as Enemies to the Kings state and not to return under pain of High-Treason so the Sentence ran In like manner they were not long after driven out of the Territories of the Venetian Republic and never since received in To conclude It is not Religion nor the Function nor any ministerial Act belonging to it that is punished in Romish Priests but Treason and Seditious Practises to which Religion Sacraments Ministery of Reconciliation and all that is reputed Holy are made to serve and all this to advance and secure the Papal Usurpation And thus much in answer to Champny's reasonings against our condemning their Orders and yet pleading by them also against our condemning them in one part and admitting them in another 10. Of the indelible Character There remains one Argument more against our pleading Ordinations from them and that is drawn from our Doctrine about the Indelible character which seeing we deny we consequently must hold we receive no Order from them no power to ordaine it being not possible saith he to conceive how a Heretic declared in whom the designation of the Church ceaseth and all lawful use of Order stil hath the power the Act if done is valid but only by reason of the Indelible character remaining in him This Argument he doth not insist on but hints it several times cap. 9. and elsewhere and in courtesie passes it over suffering us to help our selves by the Catholic Doctrine as he saith of the Character when we are put to shew how those of the Church of Rome being faln into Heresie could give us Orders or why the Antient Church received Bishops returning from Heresie and restored them without Ordination To this purpose he 11. Orders not to be reiterated But we can answer them We need not the help of their Doctrine touching the indelible Character of which as they phansy it they can give no solid reason yea we can help them with a better reason why the power of Ordination remains notwithstanding Heresie or other irregularity Their Character as they phansie it to be a Sacramental effect and real quality imprinted upon the soul we have cause to deny but we grant as was above insinuated there remaines in the person such a disposition or habitude to the End or Office he is ordained to which is not by Heresie or Schism so lost or broken off but that stil he hath a power to the work or Ministerial Acts of that office And this if any will call a Character or mark remaining he may Only it is not a Sacramental effect properly a or real quality impressed on the soul as they will have it but a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or habitude consisting in respect and relation as Dur. in 4. Distin 4. seems plainly to acknowledg 12. Now if we put them to give a reason of their indelible Character either in Baptisme or Orders they use very poor shifts catching at the word Seal and Sealing where-ever they meet with it as 2 Cor. 1.22 Eph. 1.13 and 4.30 which is most plainly meant of the graces of the spirit and as we see the impertinency so the unreasonableness of it They hold the graces of the spirit which are real infused qualities and do seal indeed may be blotted out or lost yet the supposed Character they would prove by them is indelible Again they set it out rather then prove it by the indelible mark that Circumcision left upon the Person receiving it but here are many impertinencies for Circumcision was a mark in the flesh only and imprinted none upon the soul as the Romanists must hold of the Sacraments of the Old Testament but this mark of theirs is only in the soul and only marks a man out in respect of Gods knowledg who only can look into the Soul Besides that of Circumcision was not indelible but by Art they could recover the praeputium as we read some Apostate Jews did to which device the Apostle relates and gives us the word for it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Let him not become uncircumcised 1 Cor. 7.18 Lastly Women had not that mark in the flesh yet as they were born to God Ezek. 16.20 so they remained his notwithstanding the Idolatry in which their Parents lived and brought them up in and this not by reason of any such Character or stamp set upon them but because of the Covenant of God into which that people were entred and caused a relation that could not wholly be broken off 13. Wel we may help them from hence with a reason of that which so remains of Baptism that it need not be reiterated and that is the entring of Covenant with God a Covenant indeed of Salt as that which is so called 2 Chron. 12. upon which such a relation ariseth as cannot be quite lost as appears by the forenamed place of Ezek. where God speaks to the Idolatrous Israelites the Sons and Daughters thou bearest to me Also we know what is consecrate to holy use may not be alienated Now Baptism is a consecrating a devoting of the party to God and so is Ordination too That according to the general profession and service of a Christian This according to the special vocation or calling of a Minister of the Gospel and in both he that puts his hand to the plough i. e. admitted to be a Disciple generally or specially taken must not look back We may see then a reason why the power received in Ordination remains not because of the designation or deputation of the Church which ceaseth in Hereticks actually broken off from the Unity of the Church and so doth the lawful use of that power so long as they continue in Heresie for the Church intends not to make use or allow of the ministry of such but by vertue of their consecration to God and his service and that in such an office as by our Saviours institution may not be cast off by him that is once admitted into it Thus far in answer to Champneys several Arguments against our Ordinations or the Lawful calling of our Pastors or Bishops in regard of supposed Defects in the Ordainers viz. those of the Church of Rome according to our Doctrine and judgment of them and the Orders given by them Now proceed to his other general Heads Defects in the Ordained or in the Form of Ordination CHAP. VI. Of Archbishop Cranmers Ordination and the pretended defects of it Bigamie and Heresie DOcter Champny examining the Ordination of the Reformed Bishops begins with the Archbishop and Metropolitan Cranmer and it is the work of his 11. Chapter With the Form of his Ordination he quarrels not it being done ritu Romano though with some protestation interposed on Cranmers part but he charges him with these Personal irregularities or Defects Bigamie Heresie Schism So that however by vertue of his Ordination he received the substance and power of the Order yet by reason of those defects in his person he did not receive the Lawful
it Heretical for renouncing the Doctrine and Communion of that Church by which it received Christianity and joyning it self to that which could not prove it self Christian i.e. to have received Baptism any where but by those whom it had forsaken 16. But if the proving of our Christianity be meant of proving the Truth of it as that the Faith we profess and the Baptism we received is Catholic and truly Christian or that the Ordination which our Pastors have is good and Apostolical then we deny the Assumption for Cranmer and the English Church were able to prove all this by other and better means that the Lineal that is Champny's word succession of that Church which they had forsaken viz. by the written Word of God and the Uniform consent of Antiquity Lineal or local succession is but an empty conveiance of Christianity without truth of Doctrine assured by Gods Word for were Lineal succession the only or a good argument to prove a Man or Nation truly Christian then the Arrian or other Hereticks whose Bishops were not intruders but of Catholicks turned Hereticks might have passed for good Christians and true Catholicks 17. The former charges retorted After these Arguments by which he would fasten Heresie upon our Arch-Bishop Cranmer and the other first Reformers he adds a vain boast let the Adversary retort all or any of these Arguments upon the Ordainers of Cranmer viz. those of the Romish Church and I will confess them Hereticks But it is clear that as all his Arguments as directed against Cranmer are too weak to prove what he would have so they return more forcibly upon themselves For their charge of irregularity upon Marriage we retort their irregularity by Concubinage and for that of Digamy we appeal to them whether they suffer not a Priest or Bishop to have one or mo Concubines rather then to be married once or twice For Cranmers recantation or condemning the Protestant Doctrine we retort the example of Liberius Bishop of Rome subscribing to Arrianism and it is strange that Champny should not remember that the Ordainers of Bishop Cranmer subscribed and swore the condemnation and ejection of Papal Autority and if some of them lived to repent it in Qu. Maries dayes so did Cranmer revoke his condemnation of the Protestant doctrine and sealed it with his Bloud For his Argument from the Autority condemning our Doctrine it was retorted upon them when we answered it For that of our going out from that Church it was shewn how it concerns them who keeping the same Place and Seat yet going out of the Doctrine of the Ancient Church are thereby concluded Heretical The last also falls back upon themselves who have nothing to prove their New Faith wherein they differ from other Churches but Lineal Succession from those first Catholic Roman Bishops from whom they have departed only keeping the same Place and Seat which they held Having concluded as he thinks by the former Arguments that Cranmer and the rest were in Heresie and Schism and therefore could not receive or lawfully use the power of Ordination he then excludes them from receiving all supply of that defect for saith he that must be by reconciliation to the Church confirmation by it as we see in the practice of the Ancient Church restoring Bishops that returned from Heresie But Granmer cannot shew any such reconciliation which indeed saith he was impossible there being no other Church in the World to which he could be reconciled but only that which he had forsaken viz. the Roman so he Answ This is nothing else but what he said above in his ninth cap. endeavouring to reduce our English Bishops to his impossibility of having the defect of their Ordination supplied which he said they were under by being ordeined by those we account Hereticks viz. Romish Bishops and the Answer to it was given * Cap. 4. Num. 16 17 18. above The summ of it was this That Cranmer if he contracted that Defect by being Ordained of Hereticks then he recovered the due use of his Orders by deposing the Heresie of his Ordainers That Cranmer was not alone but with him a whole National Church and that the actual and solemn reconciliation of such a Church with the Bishops of it to the whole body of the Catholic Church was fitting and of good use and example when the Catholic Church remained in such entire body and condition as was fit to receive such reconciliation But when it is otherwise with the state of the Catholic Church as it was when Arrians prevailed and now in the distracted condition of the whole Church such reconciliation is as not well feizable so not so necessary for a National Church Only it is necessary such a Church depose the Errors or Heresie it had contracted and profess Communion with all that do hold the Catholic Faith undefiled in such a measure as is needful not imposing any different doctrine they hold as condition of Communion with them CHAP. VII Of Bishops ordained under King Edward and the essential defect pretended to be in the form of their ordination and of presumption against it HIs 12. Chapter proceeds against those Bishops that were ordained in K. Edwards daies whom he charges not only with the same Heresie he did Bishop Cranmer as true indeed of the one as the other but with a special and that an essential defect in their Ordination what is that The Form of their Ordination by which they were consecrated was new and invented by certain Commissioners appointed by the King and therefore the Ordination was altogether nul and invalid We grant the Form was altered and different from that which before was used in the Roman Church but not new or changed as to that which concerned the substance of the Order 1. The Form of Ordination altered under K. Edward how For the work of those Commissioners was not to devise and invent a direct new Form but to purge it from Popish corruptions casting out what appeared to be either needless or superstitious additions and reteining what imported the substance of the Order or adding withal something to express more fully the purpose of the Order then collated according to the institution of it declared in the Word of God To such a work fitting Commissioners were appointed for number Twelve for quality Six Prelates and Six other learned in Gods Law as we find them in the Statute of 3.4 Edward 6. c. 12. It is too light that Champny laies hold on the word devise in their Commission and bids the Reader mark it as if they had power or went about to devise or invent a new Form on their own heads their work being to devise and consult what Romish additionals might be cut off what depravations purged out that so we might have a pure and just Form expressing more simply the substance and purpose and collation of the Order given 2. Mr. Mason having set down the Form together with
the Prayers used challenges them to shew what they can except against it Vnless saith he it be because we reteined not your Oil Pall Staff c. which we account as humane inventions and not to belong to the substance or Essence of Ordination unless you can shew us them by the Word of God Champny answering the challenge first gives him a note in the Margent Scipsum jugulat He cuts his own throat and then tels us why because saith he Mason requires Scripture for these and all other things of us and yet cannot shew us their Forms in Scripture for where hath he in Scripture the words of their Ordering of Deacons Take thee power of executing the Office of a Deacon in the Church of God and so recites something of the Forms of the other two Orders p. 40â— c. Answ Our requiring of them Scripture for their whole Form doth not give us but them only the wound for they that make Order a Sacrament of the New Testament are bound to shew both the Matter and Form of their Sacrament in the writing of that Testament As for us it is enough to prove our Forms by Scripture to be answerable to the institution and purpose of the Order conferred either reteining the very Form of words delivered in Scripture as Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins ye remit or applying from thence what may fitly express the intention and purpose of the Office and the designation of the Person Ordeined to it as in the ordering of a Bishop after Accipe Spiritum Sanctum is added out of Saint Paul Remember to stir up the grace which is in thee by imposition c. 3. We grant VVhat was of the substance of Ordination is reteined there is a certain Ceremony to be used according to the constant practise of the Apostles Imposition of hands and that a certain Form is to be used not certain for Words and Syllables it being not necessary to have it in all places and all times so certainly the same but for substance and meaning that in the conferring of Orders such Words be used as do aptly express the Institution purpose and intention of the Office and the designation of the person to it and such prayers withall as do expresly concern that sacred action in the imploring of help and grace And thus we maintain our Forms of Ordination to be conformable to Scripture and the Antient Church Neither hath Champny shewed nor can it be shewn that any thing is said or done in the whole action of our Ordinations not allowable by Scripture and purer Antiquity All that he can except is that we cannot shew our Words and Forms wholly set down in Scripture or punctually so used by Antiquity which as we heard we are not bound to shew or that we have left off their Unction and other Ceremonies which what Antiquity soever some of them may pretend to we say belong not to the substance of Ordination and therefore we stand not bound to use them for making our Orders valid but are at liberty for other good reasons to omit them as also many other things which being anciently well and conveniently used were after abused by Popish innovation And let them shew us if they can either that the Ceremonies they have clogged Baptism with were used by the Antient Church or that they now use all those which the Antient Church did Or let them say if they dare that either their Baptism is invalid because it hath not those Ceremonies the Antient Church used or that our Baptism is invalid because freed from many of the Romish Ceremonies Till then we may take leave to use the like freedom in refusing their Ceremonies in and about Ordination they being not of the essence and substance of it 4. Vncertainty of Romish Doctrine about Matter and Form of Sacraments and Ordination But Champny attempts to prove our Ordinations essentially deficient by wanting what is used in theirs and why because the whole Matter and Form of Ordination doth not saith he consist in the Imposition of hands and the Words Receive the Holy Ghost c. which is all that we use This is the Brief of his 13. Chap. But foreseeing that he must acknowledg their own Authors agree not among themselves about the Matter and Form wherein their Sacrament of Order doth consist essentially he therefore first seeks to clear his way by laying down two Propositions First That the determinate Matter and Form of the Sacraments is not fully expressed in Scripture So pag. 412. Which how false it is of Baptisme and the Eucharist who sees not yet he instances in both In Baptisme saith he the Form of the Western Church is I Baptize thee in the name but of the Eastern Church thus Let the Servant of the Lord be Baptized in the name how impertinently this is who sees not for that difference toucheth not that part of the Form which concerns the Essence of the Sacrament viz. Baptized in the name of the Father Son and Holy Ghost which as it is fully expressed in Scripture so reteined in both Churches So saith he about the Form required in the Eucharist several questions have and may be moved What then if men will be either obstinatly perverse to question what is most plain in the Institution as the Romanists are in giving Bread only for the whole Matter of that Sacrament it makes not his proposition true Or what if some use several Words for the Form in delivering that Sacrament so they amount to no greater difference then the several expressions of it in the several Evangelists This is my blood of the New Testament Mat. 26. and This Cup is the New Testament in my blood Luk. 22. they touch not that which concerns the essence of the Sacrament 5. His second Proposition The Determinat Matter and Form of some Sacraments for example of Order is not so clearly delivered in Councels or the Monuments and Writings of the Fathers but that divers Opinions may arise about them and be defended with probability This whether true or false doth not greatly concern us But see we how he will make it concern us His Inference from it is this Therefore we must trust the Tradition of the Church he meanes the present Church of Rome for the whole Matter and Form and because we know not certainly in or by which Words or Actions the Sacrament is essentially perfected therefore we must not omit any of those words things or actions which the Church uses and in the whole comprehension of which their Authors all agree the whole Matter and Form of that Sacrament to consist pag. 413 414. But first This doth not prove that our Ordinations are certainly null and invalid as he pretended because we omit some things and Words which they use for they are not agreed whether it essentially consists in those we use or in those we omit but only concludes we cannot in their judgment be certain
