them and one that hated the Idolatries and superstitions of the Church of Rome with a perfect hatred This Reverend Father must not be consulted in the business for fear it might be thought that it was not to be done without him A Parish Vestry must be called by which M. Sherfield is inabled to take down the offensive Pictures and put new white Glass in the place though he be transported with a fit of unruly zeal instead of taking it down breaks it all in pieces Here then we have an Eldership erected under the Bishops nose a Reformation undertaken by an Act of the Vestry in contempt of those whom God and his Majesty and the Laws had made the sole Judges in the case An example of too sad a consequence to escape unpunished and such as might have put the people upon such a Gog as would have leâ—t but little work to the late Long Parliament Non ibi consistent Exemplaubi ceperunt sed in tenuem recepta tramitem latissime evagandi sibi viam faciunt as my Author hath it 52. But he proceeds according to his usual way of asking Questions and would fain know in what respect they may be accounted the obedient Sons of the Church who study by all their learning to take off that ignominous name of Antichrist from the Pope of Rome which had bin fastned on him by King James Archbishop Whitgift Bishop Andrews and the late Lord Primate and finally by the whole Clergy in their Convocation An. 1605. In the recital of which Proof I find not that the name of Antichrist was ever positively and and in terminis ascribed unto the Popes of Rome by any Article Homily Canon or injunction or by any other publick Monument of the Church of England which leave it to the Liberty of every man to conceive therein according as he is satisfied in his own mind and convinced in his understanding Arch-bishop Whitgift the Primate Bishop Andrews conceived the Pope to be Antichrist and did write accordingly Archbishop Laud and Bishop Mountague were otherwise perswaded in it and were not willing to exasperate those of the Popish Party by such an unnecessary provocation yet this must be accounted amongst their crimes For aggravating whereof he telleth us that the Pope was proved to be Antichrist by the Pen of King James which is more then he can prove that said it K. James used many Arguments for the proof thereof but whether they proved the point or not may be made a question Assuredly the King himself is to be looked on as the fittest Judge of his own intentions performance And he declared to the Prince at his going to Spain that he writ not that discourse concludingly but by way of Argument to the end that the Pope and his Adherents might see there was as good Arguments to prove him Antichrist as for the Pope to challenge any temporal Jurisdiction over Kings and Princes This your Antagonist might have seen in his own Canterburies doom fol. 264. Out of which Book he makes his other Argument also which proves the name of Antichrist to be ascribed unto the Pope by the Church of England because the Lords spiritual in the upper house and the whole Convocation in the Act of the subsidy 3. Jacobi so refined â—â— If so If any such Definition passed in the Convocation it is no matter what was done by the Lords Spiritual in the upper House of Parliament for that I take to be his meaning as signifying nothing to the purpose Wherein Gods name may such an unstudied man as I find that definition not in the Acts of Convocation I am sure of that and where there was no such point debated and agreed upon all that occurs is to bee found onely in the preamble to the Grant of Subsidies made at a time when the Prelates and Clergy were amazed at the horror of that Divellish plot for blowing up the Parliament Houses with the King Prelates Peers Judges and the choicest Gentry of the Nation by the fury of Gun-powder But were the man acquainted amongst Civilians they would tell him that they have a Maxime to this Effect that Apices juris nihil ponuns The Titles and preambles to Laws are no definitions and neither bind the subject in his purse or Pater-noster 53. As for the rest of the Bishops I find two of them charged particularly and the rest in General Mountague charged from D. Prideaux to be merus Grammatius and Linsel charged from M. Smart to have spoken reproachfully of the first Reformers on the Book of Homilies But as Mountague was too great a Scholar to be put to School to D. Prideaux in any point of Learning of what kind soever so Linsol was a Man of too much sobriety to use those rash and unadvised speeches which he stands accused of And as for Mr. Smart the apology of D. Cosens speaks him so sufficiently that I may very wel save myself the labour of a Repetition More generally he tells us from a speech of the late Lord Faulkland that some of the Bishops and their adherents have destroyed unity under pretence of uniformity have brought in superstition and scandal under the title of Reverence and decency and have defiled our Churches by adoring our Churches c. p. 40. and not long after p 64. That they have so industriously laboured to deduce themselves from Rome that they have given great suspition that in Gratitude they desire to return thither or at least to meet it half way Some have evidently laboured to bring in an English though not a Romish Papacy not the out side and dress of it onely but equally absolute a blind dependence of the People on the Clergy and of the Clergy on themselves and have opposed Papacy beyond the Sea that they might settle one beyond the water But these are onely the evaporations of some discontents which that noble Orator had contracted He had been at great charges in accommodating himself with necessaries for waiting on his Majesty in his first expedition against the Scots in hope of doing service to his King and Country and gaining honour to himself dismist upon the Pacifiation as most of the English Adventurers without thanks of honour where he made himself more sensible of the neglect which he conceived he suffered under then possibly might consist with those many favours which both Kings had shewed unto his Father But no sooner had that noble soul dispers'd those clouds of discontent which before obscured it but he brake out again in his natural splendor and show'd himself as zealous an advocate for the Episcopal order as any other in that house witness this passage in a speech of his not long before the dismissing of the Scottish Army Anno 1641. viz. The Ground of this Government by Episcopacy is so ancient and so general so uncontradicted in the first and best times that our most laborious antiquaries can find no Nation no City no Church no Houses
flyings out of the Nobility and People during the Minority of Lewis the 13th and the omni-regency of his Mother for I think there be not many other instances of it being no sufficient argument to prove the contrary And this you could not chuse but see though it seems you will not when you tell us within few lines after that the Government of France for want of Gratifying the Nobility and People with such Lawes and Liberties as were sit for them did become Tyrannical and if it be Tyrannical it must needs be absolute 7. You instance secondly in the rise and progress of the Norman liâ—e within this Kingdom concerning which you first suppose that their Monarchy here was founded on a Nobility or a Nobility and the People that is to say for so I am to understand you upon the love and good affections of the Nobility and people of England And secondly that being so founded they were to gratifie the Nobility or the Nobility and the people with such Laws and Liberties as are fit for them or else there Government in this Land had become Tyrannical But first the Monarchy of Normans was not founded here on the Nobility and the people conjunct or separate The greatest part of the Nobility were either lost or forfeited at the battel of Hastins And most of those that were not engaged in Battel were either outed of their Estates which were immediately distributed amongst the Normans according to their several Ranks qualities or forcedly to take them back on such terms and tenures as the Conquerors was pleased to give them And that he might make sure work with them he compelled some of them to fly the Land and wasted others in his Wars against the French so that the poor Remainders of them were both few in number and inconsiderable in power And then as for the common people they were so bridled by his Souldiers Garisoned up and down in several Castles some old and others of his own erection that they could never stir against him but the Souldiers were presently on their backs and though disperst in several places were ready to unite together upon all occasions Nor staid he here but to prevent all practises and contrivances which might be hammered in the night which the eye of no humane providence could be able to see into or discover he commanded that no light or fire should be seen in any of their Houses after the ringing of a Bell at eight of the clock called thence the Cover few or the Cur few Bell as it is called to this very day Which rigorous courses were held also by the Kings succeeding till there was no male Prince surviving of the Saxon race and that King Henryâ— had married a daughter of that line by means whereof the people seeing no hopes of bettering their condition in the change of time became obedient to that yoke which was laid upon them and looked upon their Kings of the House of Normandy as their natural Princes 8. Nor is your inference better grounded then your suposition the Norman Kings not gratifying the Nobility and people wiâ—h such Laws and Liberties as were fit for them for fear least otherwise the Government which you say we have known by experience and no doubt was seen by Eurypon might be thought tyrannical What you intend by these words we have known by experience as I am loth to understand so I am not willing to enquire What had been seen by Eurypon though you make no doubt of it I believe you know as little as I but what was practised by the Normans I may perhaps know as much as you and if I know any thing of them and of their affairs I must needs know this that the first Norman Kings did never Court the Nobility or the people of England by gratifying them with such Laws and Liberties as you speak of here but governed them for the most part by the Grand Customeiur of the Normans or in an arbitrary way as to them seemed best For though sometimes for quietness sake they promised the abolishing of Dane gelt and the restoring the Laws of King Edward the Confessor yet neither was the one abolished till the Raign of King Steven who came in upon a broken Title nor the other restored though often promised till the time of King John and then extorted from him by force of Arms so that by this account the Government of the first sinking of the Norman Race must become Tyrannical because they gratified not the people with such Laws and Liberties as in your judgment were fit for them For having gained the Magna Charta with the other Charta de Foresta in the time of King John and being frequently called to Parliaments by the Kings which followed they had as much as they had reason to expect in those early days Where by the way that I may lay all things together which relate to England I would fain know what ground you have for the position which you give us afterwards that is to say That King Henry 3. instituted his Parliament to be assistant to him in his Government Our ancient Writers tell us that Parliaments or Common Councils consisting of the Prelates Peers and other great men of the Realm were frequently held in the time of the Saxon Kings and that the Commons were first called to these great Assemblies at the Coronation of King Henry 1. to the end that his succession to the Crown being approved by the Nobility and People he might have the better colour to exclude his Brother And as the Parliament was not instituted by King Henry 3. so I would fain know of whom you learnt that it was instituted by him to be assistant to him in his Government unless it were from some of the Declaration of the Commons in the late long Parliament in which it is frequently affirmed That the fundamental Government of this Realm was by King Lords and Commons For then what did become of the Government of this Kingdom under Henry 3. when he had no such Assistants joyned with him or what became of the foundation in the intervals of following Parliaments when there was neither Lords nor Commons on which the Government could be laid And therefore it must be apparantly necessary either that the Parliaments were not instituted by King Henry 3. to be his Assistants in the Government and that the Lords and Commons were not a part of the foundation on which the Government is built or else that for the greatest space of time since King H. 3. the Kingdom hath bin under no Government at all for want of such Assistants and such a Principal part of the fundamentals as you speak of there The Government of such times must be in obeysance at the least as our Lawyers phrase it But because you make your Proposition in Geneneral terms and use the rise and progress of the Norman line for an instance onely I would fain learn who
