar with Grotius he â—ells us p. 248. Ad Vincent Fabrit Cum eo nempe Communicaveram vel solebam mea fere omnia c. And what Salmasius thought of him these words of Saravius ad Salmas intimate Ex quo à vera orbita in religionis negotio deflexit captasti occasionem toto biennio antequam sato fungeretur eum illudendi certe irritandi I have formerly said that worthy Mr. Ereskin yet living since dead told me that Petavius told him that Grotius was resolved to have declared himself for the Church of Rome and joyned with them if he had returned safe from the Journey he died in Henr. Valesius in his Funeral Oration on Petavius saith p. 684. Batesâ—i Collect. Quid non praestitit ut clarissimum Virum Hugonem Grotium ad Catholicaâ— Communionem adduceret Erat ille quidem minimè à nobis alienus poene noster quippe qui doctrinan Tridentim Concilii in omnibus sese amplecti palam profiteretur Id unum supererat ut Ecclesiae Sacrariâ—m ingressus Communionem nostram Sociaretur Quod ille nescio quas ob causas dum ad Catholicae fidei umtatem plurimos secum sperat adducere Consultò differebat But I make no other mens but his own words the Index of his Faith Chap. VII Of the several sorts of Conciliators or Peace-makers about our Controversies with the Papists § 1. IF any shall think that I who have spent so much time and labour for the Churches peace am now against it or would raise dishonourable suspicions on any just endeavours to that end they will utterly mistake me There are divers sorts of Endeavours for peace with the Papists by real Protestants § 2. I. The old Conformists that prevailed against the Dissenters in Queen Elizabeth's days were for going no further from the Papists than they needs must lest they gave them occasion of accusation II. Since then many Men have taken notice that many of our Doctrinal Controversies consist more in ambiguous words and misunderstanding of each other than most on either side imagine And they have endeavoured the lessening of such Controversies by better Explications and stating of the Case In this kind Spalatensis and Bishop W. Forbes have done very Learnedly but in some things yielded a great deal too far Camero Amiraldus Capellus Testardus the Theses Salmurienses and Sedâ—nenses have done much But no Man so much as Lude Le Blank in his Theses which he sent me his desire here to publish To these I adjoin my self as among many other Writings in my Catholick Theology and Methodus Theologiae I have openly and largely shewed the World And no Censures have deterred me from this honest and necessary way of pacification III. But there are others that would on pretence of Peace take in many of their Errors in Doctrine Government and Worship But yet are for no Foreign Jurisdiction IV. But those that I now write against go further and some under the Name of a Prince Patriarch and the Principium Vnitatis Catholicae would come under the Pope some by pretence of the power of General Councils or an Universal Colledge of all Bishops and some by these and Patriarchs conjunct would bring us under a Foreign Jurisdiction and contrive an Union on some French terms And would to this end let in abundance of corruptions in Discipline and Worship on pretence of Obedience to the Canons of Councils Yea some condemn those as Schismaticks yea as in a state of Damnation who are not in these matters of their mind It is these that I am against § 3. While I oppose these I still own my foresaid reconciling Books and no reproach of those that run into a contrary extream shall ever drive me from the true terms of Peace nor to desire any cruelty against them or any of their Sufferings but what necessary defence of Soul and Body require And though my Exposition of the Revelation have offended many upon far closer study of it since I am not less but more perswaded that Pagan Rome was Babylon and that John Fox Martyrol Vol. I. p. III. who took his Oath of a Divine Revelation to him which brought him to take the Pagan Empire for the Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns and to expound the Times and Thousand years accordingly is much to be regarded But if I be uncertain of such points I will rather suspend my Judgment than in uncertainty venture on any thing that is against Christian Love and Peace I hold Communion with the Romans in Christianity though not in Popery I take all true Christians among them for Part of the Catholick Church of Christ though I take their pretended Catholick Church as Headed by the Pope for no Church of Christ at all nor as Headed by any Usurping Humane Head whatsoever Chap. VIII The Doctrine of Archbishop Bromhall in defence of Grotius in his Book called His Vindication of himself and the Episcopal Clergy from the Presbyterian Charge of Popery as managed by Mr. Baxter in his Treatise of the Grotian Religion I fiercely Prefaced by a Dignitary of the Church Parker § 1. I mean to give you his own words and pass by his mistakes against my self Only saying That it was not fairly done to affirm that I numbered him with the Papists or those that designed to bring in Popery when I had no such words yea and praising him excepted him from that number only dissenting from his too near approach But whether he except himself his words will best shew § 2. Page 20 21. he saith I will endeavour to give some light what was the Religion of Grotius He was in affection a Friend and in desire a true Son of the Church of England And on his Death bed recomended that Church as it was Legally Established to his Wife and such other of his Family as were then about him obliging them by his Authority to adhere firmly to it so far as they had opportunity Page 81. I know no Member of the Greek Church that give them the Popes either more or less than I do Page 82. To wave their last four hundred years