agreement of theirs in yeilding Submission of belief and then it will not serve their turns to tell us when we charge them with disagreement in the grounds of their belief that they all agree in yeilding Submission c. For seeing Infallible judgment is the ground with them of that submission of belief and they cannot agree how that infallibility accrews or where it is to be stated in Councel Pope or partly in both the reasons of the one part being sufficient to destroy the other it must needs appear how much they disagree in and about the very ground-work of their belief They would think it strange to hear us say We and they do not disagree in the grounds of our belief because we both agree in these Generals That all Divine Revelation is to be believed yea All that is revealed in Scripture ought to be believed for if we enquire farther into the Means of conveying Divine Revelation we cannot admit Tradition in so careless and uncertain a sense as they do or if look into the Meaning of Scripture we cannot allow of their pretended Infallible Judg or Interpreter and they stick not to call us Hereticks for our disagreement with them So for their Principle in which they boast of their Universall agreement Submission to all that is defined if we enquire into the reason and ground of it Infallible Judgment in their definitions we find wide differences and contrary perswasions among them and Bell. could find in his heart to make them Hereticks that are against stating the Infallibility in the Pope and therefore call'd their Perswasion Haeresi Proxima next door to Heresie as we heard above and mark his reason there why it is not propriè haeretica fully and properly so Nam adhuc ab Ecclesiâ tolerantur They are still tolerated of the Church that hold it A reason why he might not speak as he thought He thought it Heresie no question but might not call it so for saving the Union of their Church Union and Agreement among Christians is to be sought for by all fair means and to be held upon all just grounds and in order to it Submission unto Autority is necessary and Toleration again from Autority may be sometime and in some things needful But the Church of Rome boasting of her Unity and the means she hath for it Infallible Judgment in her Definitions and thereupon requiring not only external or peaceable subjection but submission of belief may be ashamed for preserving of her Unity to tolerat such different perswasions or Doctrines so neer unto Heresie And this also shews the Vanity of what they farther say that the points they differ in as whether a Pope be above a Councel whether Infallible c. are not defined and therefore general submission of belief or uniform agreement is not required Why then say we is that Doctrine tolerated amongst them that is proxima Haeresi so neer to Heresie as we heard above Why is not that defined and stated which is the ground of believing all other things that are defined The reason is plain The Pope knows well enough if those points were defined one way they would not be generally believed and that it is better to have them instilled in privat into the minds of Men by his trusty Emissaries then to have them publickly defined and more for his advantage to have men brought to a perswasion of them in favoar of his power then to hazard the peremptory belief of them either way Other means there are the chains of force and policy to hold all together and I doubt not but many are kept from revolting whose Learning and Conscience shews them a more excellent way then that of the Romish Church 35. Some there are as I hear Of unappealable Autority of the more moderat sort of Romanists which will not now seem to contend for an Infallible Judgment in their Church but to be content with an unappealable Autority This may be good Doctrine at Paris but not at Rome and we may farther say that such Autority or Autoritative Judgment being rightly stated for it must be placed some where as it hurts not us so doth it not help them For 1. they forsake the ground-work or formall reason of their belief which is the Autority and Testimony of their Church and it must be either Infallible or not that thing into which their Faith can beresolved for albeit such an anappealable Autority may in some sort provide for External peace yet can it not certainly and finally stay belief 2. There may the same Objections be made against it which they usually reproach us with for want of that pretended Infallibility viz. That men are so left to their own reason That there is not without it sufficient means for Peace and Unity of which Sect. 8 9 10 11 13 14. of the former book for although when we dissent from that unappealable Autority in matter of Belief and Opinion we be not happily bound to discover it at least to the disturbance of the Peace of the Church as above said Yet if the error be in commanding somthing for Religious Worship as adoration of Sacrament or Images that must needs discover and shew it self in outward practise the unappealable Autority cannot secure the external Submission or compliance In Civil affairs indeed Vnappealable Autority may absolutely require externall Submission because by submitting to the wrong Judgment or Sentence of such Autority the things we recede from for peace sake are but Temporals and in our own power to dispose of but it is not so in the Matters of the Soul and Conscience in the poims of Belief and Worship in which we must have the Evidence of that which is confessedly Infallible to stay upon 36. But what if men will be perverse as we have seen in these dayes to pretend error superstition in Worship where there is none Who shall judge VVho shall judge They that so oft put this question to us cannot well resolve it themselves for who shall judge say we to them Pope or Councel they cannot agree it where the Infallibility rests and if either or both of them must judg shall their judgment be taken for Infallible Neither are they here resolved some contending for Infallible some content with Vnappealable Autority As for us we answer Unanimously The Church shall judg be it National or Universal and take order with such persons by the Church here we mean the Guides and Governours that have public Judgment and Autority in every National Church or in the Catholic assembled in a General Councel and by Judging we mean their defining or demonstrating the Truth according to the Infallible Rule of Gods Word and their Sentencing of Persons refractory to due punishment So the Church shall judg either to the convincing and satisfying or to the censuring and punishing of such Persons who are to answer unto God also for their disobedience For the Church or Public Autority
though derived to us from the Church of Rome appears sufficiently by Bucer Peter Martyr and other Protestants being here in England and assisting our Bishops in the work of Reformation also by the Letters of the chief and best Learned in those Churches Calvin Zanchy c. to our Bishops and to others concerning them whose Testimonies collected by the Bishop of Durham were published in these Times and opposed to our Covenanters and all other Sectaries that attempted the extirpation of Episcopacy as Antichristian 7. As for the sayings which Champny gives us out of Luther Calvin Mornaeus to whom he adds Fulk and Whitaker rejecting and condemning the Romish Ordinations as Antichristian corrupt and unlawful he might remember that elsewhere he tels us of their pleading by them their alledging that Luther Bucer Oecolampad c. were ordained in the Church of Rome c. 4. and 9. and he could not but know that Fulk and Whitaker allowed of Bishops here and were ordained by them But hence he concludes them all to be taken in a contrary tale and put to a miserable shift For ask them saith he Whence came ye who sent you they will tell us they came from the same stock and originall as the Pastors of the Catholic Roman Church did for their first Doctors Luther Bucer Zuinglius were by them ordained Priests ask them again how can they account that to be a lawfull calling which is derived from the Ministers of Antichrist they will not stick to defy those Orders and Ordinations and presently flie to an extraordinary vocation So he c. 9. p. 323. 324. And yet this seeming contradiction is very reconcilable For when they reject the Ordinations received from Romish Bishops as corrupt and Antichristian they do it not simply as if they were Null or none at all but in regard of the additionall abuses especially that great and sacrilegious depravation of giving such a sacrificing power and placing the Priestly function chiefly in it Therefore so far as the Romish Ordinations pretend to give that power with other superadded abuses they are justly condemned and rejected but in as much as they retain withall the words of the Evangelicall commisson Receive the holy Ghost whose sins ye remit c which give the power of the Ministery of reconciliation in the dispensing of the Word and Sacraments of the Gospel they are valid and good and not to be reiterated where they are given 8. By this power of Order received in the Roman Church Luther Zuinglius Oecolamp and others had lawfull calling to preach the Word yea to preach against the very Errors of that Church which considering the condition of that Church and the Errors of it they might do and for any thing I know they did lawfully without transgressing the bounds and limits of submission due to a Church which I endevoured to fix at the beginning of this Treatise 9. Plea of â—extraordinary Vocation Now what is spoken by some of extraordinary Vocation as that implyes a renouncing of Orders received from Rome must not be taken as the generall plea or judgment of those Churches for we heard them pleading Orders received in the Roman Church and Luther wrote very well as Champny cites him chap. 8. against Munster and others that pretended to extraordinary Vocation bidding them prove it by Signs and Miracles Again that extraordinary calling which some in the Reformed Churches have alleged sounds not any new office they pretend to be call'd to but that of Pastors and Teachers and according to the end it was instituted for nor other way of comming to that office but by external vocation from men but it implies some difference from or failing in the ordinary and usual way of ordaining to that office viz. by Bishops for which they plead their case and concernment was extraordinary which rests upon them to demonstrate 10. Hitherto of their judgment in the point from whence we infer that the present Reformed Churches if they follow the judgment of the first Reformers and of the most sober and learned men that have been in them since must allow of our plea of Ordinations by Bishops and those derived from the Church of Rome and Champny must acknowledg an agreement so far between us Now for their Practise not conformable to that Judgment as we cannot approve of it so are we ready to excuse their failing so far as the necessity they plead will bear leaving it to the Romanists desperatly to cut off Nations and People from the Church for failings and wants in such things as do not immediatly touch the very life and being of a Church or of the Members of it 11. Two things in the constitution and continuance of the Church To this purpose there are two things considerable in the constitution and continuance of the Church both necessary though not equally 1. The Doctrine of Faith and Life the due profession of which makes a man a Member of the Visible Catholic Church and the true belief and practise of which makes him a lively Member of the true Symbolical Catholic Church that which we believe in the Creed that which is the true mystical body of Christ 2. The order of Ministery and Government in the Church for bringing of Men to that due profession of Doctrine and so on to be true lively Members of the body of Christ and for holding them in the Unity of faith To this end Pastors and Teachers in whom that Ministery and Government rests are given by our Saviour Eph. 4.11 12 13. 12. Concerning these two things are clear First that although Apostles Prophets Evangelists there mentioned and taken in a stricter sense were only then given and for those Times yet Pastors and Teachers were given to continue to the worlds end The purpose for which he gave them expressed Eph. 4.1 doth imply so much and so doth his Commission given to them As my Father sent me so I send you S. Jo. 20. by vertue whereof they were to send others and so doth his promise given them imply as much I am with you to the end of the world S. Math. 28. Secondly That this giving or sending of Pastors was to be continued by such as our Saviour appointed and his Apostles after him I send you saith he and accordingly they committed this power of sending or ordaining Pastors unto the hands of special men such as Timothy Titus Sylvanus Sosthenes Clemens Epaphroditus c. Whom we find either written to by the Apostle or joyned with him in the inscription of his Epistles to the Churches or honourably mentiond for special labour and care in the affairs of the Church whom Antiquity also witnesseth to have been chief Pastors or Bishops in governing the Churches planted by the Apostles Such also and no other could be the Angels of the Asian Churches written to by S. John or by our Saviour rather 12. The concernment and necessity of 〈◊〉 But as it is clear that the having
by our own judgment for Orders cannot lawfully be received from Hereticks c. 9. 326. c. 11. That we may more fairly proceed in the clearing of this difficulty we must premise that we admit the distinction here between Legitimum and Legitimè between Lawful or valid Orders and Orders Lawfully given or received the first implyes the power of given which Romanists acknowledg to remain in Hereticks and Schismaticks the other speaks the due and lawful use of that power which is denyed to be in those that are in Heresie or Schisme The reason is because Hereticks and Schismaticks being actually divided from the Unity of the Church must needs lose the lawful use of that power and all other Ecclesiastical ministration but not the power it self which follows a Character that is indelible as the Romanists express it We admit though not a Sacramental character stampt upon the Soul of the Ordained as they wil have it yet such a disposition or power cleaving to his person for the doing of that he is ordained to that it is not lost by Heresie or Schism nor to be reiterated upon the return or restoring of that Person 12. This premised we have two points to speak to First how the charge of Heresies laid on those of the Church of Rome then how the lawful use of Orders may be supplyed by the restoring of the Person though at first they were not lawfully given and so by both these we shall have a double answer to the Argument above For the first we must note that Heresie is considered in regard of the Matter VVhat sort of Heresie takes away lawful use of Ordination or of the Declaration of the Church and this according to the Apostles speech to Tit. c. 3.10 A man that is an Heretick is so first before he be rejected or declared so Heresies also much differ in regard of the Matter by which some may be so immediatly fundamental as the Heresie of the Arrians and some other that it doth ipso facto before any sentence or declaration of the Church cut off or divide the Person so Heretical from the Union of the true Catholic Church because it divides him from the Foundation from being actual Member of the Visible Church upon the Notoriety of such Heresie so contrary to the Foundation and also long since declared against by the Ancient Church in the four first General Councels and therefore the lawful exercise of that power he had to administer Sacraments or Orders in the Church ceases upon such discovery or as I may say Self-condemnation We need not stand here to dispute when or how soon it ceases upon such Heresie for we do not charge such Heresie upon those of Rome i.e. Heresie immediatly Fundamental or those main Heresies declared against by the first General Councels but then we must say that many of their New Articles of Belief and Practise are in themselves Heretical and as much or more then were many Tenets of former Hereticks declared against by the Ancient Church whether we consider the matter and concernment of those Romish Articles or the Obstinacy and Tyranny with which they asserted and imposed so that if there could be a full General Councel of the whole Catholic Church they would undoubtedly be declared many of them Heretical 13. From whence it follows that Heresie thus lying upon them might give us just cause to renounce their Errors and quit their Communion so far as it was necessitated by renouncing their Errors though not just cause to condemn or renounce the Orders given by them or received from them This may give answer to all the Places alleged by Doctor Champny in his ninth cap. pag. 335 336. out of the Fathers against Orders given by Hereticks for they concern either Hereticks in fundamentals or such as were declared so and actually separated from the Unity of the Church 14. It is to be noted farther that when our first reformed Bishops were ordained by them the grand Heresie and mother of their other Errors as to the obstinate an heretical defending of them I mean the Papal Power and Autority was abjured and therefore their Ordainers however yet in Romish Errors could not be properly heretical or peremptorily engaged to defend the same as afterward they were especially since the Councel of Trent hath made them Errors established and sworn to But after that we went not to them for Orders yet do acknowledg they have Ordination still substantially valid and therefore we do not re-ordain Priests that return from them to us because the substance or Evangelical institution is by those words Receive the holy Ghost whose sins ye remit c. reteined still in the Roman Ordination though clogged and depressed by additional corruptions but cause them to renounce those additionals and other Romish Errors So then the summ of our first answer is We do account them to be in Heresie and deeper then when we received Ordination from them yet so as not actually and wholly cut off from the Catholic Church either by the nature of the Heresie it self casting off from the foundation or by declaration of the Catholic Church casting them out of the Unity of it and therefore it doth not follow upon our accounting them Hereticks that we could not lawfully receive Orders from them 15. A supply of defect in Ordination through Heresie Our second answer is from the supply of any defect in our Ordination received from them that supposing them Hereticks in such a condition as made them forfeit their Union which the Catholic Church and consequently the due and lawful use of the power of Ordaining yet doth it not follow that we cannot have it but on the contrary that we recover it by leaving them in that which hindred the due and lawful use of it in them And so the Romanists answer for the Bishops which they own and yet were ordained by Cranmer in the time of the Schism as they call it saying they recovered the lawful use by returning from Schism and Heresie in Queen Maries time when they were reconciled to the Church of Rome So if upon our charging them with Heresie we must suppose they could not lawfully ordain nor we lawfully receive Orders from them then must it conformably be supposed that we having deposed their Heresie and left their Communion and by no other Heresie forfeiting our Union with the Catholic Church do recover the due and lawful use of Orders and may lawfully administer them to others and now do it in the Unity of the Church 16. Champny did foresee this might be answered by us and therefore seeks to cut us off from this plea by replying That defect of lawful Ordination and Vocation which was in Cranmer by supposed Heresie in his Ordainers could not be supplyed but by his reunion to the true Church and Pastors thereof but besides the Church of Rome there was no other Church or Lawful Pastors by reconciliation to which he
Ordained Bishops Mason had framed the like Argument by way of Objection to himself and given this Answer That their Order consisted of two parts The one expressed in these words Take thee power to offer sacrifice The other in these And in what respect allow them Receive the Holy Ghost whose sins thou remittest c. The first part which stands in offering up Chrift gain is altogether abhominable The second which is in the Ministry of reconciliation is good for the substance though depraved by the Abuse of Auricular Confession To this purpose he 2. Champny replyes I. By cavilling at his making the Order to have two parts and runs into a needless disputation to shew that the Order being simple and like the Soul standing in indivisibili hath not Parts but several Powers from one character in the Soul But seeing he will be so subtil he should remember how he allowed above an Extension of the Character which now he telsus stands in indivisibili Well let him enjoy his Philosophical notions and Sholastick terms and let him call the different offices of Sacrificing and Absolving not Parts but Powers this we say still that the first power they give to their Priests of offering again really and properly the body and blood of Christ is Sacrilegious without any warrant from Scripture nay against it plainly and exceedingly derogatory to the Sacrifice of the Cross and therefore abominable unlawful altogether The other power of reconciliation or ministring the Word and Sacraments they give for the substance of it according to the Evangelical institution but deal not so sincerely in it as they should 3. II. He replies The Protestants though they hold Order no Sacrament Form of Ordination certain how yet must grant that a certain form is required to every Order and that such a depravation as they charge the Romish Ordination with must needs so change the Form as to make all void and null and so by their own doctrine they received no Order at all from the Romish Church This he endeavours to make good by the Form of Baptism which if depraved and changed as to say I Baptize thee in the name of the Father who is greater then the Son or the like the Baptism is null Answ It is true that unto lawful Ordination though not a Sacrament properly a lawful and certain form is required such as may express the institution of the Order and the function and power of it with application to the person receiving it Now if it be so changed and depraved that it doth not in a sufficient manner express so much it renders the Ordination invalid but if the Form be preserved as to the substance of it and only other Additions made to it by way of aggregation they however unlawful do not void what is given according to the right form reteined as in Baptism where the due Element and Form are reteined though there be additionals of marking the child with fire too as the Ethiopian Christians are said to do or of Salt Spitle and other trumperies with forms of words belonging to them as in the Church of Rome the Baptism notwithstanding is valid and good So in this of Orders that which we call abominable and unlawful is an addition of mans invention yet seeing the words of Christ are reteined receive the holy Ghost and whose sins ye remit c. in which the lawful and certain form of conveying the power of the Ministry of reconciliation is conteined we say the Ordination is so far valid and good and may stand without the corrupt additionals wherewith it is clogged in the Romish Church yea doth stand the clearer being freed from them as it is in the Church of England And therefore we do not re-ordain those Priests that come from them but cause them to renounce the corrupt additionals confirm what was validly received in their Ordination We may say in this point as Aug. answered Potil concerning Baptism administred by the Donatists Non vestrum est quod destruere metuimus sed Christi quod Sacrilegis per se Sanctum est nam venientes à vobis recipere non possumus nisi quod vestrum est destruamus We fear to destroy the Baptism given by you not as yours but as it is Christs which is holy even among them that are Sacrilegious for we could not else receive those that come from you except we destroyed that which is yours Contra lit Petil. lib. 2. So of Romish Orders we destroy what is theirs not what is Christs in them for that is yet holy and good notwithstanding their Sacrilegious additions and when we receive any that come from them it is necessary we destroy and cause them to renounce what is theirs but admit what they have reteined of Christs institution 4. Romish Priests fuffering here and for what III. He replies as to that part of their Ordination which we admit of viz. that which includes the ministry of reconciliation That we confess it to be of Christs institution and yet make their Priests guilty of Treason and execute them for exercising of it So is it decreed 23. Eliz. ◠to reconcile to the Church of Rome c. cap. 10.355 Answ It is not for that very work of the ministry as it is a reconciling of Penitents to God no more then for Baptizing which is another work of the ministry of reconciliation which if a Romish Priest do he is not therefore obnoxious to the Law But because one of these is abused to Treasonable attempts and made very fit for it by their kind of practising Sacramental confession the other is not neither can be so abused being admmistred to Infants therefore it comes to pass that the former is forbidden to be practised within this Land not directly but so far as it is a reconcileing to the Bishop or Church of Rome So the Statute expresses it and what that reconciliation means our State before it made that Statute had learnt experimentally viz. the instilling of many Treasonable Principles into the Party reconciled and moving them upon all occasions to answerable practises by vertue of the Obligation that was upon them by their reconciliation to the Pope 5. All this is most plain in the Story of those Times wherein we may see the beginning and progress of the boldness of Romish Priests in their Treasonable Practises and accordingly the first rise and advance of the severity of Laws made against them Til the thirteenth year of the Queen there was no Law that touched them in this point of their Priestly function They did baptize and absolve and both unpunished because it was supposed they did only exercise their function in absolving people from their sins not in absolving Subjects from obedience to their Soveraign But after Pius Quintus sent out his Bulls of Excommunication against the Queen pronouncing her deprived of all rule and dignity and her Subjects absolved from the Oath of their