you have attributed to them as far as the effects can shew the heart to others I have before took some pains to let you see how easily men may be mistaken when they behold a man through the spectacles of partiality and defection or take the visible appearances for invisible graces the fraudulent art fiâ—â—s and deceits of men for the coelestial gifts of God And as for that which you have inferred hereupon viz. that if he love them he will scarcely take my dealing well You should first prove the Premises before you venter upon such a strange conclusion and not condemn a Christian brother upon Ifs and Ands. 32. In the next place you please to tell me that you are not an approver of the violence of any of them and that you do not justifie M. Burtons way and that you are not of the mind of the party that I most oppose in all their Discipline as a Book now in the Press will give the world an account In the two first parts of which Character which you have given us of your self as I have great reason to commend your moderation and hope that you will make it good in your future actions so I can say little to the last not having heard any thing before of the Book you speak of nor knowing by what name to call for it when it comes abroad But whereas you tell us in the next that you are sure the Church must have unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government or not at all I take you at your word hold there and we shall soon agree together Vnity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government no man likes better then my self bring but the same affections with you and the wide breach which is between us in some of the causes which we mannage on either side will be suddenly closed but then you must be sure to stand to the word ancient also and not to keep your self to simplicity only if unity and charity will content you in the ancient Doctrine in the simplicity thereof without subsequent mixtures of the Church I know no doctrine in the Church more pure and ancient then that which is publickly held forth by the Church of England in the book of Articles the Homilies and the Chatechism authorized by Law under the head or rubrick of Confirmation Of which I safely may affirm as S. Augustine doth in his Tract or Book Ad Marcellinum if my memory fail not his qui contradicit â—ut à Christi fide alienus est aut est haereticus that is to say he must be either an Infidei or an Heretick who assenteth not to them If unity and charity in the simplicity of Worship be the thing you aim at you must not give every man the liberty of worshiping in what form he pleaseth which destroys all unity nor cursing many times in stead of praying which destroyes all charity the ancient and most simple way of Worship in the Church of God was by regular forms prescribed for the publick use of Gods people in their Congregations and not by unpremeditated indigested prayers which every man makes unto himself as his fancy shall lead him which I hope I have sufficiently proved in my Tract of Liturgies And if Set Forms of Worship are to be retained as I think they be you will not easily meet with any which hath more in it of the ancient simplicity of the Primitive times then that by which we did officiate for the space of fourscore years and more in the Church of England And finally if the ancient simplicity in Government be the point you drive at what Government can you find more pure and ancient then that of Bishops of which I shall only present you with that Character of it which I find in that Petition of the County of Rutland where it is said to be That Government which the Apostles left the Church in that the three ages of Martyrs were governed by that the thirteen ages since have alwayes gloried in by their succession of Bishops from the Apostles proving themselves members of the Catholick and Apostolick Church that our Laws have established so many Kings and Parliaments have protected into which we were baptized as certainly Apostolical as the observation of the Lords day as the distinction of Books Apocryphal from Canonical as that such Books were written by such Evangelists and Apostles as the consecration of the Eucharist by Presbyters c. An ample commendation of Episcopal Government but such as exceedeth not the bounds of truth or modesty Stand to these grounds for keeping unity and charity in the ancient simplicity of Doctrine Worship and Government in the Church of God and you shall see how cheerfully the Regal and Prelatical party whom you most oppose wil join hands with you and embrace you with most dear affections 33. But you begin to shrink already and tell me that if I will have men live in peace as brethren our Union must be Law or Ceremonies or indifferent Forms This is a pretty speculation I must needs confesse but such as would not passe for practicable in any well-governed Common-wealth unless it be in the Old Vtopia or the New Atlantis or the last discovered Oceana For how can men possibly live in peace as brethren where there is no Law to limit their desires or direct their actions Take away Law and every man will be a Law unto himself and do whatsoever seemeth best in his own eyes without control then Lust will be a law for one Felony will be a law for another Perjury shall be held no crime nor shall any Treason or Rebellion receive their punishments for where there is no law there is no transgression and where there is no transgression there can be no punishment punishments being only due for the breach of Laws Thus is it also in the service and worship of Almighty God which by the hedge of Ceremonies is preserved from lying open to all prophaneness and by Set Forms be they as indifferent as they will is kept from breaking out into open confusion God as S. Paul hath told us is the God of Order not of Confusion in the Churches If therefore we desire to avoid confusion let us keep some order and if we would keep order we must have some forms it being impossible that men should live in peace as brethren in the house of God where we find not both David hath told us in the Psalms that Jerusalem is like a City which is at unity in it self and in Jerusalem there were not only solemn Sacrifices set Forms of blessing and some significant Ceremonies prescribed by God but Musical Instruments and Singers and linnen vestures for those Singers and certain hymns and several times and places for them ordained by David Had every Ward in that City and every Street in that Ward and every Family in that Street and perhaps every
it that after the Schism made by Pope PIVS V. little or nothing for many years together comparatively with those of the other party was writ against it that being newly translated into the Latine tongue about the year 1618. it gave great content to the more moderate sort of Papists amongst the French as Bishop Hall informeth us in his Quo Vadis and being translated into Spanish at such times as his late Majesty was in Spain it gave no less contentment to the learned and more sober sort amongst the Spaniards who marvelled much to see such a regular order and form of Divine Worship amongst the English of whom they had been frequently informed by our English Fugitives that there was neither form nor order to be found amongst us But on the other side the Genevians beginning to take up the cry called Puritans upon that account in the 6. or 8. year of Q. ELIZABETH animated by Billingham and Benson conntenanced by Cartwright and headed by the Earl of Leicester followed it with such a violent impetuosity that nothing could repress or allay that fury neither the patience and authority of Arch-Bishop Whitgift the great pains and learning of Bishop Bilson the modesty of M. Hooker nor the exactness of D. Coâ—ens all which did write against them in Q. ELIZABETHS time was able to stop their current till the severity of the Laws gave a check unto them Nor was King JAMES sooner received into this Kingdom but they again revived the quarrel as may appeare by their Petitions Admonitions and other Printed Books and Tractates to which the learned labours of Bishop Buckridge Bishop Morton and D. Burges who had been once of that party but regained by K. James unto the Church were not by them thought to give such ample satisfaction that they must be at it once again during the life of K. James in their Alâ—are Damuscenam in which the whole body of the English Liturgie the Hierarchy of Bishops the Discipline and Equâ—nomy of the Church of England was publickly viâ—â—ified and decried How egerly this game was followed by them after the first ten years of his late Majesty K. Charles till they had abolished the Liturgie destroyed the discipline and pluckt up Episcopacy both root and branch is a thing known so well unto you that it needs no telling And this I hope hath satisfied you in your first enquiry viz. why and in what respects it was said in the Preface to my Ecclesia Vindicata That the Papist was the more moderate adversary and for the other words which follow viz. That the Puritan faction hurried on with greater violence c. which you find in the 17. Sect. of it they relate only to the violent prosecution against the Episcopal Government in which how far they out went the Papists is made so manifest in that and the former Section that it is no small wonder to me that you should seek for any further satisfaction in it read but those Sections once again and tell me in your second and more serious thoughts if any thing could be spoken more plainly or proved more fully then that the Puritan â—action with greater violence and impetuosity were hurried on towards their design that is to say the destruction of Episcopal Government then the Papists were Secondly You seem much unsatisfied that I maintained against M. Burton That the Religion of the Papists is not rebellion nor their faith faction But this when I maintained against M. Burton I did it not in the way of laying down my own reasons why