speak for the clean contrary 4. What if we prove that Christ hath himself given the Church in the Scriptures an account of his own Institution of Church-Form and Government as much as is necessary to its Essence Unity and Salvation and that all altering Compacts contrary to this are diabolical Will Christ damn us for not breaking his Laws and serving the Devil Is it the sin against the Holy Ghost and unpardonable not to despise Christ's Laws and not to obey the Devil 5. What if we prove to him that the very Species of his Prelacy and specially of a Supreme Catholick Jurisdiction is condemned by Christ and Treason against him Are we Traytors for not being Traytors 6. What if we prove to him that according to his very Canons the Pope and Bishops that he damns us for not owning are no Bishops having no true Call and Title to that which they pretend to Will you have yet another of his Self-contradictions P. 7. I cannot but look on it as an Argument that God never intended to oblige Particular Churches to as great a dependence on other Churches as that is wherein he has obliged Subjects to depend on their own Churches because by his contrivance of things it does not follow that Separating Churches must be left as destitute of the ordinary means of Salvation on their separation from other Churches as particular Subjects are on their separation from their own Churches Abating what obligations they have brought on themselves by their own Compacts God has made them equal There is no way of judging who is in the right but by the intrinsick merit of the Cause I really believe that the true original design of those Compacts whereby particular Churches have voluntarily submitted to restrictions of their original Power was ONLY that every particular Church might have her Censures confirmed in all other Churches in reference to those who were originally her own Subjects not to gain a Power over any other Subjects but her own nor to submit to any other Power c. Alas And have Compacts by we know not who brought us all into the snare of the unpardonable sin Though Christ died for the World he saveth none but Consenters And can Men in Asia in Towns whose Names we poor Countreymen never heard of make Laws to Damn all to the Worlds end that obey them not and this without our own Consent To conclude this Gentleman hath yet an easie remedy against all this He doth indeed frequently prove if you will believe him that though you have Faith that works by Love and do all other duty that is in Love to God and Man you cannot be saved without external Communion that is subjection to this humanly compacted Catholick Church so said Pope Nicholas long ago yea and Aeneas Sylvius when Pius 2d that all other Graces and Duties will not save a Man that is not subject to the Bishop of Rome But saith this Man p. 13. They may easily avoid the danger only by returning to the Catholick Vnity Mark Catholick Vnity National Unity will not serve We grant it But what Catholick Vnity is and whether Catholick Councils with a Catholick President that hath an Antecedent Power to call and oblige them without which they are null rebellious and punishable and to whom all Power escheateth in the Intervals of Councils whether I say this be necessary to Catholick Unity or to Antichristian Church Tyranny is the doubt I will conclude this with Dr. Iz. Barrow's Theses p. 255. 1. Patriarchs are an Humane Institution 2. As they were erected by the Power and Prudence of Men so they may be dissolved by the same 3. They were erected by the leave and confirmation of Princes and by the same they may be dejected if great reason do appear 4. The Patriarchate of the Pope beyond his own Province or Diocess doth not subsist upon any Canon of a general Synod 5. He can therefore claim no such Power otherwise than upon his Invasion or Assumption 6. The Primates and Metropolitans of the Western Church cannot be supposed otherwise than by force or one of fear to have submitted to such an Authority as he doth Vsurp 7. It is not really a Patriarchal Power like that granted by the Canons and Princes but another sort of Power which the Pope doth Exercise 8. The most rightful Patriarch holding false Doctrine or imposing unjust Laws or Tyrannically abusing his Power may and ought to be rejected from Communion 9. Such a Patriarch is to be judged by a free Synod if it may be had 10. If such a Synod cannot be had by consent of Princes each Church may free it self from the mischiefs induced by his perverse Doctrine and Practice 11. No Ecclesiastical Power can interpose in the management of any Affairs within the Territory of any Prince without his Concession 12. By the Laws of God and according to ancient Practice Princes may model the Bounds of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction erect Bishopricks enlarge diminish or transfer them as they please 13. Wherefore each Prince having Supream Power in his own Dominion and equal to the Emperors in his may exclude any Foreign Prelate from Jurisdiction in his Territories 14. It is expedient for the publick peace and good that he should do thus 15. Such Prelate according to the Rules of Christianity ought to be content with his doing so 16. Any Prelate Exercising Power in the Dominion of any Prince is eatenus his Subject as the Popes and all Bishops were to the Roman Emperor 17. Those Joints of Ecclesiastical Discipline Established in the Roman Empire by the Confirmation of Emperors were as to necessary continuance dissolved by the dissolution of the Roman Empire 18. The Power of the Pope in the Territories of any Prince did subsist by his Authority and Favour 19. By the same Power as Princes have curbed the Exorbitancy of Papal Power in some Cases of entertaining Legates making Appeals disposing of Benefices c. by the same they might exclude it 20. The practice of Christianity doth not depend on the subsistence of such a form instituted by man As to Mr. Dodwell's fundamental Opinion that the Minister can have no Power which the Ordainer intended not to give him He overthroweth by it all the Reformation and all the English reforming Ministry as derived from the Roman Ordination For it 's certain that the Roman Bishops intended not to give them Power to reform or to Worship God as they have done And the Protestants are against him Saith Dr. Challoner in his Credo Eccles. Cath. p. 95. However the Priest at the Baptizing or the Bishop at the Ordination had another meaning yet the words wherewith they Baptized and Ordained being the words of Christ are to be taken in Christs meaning in as much as he which receiveth from another is to receive it according to the intention of the Principal Giver and not the Instrumental Giver He which confers Baptism and Orders as the Principal Donor