that our Ordinations are ful and perfect For having acknowledged that Vasques with others hold the immediat Matter of Ordination to be Imposition of Hands and the Form to be in those Words Receive the Holy Ghost which is to confess the Substance or Essence and so the Validity of Ordination to consist in that which we retein and use he makes but a Scholastick dispute of it the issue whereof is that Vasques his opinion can but amount to a probability and therefore we are not certainly but probably ordained pag. 423. c. Let it be so in his opinion which yet comes short of a certainly Null it is enough for us that we certainly know that our way of Ordination is according to and warrantable by Scripture and can give reason as a little below why we omit many things that they use 6. Secondly Seeing the Inference he made and the resolution he gave concerning their compounded Ordinations comes but to a juncta juvant such as the advice of a friend to use all the ingredients of a Recipe not being able to tell which giveth force to the Medicine we may spare surely some of their Mixtures when we have better directions to tell us they are superfluous and noxious to the purpose they are used for But we would advise them to follow this resolution or advise in using the whole Matter of the undoubted Sacrament of the Eucharist Scrupulous in Ceremonials careles and presumptuous in substantials and not think it enough to consecrate it in Bread and Wine but also to distribute it which is the purpose of the Sacrament in both kinds to the Communicants Dare they say of this Sacrament it is not certain that our Saviour did appoint it in the determinate Matter of Bread and Wine If they durst yet were it wisdome according to Champny's former resolution and advise in point of Ordinations not to omit either part which our Saviour hath appointed and the Ancient Church constantly administred to the People 7. Of their Vnction in Ordination Now for our omission of their Vnction which is the main of those Ceremonies we use not we say they cannot prove it Apostolical or that it was used in Ordination by the Greek Church But admit it was used anciently in the Western Church we say it was but a tolerable or convenient Rite or Ceremony as were many other anciently used but not now seen in the Roman Church And reason there was wherefore we should not continue some ancient Ceremonies after the infection of Popish corruptions as in this particular They had made Order a Sacrament and annexed to this ceremony of Unction a Sacramental vertue We dare not be so bold and certainly the Church ought to be very wary and sparing in Ceremonies to be used in and about any Sacrament In Sacraments we are to look at that which is signified or conferred Of significant Ceremonies Grace which is the sole act of God is the thing conferred and also signified but there is and may be also a signification of the Duty of Man who receives the Sacrament Now Ceremonies added do either signifie the Duty of man receiving and these are the most innocent and to this sort may refer the signe of the Cross in Baptism which was used not to give any vertue any way but to signifie the duty of the baptized not to be ashamed of Christ crucified but manfully to fight under his banner and to mind him of it A second sort are such as signifie Gods act in the Sacrament his imparting of Grace and to this purpose it is like they that first used Chrism in Baptism and so in Ordination meant it to signifie not confer that Charisma Spiritus of which the Fathers often This sort comes very neer to intrenching upon Gods institution who appoints his Sacramental Symbols to signifie his grace as also to confer it Lastly therefore when Ceremonies are added by man not only to signifie but with a kind of Sacramental vertue to confer or derive the grace or work of God upon us it is high presumption And to this sort perteins the Romish Unction which makes the most of them so earnestly contend to have it the very Matter of their Sacrament of Order and made us in the Reformation of Popish abuses to leave it off and we reteined the sign of the Cross in Baptism though abused in some measure by Popish Superstition because the native importance of it is the innocent and useful signification as I said of duty in the party baptised the like whereof cannot be said of Vnction 8. No invalidity in our Ordination by omitting some of their Ceremonies And for the Validity of our Ordinations notwithstanding the omission of divers of their Ceremonies and Rites which burden rather then strengthen the work I would know of Champny whether our Baptism be not good and valid notwithstanding our omission of their Chrism there too There are but two things can be said either that our Baptism is not valid and good which I suppose he dare not say or that there is not the like reason of Baptism and Ordination which he cannot say as to this point For though he may put a difference between them in regard of validity that depends upon the Minister who in Ordination is precisely determined yet in regard of Validity by reason of Matter and Form which is the present consideration he must say that Baptism and Order are both alike for to him as One is a Sacrament so is the Other and from the One he sometimes argues to prove the like in the Other as from the Form of Baptism to the Form of Ordination as we saw above in his 10. chap. and may below in his 14. pag. 480. which because it makes for better clearing this business of the Form of Ordination we will here insert 9. There he thus argues Quemadmodum si aliâ formâ ritu c. Even as if Parker for there he disputes against his Ordination from the Form of it had been baptized after any other form or manner then Augustine delivered he had not received true Baptism so neither true Ordination being ordeined by another Form then Austin was ordeined and did ordein by And pag. 483. he thus again argues against our Answering that we retein in our Form of Ordination what is essential and according to Scripture Si nihil aliud ad essentiam c. If nothing else pertein to the Essence of Baptism or Holy Order but what is expressed in Scripture then the Form both of Baptism and Ordination used in the Church of England is to be rejected because no where expressed in Scripture How false this no where expressed in Scripture is of the Form of Baptism I noted above under his first proposition and how the Form of Ordination is in Scripture either expresly conteined or deducible and approveable by it was also there declared But by both these reasonings it appeares that to him
have their judgment about Matters of Doctrine defined And in order to the due using of that supream and Sovereign Power we must allow him that he go not blindly to work Judgment in receiving of the evidence not only a private Judgment of discretion which we must allow every man in order to his own believing but also a publick Judgment answerable to the publick care and office he bears Yet is it not that immediat and ordinary Judgment of Matters of Religion which belongs to Bishops and Pastors of the Church in order to our believing but that secundary Judgment as I may call it which is necessary in the Sovereign for his establishing by Lawes that which is evidenced to him upon the Judgment and advise of the Pastors of the Church This Judgment in matters of Religion in order to public establishment the Sovereign ought to have upon a double reason I. In respect of his duty to God whose Lawes and worship He is bound to establish by his own Laws within his Dominions and is accountable for it if he do it amiss as the Kings of Israel and Juda were II. In respect of his own and his peoples security to judg that nothing be concluded or broached prejudicial thereunto under pretence of Religion and Ecclesiastical Autority as many points of Popery are Now for this reason of the Princes concernment I suppose the Clergy under Hen. 8. saw there was cause they should bind themselves as they did in their convocation by promise in verbo sacerdotis Not to Enact or promulge or execute any New Canons or Constitutions without the Kings Assent But if it be asked What if the Sovereign be wilful in following his own judgment rather then the evidence of Truth given in by the Pastors of the Church That will not concern our belief or Religion but the free and safe profession and exercise of it For the establishment of Princes is not as I said in order to our believing but our free and public exercise of Religion we must attend to the evidence of Truth given in or propounded by the Pastors of the Church who have commission to do it in order to our believing and yeild obedience to the establishment or Law of the Sovereign either by doing and conforming thereunto or by suffering for not doing accordingly 22. Princes truly said to reform Errors by their Supremacie By all this which I have said to rectifie the mistaken sense of this Supremacy in Ecclesiastical things it may appear how the Sovereign Prince may have and use his Supreme Power and his Judgment in and about such things without invading that spiritual power and that immediat and ordinary judgment which belongs to the Pastors of the Church how also he may be said truly to Reform and Correct Errors Heresies c. without taking to himself the office of those Pastors For when he doth it by them commanding them to the work and taking account of them he doth it truly and doth it by a Supremacy of power So did Hezekiah and Josiah truly reform all the errors and abuses about Gods Worship when they called and commanded the Priests to that work of purging the Temple and Ministring again in it according to the right way of Gods service Justinian in his Epistle to the 5. Councel reckons up what his predecessors had done for the preservation of the true Faith Semper studium fuit c. it was alwaies their care and endeavour Exortas haereses amputare to cut off Heresie as it sprung up How or by whom per Congregationem by gathering together Religious Bishops and causing them to preach the right faith Then having instanced in those Emperors that called the 4. General Councels he concludes Nos sequentes Volentes We following their examples and willing the right Faith be preached do c. Nothing is more obvious in Antiquity then the care and pains which good Emperors and Kings have used in employing their Sovereign power and Autority for repressing and reforming Errors and Heresies One of Justinians predecessors was Theodosius the second who did repress the Heresie of Eutyches then prevailing and newly advanced by the factious Councel of Ephesus and how did he do it by nulling or forbidding the decrees of that Councel to be received and to do this he was advised and entreated by Leo Bishop of Rome and other Bishops But of this example more largely below when we shall examine Champneys answer to it to whom it is now high time to return 23. His Arguments above insinuated are easily solved by what is already said to rectifie the mistakes about the Oath of Supremacie His Testimonies from the acknowledgments of Emperors and sayings of Bishops telling them their duty as he borrows them from Tortus or Bellarmine so he might have seen particular answers to the chiefest of them in the Bishops Tortura But these and the places of Scripture which he brought and King James his saying and the Testimonies of other Protestants which he alledged do all fall to the ground as impertinent and of no force through those failings I noted at the beginning and were made more apparent by what is said since that they touch not the main part of the Oath of Supremacie and cause of the deprivation of the Popish Bishops viz. their refusing to renounce the forrein jurisdidiction and Supremacie of the Papal usurped power also that those Arguments and Testimonies proceed onely against the mistaken sense of the other part of the Oath viz. of that Supremacie which is attributed to the Sovereign Prince and are easily satisfied by distinguishing the spiritual power of Bishops and Pastors from the Sovereign power of Princes in and about Ecclesiastical matters which powers though they have the same objects sometimes yet their manner of proceeding about them is different so by distinguishing the immediate and ordinary cognizance or judgment of matters of Religion which belongs to the Pastors of the Church defining and proposing them in order to our believing from that secundary judgment of the Sovereign Power in order to publick Establishment and free exercise of what we beleeve and receive upon the former evidence The judgment requisite to make the demonstration of truth out of Gods Word and to give out the Evidence belongs to the Ecclesiastick Pastors but the judgment requisite in receiving the Evidence is needful in all especially and upon a publick concernment in Princes that they may discern that nothing is propounded prejudicial to their just Rights or hurtful to their Subjects Also that they may be satisfied what is propounded as Faith and Worship to be according to the Law of Christ before they use or apply their Autority to the publick establishment of it This Judgment of the Prince I called Secundarie not to the prejudice of his Supremacie but to the acknowledgment of the immediat and ordinary judgment in matters of Religion belonging to the Pastors of the Church Secundary in the consideration
CERTAIN CONSIDERATIONS Of present Concernment TOUCHING THIS REFORMED Church of ENGLAND WITH A particular Examination of AN CHAMPNY Doctor of the Sorbon his exceptions against the Lawful Calling and Ordination of the Protestant Bishops and Pastors of this Church By H FERNE D.D. LONDON Printed by J.G. for R. ROYSTON at the Angel in Ivie-lane 1653. THE PREFACE HOw the several points handled in this Treatise concern this Reformed Church will be declared below when first we have taken notice of the causeless Aspersions and Reproaches which the Romanists cease not to cast upon is and against which these Considerations are purposely intended and opposed They think they have now a fitter oportunity by reason of the confusions of these Times to deal that way by Reproaches then as formerly by Arguments And it is no new thing for the enemies of Gods Truth to scoff at the afflicted condition of the professors of it The Ammonite is challenged for it Ezek. 25.3 Thou saidst Aha against my Sanctuary when it was profaned and so is Tyrus Ezek. 26.2 Thou saidst against Jerusalem Aha she is broken and laid wast I shall be replenished and so the Romanists looking now upon our disturbances say with those in the Psal 35.21 Aha we have seen it with our eyes and so would we have it Endeavouring by mocks and scoffs against the English Church to prevaile with ungrounded Protestants and all unwary ones that will be jeered out of their Religion One of their Pamphlets set out by a late Romish Convert the Reader must give me leave by the way to instance in for it gives us proof and example of what I said both wayes It shewes us a giddy unwary Protestant foolishly carryed away by the reproachful allegations of our Adversaries and having been a while among them presently instructed in this their way of scoffing at that Church and Religion he had forsaken Some of his wit he spends in a few Cursory animadversions as he calls them upon my former Treatise Those I let pass as inconsiderable and not fit to trouble the Reader with But the designe of his book was against that Learned and Solid piece of the University of Oxford set out by Act of Convocation 1647. against admitting of the Covenant He tells us there He is W. R. sometimes of Exeter Colledge but now a Convert of Rome and is not ashamed to profess that we may know his weaknes he had his impulsive cause of conjunction with Rome from that Act of the University pleading Tradition and the necessity of it as for Episcopacy so for other chief points of Faith But alas poor man he did not understand either what those Learned men said or what our Church allowes in the point of Tradition For however he pretend to Wit in reproving our Reformation and Religion yet in arguing when be ventures on it he behaves himself as a manforsaken of his Reason By his Titles prefixed to his book one may read what strein he meant to follow hold throughout his whole discourse for being not content to have at first entitled it An Examination of the Oxford Act he gives it two scoffing Titles more The Obit of Praelatick Protestancie and again The last dying words of Episcopacy faintly delivered in the Convocation at Oxford So he of the Modest and Sober Defence of those Learned Men against the then prevailing force And so might any Heathen Julian or Prophyry have derived the Apologies of the Ancients in the behalf of Christianity then under persecution and might have called them The last dying Words of Christian Religion So might the Arrians have termed the Defenses which Athanasius and others made The last dying Words of the Catholick cause and because Saint Hierom expresseth it dolefully with a Miratus ingemuit Orbis the whole Christian world wondred and sighed to see her selfe made Arrian Such a Reasoner as this might conclude the true Christian Faith was then groaning her last Now albeit there is nothing in this Pamphlet considerable either against our Church or against Episcopacy reteined in it yet did it give me occasion of further thoughts concerning them both and in order to the lawful Calling and Ordination of our Protestant Bishops to examine what Champny who professedly wrote against them hath alleged In the next place that I may give the Reader a better account of what was intended in the former and now pursued in this following Treatise He may please to take notice how the Romanists charge us with Schism in departing from their Communion upon our Reformation and reproach us with the Confusions of these Times as wrought under the like pretence of Reformation and defensible by the like principles upon which we stood in the work of our Reforming and to which we must hold in the defense of it To demonstrate the falshood of both Either that We who are now of a divided Communion from Rome are therefore guilty of Schism or that They who made the rupture in the Scottish first and then in the English Church can say justly for themselves against the former Doctrine and Government of those Churches what we can for our selves against the Church of Rome it was part of the work and purpose of the former book And it was demonstrable upon these grounds 1. There was a necessity of Reformation and we had just Cause for it by reason of the over-grown Papall power and the intolerable abuses in Doctrine and Worship 2. It was Warrantably done not only for the Cause of it but also for the Autority by which it was done whether we consider the Vote of the Clergy and the Iudgment of a Nationall Synod or the assent and command of the supreme and Sovereign power In which regard we see the Vanity of all that the Romanists allege from the Ancients concluding Schism Affirmatively or Negatively by Communion with the Church of Rome for however that Argument might be good when that Church stood right and held the Catholick Faith undefiled yet was it no more then they might and did conclude by Communion with other famous Churches confessedly Catholick No such conclusion can now be made upon holding or not holding Communion with the Romish Church since it gave such Cause of Reformation as abovesaid We see also the Vanity of their Reproaches that we leave every man to his privat Iudgment and Reason that we open a gap to all Sectaries to work confusion when they get force in any Church For however we leave men the use of their Reason and Iudgment in order to their own believing yet in order to Reformation we require not only just cause in regard of intolerable Error or Superstition but also due Autority for the carrying it on in the way of the Church These particulars were spoken to more or less in the first part of the former book Now for the further clearing of this point of the English Reformation and defending it so against the reproaches of Papists that no Sectaries