it neither was nor could be so but in the way of answering such silly Arguments as he here brought to prove it was but now that I may satisfie you and do right both to the Church and State you shall have one Argument for it now and another I shall give you when I shall come in order to answer yours The Argument which I shall give you now is briefly this shall be founded on a passage of the Speech made in the Star Chamber by the late Arch Bishop at the sentencing of D. Bastwick M. Burton c. in which he telleth us That if we make their Religion to be Rebellion then we make their Religion and Rebellion to be all one and that is against the ground both of State and the Law for when divers Romish Priests and Jesuites have deservedly suffered death for Treason is it not the constant and just profession of the State that they never put any man to death for Religion but for Rebellion and Treason only Doth not the State truly affirm that there was never any Law made against the life of a Papist quatenus a Papist only And is not all this stark false if their very Religion be Rebellion For if their Religion be Rebellion it is not only false but impossible that the same man in the same act should suffer for his Rebellion and not for his Religion And this â—aith he K. James of ever Blessed Memory understood passing well when in his Premonition to all Christian Monarchs he saith I do constantly maintain that no Papist either in my time or in the time of the late Queen ever dyed for his conscience therefore he did not think their very Religion was Rebellion thus he And if for all this you shall thus persist and say that the Popish Religion is Rebellion you first acquit Papists from suffering death banishment or imprisonment under the Raign of the three last Princes for their several Treasons and Rebellions and lay the guilt thereof upon the blood-thirstiness of the Laws and of the several Kings and Parliaments by which they were made And secondly you add hereby more Martyrs to the Roman Kalender then all the Protestants in the world ever did besides 36. But this you do not only say but you prove it too at the least you think so Your argument is this 1. That Religion which defineth the deposition of Princes and absolving their subjects from their fidelity by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. is rebellion doctrinal But such is the Popish Religion that is to say the Popish Religion defineth the Deposition of Kings and absolveth their Subjects from their fidelity by the Pope because they deny Transubstantiation c. The Minor you say is evident but I am willing to believe that you mean the Major that this only is an escape of the pen because you do not go about to prove the Major but the Minor only To the whole Sylogisme I answer first that it is of a very strange complection both Propositions being false and therefore that it is impossible by the Rules of Logick that the conclusion should insue that the Proposition or the Major as they generally call it is altogether false may be proved by this that the thing which teacheth cannot be the thing which is taught no more then a Preacher can be said to be the word by him preached or the Dog which
did not withal keep up his Army to secure the conquest and that this Army or some other was not kept on foot till the time of Euripon who being either of weaker parts or more apt to be wrought on or else unwilling to be at the continual charge of paying an Army might suppose it an high point of Husbandry to disband his Forces and cast himself entirely on the love of the people And secondly Admitting that of the two former Kings what reason can you give me why that Army should be planted in Colonies the territory of Sparta as you say your selfe being very narrow and consequently not much room nor any necessity at all for many such Colonies to be planted in it A standing Army answerable to the extent of the Country and the number of the old inhabitants disposed of in their Summer Camp and their Winter-Quarters would have done the work and done it with less charge and greater readiness then dispersed in Colonies And therefore when you say in such general terms That the Monarchy that is or can be absolute must be founded upon an Army planted by military Colonies upon the over balance of Land being in the Dominion of the Prince I must profess my self to differ in opinion from you For then how could a Prince possessed of his Kingdom from a long descent of Royal Ancestors and exercising absolute power upon his people be said to be an an absolute Monarch because his standing forces cannot be setled or disposed of in any such Colonies upon the over balance of Land within his Dominion In Countrys newly conquered or farre remote fom the chief residence of the Prince or the seat of the Empire such Colonies have been thought necessary in the former Ages the wisdome of the Romans not finding out any better or more present way to serve their Conquest But then such Colonies wanted not their inconveniencies and may in time produce the different Effect from that which was expected of them For being possessed of City and indowed with Lands and challenging a property in those Lands and Cities they came in tract of time by intermariages and alliances to be all one with the old Natives of the Country and stood as much upon their terms against the incroachments of those Princes under whom they served and by whose Ancestors they were planted A better Evidence whereof we can hardly find then in those English Colonies which were planted in Ireland at the first conquest of that Kingdom many of which by mutuall correspondency and alliances became so imbodied with the Irish that they degenerated at the last from the manner and civility of the English Nation and passing by the name of the English-Irish proved as rebellious if not more then the Irish themselves What therefore hath been found defective in Colonies in reference to the first intent of their plantation the wisdome and experience of these last ages have supplyed in Garisons Which consisting for the most part of single persons or otherwise living on their pay and suddenly removed from one place to another as the nature of the service leads them are never suffered to stay long enough in any one Town by which they may have opportunity to unite themselves with those of the Neighbourhood or Corporation in design and interess 6. But for a further proof of your position that is to say that there can be no absolute Monarch who hath a Nobility and People to gratifie you first instance in the Kings of France which I as well as others and others then as well as I do account for Absolute But it is known say you That in the whole world there is not a Nobility nor a People so frequently flying out or taking Arms against their Princes as the Nobility and People of France This I acknowledge to be true but affirm withall that the frequent flyings out of that Nobility and People against their Kings proceed not from any infirmity in the Monarchy but from the stirring and busie nature of the French in general who if they make not Wars abroad will find work at home so that we may affirm of them as the Historian doth of the Ancient Spaniaras Si foras hostem non habent domi quaerunt And this the wise Cardinal of Richelieu understood well enough when having dismantled Tachel reduced such Peers as remained in the hands of the Hugonets and crusht the Faction of the Monsieur now Duke of Orleans he presently engaged that King in a War with Spain that so the hot and fiery spirits of the French might be evaporated and consumed in a forrain War which otherwise had they stayed at home would ever and anon have inflamed the Kingdom For otherwise that the Kings of France were Absolute Monarchs there be many reasons to evince For first his arbitrary Edicts over-rule the Laws and dispose soveraignty of the chiefe concernments of the State which by the Parliament of Paris the supream Judicatory of that Kingdom and looked on as the chief supporter of the Rights and Liberties of the subject seldom or never are controled though disputed often And if the Observation be true which we find in Justine that in the Monarchies of the first ages Abitria principum pro legibus erant be of any truth or if the Maxime which we find in Justinians Institutes viz. Quod principi placuerit legis habet vigorem be any badge or cognisance of an absolute Monarch the Kings of France may as well portend to such an absoluteness as any of the Roman Emperours or preceding Monarchs ar tell est nostre plaisir with which formal words he concludeth all his Royal Edicts are as significant as that Maxime in Justinians Institutes or the said observation which we find in Justine Nor is his absolute power less visible in the raising of Moneys then in the passing of his Edicts it being in his power without asking the consent of his people in Parliament to levy such sums upon the subjects besides his Gabells Aides and accustomed Taxes as his Treasurers under-Treasurers or other Officers of his Revenue shall impose upon them From the patient bearing of which burthens the King of France is commonly called Rex Asinâ—rum or the King of Asses Nor doth he want such standing Forces as are sufficient to preserve his power and make good his actions it being conceived by some and affirmed by others that he is able to bring into the field for a sudden service no less then sixty Companies of Men of Arms twenty Cornets of light Horse and five Companies of Harque Bushiers on Horse-Back which amount to 10000 in the total together with 20 Ensigns of French Horse and 40 of Swisses and yet leave his Garisons well manned and his Forts and Frontiers well and sufficiently defended By all which laid together it is clear and manifest that the French Kings are absolute Monarchs and that their Government is as sufficiently Dispotical as a man could wish the frequent