points of concernment or prejudicial to the Faith for that of the Millenary as it was not Universal so not of such moment and that of the Infant-Communion though more Universal and of longer continuance was but a tolerable Mistake The Church of Rome indeed in her Councel of Trent hath pronounced Anathema to them that shall say such communicating of Infants is Necessary which the ancient Church of Rome under Innocent the first did no question say and accordingly practise Therefore the instances of those Errors were not as I said directed against the whole Church but onely made use of against the Church of Rome and the Errors there prevailing which they will not acknowledge can take hold on that Church First to shew that the use of Private judgment which they scoff at is necessary in discovering and for reforming of Errors prevailing these two instanced in being so discovered and thereupon left off Secondly to shew that the Church of Rome did Err in this of Infant Communion Saint Augustin telling us directly L. 1. Cont. Julian c. 1. Definivit Innocentius Nisi manducaverint Innocentius defined unless they Infants eat the flesh c. Nay saith Saint Augustine Definivit Dominus the Lord himself defined it when he said Except ye eat and drink the ye have no life in you S. Joh. 6.35 Whereby it is plain that the practise of Iufant Communion being raised from that place Except ye eat S. John 6. was held needful and so it was held and practised in the Church of Rome however the Trent Councel condemning this Error slubbers it over saying it was practised quibusdam in locis in some places as if not in the Roman Church and that the Ancients doing so held no necessity of it Thirdly to shew that no point of Faith or Worship wherein they and we differ did so generally prevail in the Church and with so little contradiction made to it as those Errors did for some Ages It is true that Justin Martyr in his Dial. cum Tryiph insinuates that many piously affected did not entertain the Millenary belief yet he tells us 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 That all who were in all points Orthodox or of right Judgment held it and I said no more pag. 58. of the former book Also of all that wrote for 300. yeers even down to Lactantius inclusively most of them avouch it not one of them as I can finde contradicting or writing against it Whereas we can say to the Errors prevailing in the Roman Church that there were alwayes many piously affected who entertained them not and that they are upon Record and their contradiction to those prevailing Errors more apparent then was any made to the Millenary for the first 300. yeers or to Infant-Communion for moe Ages This is clear by the many Authors yet extant which albeit partial for the most part in the cause of the Church of Rome yet tell us of the opposition made to the prevailing conceit of a transubstantiating of the Elements in the Eucharist from Bertram down to Berengarius and after him how many opposed that and other Errors prevailing in the Church of Rome to the time of the Albigenses and fromt hence downward to the last Age. All this I say is upon Record in many Writers of former times Lastly to shew by the prevailing of those two Errors of the Millennium and Infant-Communion without any contradiction recorded how Cardinal Perrons two Rules for knowing who and what was Catholick according to antiquity were vaine and inconsistent with truth of which Sect. 31. of the sormer book To these purposes was use made of those two prevailing Errors against the Church of Rome Henry Ferne. Contents of the Chapters Chap. I. OF Submission of Judgment and external peaceable Subjection due to the Church National or Vniversal from the respective Members thereof pag. 1. Chap. II. Of the Reformation begun under Hen. 8. advanced under King Edward perfected under Queen Elizabeth and of the Warrantableness thereof pag. 62. Chap. III. Of the lawful calling of our English Protestant Bishops against Doctor Champny Sorbonist and of the first Prejudice from other reformed Churches that have not Ordination by Bishops pag. 89. Chap. IV. Of the second Prejudice against the Ordination from the Protestant Opinion of the Pope being Antichrist and the Church of Rome Heretical pag. 131. Chap. V. Of the third Prejudice from the Protestant Opinion of the Romish Orders that they are Sacrilegious and do not give an indelible Character pag. 156. Chap. VI. Of Archhishop Cranmers Ordination and the pretended defects of it Bigamy and Heresie pag. 177. Chap. VII Of Bishops Ordained in King Edwards time and the essentiall Defect pretended to be in the Form of their Ordination and of other presumptions against it pag. 210. Chap. VIII Of Archbishop Parkers Ordination and the pretended Defects of it from the New Form and the Incapacity of his Ordainers pag. 246. Chap. IX Of the other Bishops Ordained in the begining of Queen Elizabeths reigne and pretence of special defect in it by reason of Intrusion Where also of the Deprivation of the former Bishops and of the Oath of Supremacy as the chief cause of it pag. 264. Chap. X. The Exception against our Bishops that they were not Priests Of the Evangelical Priesthood or Ministery committed to us men and of the Romish Presumption in assuming more pag. 319. Errata PAg. 15. l. 6. for that is r. there is p. 35. l. 25. for Natures r. Natural p. 37. l. 2. for producit r. perducit p. 68. l. 10. for speak r. spake p. 111. l. 9. for fo r. of p. 126. l. 24. for perplexity r. prolixity p. 143. l. 25. of given dele of p. 144. l. 21. laid r. is laid p. 146. l. 16. asserted r. are asserted p. 147. l. 14. for an r. and. p. 191. l. 20. for wrought r. wrote p. 195. l. ult applyed r. is applyed p. 200. l. 1. for was r. were p. 203. l. 16. for Mat. 15. r. Mat. 5. p. 205. l. 23. for that r. then by p. 208. l. 27. for his r. this p. 216. l. 27. for impertirently r. impertinent p. 239. l. 11. for letten r. let p. 251. l. 20. for should r. would and l. ult for is r. as is p. 256. l. 1. for admit r. omit p. 264. l. 2. for autority r. austerity p. 266. l. 12. for perished r. persisted p. 274 l. 11. for alteration r. altercation p 302. l. 19. for Subject r. Submit p. 325. l. 2. for his r. it Additionals PAge 62. l. ult After King Edward add That several Bishops were committed into several Prisons pag. 237. line 26. after 7. Chapter add Now to the former part of the charge I answer that by the clause any Statute Law or Canon notwithstanding No Law Divine is dispensed with nor yet any Canon of the whole Church for Champny acknowledged above in his second proposition Nu. 5. that the Matter and Form of Ordination is not expressed
18. The gates of Hel shall not prevail S. Mat. 16. The spirit of Truth shall guide you into all Truth S. Joh. 16. and the like cannot be drawn to concern Councels but by many consequences and not at all to concern them in such an Infallible guidance as the Romanists would have 7. The assistance promised to them that meet in Christs Name Now to know the Importance of this place the promise and condition must be considered The promise of Christs being in the midst of them is made as we see to two or three even to the meanest Ecclesiastical meeting or Synod and therefore cannot assure that infallible guidance which among the Romanists is applied only to General Councels or to the Pope with his Consistory What then It must needs imply such assistance as is needful and sufficient Such as we acknowledg there can be no danger for any in the Church in submitting to her Definitions when and where such assistance is given 8. But for that we must look to the Condition required to be gathered together in the name of Christ viz. With due Autority from him and with mindes answerable to the end and purpose of their meeting that is with mindes free from worldly intents and designs and from all factious engagements seeking unfeinedly the glory of God and the propagation of the true Catholick faith and therefore setting before them the only Infallible Rule of Faith and Truth Gods Word attending to it with due heed and submission and with prayer for that is express in the Text to ask for assistance To such so gathered in the name of Christ the promise wil be made good and the issue wil be a declaration of the Truth in all matters of Belief and Worship 9. Now for our Submission The submission answerable were it certain they so met together in Christs name as it is certain the promise wil be made good to them if so met together no more would remain for us to do but to submit to their Definitions without any fear of danger or farther inquiry whether they be answerable to that Infallible Rule But we must needs say III. It is not certain that they which meet in Councels are so gathered together Sometimes it is certain and notorious that they are not as in the second Councel of Ephesius a packed faction prevailed to the advancing of the Entychian Heresy and in the Romish Councels for these later Ages the Papall power and faction hath managed and over-ruled all so apparently in their glorious Councel of Trent that it was often and openly complained of while the Councel was sitting and the decrees of that Councel not received in France for about 40. years after it was concluded Can we say such Councels are gathered in the Name of Christ or that the promise can belong to such and the Infallible assistance of Gods Spirit which the Romanists pretend can be given to such a company of Men so gathered together so overswayed with factious interests or to a Pope be he what he wil be for person so he be Pope For such to say Visum est Spiritui sancto nobi It hath seemed good to the Holy Ghost and to us what wants it of blasphemous arrogancy and what wants it of Simon Magus his sin to think the Holy Ghost can be bought with Money or bound to a Pope that hath bought his Chair and enters Simoniacally or to a company of Men whose Votes in Councel are purchased with Gold or golden hopes of preferment as it fared with a great part of them that met at Trent being either Titulars Popes Pensioners or bound to him upon like worldly concernments 10. But at the best where there is not evident cause of exception yet can there not be certainty that they which meet in Councel are so gathered in the Name of Christ with such minds purposes and endeavours as above required Now the Issue of the promise depends upon performance of the Condition of which performance though we may have a great presumption in regard of their learning and judgment and their high concernment as being answerable for mens souls besides the care and respect that God hath towards his Church yet can we not have such a certainty as simply and absolutely to ground submission of judgment and belief upon it and therefore we receive their Definitions concerning Faith and Worship not finally or chiefly upon the presumption we have of their performance or conformity to the condition of the promise but upon the evidence of that conformity which their Definitions have to the Infallible Rule It was the care of S. Paul and of the true Apostles and so it should be of all the Pastors of the Church by the demonstration of the Truth to commend themselves to every Mans Conscience that they have not handled the word of God deceitfully 2 Cor. 4.2 Upon this evidence or demonstration of Truth the Four first general Councels have been so generally submitted to so readily received by all good Christians 11. Submission and belief Conditionall and praevious or absolute and Final But fourthly lest that which is said of the Evidence and demonstration of Truth from Gods Word in order to assent or Faith be mistaken to a slighting of publick Autority and submission due to it because it may be also said and truly that such evidence made out of Gods Word by any man whatsoever requires and obtains such Assent we must know there is an Assent and belief properly due to the proposals of the Church or Doctrine of the Pastors and Teachers in it and that by vertue of their Office and Commission which they have to teach and rule others and that under so great a concernment as the giving account for their souls Only this Assent or belief is not at first absolute but conditional not final but previous and preparatory and so remains in the learner as a preparation till that Evidence or Demonstration come and advance it into a Divine Assent and final resolution grounded upon the revelation of Gods Word Or else it is Cashired upon the like Evidence to the contrary for we ought to submit and obey them til upon such Evidence we can say It is more right to hearken unto God then unto them Act. 4. and good reason seeing our submission to them stands upon their Autority and Commission which they have to teach and guide us therefore we must have a greater Autority against them from Gods word and seeing our judgment is not to be compared with theirs whose profession is the study or interpretation of Gods Word and whose lips preserve knowledge therefore we must have such Evidence of that greater Authority on our side that is apparent to any that can use his reason before we deny our submission to them But some may say if we cannot yeild submission of judgment and belief yet ought we to submit so far as not to publish it not to oppose
hath determined Indeed in matters of Discipline and Ceremony though in themselves of small concernment great opposition hath often been made to the judgment and determination of Autority of which I shal speak a litle below under the conformity of Practice in such matters and in the mean let us see what Cautions may be given in case of Privat Judgment justly dissenting from the Publike 14. Of concealing a dissent of Judgment in peaceable subjection If therfore it come to that as possibly it may yet for preserving of due submission take care 1. That our dissenting be not upon any comparing or equalling our privat judgment to the publique and autoritative judgment of the Church for this wil be absolutely against that conditional preparatory belief or assent with which we are to receive all her determinations but upon the evidence of a greater Autority on our side viz. the demonstration of Truth from Gods Word or primitive consent of the Catholique Church either of which is of more Autority then the present Governours of the Church 2. That the dissenting of privat judgment be only in order to a mans own believing and delivering of his own soul for which he is to give account not to any inconsiderate publishing of it to others for the light of Reason though it may not be put out yet may and often ought to be concealed and a mans privat judgment silenced in submission to the publique 3. If he publish or make known his dissenting it ought to be by modest proposal to his Superiours not by clamours against the Church to a disturbance of the peace of it much less by force or tumult as the manner of Sectaries hath usually been for if he cannot internally acquiesce in the judgment of the Church yet ought he to submit as far as possible externally and to suffer for it if need be 15. Whether in al Matters or Cases But here a question may be made about these matters in which we were said to have evidence of Scripture and Primitive consent if a Church should so far err as to judg contrary to these as for the error of Monothelites or Eutychians or for the worshiping of Images or any Creature with Religious worship must a man submit with silence in such a case I answer The Ministers of the Word being by that Church according to Gods Ordinance called to publish the Gospel and Counsels of God for salvation ought to propose their contrary judgment and belief to their Superiors so erring if they reform it is wel if not the other ought to declare these Counsels of God for in this case they have greater Autority as was said on their side and may say to the Governours of the Visible Church as the Apostles did to the great Councel Whether it be more right to hearken to you or to God c. Acts 4. And to this case I refer that other erroneous principle of belief the mother of Error and Apostacie that al the Members of the Church are bound to receive for Catholike Faith and Christian Worship all that the Church whereof they are Members proposes to them for such herein we had and all that are stil of the Roman Communion have cause to complain of that Church and to declare dissent of judgment from it which not only imposes Purgatory Transubstantiation and such novel errors for Articles of the Catholike faith and commands Image-worship as lawful and pleasing to God but also holds all the Members thereof bound to that former principle of mis-belief in a blind receiving all for faith and worship that shal be so proposed to them 16. The submiitting of Doctrine and Writings to the censure of the Church And this which hath been said will also speak the meaning of that submission which we profess to yeild when we usually say and not without cause We submit our Judgment Doctrine or Writings to the censure of the Church for 1. this is not a resignation of judgment in regard of believing but a submission in regard of the publishing it a putting it to the permission of the Church whether such Doctrine or Writings shall stand published or be silenced 2. And this not in all things simply for no Man can submit his Judgment and Doctrine to any Company of Men when he believeth and teacheth the prime Articles of Catholick Faith into which all Christians are baptized or the immediat consequences of them which are evident to all that can use Reason and Judgment or the express commands of God concerning Religious Worship but it is in things more questionable not plainly determined in Scripture and though deducible from some confessed Article or express Command yet by divers Consequences As in the first kind the Church hath power to silence and censure any that teach contrary to such Articles or Commandments but cannot forbid to teach them So in the second she hath power to silence any that teach contrary to her declared Judgment in them For it cannot be denyed that the Church hath power to over-rule and restrain the exercise of any mans Ministry in order to the common peace and safety she being answerable for others as wel as for him whom she restrains in publishing his private judgment or belief to others 17. Submission of Practise or Conformity in doing Thus much of Submission of Judgment in matters of Belief or Practice either in conforming to the Judgment and determination of the Church therein declared or in a fair and peaceable dissenting Now come we to Submission of Practice in a conformity of doing what the Church does and practises The Judgment we have of Matters either of belief or practice need not happily discover it self may for peace sake be silenced but in matters of practice determined by the Church and commanded to be done by us our conformity both in Judgment and Practice must needs then appear It was wel and peaceably said of Jo Frith a yong Man but Learned and Moderate in his Reply to Sir Thomas Moor concerning Transubstantiation Let it not saith he be Worshiped and think what you will for then is the Peril past Difference of judgment may be in a Church without disturbance In matter of worship but difference of practice because apparent endangers the peace of it And let me here add Notwithstanding the difference of judgment in the Protestant Churches de modo presentiae yet may they wel communicate together in the Sacrament because neither of them allow or practice that Adoration directed to the Sacramental Symbols which the Church of Rome practises and requires of all her Communicants or Spectators rather Now for Submission or Conformity in matters of practice we must remember such matters were of different sorts and concernments Worship Adoration Discipline Order Ceremony and then we have a double Caution 1. According to the indifferencie of the matter or the greater but evident concernment of it either to yeeld conformity for Peace sake