should be Judge touching the fitness or unfitness of such Laws and Liberties by which the people or the Nobility and the People are to be gratified by their Kings For if the Kings themselves must judge it it is not like that they will part with any of their just prerogatives which might make them less obeyed at home and lesser feared abroad but where invincible necessity or violent importunity might force them to it And then the Laws and Liberties which were so extorted were either violated or anulled whensoever the Granter was in power to weaken or make void the grant for malus diuturnitatis est custos metus as you know who said But if the people must be judges of such laws and liberties as were fittest for them there would be no end of their demands reasonable in their own nature and in number infinite For when they meet with a King of the giving hand they will press him so to give from one point to another till he give away Royalty it self and if they be not satisfied in all their askings they will be pleased with none of his former Grants 9. But you go on and having told us that in such cases as before the Government becomes tyrannical be the Prince otherwise never so good a man you prove it first by instancing in Carilaus King of Sparta in whose raign the Common-wealth was instituted by Licurgus who is generally affirmed to have been a good man and yet is said by Aristotle to have been a Tyrant and then conclude that it remaines with me to shew how a good man can otherwise be a Tyrant then by holding Monarchicall Government without a sufficient balance But certainly no such thing remains to be shown by me there being no occasion given you to require it of me in the Book against Calvin by which name you call it which your letter undertakes to answer The difference between us is whether the Ephory were ordained by the Kings of Sparta to curb the Senate or by the people to oppose and controul their Kings of which hitherto you have said nothing If you put an hundred questions on the by I am not bound by any rule of Disputation to make answer to them or so much as to any one of them as it comes in my way But in this point I shall not leave you without satisfaction In order whereunto you may do well to call to mind that the word Tyrant at the first was used to signifie a just and lawfull King qui postquam tecta Tyranni intravere sui as we find in Ovid though afterwards more frequently used to signifie such Princes onely who having supprest the popular Government in some Cities of Greece assumed the power unto themselves or otherwise rerestrained the people from running in to such disorder to which they had formerly been accustomed but at the last to signifie such merciless men who having unjustly gained the supream Authority by blood and violence continued in the same with the like cruelty and injustice Thus in the second sence and signification of the word we find mention of the Tyrants of Syracuse though some of them were just and moderate Princes as also of Nabis the Tyrant of Lacedemon of Alexander the Tyrant of Pherae And finally the 30. Magistrates which were sent from Sparta to govern the affairs of Athens which was before the most Popular and Democratical Government that ever was are best known by the name of the 30. Tyrants till this present time And in this second sence of the word the Government of Carilaus is by Aristotle said to be a Tyranny not because he supprest any popular Government which had before been setled in Lacedemon but because he restrained the people from having their own wills as before they had in the time of some of his predecessors or from living under such an Anarchy as they most desired And in this sence and signification of the word any good Prince may be called a Tyrant if he gratifie not his people or his Nobility and People with such Laws and Liberties as they conceived to be fittest for them or shall endeavour to retain so much of that soveraign power derived upon him by a long descent of Royal Ancestors by which he may be able to defend and protect his subjects But when you press me to this point that if I do not grant the former I must needs confess that not the favour of the Princes nor the usurpation of the People but the infirmity of the Monarchy caused the Commonwealth of Lacedemon I shall in part confess it and in part deny it For I shall willingly confess that the infirmity of the Monarchy might occasion the institution of the Commonwealth looking upon the Monarchy as it was broken and unsetled during the raign of Carilaus and yet shall absolutely deny that there was any such infirmity or insufficiency in the Monarchy till the reins of Government were let loose by the folly of Euripon 10 More then this is not said by Plutarch where he tells us that both Kings People agreed upon the calling home of Licurgus for remedying such disorders as were grown amongst them And less is not said by Plutarch then is said by me where I affirm that whatsoever the Kings lost the people got nothing by the alteration as being left out of all imployments in affairs of State and having thirty Masters instead of two which you pronounce to be a strange Affirmation because say you it was ordered by the Oracle that when the people were assembled The Senate should propose and dismiss the people without suffering them to debate and if they were not suffered to debate such businesses as were propounded by the Senate what other imployment could be left them in affairs of State praeter obsequii gloriam besides the Reputation of obedient Citizens But for this sore you have a plaister and tell us that if the people had had no right to debate they must therefore have had the right to resolve or elsewhere to be assembled for nothing It may be neither so nor so but that the common people of Sparta were called unto the publick assemblies as the Commons of England were antiently and originally summoned to the Court of Parliament that is to say Ad consentiendum faciendum to give consent and yield obedience to those Lawes and Ordinances which by the Great Council of the Peers and Prelates de communi consilio regni nostri as the Writ still runneth should be concluded and agreed on So that you might have spared the Oracle and Plutarchs Explication of it or the destant of Tyrteus upon the same unless you could conclude from any of them or from altogether that the people of Sparta were possessed of a negative voice and therewith of a power to frustrate the proceedings of the Kings and Senate which if they had the ultimate Result as you truly say and consequently the soveraign power in Government must
zeal and ignorance A writing is subscribed on the 10th of May by Finch Lord Keeper Manchester Lord Privy Seal Littleton Chief Justice of the Common Pleas Banks Atturney General Witsield and Heath his Majesties Serjeants at the Law in which it was declared expresly that the Convocation being called by the Kings writ ought to continue till it was dissolved by the Kings Writ notwithstanding the dissolution of the Parliament But what makes this unto the purpose Our Author a more learned Lawyer then all these together hath resolved the contrary and throw it out as round as a boul that after the dissolution of the Parliament the Clarks of Diocesses and Cathedrals desisted from being publick persons and lost the notion of Representatives and thereby returned to their private condition The Animadvertor instanced in a convocation held in the time of Queen Eliz. An. 1585. which gave the Queen a Benevolence of two shillings in the pound to be raised on the Estates of all the Clergy by the meer censures of the Church without act of peachment Against which not able to object as to the truth and realty of it in matter of Fâ—ct he seems to make it questionable whecher it would hold good or not in point of Law if any turbulent Clergy-man had proved Recusant in payment and having slighted by the name of a blâ—ck â—wan a single instance of an unparliamented inpowred Convocation he imputes the whole success of that â—ash adventure rather unto the popularity of so Peerless a Princess the necessity of her occasions and the tranquillity of the times then to any efficacy or validity in the act it self And to what purpose all this pains but to expose the poor Clergy of the Convocation An. â—640 to the juster censure for following this unquestioned precedent in granting a more liberal benevolence to a gracious soveraign by no other authority then their own 34. If the â—ppealant still remain unsatisfied in this part of the Churches power I shall take a little more pâ—ins to instruct him in it though possibly I may tell him nothing which he knows not already being as learned in the Canons as in the common Law In which capacity I am sure he cannot chuse but know how ordinary a thing it was with Bishops to suspend their Clergy not onely ab officio but a Beneficio and not so onely but to sentence them if they saw just cause for it to a deprivation Which argues them to have a power over the property of the Clergy in their several Diocesses and such a power as had no ground to stand on but the authority of the Canons which conferred it on them And if our Author should object as perhaps he may that though the Canons in some cases do subject the Clergy not only to suspentions but deprivations of their cures and Benefices â—in which their property is concerned yet that it is not so in the case of the Laity whose Estates are not to be bound by so weak a thred I must then lead him to the Canons of 1603 for his satisfaction In which we find six Canons in a row one after another for providing the Book of Common Prayer the Book of Homilies the Bible of the largest Edition a Font for Baptism a fair Communion Table with a Carpet of Silk or other decent stuff to be laid upon it a Pulpit for Preaching of Gods Word a Chest to receive the alms for the Poor and finally for repairing of the Churches or Chappels whensoever they shall fall into any decay all these provisions and reparations to be made at the charges of the several and respective Parishes according to such rates as are indifferently assest upon them by the Church wardens Sides men and such other Parishioners as commonly convened together in the case which rates if any did refuse to make payment of they were compellable thereunto on a presentment made to the Ordinary by the said Church-wardens and other sworn Officers of the several and respective Parishes And yet those Canons never were confirmed by Act of Parliament as none of the like nature had been formerly in Queen Eliz time though of a continual and uncontroled practise upon all occasions The late Lord Primate in * a Letter more lately published by D. Barnard assures the honourable person unto whom he writ it that the making of any Articles or Canons at all to have ever been confirmed in that Kingdom by Act of Parliament is one of Dr. Heylyns Fancies And now it must be another of the Doctors Fancies to say that never any Articles or Canons had ever been confirmed by Act of Paliament in England though possible they may relate unto the binding of the subject in point of Poperty 35. But our Author hath a help at Maw and making use of his five fingers hath thrust a word into the proposition in debate between us which is not to be sound in the first drawing up of the issue The Question at the first was no more then this whether such Canons as were made by the Clergy in their Convocations and authorized by the King under the broad Seal of England could any further bind the subject then as they were confirmed by Act of Parliament And Secondly Whether such Canons could so bind either at such times as the Clergy acted their own Authority or after their admission to King Hen. the 8. in such things as concerned Temporals or temporal matters otherwise then as they were confirmed by national Customes that is to say as afterwards he expounds himselfe until they were consirmed by Act of Parliament Which points being so clearly stated by the Animadvertor in behalf of the Church that no honest evasion could be found to avoid his Argument the Appealant with his five fingers layes down life at the stake and then cryes out that the Animadvertor arrogates more power unto the Church then is due unto it either by the laws of God or man maintaining but he knows not where that Church men may go beyond Ecclesiastical Censures even to the limbs and lives of such as are Recusants to their Constitutions p. 2. so 53. And having taken up the scent he hunts it over all his Book with great noise and violence assuring us that such Canons were constantly checkt and controlled by the Laws of the Land in which the temporal Estate life and limbs of persons were concerned p. 2. fol. 27. As also that the King and Parliament though they directed not the proceedings of Ecclesiastical Courts in cases of Heresie which is more then his History would allow of yet did they order the power of Bishops over declared Hereticks without the direction of the Statute not to proceed to limb and life p. 2. fol. 45. And finally reduceth the whole Question to these two Propositions viz. 1. The proceedings of the Canon Law in what touched temporals of life limb and estate was alwayes limited with the secular Laws and national Customes of England And
per Regem EDW. VI. provecta c. Reprinted not long since at London 1641. But that King also dying before the said Canons so digested and accommodated could be confirmed and ratified by the Royal Assent and authorised under the Great Seal of England the former Canons Constiâ—utions and Ordinances and consequently the Decretals of the Popes and the body of the Canon law according to the limitations and restrictions by the Statute of King Hen. 8. did remain in force and so continue to this day so that your hopes of their not being in force amongst us declares you for as sorry a Lawyer as you confesse your self to be 47. Next when you say how little you know by what authority the Popes Decretals are laws to theâ— Church in genâ—ral or to us I will improve youâ— knowledge in that particular also as far as I can and for so doing I am to put you in mind that the Popes for a long tract of time were possessed of the Supreme power in Ecclesiastical matters over all the Churches in the Western and North-western parts and amongst others in this also and that he did pretend the like authority over all the Churches in the East and South so that their Decretals were made by them intentionally to serve for a rule and reiglement of the Church in general but were admitted only in the Churches of the Western and North-western parts which did acknowledge his Supremacy and made themselves subject to his power But having now shaken off his power in the three Kingdomes of England Scotland and Ireland in the three Realms of Denmark Norway and Sweden in the united Provinces of the Netherlands and many great Provinces and Estates of the Higher Germany besides some thousands of the Protestant Churches in the Realm of France he hath now lost that power which before he challenged of making laws for the Government of the Church in general though such of them as we here received are still so far in force as I have affirmed that is to say according to the sad restrictions and limitations before laid down And therefore I can well maintain that the Pope and his Councels had a power you never heard me say he hath of imposing his Decretals and the body of the Canon law as a law for the Government of so much of the Church as was then actually under his command having been made intentionally for the reiglement of the Church in general and that being here received are still so far in force that is to say in such form and maner as I have affirmed and yet not grant that he and his Councels have any such power at this present time or that are and all other Christians must be thought to be his Subjects which is the thing you seem glad to understand if ever I should put my self to the trouble of writing to you again as I have done now 48. Having thus laid before you the true state of the Question I am in the next place to answer such Objections as you make against it and your Objections being built chiefly on your own thoughts and such hopes as you had fancied to your self For want of knowledg in these matters will be easily answered You object first That you will yet hope that they are not in force but I have proved to you that they are And you object next That you thought the Acts that impose the Oathes of allegeance and supremacy had disobliged us from all forreigue power and nulled the Pope's authority in England and though you thought well enough in this yet if you think that because those Acts of Parliament above mentioned have disobliged us from all forreign power and nulled the Popes authority in England and therefore that all the Decretals of the former Popes or Canons and Constitutions Ecclesiastical made in times of Popery are either by those Acts and Oths anulled and abrogated your thoughts will prove to be as deceitful as your hopes are groundless and therefore when you say that if ever you live to see another Parliament which you are like to do very shortly if the news be true you will crave a freedom from that bondage I would fain know from what bâ—ndage you desire this freedom If from subjection to the Pope you are freed from it by the Act primo Eliz. cap. 1. by which all the Popes authority and jurisdiction in the Realm of England as well over the consciences as the pens of men were finally exterminated and abolished If from their Canons and Decrees made and in force within this Realm before the 25. of King Henry 8. they were confirmed by the Parliament of that year according to the limitations before expressed and are so complicated since that time with the Laws of the Land that the alteration will be far more difficult then you may imagine so that you may do well to spare your address to the following Parliament and reserve that strong influence which you believe you have upon it for some greater occasions or at the least for such as are more possible to be compassed then this present project Besides you may be pleased to know that a great part of the Civil or Imperial Laws are in force amongst us and that they are the standing rules by which the Court of Admiralty as also that for the probate of Wills and Testaments are generally regulated and directed and yet you may conclude as strongly that because no forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any jurisdiction power superiority preheminence or authority within this Realm no not the Emperour himself though honoured with the Title of Augustus Cesar and such like glorious attributes belonging to the Roman Empire therefore the Civil and Imperial Laws so long continued in this Kingdom are to be reckoned of no force and effect amongst us but to be utterly abrogated and abolished also which if it should be took for granted as you take the other you must then double your design in moving and soliciting the next Parliament to free you from that yoke of bondage that the Pontificial and Imperial laws may be for ever banished and expelled this Kingdome that so it may be said of us as Haman once objected against the Jews their Laws were contrary to all Nations Divisâ—s orbe Brittannos even in that sense also It is reported of Alphonso surnamed the Wise one of the Kings of Castile in Spain that he used many times to say never the wiser for so saying that if he had stood at Gods elbow when he made the World many things should have been ordered better then they were in the first Creation Take heed left that you be thought no wiser then Alphonso was in pressing at the Parliament dores and urging your desires for abrogating all those ancient Canons and Constitutions by what name soever they are called and by what Authority soever they were first enacted which so many Kings and Queens of
mildness of his Majesties Government and the great Moderation shown by Bishop Laud in the use of his power in not compelling men to say or do any thing against their Conscience a moderation which we find not amongst those of the Sect of Calvin when any of the opposite party fell into their hands Sixthly whereas it might be thought that the Ancient Protestants as he merrily calls them had past many such severe censures upon those whom he stiles Arminians he instanceth in none but in Barret and Bridges which make too small a number for so great a bragg Quid dignum tanto and the rest And finally for answer to the Prelatical oppressions I shall referre you to my former Discourse with Mr. Baxter num 20 21 23 repeating only at the present that the Proceeding of the Bishops were mild and gentle compared with the unmerciful dealings of the Presbiterians by whom more Orthodox Learned and Religious Ministers were turned out of their Benefices within the space of three years then by all the Bishops in England since the Reformation 46. But the King must not think to carry it so the Puritan Faction being generally Calvinistical in Doctrine as well as in Discipline prevailed so in the House of Commons Jan. 28. 1628. that they agreed upon this Counterpoise or Anti-declaration following viz. We the Commons now assembled in Parliament do claim profess and avow for truth the sense of the Articles of Religion which were established in Parliament 13. Eliz. Which by the publick Acts of the Church of England and the general current Exposition of the Writers of our Church have been delivered to us and we reject the sense of the Jesuites and Arminians and all other wherein they differ from us Which counterpoise made in direct opposition to the Kings Declaration your adversary makes a product of the Civil Authority whereas the House of Commons was so far at that time from being looked on as the Civil Authority of the English Nation that it was of no Authority at all nor could make any Order to bind the Subject or declare any thing to be Law and much less Religion till it was first countenanced by the Lords and finally confirmed by the Royal assent But this he doth in correspondence to the said Protestation in which the Articles of Lambeth are called the publique Acts of the Church of England though made by none but the Arch Bishop of Canterbury two Bishops of which onely one had actually received Consecration one Dean and half a dozen Doctors and other Ministers or thereabouts neither impowered to any such thing by the rest of the Clergy nor authorized to it by the Queen And therefore their determinations can no more properly be called the Acts of the Church then if one Earl with the eldest Sons of two or three others meeting with half a dozen Gentlemen in Westminster Hall can be affirmed to be in a capacity of making Orders which must be looked on by the Subject as Acts of Parliament 47. Your Adversary begins now to draw toward the Lees and in the Dreggs of his discourse offers some Arguments to prove that those doctrines and opinions which he calls Arminianism were countenanced to no other end but to bring in Popery And for the proof hereof he brings in Mr. Prinn's Report to the House of Commons in the Case of Montague An. 1626. In which it is affirmed that the whole frame and scope of his book was to discourage the well affected in Religion and as much as in him lay to reconcile them unto Popery He gives us secondly a fragment of a scattered Paper pretended to be written to the Rector of the Jesuites Colledge in Bruxels In which the Writer lets him know that they had strongly fortified their Faction here in England by planting the Soveraign Drug Arminianism which he hoped would purge the Protestants from their Heresie Thirdly he backs this paper with a clause in the Remonstrance of the House of Commons Anno 1628 where it is said that the hearts of his Majesties Subjects were perplex'd in beholding the dayly growth and spreading of the faction of Arminianism that being as his Majesty well knew so they say at least but a cunning way to bring in Popery All which he flourishes over by a passage in the Lord Faucklands Speech before remembered in which it is affirmed of some of the Bishops that their work was to try how much of a Papist might be brought in without Popery and to destroy as much as they could of the Gospel without bringing themselves in danger of being destroyed by the Law c. To all which being but the same words out of divers mouths I shall return one answer only which is briefly this Your adversary cannot be so ignorant as not to know that the same points which are now debated between the Calvinians and the Old Protestants in England between the Remonstrants and Contra-remonstrants in the Belgick Churches and finally between the Rigid and Moderate Lutherans in the upper Germany have been as fiercely agitated between the Franciscans and Dominicans in the Church of Rome the old English Protestants