or forbear for Conscience sake 2. That such forbearance of any practice be an Act of simple and bare Omission without clamour and contempt of Autority without tumult or resistance with a readines to suffer rather then is there peaceable subjection when private judgment keeps within these bounds For such conscionable forbearance of many practices in the Church of Rome of high concernment and very evident they have good cause that are within her Communion Such practice is the exercise of Religious Worship many wayes applyed in that Church to the Creature such also are some superstitious Rites and Ceremonies having a kind of Sacramental vertue and real holiness affixed to them 18. In Matters of Ceremony or Discipline But as for Rites and Ceremonies in themselves indifferent and by the Church enjoyned only with respect to Order and Discipline there is no cause of inconformity or forbearance yet in these hath there been great opposition from privat Judgments that could not keep within their bounds and those places of Rom. 14. He that doubteth is damned if he eat and what is not of Faith is sin have been abused to maintain a dissenting from the Judgment of the Church and a forbearance of the Practice We say therefore those places are misapplyed to matters determined by publick Autority against which it is not doubting or want of Faith i.e. perswasion of the Lawfulness or indifferency of the thing so determined that can take place or bear out disobedience but evident demonstration of the thing out of Gods Word to the contrary and the Reason is plain the command of Gods Word for Obedience and Submission to them that are over us is evident and therefore against them we must have evidence from Gods Word to shew they are mistaken in their Judgment or determination of that particular Now when a Church professes the thing determined by her to be indifferent in it self or of a middle Nature neither commanded by God nor forbidden and that she neither affixes any Sacramental or Spiritual vertue or hollness to it nor enjoyns it as Worship but only out of respect to Order and Discipline no man can have any evident demonstration but only a doubting or mixt perswasion of the unlawfulness of such a thing and although a Man of doubting of a thing in it self indifferent but not determined or enjoyned by Authority may by reason of his doubting have cause to forbeare it yet not in this case of the supposed determination and injunction of Autority for he that will then urge He that doubteth is damned must remember that he that disobeyeth is damned too that former place of doubting having many exceptions of which this predetermination of Autority is one but this disobeying of Autority hath only one viz. when there is sufficient evidence of L. vine Autority against the thing determined by humane and so it becomes an Obeying of God rather then Man 19. Of Priests Celebacie enjoyned by the Church and how But it may be expected because I referred the injunction of Priests single life to matter of Discipline that I should speak particularly to the conformity of Judgment and Practice to it I referr'd it to Discipline because antiently enjoyned not in a disparagement to Marriage which the Apostle concludes Honourable in all men but in Order to their better discharge of their Duty and Priestlie or Ministerial function and I do not now dispute the difference of that antient injunction from the now Roman exaction of single life nor question with what fulness of Autority it was enjoyned or how far or how long binding which I shall have more fit occasion to touch a little Num. 25.26 below and more largly against Champny in the sixth Chapter but only speak to the point of Submission and conformity to such judgment or determination of the Church supposing it fully concluded and binding Therefore I cannot but say while it was so binding every Clergy-man had cause to Judge the Governors of the Church saw reason to enjoyn it was bound to endeavour conformity in Practice i.e. to use such means by Temperance Fasting Prayer as conduce to preserve that continency of Single life but if after due use he found himself not answerable to that state but in the condition to which S. Paul prescribes the use of that remedy which God had ordained Marriage against Burning he was bound notwithstanding the Church-Ordinance to take to it and this as it hath direct Warrant from Gods Word so is it not a direct opposition to the Church Ordinance which was but conditional as in the prohibition of Marriage to Fellows of Colleges under the pain of loss of their Fellowships Only in this point of Priests Marriage the condition is of greater concernment the loss of Clergy or quitting the Ministerial function which if happened to him that hath dealt conscionably as above in the business the Church must answer for it 20. Thus have I endeavoured as neer as I can to discover and fixe the bounds of Submission of Privat Judgment and Practice according to the several condition of the matter wherein it is shewn and according to the divers extent and manner of performing or shewing it either to a direct conformity and compliance with the publick or if dissenting yet to a yeilding of all possible peaceable Subjection and that if need be to a suffering under Autority If Privat Judgment keep it self within the former bounds of Submission there can be no harm to the Church 21. I should now speak the respect Passages out of 8. Augustine touching Autority and Reason which every National or particular Church ought to bear to the Universal in this point of Submission but before we go farther it wil be worth our pains to take a short view of some passages of S. Aug. appliable to the business in hand concerning Autority and Reason I calld them Autority and Evidence or demonstration of Truth in his Books de verâ Relig. and de Vtil tate credend It is his purpose there to shew how Autority goes before Reason in our believing or receiving the Christian Faith which by the Romanists is sometimes misapplyed to the purpose of that Church requiring belief to rest upon her Autority We may therefore take notice that the writing of those books was occasioned by the Manichees who reproached the Catholiques for requiring belief of their Scholars or Auditors before they shewed them reason and boasted Se terribili Autoritate separatâ c. that laying aside all supercilious Autority they would by simple and plain reason bring Men to God cap. 1. de util cred Had this Romish Infallible Autority which exacts belief simply and finally been then pretended to in the Church they might well have call'd it terrible Autority and S. Augustine could not but have spoken to it Whereas it is his only work in both books to shew that Men are first moved by Autority to a belief of things before they see
the Reason of the things themselves Now the belief upon this Autority is but previous and preparatory as I call'd it in order to that which S. Augustine calls Reason or evident knowledg of the truth For he tels us this Autority viz. of the Church proposing the Catholick Faith stands upon Miracles confirming that Faith and Multitude of believers that have embraced it and this indeed is the first motive to induce a Man to seek and believe he may have the true Faith and Religion in such a Church such a company of Relievers Again he pleads for belief due to the Autority of Pastors and Teachers of the Church whom he cals Antistites Dei whom God hath set in his Church as Governours and Teachers cap. 10. de Vtil Cred. and this is but according to the Rule common to the teaching of other Sciences Oportet discentem credere He that is taught must give credit to him that teacher him Lastly we find him every where speaking the end of that Autority and teaching in the Church it is praecolere procurare animum or idoneum facere percipiendae veritati to mould and fit the mind for perceiving and embracing the Truth and preparare illuminaturo Deo to prepare it for the enlightning of Gods Spirit which he calls sometimes the punging of the mind viz. from Natures ignorance self-conceit love of Worldly pleasures that it may be fit to behold the clear Truth and this is it which he calls Reason and gives it the chiefest Authority Summa est ipsius veritatis jam cognitae perspicuae Autoritas cap. 14. de verâ Relig. this was calld Evidence above or Demonstration of Truth and cap. 25. of the same book Purgatioris animae rationi quae ad veritatem pervenit nullo modo preponitur humana Autoritas Humane Autority must give way to Reason and Evident truth which a Soul purified by Faith knows and believes Thus much in reference to that which had been spoken above of preparatory conditional belief due to and beginning from Autority but finally resting in the Evidence and Demonstration of Truth Like as the belief of the Samaritans given first to the Testimony of the Woman that had been with Christ brought them out unto him but stayed at last upon Aâ—divimus ipsi we have heard him our selves S. John 4.42 22. Pride makes men pass the bounds of peaceable subjection Now in reference to that which was spoken of Submission of privat Judgment keeping within bounds of peaceable subjection hear what S. Augustine subjoyns immediately upon the former words cap. 25. de Verâ Rel. ad hanc nulla humana suPerbia producit To this viz. the reason and belief of a purified minde pride brings no man quae si non esset nec Haeretici nec Schismatici essent but for this Pride and self-conceit the cause why privat Judgments do not keep within bounds there would be no Hereticks or Schismaticks for it comes not to this but when nimiâ levitate as he speaks sometimes through too much lightness of judgment they are driven tanquam palea vento Superbiae as chaff by the puff of their own pride from the Lords floor or Visible Church 23. Vnjust excommunication and want of the Communion of the Church upon it But what if Privat Men for a peaceable dissenting in judgment or practice from the Visible Church of which they were Members in points of high concernment for Belief or Worship be censured and driven from the communion of it They are not for all that driven from the Communion of the Catholick Church but their condition is not unlike the case of those good men which S. Augustine speaks of cap. 6. de verâ Rel. Divine Providence saith he suffers sometimes Viros bonos per turbulentas sed tiones carnalium hominum expelli de Congregatione Christianâ Good men to be cast out of the Communion of the Visible Church through the turbulent Seditions of carnal Men How such if private men must behave themselves declaring also how they ought to behave themselves in that condition patiently constantly by charity to those to whose Violence they gave way and perseverance in the Faith of the Catholike Church sine Conventiculorum segregratione without making Conventicles apart testimonio suo juvantes eam fidem quam in Ecclesiâ and by their witness and profession helping that Faith which they know is still taught in the Church These saith he thus serving God in secret Pater viaens in occulto coronat their Father which sees in secret crowns and rewards Observe he speaks here of privat Men and so do we hitherto but he supposes them cast out of the Church in which the Catholick Faith is truly professed with due Christian Worship and therefore saith Examples of such expelled good men are rare Whereas we supose such to be cast out from the Visible Communion upon the cause of Faith and Worship and those turbulent persons to be the chief Rulers casting them out upon that account and therefore with more advantage may conclude it is well with such in the sight of God that sees in secret Indeed the condition of the Catholick Church being such as it was in S. Augustine his dayes it could not but be rare to find such examples but if he had seen these latter Ages and the corruption of Faith and Worship upheld by pride and Tyranny of the chief Rulers especially within the Communion of the Romish Church he might have seen examples great store of good men and pious for peaceable dissenting or desiring Reformation cast out and persecuted 24. Now in the last place Submission of National Churches to the Vniversal of the respect which National Churches have and ought to have to the Universal as to this point of submission we need not say much 1. Several National Churches being parts as it were and Members making one whole Church called the Catholic in some proportion ought to bear like respect to the Definitions and practises of the Catholick Church as Inferior or privat persons to the particular National Church of which they are Members in some proportion I say as also it was said Sect. 9. of the former book but with advantage to a National Church in this point of Judgment above what is allowed proportionable to privat persons for they have only Judgment of discretion in order to their own believing whereas a National Church hath publick Judgment both in receiving the Decrees of the Universall Church or in making some her self and in proposing them to others whom she is to guide and answer for and so can make publick reformation when there is cause for it and constitute a Visible Church in depending in point of Government of any other Visible Church or rather can continue a Visible Church as it was before but with this difference from what it was before that now it stands reformed or purged from many errors and freed from the Tyranny of forrein
convocated managing the business and concluding what was to be done in it and the soveraign Prince with Parliament confirming and giving public establishment to that which was so concluded and agreed upon by them Seeing also Champny doth largely insist upon this point of the Supremacy in his 15 16. Cha. upon occasion of deprivation of Popish Bishops for refusing the Oath of Supremacy under Q. Elizabeth we will defer farther prosecution of this point til we meet with him below CAP. III. Of the lawful calling of our English Protestant Bishops against Doctor Champny a Sorbonist and of the first prejudice from other Reformed Churches that have not Bishops 1. THis Writer having spent 8. Chap. of his book against the Vocation of Ministers in the Reformed Churches which want Bishops advanceth in the 9. against our English Protestant Bishops and labours what he can more indeed then all his fellows beside to make their Vocation or Ordination unlawful To that end Defects in Ordination how arising he layes this as the ground-work on which his whole discourse must proceed That Ordination which gives lawful calling to the Pastors of the Church must be valid and right in respect of the Ordainer of the Ordained and of the Ordination it self or Form of it and that a defect in any of these renders the Ordination and so the calling of the Party Ordained unlawful cap. 9. pag. 308. We admit the consideration of those three respects as proper and pertinent to the business in hand and do grant that there may be such a defect in any of them as wil render the ordination either Unlawful for the use or plainly Void or Nul for the substance of it 2. Our English Bishops receiving Ordination from the Romish He begins to examine the calling and ordination of our Bishops and Priests according to the first respect of their Ordainers viz. those of the Church of Rome For from thence the English Church received her Bishops and Pastors together with the Christian Faith in the time of Gregory the first this we acknowledge of the English though the Brittains had the Christian faith and their Bishops before and hath continued that ordination and calling of Bishops with uninterrupted succession down from those first Christian Bishops to Cranmer and our first reformed Bishops The Romish Ordainers he as he must needs allows of and approves the Orders given by them as good and lawful but would make our plea from thence void by our own judgment and according to the Protestant doctrine concerning them and the Orders received from them The summ of his Reasonings is briefly this 1. From the judgment and practice of other Reformed Churches which renounce Ordination by Bishops especially from Rome pleading their vocation upon other grounds and therefore either they or we can have no lawful Pastors no Church 2. From the judgment and doctrine generally of all English Protestants by whom the Pope is held to be Antichrist or Antichristian therefore we must acknowledg we received our Ordination and calling if from Rome from the Ministers of Antichrist by whom also they of the Church of Rome are accounted Heretikes therefore we can have no lawful calling from such by whom also the Orders there given are accounted Antichristian abominable Sacrilegious and therefore cannot be lawfully received by us Lastly by whom the Sacramental Character is exploded and therefore no power of Order can be received by us All this he wil have follow upon Protestant doctrine to defeat us of our plea from Romish Ordainers This is the summ of his Reasonings in the 9. and 10. Chapt. We shall examine them in order as briefly as we can 3. The seeming prejudice from other Reformed Churches First for the judgment and practice of other Reformed Churches He urges That they renounce our plea of having Ordination by Bishops and of receiving any orders from the Church of Rome esteeming them Antichristian and pleading extraordinary Vocation from whence he concludes against them that they have no lawful Pastors therefore no Church and consequently against us that we are bound by our plea of Ordinations by Bishops and those derived from Rome to renounce the fellowship of those Churches which hitherto we accounted of as Sisters and to stand alone divided from all other Churches as we are from the Roman and to hold the Church of England the only true Church thereby confining the Catholic Church within the bounds of that Kingdom which considering the Number of Puritans Brownists Anabaptists all which defie these Ordinations and that plea wil be too too narrow To this purpose he cap. 9. pag. 315 316. c. 4. Now although the different condition of some Reformed Churches doth not immediatly concern us who have retained the regular way of Ordination by Bishops yet because the Romanists make it a matter of reproach to us and some in these Times who covenanted the extirpation of Episcopal Government sought a defence in it for such Schismatical attempts we wil answer to the former charge and try what may be duly concluded upon the judgment and practice of other Reformed Churches First therefore we may say in general However it stands with the Reformed Churches which want Ordination by Bishops and whatever be concluded on them by Champny and others as to the point of having lawful Pastors or being Churches yet his last inference of our restraining the Catholic Church within such narrow compass as this Kingdom is altogether inconsequent for we do not exclude the Roman Church out of the bounds of the Catholic Church neither doth it follow upon our division or want of externall Communion between us that either it or we should be wholly severed from the Catholic Much less do we exclude the Greek and Eastern Churches who have their Ordination and Succession of Pastors from the Apostles as well as the Romish Church Yea and we may add here We cannot exclude those Reformed which want the regular way of Ordination from belonging to the Catholic Church 5. All Reformed Churches not without Ordination by Bishops But 2. All Reformed Churches i.e. such as have purged themselves of Romish Error and Superstition besides the English are not without Government and Ordination by Bishops Those Churches which are the Remains of the ancient reformed Bohemians and are now in and about Poland or those parts do stil retain Bishops as appears by their Book set out 1626. containing the substance of their Doctrine the manner of their Government Synods c. Neither are Denmark and Sweden without their Bishops and therefore Champny's other inference That in this plea of Ordination by Bishops and that derived from the Romish Church we of England stand alone is also false 6. Now 3. The judgment of other Reformed Churches of our Bishops As for reformed Churches in a stricter sense such as those of France Geneva Germany which Champny names c. 9. what their judgment was of our Bishops and Ordination by them