the Remonstrants and the moderate Lutherans agreeing in these points with the Franciscans as the English Calvinists the Contra-Remonstrants and the Rigid Lutherans do with the Dominicans So that there is a complyance on all sides with one of the said two parties in the Church of Rome And therefore why a general compliance in these points with the Friers of St. Dominick the principal Sticklers and Promoters of the Inquisition should not be thought as ready a way to bring in Popery as any such compliance with the Friers of St. Francis I would fain have your Adversary tell me when he puts out next 49. The greatest of the storm being over there remains only a few drops which will make no man shrink in the wetting that is to say the permission of some books to be frequenly printed containing the Calvinian Doctrine and the allowance of many questions to be maintained publiquely in the Act at Oxon contrary to the sence of those which he calls Arminians Amongst the Books so frequently printed he instanceth in the Practise of Piety Perkins his Principles Balls Catechism c. which being incogitantly licensed to the Press at their first coming out could not be afterwards Restrained from being Reprinted notwithstanding the many inconveniences which ensued upon it till the passing of the Decree in Star-Chamber July 1637. concerning Printing by which it was ordered to the great grief and trouble of that Puritan faction that no Book whatsoever should be reprinted except Books of the Law till they were brought under a review and had a new License for reprinting of them And though D. Crakanthorps Book against the Archbishop of Spalato was but once printed yet being called Defensâ—o Ecclesiae Anglicanae it serves your Adversaries turn as well as if it had been Printed an hundred times over How so because
and impotency of the people But you who have no better name for the people in a Commonwealth then the Rascal Rabble will have Kings at a venture to be of Divine right and to be absolute where as in truth if divine right be derived unto Kings from these of the Hebrews onely it is most apparent that no absolute King can be of Divine right For these Kings if they were such by the Law alledged then by the same Law they could neither multiply Horses nor wives nor Silver nor Gold without which â—o King can be absolute but were to keep all the words of this Law and these Statutes and so by consequence were regulated Monarchs nay could of right Enact no Law but as those by David for the reduction of the Ark for the regulation of the Priests for the Election of Solomon which were made by the suffrage of the people no otherwise then those under the Kings of Rome and ours under the late Monarchy what then is attributed by Calvin unto popular Magistrates that is not confirmed by Scripture and reason yet nothing will serve your turn but to know what power there was in the Sanhedrim to controle their Kings to which I answer that both Skickardus and Grotius with the full consent of the Talmudists have assured you that in case the King came to violate those Laws and Statutes it was in the power of the Sanhedrim to bring him unto corporal punishment Moreover it is shewn by the latter out of Josephus that Hircanus when he could not deliver Hierom from the Sanhedrim by power he did it by art Nor is your evasion so good as that of Hircanus while you having nothing to say to the contrary but that Herod when he was question'd was no King shuffle over the business without taking notice as to the point in controversie that Hircanus who could not save Herod from the question was King The manner of the restitution of the Sanhedrim made by Jehoshaphat plainly shewes that even under the Monarchy the power of the Sanhedrim was co-ordinate with that of the King at least such is the judgement of the Iewish Writers for saith Grotius the King as is rightly noted by the Talmudists was not to judge in some cases and to this the words of Zedekiah seem to relate whereto the Sanhedrim demanding the Prophet Jeremiah he said Behold he is in your hands for the King is not he that can do any thing without you nor except David had ever any King Session or vote in this Councell to which soon after he adds that this Court contiued till Herod the Great whose insolency when exalting it self more and more against the Law the Senator had not in time as they ought suppressed by their power God punished them in such a manner for the neglect of their duty that they came all to be put to death Herod except Sameae onely whose foresight and frequent warning of this or the like calamity they had as frequently contemned In which words Grotius following the unanimous consent of the Talmudists if they knew any thing of their own orders expresly attributes the same power unto the Sanhedrim and chargeth them with the same dury in Israel that is attributed unto the three Estates in a Gothick Moddel and charged upon these by Calvin Thus that there never lay any appeal from the Sanhedrim unto Moses except when the Jews were in captivity or under provincial Government to any other Magistrate as also that they had power upon their Kings being that your self say Iâ— the objection paramount and which not answered you confess that the three Estates convened in Parliament or any other papular Magistrate Calvin dreams of notwithstanding any discontinuance or non-usage on their parts or any prescription alledged by Kings to the contrary may resume and exercise that authority which God hath given them when ever they shall find a fit time for it And this letter shewing plainly that you have in no wise answered this objection it remains that your whole Book even according to your own acknowledgement is confuted by this letter Or if you be of another mind I shall hope to hear further from you 3. These are the very words of that you Letter to which an answer is required though to no part thereof but that which doth concern the Spartan Ephori and the Iewish Sanhedrim I can by any rules of disputation be required to answer the rest of your discourse touching the balancing or over-balancing of such degrees and ranks of men of which all Government consist is utterly Extrinsecally and extravagant unto my design which was not to dispute the severall forms of Government and in what the differences between them did most especially coâ—sist but onely to declare that neither the Spartan Ephori nor any such popular Magistrates as Calvin dreams of had any authority originally invested in them to controul their Kings much less to murder or depose them Howsoever I shall not purposely pass by any thing which by your self or any indifferent Reader shall be thought material without giving you my judgement and opinion in it Some things you say I writ as a Polititian a silly one I am God help me and some things as a Polititian and divine too And as a Polititian I am charged by you to have affirmed that the Spartan Kings were as absolute Monarchs as any in those times till Euripon the 3d. King of the Race of Hercules and the 2d King of the younger house to procure the favour and good will of the Rascal rabble loosened the raigns of Government and thereby much diminishing the Regall power This I affirm indeed and this you deny but you neither Answer my Authorities nor confute my Reasons my Authorities I derive from Plutarch first who speaking of the said Euripon whom he calleth Eurition affirms that till his time the Government of Sparta was 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 sufficiently Monarchical if it were not more And secondly from Aristotle who calls the Government of Charilaus the sixt King of that House who as you say was generally affirmed to be a good man by the name of a tyranny And if it might be called a Tyranny then when the Regall power was under such a diminution by the folly of Euripon there is no question to be made but that the Spartan Kings were absolute Monarchs before any such diminution had been made To these two proofs you answer nothing nor say you any thing at all in confutation of the Reason by me brought to prove it Which is That having acquired the Estate by conquest and claiming by no other title then by that of Armies there was no question to be made but that they Governed in the way of absolute Monarchs it being not the guise of such as come in by conquest to covessant and capitulate with their Subjects but to impose their will for a Law upon them This being the custome of all Kings who
they were the Peers and most powerful men of the Realm of Judah out of whose Families the Kings did use to chuse their wives Who being incensed against the Prophet and knowing that the King was not able to dispute the point with them as the case then stood preferred the executing of their malice against the one before their duty to the other But granting that by Princes here we must mean the Sanhedrim and that the Sanhedrim taking the advantage of those broken and unsetled times carried some things with an high hand against that King yet this is no sufficient proof that either by the rules of their institution or their Restitution they were co-ordinate with their Kings or superiour to them Great Councils commonly are intent upon all advantages by which they may improve their power as in the minority of Kings or the unsetledness of the times or when they meet with such weak Princes who either for want of natural courage or a right understanding of their own affairs suffer them by little and little to get ground upon them But then I hope you will not argue a facto adjus that because they did it therefore they might lawfully do it that maxime of the Civil Lawyers id possumus quod jure possumus being as undeniably true in the case of the Sanhedrim or any other publick Council as in that of any private person 35. Your second example is that of Herod and Hircanus which you found also in the Book against Calvin by which name you call it but press it quite beyond my purpose Baronius had affirmed of the Sanhedrim as you also do Eorum summam esse potestatem qui de lege cognoscerent Prophetis simul de regibus judicarent that they had power of judicature over the Law the Prophets and the Kings themselves which false position he confirms by as false an instance affirming in the very next words horum judicio Herodem regem postulatum esse That Herod being then actually King of Jurie was convented by them for which he cites Josephus with the like integrity so that I had no other business with Baronius then to prove that Herod was not King when he was summoned to appear before the Sanhedrim and having proved that point I had done my business without any shufflings and Evasions as you put upon me But since Hircanus must be brought in also to act his part in a controversie of which I was not bound to take any notice I must let you know that if Hircanus could not by power save Herod from the hands of the Sanhedrim and therefore shifted him away as you say by art it was not for want of power in the King but for want of spirit in the man For first Hircanus at that time was no more King of the Jews then Herod was though he be sometimes called so by my self and others because he succeeded in the Kingdom and was actually in possession of it upon the death of Alexandra But having afterwards relinquished the Kingdom to Aristobulus and not restored again by Pompey when the differences betwixt them came to be decided he was forced to content himself with the Dignity and Title of High Priest and was no other at such time as this business hapned But granting that he was then King yet living in a broken and distracted time and being a Prince of little judgement and less courage every one had their ends upon him and made him yield to any thing which was offered to him So that this Argument comes into as little purpose as that before of Zedekias and therefore for a further answer to it I refer you thither without giving any more trouble to my self or you But when you add and add it out of Grotius that this Court continued till Herod the G. who caused them all to be put to death except Sameas only it must needs follow hereupon that Herod did not onely destroy the Members of that Court but the Court it selfe For when you say that this Court continued till Herod the Great you tell us in effect that it contiued no longer and by so doing you must either contradict the four Evangelists who make frequent mention of this Councel as Mat. 5. 22. Joh. 11. 47. c. or the general current of Interpreters which have written on them Nor am I much moved with that which you say from Grotius supposing that he hath the Talmudists or his Auâ—hors in it that is to say that God punished the Sanhedrim for neglect of their duty in not supressing by their power as they ought to have done â— he insolencies of Herod in exalting himself against the Laws For I believe that neither Grotius nor the Talmudists or any who depends upon them were of Gods councel in the business or can tell us any more of it then another man And therefore if the three Estates in a Gothish Moddel have no better legs to stand upon then the authority of the Talmudists and the power of the Sanhedrim they can pretend to no such power after the persons or actions of soveraign Princes as Calvin hath ascribed unto them 36. But you draw towards a conclusion and so do I you tell me upon confidence of your former Arguments and take it as a matter proved that there never lay an appeal from the Sanhedrim unto Moses nor to any other Magistrate excepting onely when they lived under the Provincial Government of some forrain Princes as also that they had power upon their Kings You tell me that I must confess that the three Estates concerned in Parliament or any other Popular Magistrate Calvin doth dream of are to be left in that condition in which Calvin finds them And so perhaps I may when I see this proved which as yet I do not though there be no necessity on my part to make such confession and much less to acknowledge that the whose book is answered by your endeavour to make answer to some passages in it Had it been proved unanswerably that the Ephori of Sparta by the first Rules of their institution had a jurisdiction over their Kings and the Sanhedrim also over theirs which are the only two points to which you have endeavoured to return an answer you have no more reason to expect that I should acknowledge the whole Book to be fully answered then that you or any man may be said to have confuted all the Works of Cardinal Bellarmine because he hath confuted two or three of his chief Objections And thus in order to your expectation of hearing further from me which you seem to hope for rather then out of any desires engaging my self either with fresh Adversaries or new disputes I must needs say that I look upon you as a generous and ingenious Adversary as before I did Of whose society and friendship I should count it no crime to be ambitious had not my great decay of â—ight beside other infirmities growing on me rendered me
2ly That the King by consent of Parliament directed the proceedings of Ecclesiastical Courts against declared Hereticks so that they could not punish them in life or limb but as directed by the statute p. 2. fol. 69. In confutation of which Proposition the Animadvertor is cunningly tempted to write two or three sheets upon assurance that it will be richly worth the Writers and the Readers pains and the hope of having an answer to it from no worse a hand then that of the Appealant himselfe This I shall be ready to do whensoever he shall show me in what place of my Animadversions or any other Book of mine whatsoever I have maintained that the Church hath power of making Canons which may extend either unto the life or limb of the English subject Certain I am that no such thing ever past my hand or câ—me into my head sleeping or waking sick or sound and therefore this must be a device of his to render me as distastful to all sorts of people as he hath made himselfe to all the true Sonnes of the Chruch of England whether they be High-Royalists or covetous Conformists as our Authoâ— words it 36. He puts it to the Readers Judgement whether any man alive can from these words viz. The right lay not in this Henry but in Mortimer Earl of March in for an insinuation that Kings may legally be deposed And I confefs as readily as any other man whatsoever that no such insinuation can be gathered from those words of his as they are laid down in the Appeal But then the Appealant should have took his rise a little higher where it is said as positively and plainly as words can speak it that granting Kiâ—g Richard either deservedly deposed or naturally dead without issue the Right to the Crown lay noâ— in this Henry but in Edmond Mortimer Ea of March c. for which consult Ch. Hist lib. 4 fo 153. And therefore let the Reader judge whether without more Perspicacity in the Organ or perspicuity in the Object any man may not easily perceive such an Insinuation in the words foregoing that Kings deservedly or legally may be deposed All further medling in which point as I then declined so I have greater Reason to decline it now And on that reason I shall spare to press him whether another of his Inferences Apothegmes and Maxims of State in reference to the person of King Hen. 6. and the calamiâ—ous death of that religious but unfortunate Prince which I find him willing to shift off with this one evasion which the change of times hath made more passable then before that the less we touch on this harsh string the better the Musick p. 2. fol. 53. 37. These points relating to the King and the Church being thus passed over the residue of the things or matters material and effectual to be Answered and by him denyed are neither very many nor of any great consequence though truth be as much violated in a matter of the smallest moment as in that of the greatest That which comes first and I must fetch a great leap to it a great part of the intervening Animadversions being either out off with aâ— c. or otherwise avoyded without making any answer to them at all as farre as to the middle part of Queen Eliz. Raign where I found our Author advocating in behalf of Peoples sidings as they were used in those times and show the dangerous consequents and effects thereof not onely in the apprehension of King James but of Queen Eliz. All which the Appealant shifts aside and thinks to satisfie all expectations in changing onely one of his expressions which made those peoplefidings to be grounded on the words of S Paul And therefore if you read in the next Edition that those people sidings were but pretended to be grounded on the words of St. Paul we muâ—â— then think the Arch-bishop Gryndal did well in pleading for them to the Queen that the Queen did ill in causing them to be suppressed and that King James was more miserably our in dreaming of so many dangers in that Apostolical Institution which our Father entitles plainly by the name of Gods and the Ghurches Cause as were not to be found in it at any rate In the Historians relating the story of Martin Mar-Prelate and the great injury done to the Bishops by those scandalous Libels an occasion is taken by the Animadvertor to put him in remembrance of a rule of his to this effect That the fault is not in the Authour if he truly cite what is false on the credit of another Which rule so dangerous in it self and so destructive to the truth so advantatageous to the slandering of the godliest men and mis-reporting the Occurrents of all times and ages is very justly faulted by the Animadvertor and thereupon he thus proceeds in his Animadversions That this rule whether true or false cannot be used to justifie our Author in many passages though truly cited considering that he cannot chuse but know them to be false in themselves and he that knowing a thing to be false sets it down for true not only gives the lye to his own Conscience but occasions others also to believe a falshood And from this charge I cannot see how he can be acquitted in making the Bishops to be guilty of those filthy sins for which they were to be so lashed by Satyrical wits or imputing those base Libels unto wanton wits which could proceed from no other fountain then malitious wickedness All which the Appealant passeth over without taking the least notice of it and to say truth he had good reason so to do knowing that dangerous rule to be so recessary for his justification and indempnity upon every turn And thereupon fixing himself upon this Rule That the Wâ—iter is faultless who truly cites what is false on the credit of another he thinks he hath sufficiently confuted the Animadvertor by telling him that if this Rule should not be true he must needs have a â—ard task of it in making good all things in his own Geography on his own knowledge who therein hath traded on trust as much as another I must have been a greater Travellor then either the Greek Vlisses or the English Mandivile all Purchas his Pilgrims many of our late Jesuits and Tom Corriot too into the bargain if it had been otherwise if in describing the whole world with all the Kingdoms Provinces Seas and Iles thereof I had not relyed more on the credit of others then any knowledge of my own if the Appealant could have charged me with citing any thing for truth which I know to be false and justified my so doing upon the credit of any Author whom I know to be mistaken in his information he had said somewhat to the purpose And when he can say that I desire no favour either from him or any other whatsoever In the mean time if any Gentleman Merchant or other Travellor