of Pastors duly sent and lawfully ordained doth highly concern the Church so is it most clear that the first concernment of the Doctrine of faith and life is the chief and simply necessary to all the Members of the Church and that the latter Order of Ministry and Government by Pastors and Teachers is to serve unto it The Apostle shews us this by two similitudes he uses to set out the Constitution of the Church One Eph. 4. of a Body fitly joyned together c. That which joyns the body of the Church to Christ the head and knits one joynt or part to another is Faith mentioned ver 13. and Love or charity ver 16. and He gave Apostles Pastors Teachers for the perfecting and edifying of this body ver 12 13. and that not carried away with every wind of doctrine ver 14. The other similitude is of a Building 1. Cor. 3. The Foundation is Christ that which joyns us to it is Faith and knits us as stones to one another is Charity the builders are Pastors and Teachers who lay us upon the Foundation by bringing us to the Faith Ministers by whom ye believed ver 9. So then Faith and Charity joyn men formally intrinsecally to Christ the Head and Foundation Pastors and Teachers serve to that end and do that work ministerially and extrinsecally The first is the chief and the doctrine that contains it necessarily concerns all the Members of that body in particular as to their being such concerns them I say simply and indispensably as to the holding of the the Foundation or Doctrines immediatly fundamental and also necessarily as to the consectary doctrines according to the revelation or means they have of knowing them but the latter viz. the having of Pastors so sent and ordained serves unto the former yet so as the Order left and established in the Church for the perfecting of it is strictly to be observed where it can possibly be had and kept for wilful omission or rejection of it is not only a great sin and Sacrilege committed against the commandement and appointment of Christ and his Apostles but also such a breach of charity in them who are guilty of it that it renders them Schismatical and so far disjoyned from the body of Christ which is his Church as they stand guilty of it 14. Of Churches without due Ordination of Pastors by Bishops And now to come to some issue by application to the Churches in question I. Where the first viz. the doctrine of faith and life is truly and sufficiently professed and held we cannot think that a bare Want there or unavoidable defect and irregularity in the second viz. the Order of sending or Ordaining Pastors doth exclude such professed Christians from belonging to the Church Which unavoidable and necessary defect may arise either because they cannot have Ordination from Bishops abroad or because the soveraign Power being adverse will not suffer them either to have Bishops among them or to receive ordinations from forrein Bishops that would give them II. We must look at those who are in such a condition without Pastors regularly ordained as at Churches defective and not compleatly framed but in a capacity or expectation of receiving their completion when that necessity which enforces the defect is removed and so continuing as wel as they may rather then to give up that Truth and purity of Christian Doctrine they have attained to 15. VVhether of choice or of necessity Let me here add what Doctor Moulin Son of Peter Moulin saith in behalf of the French Churches and I add it chiefly for their sakes that gave him the occasion they were the Soottish and English Presbyterians who at the beginning of these Troubles rejected Bishops and Ordination by them and sought to justifie themselves by the example of the French Churches He therefore shews them in his book then set out what judgment and desire the best in those Churches have expressed concerning Bishops and that their not having them was not of choice but necessity which he endeavours to demonstrat by several reasons drawn from the consideration of that Kingdome and of their condition under the Soveraign Power there And to shew if they might have their choice they would willingly have Bishops he tells us that the Bishop of Troyes having abjured Popery began to preach the pure Word of God and sent for the Elders of the Reformed Church to know whether they would confirm and acknowledg him for their Bishop which they all with one consent did submitting themselves to his obedience And then adds There is none I dare say of all the Churches of France but would do as much in the like case None but would obey Bishops if Bishops would reform and obey God Till God extend so much mercy upon that Kingdome the poor Churches will stay for the leisure of the Bishops viz. which now possess the Sees and are not Reformed keeping themselves in an estate fit for Obedience Or as he had said before The Church of France being under the Cross and without Bishops is a body prepared for Obedience whensoever the Popish Bishops shall reform in the 25. and 26. pag. of his book But for those that reject Bishops when they may have them he shews how they fall under the severe censures of Zanchy and Calvin Testor me coram Deo saith Zanchy I protest before God and in my Conscience that I hold them no better then Schismaticks that account or make it a part of Reformation of the Church to have no Bishops c. Yea they are worthy saith Calvin of any execration that will not submit themselves unto that Hierarchy that submitteth it self unto the Lord These censures he cites in his 13. pag. out of their Tracts De Reform Eccles for both wrote of that Argument 16. Now to Champny's Argument A true Church is not without true Pastors for as Cyprian saith Ecclesia est populus Pastori conjunctus and again Ecclesia est in Episcopo Episcopus in Ecclesia But those Reformed Churches have not true Pastors lawfully called but only pretended Elders which are made by those that have no power to ordain or send others therefore they are no Churches Moulin would answer and first grant with Calvin That the World may be as wel without the Sun as the Church without true Pastors l. 4. Inst c. 3. And farther take the word True Pastors that there be no ambiguity in it for such as are called lawfully after the originall and ordinary way of the Church viz. for Bishops and those that are ordained by Bishops He wil grant the proposition true of the whole Church which is never without such and also true of particular Churches completed perfected and regularly formed Such Churches he acknowledgeth the French are not but in a state imperfect yet capable of a regular completion and as it were expecting of it And therefore wil deny that they are concluded by the former argument to be
no Churches or not to belong to the Church of Christ because of that want or defect in the Vocation or Ordination of their Pastors 17. Those companies indeed of Christians who believed in India upon the preaching of Frumentius belonged to the Church of Christ before they received Pastors from the Bishop of Alexandria and that multitude which believed in Samaria upon the preaching of Philip and were baptized by him were indeed of the Church and a Church of Christ though not completed til Peter and John went down with due Autority to set all in order there Accordingly we may account of those Reformed Churches which have not their Pastors sent and ordained as from the beginning as of Congregations not regularly formed as Churches not completed not indeed without Pastors altogether as those of India and Samaria at the first were but having such as they can viz. such as have if we wil speak properly the Vocation on Election of their respective Churches which is one thing in the calling of Pastors but not due Ordination which is the main thing in impowering them to the exercise of the office and so are Pastors by a moral designation to the Office rather then any real or due consecration which only is by those hands that have received the power of sending or Ordaining Pastors from the Apostles 18. It must be granted that the Vocation of such Pastors is deficient and their Ordination irregular and that not only by the Ecclesiastical Canons in that behalf but also by Apostolical Order and practice Yet because they hold the Faith which is the chief point in the constitution of the Church and have not wilfully departed from that Apostolical Order and way of the Church by the breach of Charity in condemning and rejecting it but do approve of it where it may be had we cannot say that irregularity or deficiency infers a plain Nullity in their Pastors and Churches as Champny will have it but stands in a condition of receiving a supply or completion and is in the mean time so far excusable as the want or not having of that Supply is of Necessity and not of Choice 19. But Champny will admit of no excuse either of irregularity confessed in the calling so their Pastors or of Necessity pleaded as the cause enforcing it But proceeds to prove such a nullity in their Ordinations that it concludes them to have no Pastors at all and no Church This argument he pursues chiefly against Doctor Field Distinction of the power of Bishops and Presbyters as to Ordination who in the 3. book of the Church cap. 39. had endeavoured in behalf of the Reformed Churches that have not Bishops to shew that their Ordinations though not regular according to the way of the Church yet were not simply invalid and that by the Doctrine of the best Schoolmen who held the Office of a Bishop to be not a distinct Order or to imprint a distinct Character from that of the Priestly function which also they proved by this instance A Bishop Ordained per saltum i. e. who was not first made Presbyter cannot either consecrate the Sacrament or Ordain others but a Priest or Presbyter ordained per saltum may execute the office of the Deacon by reason that the Superior Order conteins in it self the Inferior whence Doctor Field would have it concluded That Bishop and Presbyter differ not in Order or in the very power of Order but in eminency and dignity of an Office to which Ordination and other performances as Confirmation public absolution c. are reserved also that when the antient Church declared Ordination by Presbyters to be void and null it is to be understood according to the rigour of the Canons not that all such Ordinations were simply null ex naturâ rei and in themselves or not to be born with in any Case 20. See we now what Champny replies to all this and then consider what may be reasonably allowed and said as to this point His answer is to this purpose That those Schoolmen if they hold not Episcopacy to be a distinct Order yet say it is a distinct power if not a different Character yet a new Extension of the former Sacerdotal Character and that the Argument from Ordination per saltum doth not disprove the latter way Lastly that such Presbyterian Ordinations were in the judgment of the Ancient Church Null ex naturâ rei and not by the Ecclesiastical Canons only for that judgment or sentence of the Church was not a Constitutive decree for then the beginning of it would appear in the Canons of the Ancient Councels but only Declarative of what was so in it self from the beginning of the Church This he in his 7. Chap. 21. Here something is doubtful and questionable something clear and apparent That Bishops had a power or faculty to do something which Presbyters could not namely to ordain is clear in Schoolmen and Fathers but whether that power make the Episcopal function a distinct Order from the Priestly or imprint a different sacramental character we leave it to the Schoolmen to dispute Also we grant that Bishops receive and exercise that power as Champny saith truly not by a Moral designation only as Judges and Officers in a State do for the time of their office or as those among the Presbyters seem to do who are assigned to ordain others but by Real consecration or sacred devoting them to that office or work of ordaining and sending others Which consecration though it imprint not a Sacramental Character on the Soul as the Romanists express it yet it gives to the Person so ordained devoted such a faculty or habitude to that action or work as cannot be taken from him the reason of which we shall enquire below where occasion is given to speak more of that which the Romanists call Character indelible in this point of Holy Orders Furthermore whether this office of Ordaining imply a power wholly superadded to the Priestly function Two wayes of conceiving the power of Ordination in Bishops Ordaining imply a power wholly superadded to the Priestly function which is one way of conceiving it or a faculty of exercising that power supposed to be radicated or founded in the Priestly Order and diffused with it by restraining it to certain persons consecrated for that performance it may be questioned Doctor Field seeme plainly to conceive it this latter way and so do the Schoolmen alleged by him and Champny's expression of their sense by extention of the Sacerdotal Character if it have any sense speaks as much viz. the dilating of that which was before in the Sacerdotal Order radically by extending that Radical power unto a proxima potentia or immediat faculty in certain persons consecrated to the exercise of it and keeping it restrained in all others of that Order who are not so consecrated and devoted to that great work of Ordaining and sending others Lastly whether we conceive of it as
a power wholly superadded or as the restraint of a power diffused it is clear that the exercise of that power the performance of Ordination was setled upon certain and speciall persons who were properly Bishops and Chief Pastors by Apostolical appointment and practice Of which there are so clear footsteps in Scripture suchapparent Monuments and Records in Antiquity that it is no less then a wonder any Learned Judicious Man should think it could be otherwise or conceive as the Presbyterians generally that this Order was afterwards set in the Church as an humane though prudent invention to avoid Schism and preserve Unity and not withall conceive it reasonable to think the Apostles did foresee that Reason and provide against it when as we hear Saint Paul complaining of it 1 Cor. 1. and Saint Hierom refers that Order of setting Bishops over Presbyters to that very cause pointing out that very time when some said I am of Paul I of Cephas 22. If therefor Doctor Field when he answered that Ordinations without Bishops were void according to the rigor of the ancient Canons did mean that such Ordinations offended only against Ecclesiastical Constitutions we grant that Champny duly proves it otherwise and do acknowledg them transgressions not only of Ecclesiastical but Apostolical Constitution and Practice but we are not therefore bound to yeild an utter nullity of them in all cases ex naturâ rei as he contends unless he can clearly demonstrat this faculty or office of ordaining to stand in a distinct power wholly superadded and not in the extension of the Priestly Order or limiting of the exercise of that power conceiv'd to be radically diffus'd with it Thus indeed Doctor Field as I said seems to conceive it and thereupon to deny such Ordination to be Null in themselves ex naturâ rei yet withal to hold as may be gathered out of his 5. book cap. 27. that this Order or limiting of the Power in the exercise of it to certain special persons was by Apostolical appointment 23. And no question the antient Church had respect to that Apostolical constitution when she pronounced such Ordinations without Bishops to be void and Null as repugnant to that constitution not defining whether they were void ex naturâ rei but declaring she had good cause to account them void and not to admit any to officiate that did so wilfully transgress against Apostolical order and practice and could have there being Bishops then at hand in every Nation where Christian Faith was professed no pretence of necessity or of loosing the band by which the Apostles had restrained the exercise of that power to certain persons thereunto consecrated And if any Presbyter should have heretofore presumed to ordain within the Church of England their Ordinations had deserved to be accounted of no otherwise then as void And so within every Church completed and regularly formed according to Apostolical Order ought they to be accounted 24. Now that I may draw to a Conclusion and freely speak what I think of the two forementioned wayes of conceiving the Ordaining power to be estated by the Apostles upon special and select men properly called Bishops or chief Pastors I suppose the first way which conceives it superadded as a distinct power to their Priestly function to be the clearer for securing the Episcopal function and distinguishing it from the other but the second way which conceives that power radically diffused and communicated in the very order of the Priestly function and restrained to such select persons in the exercise of it the faculty or immediate power whereof they received by consecration I suppose to be more easie and expedient for a peaceable accord of the difference in hand and yet safe enough for Episcopal Ordination 25. The first way conceives the Apostles who had the whole power given them by Christ both the extraordinary Apostolical power and that which was ordinary and to continue in the Church did communicate this power severally That which belonged to the office of Deacons to persons chosen for that purpose That which belonged to the Ministery of reconciliation to all Pastors or Presbyters So likewise That power of sending and ordaining others to these Offices was communicated entirely unto special persons appointed and consecrated to that work This as I said is more clear in the distinguishing of the several Functions of holy Order But the second way which estates the power or faculty of Ordaining upon special persons by restraining the exercise of it to them seems as above said to be more fair and easie for the making up this business of the Reformed Churches which have Ordination without Bishops and yet to afford safety enough to Episcopal function and Ordination For it first supposes that to be established and secured by Apostolical Order which none can transgress wilfully without Sacrilege and consequently it acknowledges such Ordinations without Bishops to be irregular and deficient in regard of Apostolical order and constitution and that they ought to receive a supply completion and confirmation by the imposing of Bishops hands before the persons so Ordained can be admitted to officiat in a Church completed and regularly formed Lastly by this way whatsoever is spoken by S. Hierom in appearance favourable to the Presbyterian pretence may be cleared and reconciled to Truth and by it may be answered also whatever is brought by Champny or others to prove such Ordinations utterly or ex naturâ rei null and void in all cases 26. I will not trouble the Reader to hear any long Scholastick contest with Champny in the business only I shal shew by one instance how well he hath acquitted himself in the defense of his assertion against the former argument of a Bishop ordained per saltum and therefore not having power to ordain others or consecrate the Sacrament because he wants the Priestly Order That which he replies to it returns more forcibly upon himself A Bishop per saltum cannot ordain and why Sicut ex eo c. Even as saith he because the Priestly function is exercised both about the Mystical body of Christ in absolving and binding and also about the Natural body of Christ in consecrating of it it doth not therefore follow there is a diverse Order but a diverse power of the same Order So the power of Ordaining though it make not a distinct Order from that of the Priestly Function yet is it a distinct power of Order To this purpose he cap. 7. pag. 183 184. But this comes not home to Ordination per saltum where it is supposed that the power of Ordaining is not given at all because the Priestly Order is wanting This also returns more forcibly upon him by applying it thus according to his reasoning Even as the Powers of absolving and consecrating are distinct yet both conteined within one Order of the Priestly function so may the power of Ordaining though distinct from the other be formally and immediately conteined
within the Priestly function and this is more then is required more then is true but thus much at least he must by his own reasoning allow that it may be radically founded in that Order and for want of that foundation it may be that a Bishop ordained per saltum cannot ordain others 27. Again The reason saith he why a Bishop so ordained cannot Ordain or Consecrate is not quia Episcopatus non sit distincta potestas à sacerdotio sed quia essentialiter illud praesupponit ut potestas absolvendi necessariò praesupponit potestatem consecrandi not because Episcopacy is not a distinct power from the Priesthood but because that doth essentially pre-suppose this which is very neer to the founding of the power of Ordination in the Priestly Order even as the power of absolving doth necessarily praesuppose the power of consecrating So he ibid. pag. 184. Now albeit this latter assertion be false as being grounded upon their placing the whole perfection of the Priestly Order so Champny there in the Sacrificing of the Body of Christ when as the power of Absolving is as immediat to that Order or Function as the power of Consecrating can be yea the Ministery of reconciliation doth express the whole power of that function in Scripture 2 Cor. 5.18 to which this phansie of Romish Sacrificing is a stranger Albeit I say that instance speaks what is false yet stil it returns in the application more forcibly upon him if we reason thus As the power of Absolution necessarily supposes the power of consecrating which he laies down for a Truth and yet are conteined in the same Order of the Priestly Function so for any thing that he sayes may the power of Ordaining which necessarily essentially presupposes as he sayes the power of Consecrating be conteined also with it in the Priestly Order though not formally and immediatly as the power of Absolution is for that is stil more then is required or can be maintained yet radically founded in it and diffused with it 28. The true reason as I conceive why Ordination of a Bishop per saltum doth not give him power to consecrate the Sacrament or to absolve or to ordain others to those Offices is because the Power of the Keyes which includes all those Powers and Offices is received in the Priestly Function which made me say it is the more peaceable way and may probably be defended that the power of Ordaining is diffused with the Priestly Office or founded in it and is in it not immediatly and formally as a power ready for Act and exercise as the power of Absolving and Ministring Sacraments is in it to which the Priest hath particular and express Ordination but radically and as in primâ potentiâ the remote power so as the faculty of exercising it or the proxima potentia of it is given to special men by Consecration to the work and that by Apostolical constitution And in this sense the extension of the Sacerdotal Character which Champny allows may stand Now that first and radical power can never be lawfully reduced to Act or exercise in them that have not lawful consecration to it but by extreme necessity through the utter failing of them that have which whether it be possible I leave it to Champny to dispute 29. As for the necessity which those Reformed Churches have pleaded in excuse of this irregularity in their Ordinations I shall not now enquire into it Only I wish heartily that they which have chief rule in those Churches