from the death of Bishop Andrews and Archbishop Harsâ—et then he had taken those of York on this last occasion But I hope onâ— Author was somewhat more then half asleep when this note fell from him for otherwise me thinks he could not be so much a stranger to the affairs of the Church as not to know that ever since the time of William the second for so long that ill custome hath continued nothing hath been more ordinary with the Kings of England then to enter on the temporalities of all vacant Bishoppricks whether it be by death promotion or what way soever and to receive the mean profits of them till the new Bishop after the doing of his homage hath taken out a writ for their restitution 47. Our Author now drawes toward an end and for a conclusion to his Book contrary in a manner to all former Precedents addresseth an Epistle To the Religious Learned and judicious Reader In which he feeds himself and his Reader also with the hopes of this that there are no more Errors to be found in his History then those which have been noted in the Animadversions This I will add saith he for thus he doth bespeak his Reader for my comfort and thy better confidence in reading my Book that according to the received rule in Law Exceptio firmat Regulam in non exceptis it followeth proportionably that Animadversio firmat Regulam in non Animadversis And if so by the Tacit consent of my Adversary himself all other passages in my Book are allowed sound and true save those few which fall under his reproof But if so as it is much otherwise the passages which fall under the Reproof of the Animadvertor are not so few as to give the Reader any confidence that all the rest are to be allowed for sound and true Non omnem molitor quae fluit unda videt as the Proverb hath it The Miller sees not all the water which goes under his Mill much of it passing by without observation and if the blind eat many a fly as the English Adage saith he doth he may swallow many an Error also without discovery when he first finds them in his dish And so it was with me in the Review of our Authors History the second perusal whereof presented many Errors to my consideration which had not been noted in the first And since the publishing of the Animadversions I have fallen accidentally upon divers others not observed before of which I shall advertise him in a private way whensoever he shall please to desire it of me 48. And here I thought I should have ended but the Appealant puts me to the answering of two Objections against the Bishops having place in Parliament as a third Estate Which two Objections may be Answered without being heard as being made against the clear letter of the Law the express words of several Statutes and Records of Parliament as also against the positive determination of Sir Edward Cook the most learned Lawyer of our times whose judgement in that point may seem to carry the authority of a Parliament with it because by Order of this Parliament his Books were appointed to be Printed But since the Appealant doth require it in the way of curtesie I will serve him in it as well as I can at the present without engaging my self in any further enquiry after those particulars And first as to the Bishop of Man the reason why he hath no vote in Parliament is not because he doth not hold his Lands per integram Baroâ—iam as is implyed in the Objections but because he doth not hold his Lands of the King at all The Bishop of Man is Homiger to the Earl of Darby as the chief Lord of the Island of his sole nomination and dependance and therefore there could be no reason which might induce the King of England to admit those Bishops to a place and vote in Parliament who held nothing of them and of whose dutie and affections they could promise little And so much I remember to have read in the learned Work of Francis Mason de Ministerio Anglicano building therein if my memory do not too much fail me upon the judgement and authority of the learned Andrews in his Elaborate Apologie against Cardinal Bellarmine To the second Objection That some Statutes have been made absente or Exclusâ— clero which notwithstanding are esteemed to be good and valid therefore that the Bishops sit not in the Parliament as a third Estate I shall for brevity sake refer the Appealant to my answer to the Book called The stumbling Block c. cap. 5. Sect. 7. 8. c. where he shall find the point discoursed more at large then these short Remembrances can admit of I shall onely now adde thus much that in the Protestation made by the twelve Bishops which was enrolled amongst the Records of that house they thereby entred their Protest against all such Laws Orders Votes Resolutions and determinations as in themselves null and of none effect which in their absence since the 27th of December 1641. as were already passed and likewise against such as should hereafter pass in that most honourable house during the time of their forced and violent absence from it c. Which certainly so many Grave Learned and Judicious men would never have done if they had not looked upon themselves in the capacity of a third Estate according to the Laws of the Realm exprest in several Acts and Records of Parliament And whereas he requests me when my hand is in to answer an Objection taken from a passage in the Parliament at Northampton under Hen. the second in which the Bishops claimed their place not as Bishops but Barons Non sedemus hiâ— Episcopi sed Barones c. it must be understood with reference to the case which was then before them in which they thought themselves better qualified to pass their judgements in the capacity of Barons then in that of Bishops For that the Bishops sat in Parliament in a double capacity will be no hard matter to evince considering that they sat as Bishops in all publick Councels before the entrance of the Normans and that when William the Conqueror changed their tenure from Frank Almoigne to Bâ—râ—nage he rather added some new capacity to them which before they had not then took any of their old Capacities from them which before they had But this dispute is out of doors as the case now stands which makes me willing to decline all such further trouble which the Appealant seems desirous to impose upon me 50. That which I have already done in Order to his satisfaction is more then he can challenge in the ordinary course of Disputation or hath deserved at my hands in the managing of it He tells us in the Third Chapter of his Apparatus that finding himselfe necessitated to return an answer to the Animadversions he was resolved first to abstain from all Rayling that being a
this Realm have continued in force and so many Parliaments since the first Reformation have left unquestioned 49. Your Letter now draws towards an end in which you professe some seeming gladnesse that I whom you call the Primipilus amongst the defenders of the late turgid and persecuting sort of Prelacy I like your words so well that I must needs bring them to a repetition do so freely disclaim the Grotian Religion which you say you never charged me with and thereupon conceive some confident hopes that the rest of the Prelatical Clergie will disown it also How far the most of the Prelatical Clergie shall think fit to disown the Grotian Religion as you have described it in your book I am not able to determine Aetatem habent they are all old enough to answer for themselves if you put them to it But if you have no better hopes of their disowning then you have assurances from me of my disclaiming that Religion you may cry out O spe◠inanes frustra cogitationes meae without help or remedy For tell me I beseech you where is it that I have so freely disclaimed the Grotian Religion as you say I have Not in my letter I am sure there is no such matter All that I say in that is no more then this that I could have wished you had spared my name in that Preface of yours unlesse you could have proved me to have been one of that Religion as I think you cannot Which notwithstanding I may be one of that Religion and yet may warrantably think that you cannot prove it you being so great a stranger to my private discourses and finding nothing to that purpose in publick writings But whether I positively am or really am not of the Grotian Religion that is to say of that Religion of Hugh Grotius of which M. Baxter hath given us a description by his opinions I am not bound to tell you now finding my self unwilling by such an unnecessary declaration to engage my self with fresh disputes with any one of either party who finds himself unsatisfied with it may involve me in But so farr I assure you I am of the Religion of Hugh Grotius that I wish as heartily as he did that the breaches in the walls of Jerusalem were well closed up that the Puritans submitting to the Church of England and the Church of England being reconciled with the Church of Rome we might unite and center in those sacred truths those undeniable principles and established Doctrines which have been universally received in the Church of Christ and in which all parties doe agree and then I little doubt but that the Lutheran Churches in Germany Denmark Sweden and Norway and the Calvinian party in their several Countries would not unwillingly take the benefit of a publick peace leaving all doubtful disputations to be managed in the publick Schools not prest with so much heat and with so little edification to the weak in faith in the common pulpits This I am certain is no more then what is taught us in the prayer for the good estate of Christs Church militant here upon the earth In which we do beseech the Divine Majesty to inspire continually the universal Church with the spirit of truth unity and concord and to grant that all they which do confesse his holy name may agree in the truth of his holy word and live in unity and godly love which godly and most Christian prayer I do most heartily recommend to your consideration and not unto your consideration only but your practice also as I do you and all that do delight in the spirit of unity to his heavenly blessings who is the Author of Peace and the Lover of Concord And this I do with that affection which becometh Your very humble Servant and Christian Brother in Jesus Christ to be commanded Peter Heylyn Lacies Court in Abingdon Decemb. 10. 1658. 50. When I had finished this Answer and found it to amount to a greater bulk then was first desired I was in some conflict with my self by what means it might so come to M. Baxter that it might also be communicated to such others as had took notice of the injury done me and might expect to have some notice also of the right I had done my self I had some reason to believe that M. Baxter had imparted the Contents of his Letter to some or other of his friends before it was dispatcht to me to the end that they might see and know and relate to others of that party to what a sad reckoning he had called me And how unable I must prove to render an account of those several charges which he had justly laid upon me And I had reason to suspect that when he had perused my answer and seen how little he had gotten by the Provocation it might be secretly kept by him or perhaps committed to the fire for the greater security that on the one side he might be held to be invincible by those who look upon him as the Atlas which supports the cause and on the other side I might be condemned for an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 by my silence had declared my self guilty of a self conviction There was somewhat also to be done in reference to the conformable clergy and the Prelatical Divines as also to the turgid and persecuting sort of Prelates who otherwise could not but admire that I who had been so active in vindicating the fame and reputation of other men should be so lame and negligent in preserving my own And other way I could find none to satisfie all parties and right my self then to publish these passages betwixt M. Baxter and my self and so to publish them that coming from the presse as M. Baxters first provocation had done before it might be universally dispersed over most parts of the Land If any shall conceive my Answer to be too long he shall conceive no otherwise of it then I do my self But I was willing to take some pains with him to satisfie him word by word and line by line where I found any thing considerable in it self or capable of receiving satisfaction from me And to say truth I have been the more punctual and exact in all particulars that M. Baxter having sufficient measure pressed down if not running over also might rest himself contented with that satisfaction and supercede all further troubles to himself or me And being he hath pleased to conclude his Letter with a complemental desire of pardon for the displeasing plainnesse of it I shall also conclude this discourse between us with an assurance to him of my kind acceptance of that Letter there being nothing which can be more agreeable to me then an honest plainnesse And as for pardon there needs none where there is no injury complained of as by me there is not And therefore I shall shut up all in these words of S. Jerome to S. Augustine on the like entercourse between them viz. Non