did not think themselves so far engaged to continue where they are but that they would entertain a stronger apprehension of the necessary concernment of that Order which was left in the Church by the Apostles and continued alwayes and in all places where the Christian faith was received till the last Age. 30. As for those false Inferences which either Papist or Sectarie hath made from the different condition of those Churches to the seeming prejudice of the English Church it was my work to discover them and now I shal give the Reader a brief of what hath been said against them in recompence of the trouble he hath been hitherto put to by a tedious perplexity I. That we Protestants of the English Church stand not alone in this point of Ordination by Bishops received at first from Rome Other Churches severed from the Romish Communion have reteined Bishops and Ordination by them and that derived from Rome and those Reformed Churches that have not yet approve it in us and have acknowledged their own deficiency joyning with us in judgment but differing in practice for which necessity is alleged II. We must not for that deficiency quit all fellowship with them or disclaim them as no Churches because of Consanguinit as Doctrine as Tertul. phrases it the Kindred and alliance of Doctrine which is between us for the bond or agreement in Faith and Charity binds the body of Christ together Eph. 4.16 and that is the main in the constitution of the Church And although the other point of Order as it concerns the sending and ordaining of those that should teach and publish that Doctrine and build up the body of the Church ought most carefully to be observed according to Apostolical practice which fixed that office upon special Select Persons called Bishops yet because it is not so clear whether it was fixed to their Persons as a superadded power or as the faculty of exercising that power which being conteined in the power of the Keyes might with them be radically received in their Priestly Order we cannot pronounce absolute Nullity upon their Ordinations especially the case standing with them as they plead And because it doth not appear that a bare want or Deficiency in the appointed Order of the Church should forfeit their belonging to the Church where the main viz. the Doctrine of Faith and Life is preserved and the other of Order not wilfully perverted to a breach of Charity with those Churches that have preserved it therefore we cannot judg them to be no Churches or Congregations of Christians but we look upon them as Churches not completed or regularly formed and excuse their defects so far as they are enforced on them by necessity and conclude them bound to seek their Completion and a supply of their defects from those that have Bishops and hold the ancient Apostolike way of the Church Lastly seeing their judgment concerning Bishops and Ordination by them where it may be had is such and their excuse of the want of it pleaded by necessity their example can in no wise be alleged in defence of those who of late have rejected Bishops and Ordination by them nay ejected them when they had them We bless God that we had the happy means of a regular Reformation the more they have to answer for that disturbed our established Order but as for those Churches which approve of that Order where it is and want it by necessity rather
then choice we leave it to Champny and other Romanists to conclude desperatly upon them and all that are not in their way enclosing the whole Church within their Communion and judg of Christians not so much by their Union to Christ by the bands of faith and charity Eph. 4.13.16 as to his pretended Vicar by subjection to him for so they conceive of the Church of Christ as of a Society joyned together under one Pastor the Pope or Bishop of Rome and do accordingly define it and acknowledg the Members of it making themselves thereby Papists rather then Christians and cutting off from the Church not only for defects in ritu Apostolico the Order left by our Saviour and his Apostles which is the charge they have against the Reformed Churches that are without Bishops but also for failing ritu Romano the not observing in this point of Ordination the additional Rites and Papal Inventions used there which is the charge they have against us and for which they conclude we have no Bishops nor lawful Pastors as will appear below CHAP. IV. Of the second Prejudice From the Protestants Opinion of the Pope being Antichrist and the Church of Rome Heretical 1. NOw proceed we to his second Argument against our pleading of Ordination derived from the Church of Rome It is grounded upon the Judgment of our own Writers and amongst them some Bishops that hold the Pope is Antichrist and therefore that we fall by our own sentence and doctrine For how can the Ministers of Christ saith he receive due and lawful Ordination from the Ministers of Antichrist Or how can we think that Christ should leave the power of Ordaining Pastors for the feeding of his Church which he bought with his precious bloud and for the dispensing of his holy Word and Sacraments in the hand of his sworn Enemy c. 9. p. 320. c. To this Argument I answer the more willingly because I see how Presbyterians generally with those of other Sects suffer themselves by such inconsequencies and mistakes to be abused into many inconveniencies to the great disturbance of the Church Here are two points to be spoken to 1. The Judgment of the Popes being Antichrist 2. The Inference against our Ordinations 2. Of the opinion of the Pope being Antichrist To the first That there is much Antichristian doctrine taught in the Church of Rome invented broached maintained by the Popes and others that have been and are chief in that Church is most evident to any man that hath any reasonable insight into Christianity and that they which hold and maintein such doctrine are and may be called Antichrists is not to be denyed for so there are many Antichrists as St. John tels us of his time But that the Pope is the Antichrist is no point of our faith none of the Articles of our Religion Prophecies indeed are matter of Faith and ought to be believed that they shall be fulfilled before they come to pass and that they are fulfilled when the Scripture assures us they are but when it leaves us to gather the event by signs delivered in Prophetick expressions and more general terms such as is the description of Antichrists comming then to say such a prophecie is now fulfilled or such a State or Person is that Antichrist is not the act of Faith but the work of Reason making a Conclusion or Inference upon application of the signs and marks describing him in the prophecy to such or such a Person or State 3. VVhich admits several senses Now as King James in his Praemonition to Christian Princes falling upon this point by occasion of Heresie laid to his charge by those of Rome and the Oath of Allegiance declared by Pope Paul to be against the Catholic Faith pursues it indeed eagerly and with a long discourse not as an Article of his Faith but as a Problematical perswasion to shew he could better and with more appearance of Truth prove the Pope to be Antichrist then the Pope could prove him to be Heretick or himself to have such superiority over Kings So we must take that Assertion of our Writers de Papâ Antichristo comparatively not only in regard of our selves whom they call and hold to be Heretikes to say Antichristianism agrees more properly to them then Heresie to us but also in regard of all other Persons or States that have fallen under the suspition of being Antichrist to say Of all that yet appeared in the World the signs and marks of Antichrist agree most plainly to the Pope and Popedome I cannot but say I am much inclined to think as learned Zanchy seems to do in his Tract de fine Seculi that whatever is done already in the working of the Mystery of Iniquity the Antichrist will be revealed in that Seat and sit in that Papal Chair 4. Many Antichrists in a large and more remiss sense there have been and will go before the appearing of that great One and a great appearance of such there hath been in the Popedome already Bernard and many other that lived within the Communion of the Roman Church discovered the appearance of Antichrist in the Papal Court and spoke it Indeed the Spirit of Antichrist which Saint John saith did work in the Hereticks of his time 1. Ep. c. 4. v. 3. who by Tertul. are called Praecursores illius Antichristi Spiritus the forerunners of that great Antichrist advers Marc. l. 5. c. 16. that Spirit I say of Antichrist hath long wrought in the chief Rulers of the Romish Church not only by reason of Heretical and Antichristian doctrine there taught especially that Principle of mis-belief Papal Infallibility the ground of their faith or believing then which no one can better fit the turn of Antichrist or be a readier way to Apostacy from Christ but also by reason of exorbitant power there challenged and usurped first over all Bishops in the Church of Christ for which by Saint Gregories warrant we may stile the Pope the forerunner of Antichrist then over Kings and all that are called Gods 5. Now in the second place The seeming prejudice consider the Inference made from this Champny as we insinuated above draws it ad impossibile or to this Absurdity Therefore Christ left his Church in the hand of his sworn Enemy giving him the power of Ordaining or providing Pastors for his Church and tels us The Reformed Churches do therefore abhor the Orders and reject all things else that come from Rome Answ First supposing the Popes to be such Antichrists or Antichristian Rulers it was but part of the Christian Church that they ruled in and why should it seem so strange to any that Christ should leave part of his Church under Antichristian Tyranny when it is foretold plainly that Antichrist must sit in the Temple of God or why should it seem so strange and impossible to Champny that Christ should suffer his sworn Enemy to sit as chief Pastor in the Roman
Chair Many Monsters of Men have sat as Popes in the Rom. Chair when as it is certain in History that many Popes have sate there who have been as vile Monsters and as great Enemies to Christ and all godliness as we need suppose those Antichrists to be which we say are to be found in that Seat if any where yet in the World Such Popes as Champny himself must needs acknowledg to have been not so much Christs Vicars as the Devils Chaplans preferred by him advanced to that Chair by all Divellish means Murders Whoredoms Sorceries and by the like Arts and Divellish Practises holding it and ruling in it as Platina and other of their own Historians testifie Genebrard who is not forward to acknowledg such disparagements to that Seat yet complains of almost 50. Popes together in the 9. and 10. Centuries calling them Apostaticos potiùs quà m Apostolicos and saying they came not in by the door Baronius who alwayes employed the utmost of his skil to excuse is here forced to confess the Papal impieties and to lament the condition of the Church under such Heads particularly Joh. 12. and some other Popes notoriously abhominable about the 10. Century 6. Bell. in his Praephatique Oration to his books de Pontif. Rom. could not pass this by in filence or deny it but sets a good countenance on it and by the fineness of a Jesuit Wit which it seems Baronius Genebrard Champny had not learnt within their Societies turns all to the advantage of that Seat as testifying the Sanctity and perpetuity of it notwithstanding the iniquity of them that sate in it Nihil est quod Haeretici c. It is to no purpose for the Hereticks to take so much pains in searching out the Vices of Popes for we confess they were not few But Tantùm abest c. This is so far from diminishing the glory of this Seat that it is thereby exceedingly amplified for thereby we may perceive it consisteth by the special providence of God What Bell. speaks of the Seat i.e. the Papal Autority and power had he spoken it of the Church of God oppressed under that usurped power it had been a very sober rational and Christian-like acknowledgment of Gods special providence which did preserve a Church under such confusion and iniquity of Antichristian Rulers 7. This doth not invalidate Ordination And as in regard of the preservation of a Church so in respect of the continuance of Ordination in particular Champny must give us leave to say with much more Reason Tantùm abest c. It is so far from seeming impossible or absurd that Christ should permit the power of Ordaining Pastors to the hand of his Enemy that it makes more for the glory of his Power and special providence over his Church that notwithstanding such Wolves that entred He preserved his sheep notwithstanding such Antichristian Rulers He continued and propagated a saving Truth by transmitting down his Word and Scriptures and a succession of Teachers and Pastors by Ordination stil continued Yea his special providence farther in as much as by that Word of Truth transmitted and received from them that had the chief Rule many have discovered their Errors and Tyranny and cast them of and by Ordination derived and received by their hands have a lawful succession of Pastors to declare that Truth and to continue the Church so purged and Reformed without running stil to them for Ordination or confirmation in the Pastoral charge 8. Let us heare what S. Augustine saith appliable to this point in his 165. Ep. Etiamsi quisquam Traditor subrepsisset although some Traitor had crept into that Chair he means the Roman and after-Ages have seen many Judasses or Traitors in it as above said nihil praejudicaret Ecclesiae innocentibus Christianis quibus providens Deus c. He should nothing hurt the Church or innocent Christians for whom our Lord hath provided saying of Evil Prelats What they say do ye Mat. 23. as if he had said be their Persons what they wil it doth not prejudice the work of their Function or Ministry no more then it did in those to whom our Saviour there relates viz. the Scribes and Pharisees professed enemies to Christ yet in Moses chair and to be heard and obeyed The Leper also is sent to the Priests because they were in place though generally Enemies to Christ Yea the Ministerial Acts of Judas himself who was Traditor 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a Traitor and a Devil were good and valid when he was sent as were other Disciples abroad to perform them If then the Iniquity of Rulers or Pastors do not prejudice the Church in the Ministry of the Word and Sacraments which are of nearer concernment to the Salvation of Christians much less doth it in the transmitting of Orders 9. Lastly VVe first derived Ordination from Rome before any suspition of Antichrist there We begin the succession of our English Bishops derived from the Church of Rome in the time of Gregory the first when as no such Traitor or Antichristian Ruler had crept into that seat and the power of Ordination then received hath ever since continued without interruption among us And although after some Ages we see that many Popes proved Monsters and enemies to Christ from whose Tyranny this Land and Church were not free yet find we many of our Bishops not willingly bearing but complaining under that Yoke as Grosthead and others And as for those that Ordained Cranmer and Latimer they had ejured the supposed Antichrist and cast out the Papal Autority So that whatever Protestants judg now of the Pope it cannot prejudice the Ordination either of our first English Bishops by Gregory the Great who mainly resisted the beginnings of Papal Antichristianisme in John of Constantinople or of our first Reformed Bishops Cranmer Latimer or others for the Pope was then ejected and the Ordainers of those Bishops sworn against him and so not to be accounted Ministers of the supposed Antichrist To conclude considering what was said above of the ministerial acts of Judas and others that were in place and office the charge of Antichristianisme taken in any sense strictly or remisly cannot prejudice our judgment of the now Romish Ordinations which we allow to be valid still as to the substance of the Order appointed and setled in the Church by our Saviour and his Apostles And I wish the pretended Reformers of these later Times had not been so strong in their Zeal against the Church of Rome and so weak in their reasoning as out of fear of such seeming prejudices to decline and reject not only Ordination thence derived but even many Truths there professed and from that Church received 10. The seeming prejudice from our charging them with Heresie His next Argument is from the charge of Heresie laid by Protestants upon those of the Romish Church from which he concludes our plea of receiving Ordination by them must fall
could have that defect supplyed Not other Reformed Churches for they can less prove themselves to be Churches or to have Lawful Vocation of Pastors then the Church of England can Not the Grecian Russian or Ethiopic Churches for they also are in Schism and Heresie and our English Reformers pretend not to receive their calling from them or to have it supplyed by them therefore they can no wayes have their defect supplyed or recover the Lawful use of Ordination So he p. 337. c. Thus having argued against our Vocation upon our supposal of Heresie in those we acknowledge our Ordainers and boasted of it as an indissoluble Argument pag. 335. he is now fain to take away the supposal it self by affirming them to be the only lawful Pastors and that none else in all the Christian world could give lawful Ordination or make a supply of what was wanting The issue indeed of this point of Heresie either charged by us upon them that gave Orders or by them on us who received them which wil be his Argument below comes to this Whether the Church of Rome be the only Church in whose Communion the Unity of the Church is confined and Ordination to be had and therefore we and all other out of it are in Schism and Heresie and can have no lawful Ordination To this hold after all the Velitation and light skirmishing upon our supposals it was necessary he should retire himself 17. Now the strength of this Hold stands but upon their unreasonable phansying of the whole Church as of one society in subjection to the Bishop of Rome as Pastor General or Vicar of Christ by which they judge of Heresie and Schism and admit none as returning from it but by actual reconciliation and submission to the Bishop of Rome as in Queen Maries time What he sayes of our not pretending to receive our calling from other Churches Reconciliation of Schismaticks and Hereticks or to have the defect of our Ordinations supplyed by them is true but to no purpose for the supposed defect in the Romish Ordination which we received doth as above said cease upon our leaving off or quitting that which is supposed to cause that defect in the Romish Church Nor was it needful either for the supplying of any such defect or for the stating us in the Union of the Catholic Church that we being a National Church and independing on any forrein Jurisdiction should upon our disagreement with Rome be bound to apply our selves to other Churches by actual reconciliation or full agreement in what they held or practised Of which in 16. Sect. of former book For privat men indeed and particular companies of men returning from Heresie or Schism actual reconciliation to the Church of which they were Members or from which they departed is necessary but not so for a National and independing Church Such actual reconciliation when it hath been performed was but of the Solemnity of the business and may be to good purpose done when the whole body of the Catholic Church stands entire in a condition fit to receive it but the soul of Unity with the Church is in the deposing of Heresie and professing the true Faith and consequently Communion with all others that do it not perhaps with a ful agreement in all things with us yet with a charitable compliance in not condemning us therefore as no Church 18. What he saith of the Roman Church as the only true Church to the concluding of all other Churches under Schism and Heresie is only said and not proved being but the product of the forementioned Phansie that the whole Church of Christ is one society bound together in subjection to the Bishop of Rome as Head and general Pastor and therefore Hereticks and Schismaticks cannot be restored but by reconciliation to him This he urges more properly though to as little purpose below cap. 11. where he strives to fasten Heresie upon us because divided from that Church and not yet reconciled to it telling us the Ancient Councels of Nice Sardica and others did so esteem and conclude of Heretical Bishops of the Arrians Donatists and Novatians as no Bishops till received and reconciled to the Church It will be sufficient in this place to say I. That this comes not home to their purpose for those Councels did not appoint reconciliation to Rome and for some time of the Arrian Heresie reconciliation to that Church could not be good when as Liberius the ejected Bishop had subscribed to that Heresie for the recovering of his See and Faelix that possessed it was advanced by compliance with the Arrian faction which then prevailed every where II. Although such actual and solemn reconciliation of a National Church with the Bishops thereof to the body of the Catholic Church was fit to be performed whilest that body stood stil conspicuously in good proportion as it did in the beginning of the Arian Heresie yet when once that Heresie had overborn all and almost all Bishops with their flocks turned Arrian in so much that Constantius the Emperour told Liberius as the Romanists do usually reproach us that the whole world was against Athanasius and Liberius as yet Catholic answered for their paucity Time was when three only stood for the true Worship of God against the King Dan. 3. as appears in 1. Tom. Concil when I say it was thus with the Church how could such actual and solemn reconciliation of any Arian Bishops or Nation returning from Heresie be wel made enough it was for such to depose their Heresie and profess communion with all Christians wheresoever that held the true faith So was it enough for our Bishops and this Nation to forsake the Heresie and profess communion with all other Churches not guilty of the Romish errour and not imposing the belief or practice of that we differ in as the condition of their Communion And thus far in answer to his Inferences from our charging Antichristianisme or Heresie upon the Church of Rome CHAP. V. Of the third prejudice from our Iudgment of their Orders that they are sacrilegious and do not give an indelible Character 1. HIs next Argument is drawn from our Doctrine or Judgment touching their Orders which we hold Sacrilegious abhominable unlawful and therefore cannot be lawful in us who confess we received Orders from them This is the Title and Work of his 10. Chapter and here he begins his contest with M. Mason whom he chiefly undertakes through the remainder of his book to refute Touching the Argument we must note by the way that the charge of Sacrilege and abhomination laid upon their Ordinations by Protestants How Protestants cal their Orders Sacrilegious doth immediatly concern their Order of Priests by reason of the Sacrificing power given them but the argument thereupon proceeds also against their Bishops who were such Priests and from whom being such we derived our Orders and Cranmer and others were made by them such Priests before they were
all other of judicial process the Regal Supremacy or Jurisdiction is more apparent It was therefore declared 24. Hen. 8. cap. 12. That in the Kings Highness there was full power to render justice and finall Determination in all Debates Contentions c. and upon this ground were made many and sundry Lawes before Hen. 8. in the time of Edw. 1. Edw. 3. Rich. 2. Hen. 4. and of other Kings for the entire and sure conservation of the prerogatives and preeminencies of the Imperial Crown of this Realm and of the Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal of the same to keep it from the annoyance of the See of Rome ibid. Accordingly King James in his Premonition to Christian Princes against the Usurped power of the Pope gives us many examples of former Kings punishing Clergy-men for citing others to Rome in Ecclesiastical causes Yea we have stories of Ecclesiastical causes wherein the Bishops of Rome have been Parties judged and determined by Emperors and Kings In that great contention twixt Symmachus and Laurence about the Place which made the fourth Schism in the Roman Church King Theodorick who then ruled in Italy took the cause into his own cognizance and judged it for Symmachus Afterward in that contention twixt John of Constantinople and Gregory the first of Rome about the Title of Universal Bishop Gregory himself refers the cause to the Emperour as appears in his Epistle to Mauritius to put end to it by repressing the ambition of John and nothing more known in History then the Elections of the Bishops of Rome frequently ordered judged and determined by the Emperours 18. Furthermore all that Judicial process of the Outward Court with which Bishops were enabled for the better and more powerful exercise of their spiritual Censures was derived from the Supremacy of the Regal power and to this sense was it said All Autority and Jurisdiction is derived from the Kings Highness Edw. 6. cap. 2. that is All external Jurisdiction or Coactive which indeed is properly Jurisdiction when there is not only a power and ability to declare what is Law and just but force also to procure execution and therefore in that very Statute and as an acknowledgment of all such Jurisdiction derived from the King All process Ecclesiastical is ordained to go forth in the Kings Name and the Teste in the Bishops name also the Kings Arms to be graven upon the Seal of the Bishops Office 19. In things Ecclesiastical pertaining to Doctrine But in Things Ecclesiastical pertaining to Doctrine or correction of Error and Heresie the bounds of this Supremacy of Princes are not so apparent Yet may they be so set as the power and judgment we yeild to Princes in and about such Things do not entrench upon but fortifie the Power and Office of Bishops and chief Pastors of the Church For we acknowledg the Power and Office of Bishops to be both Directive in defining and declaring what the Lawes of Christ be for Doctrine Discipline of which things they are the immediat proper and ordinary Judges and also Coercive in a spiritual restraint of those that obstinatly gainsay and that as far as the power of the Keys put into their hands by Christ for spiritual binding and loosing will reach VVhat also proper to Bishops Pastors of the Church This power is Coercive or binding upon all such as are willing to be Christian and continue in the Society of the Church but not coactive or forcing for all such Jurisdiction together with all judicial process of the outward Court is as I said derived to them for the more forcible effect of their spiritual censures from the Jurisdiction of the Sovereign Priner His Powea we acknowledg to be Imperative in commanding by Laws the public establishment of that which is evidenced to him by the Pastors of the Church to be the Law of Christ and also Coactive in restreining and correcting by temporal pains those that are disobedient yea in punishing and correcting Ecclesiastical persons for not doing their known duty according to their forementioned Office To this purpose it is declared 24. Hen. 8. cap. 12. that it belongs to Spiritual Prelats Pastors and Curats to Minister do or cause to be done all Sacraments Sacramentals and divine services to the people that for their Office but if for any censure from Rome or any such cause they refuse to Minister as before they are liable to Fine and Imprisonment during the Kings pleasure that for his Supremacy over all Estates to rule them and cause them to do their duty and punish them when there is cause for not doing it 20. If we consider the Defining of Matters of Doctrine we said the Pastors of the Church are the proper and ordinary judges there though called to the work by the Prince and accountable to him how they do it and therefore the judging of Heresie is restrained to the Declaration of the first General Councels for Heresies past and for such as shall arise to the Assent of the Clergy in their â—onvocation 1. Eliz. 1. The defining of Doctrine demonstration of Truth and the Evidencing of it is the Office and work of the Pastors of the Church but the Autority which at first commands them to the work and after gives public establishment to it when so done and evidenced is of the Sovereign Prince Which establishment is not in order to our believing as the Romanists use fondly to reproach us in saying our belief follows the State and our Religion is Parliamentary but to our secure and free profession and exercise of Religion For Kings and Princes are not Ministers by whom we believe as the Pastors of the Church are 1 Cor. 3.9 but Ministers of God for good or evill Rom. 13.4 i.e. for reward or punishment according to our doing or not doing duty and therefore they bear the Sword Iurisdiction of Princes is extrinsic Wherefore their jurisdiction is wholly Extrinsick as is their Sword not intrinsick or spiritual as is the power of the Keys or the Sword of the Spirit in the hand of Ecclesiastical Governors or Pastors Princes have not the conduct of Souls but government of men as making a Visible Society to be kept in order for Gods service and glory and for the good of the whole Community 21. But Princes and Sovereign Powers are not meer Executioners as the Romanists would have them of the Determinations and Decrees of the Church Pastors nor bound blindly or peremptorily to receive and establish as matter of Faith and Religion what ever they define and propound for such For the Power of the Sovereign is not Ministerial but Autoritative commanding and calling together the Clergy to the work of Religion or Reformation which command it is their duty to execute by meeting and doing the work so as it may by the demonstration of Truth be evidenced to the Sovereign power and receive again the Autority of the same power for public establishment Princes
of Direction which it supposes to be received from the Pastors of the Church not Secundary in consideration of Autority which commands them first to the work requires an account of it and confirms publicly what is evidenced by them to be according to Christs law 24. We should now see what he answers to Masons instances of Emperours and Kings dealing in Ecclesiastical matters but first examine we a reasoning of his in the latter part of his 16. Chapter which he falls upon by occasion of an objection that Mason had made to himself and improves so far in his own conceit that he challenges any Protestant to return him an answer which notwithstanding may well be answered out of that which hath been said already Out of the Objection which Mason had made Supremacie makes not the Princes will the Rule of our Faith he frames his first reasoning thus If Princes be Supreme in spirituall things then are their Subjects bound to obey their command in all matters of Faith and Religion for as S. Paul saith every soul must be subject to the higher or Supreme Powers and bound to obey in all things in which they are supreme who sees not the absurdity that would follow But it is easie to answer by distinguishing active and passive obedience for should we make them as supreme in Ecclesiastical things which we do not as they are and as Champny will acknowledg them to be in civil matters we could no more be bound to obey them in all their commands about matters of Religion then we are in all their commands in and about Civil things but in these if they should command a Subject to bear false witness that Subject is not bound to obey actively but to subject passively 25. Much to this purpose had Master Mason solved the like Objection and Champny goes on to improve his Reasoning and replyes So to answer is altogether impertinent because the Protestants cannot give any certain Rule whereby Subjects may know whether the Prince in rebus Controversis in controverted points of Religion command according to Truth or no. For example The King of England forbids the Mass c. The King of France commands it How shall the Subjects of either know whether of the two commands for the Truth and how could the Protestants know that Hen. 8. commanded against Truth when he enjoyned the Six Articles If they say as usually his Commands are according to Truth that are conformable to the holy Seriptures they stil stick in the same dirt as not able to give any certain Rule whereby to know which Commands are conformable to Scripture Answer Rule of our Faith◠All this proceeds upon the former mistake of that Supremacy which we attribute to the Sovereign Prince in matters of Faith and Religion as if we gave him what properly belongs to the Pastors of the Church Whereas in asserting his Supremacy we suppose it their office to evidence what is Truth and what is conformable to Scripture and that in Order both to our and his believing And the Means of it But more particularly We acknowledg a certain Rule more certain then the Papists can or will do and that is Scripture Now if still we be asked for a Rule whereby to know what is conformable to Scripture We say that having a certain Rule as before there remains no more to do but to have evidence of it and for that we have not so much a Rule as Means The same that the Church alwayes had the Doctrine of foregoing Ages and of our present Teachers The same that the Jews had the Teaching and direction of those that sat in Moses Chair S. Mat. 23. those whose Lips were to preserve knowledg and at whose Mouth they were to seek the Law Mal. c. 7. The same that our Saviour left in his Church for that purpose Pastors and Teachers that we should not be carried about with every wind of Doctrine Eph. 3.4 The same that Champny the Romanists pretend to contend for in this business These we say are not the Rule but the Means or Ministers by which we believe Cor. 3.9 according to the demonstration of Truth commending themselves to every mans Conscience 2 Cor. 4.2 26. Now seeing our Saviour bids them do what those which sate in Moses Chair said unto them S. Mat. 23. and it is certain they did not teach infallibly or truly in all things for which Stella and Maldonate on the Gospel and Espensaeus once a Docter of the Sorbon on Mal. 2.7 give us this limitation Eatenuus audiendi quatenus legem Mosis docent They were so far to be heard and obeyed as they taught what indeed was the Law of Moses I would ask of Champny what Rule then had men to know whether the Scribes and Pharisees taught that or their own Traditions but the evidence they made of the thing taught out of the Law He must answer according to the Romish way The Doctrine of the Church was their Rule But then the forementioned Authors should have said quatenus docent secundùm doctrinam Ecclesiae so far forth as they teach according to the Doctrine of the Church and not have limited the matter as we Protestants do quatenus legem Mosis docent so far forth as they teach according to the Law of Moses Also those teachers Scribes Pharisees could say they taught according to the Doctrine then obteining in the Church yea and could say Dictum Antiquis it was so said by them of old S. Mat. 5. as well as any Romanist can yet our Saviour did not admit that Rule but refuted their corrupt Doctrines by Evidencing the true meaning of the Law S. Mat. 5. 27. VVhat certain Rule the Romanists can pretend to Again Champny tells us not what certain Rule they have but it must be such as I insinuated the Judgment or Doctrine of their Church Now seeing their Church must speak her Judgment by her Pastors and supremely by Pope or Councel We ask in which they place this certain Rule He and his fellow Sorbonists are for a general Councel which they set above the Pope with power to judg and depose him we leave them to answer this to the Jesuites and other more devoted Creatures of the Pope but let him answer us how he and his Sorbonists can attribute that to a Councel and yet with the Jesuites make the Pope Supreme Head of the Church as he often insinuates in this discourse which should imply the Supreme judgment in him according to Champney's arguing against that Title here attributed to the Kings of this Realm Let them place their supposed certain Rule where they please we finde those of the Romish Communion following the evidence they had of Truth against the Popes judgment or any pretended Hildebrandine Doctrine or determination of their Church The Venetians stood out resolutely against the Interdict of Pope Paul 5. maintaining their right in that cause though Ecclesiastical which was a branch
of the Supremacy belonging to Sovereign Princes and States And what Rule had they to go by in disobeying the Pope or their Subjects in obeying them but the Evidence of the Truth of the thing manifested to them by learned men Bishops and Pastors among them So when the same Pope by his several Breves forbad the taking of the Oath of Allegiance as contrary to the Catholic faith and many Priests notwithstanding with most of the Romish Catholicks in this Land held it Lawful and accordingly took it What Rule had they to go by in obeying their Prince against the Pope but the evidence of the thing or duty they naturally owed to their Sovereign which evidence with all the reasons of it is drawn up by Master William Howard an English Catholic as he stiles himself and published An. 1634. 28. Now for a general Councel when it can be had indeed we grant it to be the greatest and highest means of direction which Kings or any other can have in matters of Religion but still the limitation afore mentioned Quatonus docent c. takes hold of the Pastors of the Church gathered in Councel it being possible the major part should be swayed by factious or worldly interests as above in the first Chapter n. 9. and so give Kings and Emperours upon evidence of things unduly carried cause to use their Supreme power not for the confirming but forbidding of the Decrees as we shall presently see done by Theodosius against the second Councel of Ephesus and as Champny could not but know the Kings of France did against the Conventicle of Trent so Hen. call'd it forbidding the Decrees of it to be received for the space of 40. years For Anno 1598. we finde the Clergy assembled at Paris as the French History relates and the Archbishop of Tours in their name petitioning the King Hen. 4. to reform several disorders in the Church and that he would be pleased the Councel of Trent might be received and published in France with certain qualifications This was not at that time granted the King answering them in brief to this purpose that by the help of God he would settle the Church admonishing them in the mean time to look to their duty and he would study his In all this we have an evident demonstration of Regal Supremacy and that allowed by the French Clergy and this done upon no other Rule then the evidence of the thing that packing and faction which was apparent in that Councel There may be then Exceptions against the Romanists certain Rule And much was spoken tending to this pupose above cap. 1. Of Submission due to the Church 29. How Emperours shewed their Supremacy in matters of the Church and of Religion In the last place let us see what is answered to Master Masons Instances of godly Emperours making Lawes and taking Order in matters of Religion and of the Church To these Champny answers in his 16. Chapter First None of them ever excluded the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome out of their Realms as this Oath doth pag. 557. True that none of them denyed him his Patriarchal Primacy known and bounded by the first general Councels neither would it have been denyed him in this Realm could he have conteined himself within the due bounds thereof but such a Papal Jurisdiction as was usurped by the Bishop of Rome for some Ages past those good Emperors never knew never would have endured If he can shew us they admitted such Jurisdiction or that the General Councels acknowledged it we will also acknowledg the Popish Bishops were unjustly deprived as to that point Secondly Those Emperors by their Laws did but confirm and in their doings about Church-affairs did but follow the Canons and judgment of former Councels This is the summe of his second answer And this is true of many of them but derogats nothing from their Supremacy for it only implyes Direction received which we acknowledg Kings and Emperours ought in Ecclesiastical matters to receive from the Pastors of the Church in or out of Councel It doth not infringe the Autority which they have both in commanding the Pastors of the Church to meet in Councel in taking an account of what is done and how and lastly in confirming their decrees and Canons as was before insinuated 30. Again That answer is not true of all the Laws and Actions of pious and good Emperors in and about matters of Religion or the Church as may appear by that which is cited by Mr. Mason by Bishop Bilson in his book of true subjection by Bishop Andrews against Tortus and by other Writers To instance in one which being urged by Mason Champny thought himself concerned to labour in the solving it The second Councel of Ephesus had by the prevalency of a stirring faction in it passed judgment for deposing the good Bishop Flavianus and advanced the Eutychian Error Hereupon Leo Bishop of Rome with other Bishops humbly supplicated the Emperour Theodosius that all things might stand in the same condition in which they were before any of those judgments till a greater number of Bishops could be gathered out of the whole World Ep. 43. and in another Epistle he thus bespeaks the Emperor The second Councel of Ephesus which cannot be called a Councel because held to the subversion of the Faith You most glorious Emperour aliud statuendo cassabis will make void or null by a contrary Decree for the love you bear the Truth c. In all this Three things are evident I. That a King or Emperour may and ought as he tenders the Truth of God reform or extirpate an Error or Heresie prevailing when it is made manifest to him by the information and advice of godly Bishops as here by Leo Bishop of Rome and other his fellow-Bishops who as he said joyned with him in the supplication although there be no foregoing Synodical judgment against the same Error as there had not yet been against the Eutychian Heresie II. That He may Null and make void the Judgment or Decree i. e. forbid it to be received of a Synod when manifested to him that it was carryed by faction to the subversion of the Faith as this of Ephesus was upon which reason the Kings of France as was said refused to receive the Decrees of Trent III. That the Emperour might and ought to call a greater number of Bishops together for the confirmation of the Truth and so the Councel of Calcedon was gathered by the Emperour Martianus Now see we how Champny bestirs himself to get through the passages of this story Leo saith he did Paternè hortari fatherly exhort the Emperor to defend the Truth as every good Prince should pag. 568. This though short of an humble supplication made to the Emperour is fair and we desire no more then that it be granted Princes may and should do so much within their Realms as the Emperour is here supplicated or exhorted to do And