which he to their Reproach destroyed or of the second by their way of treating St. Gregory of Nazianze who was one of the greatest Men of the Age and that had done the most for the Truth in the former Persecution under Valens we will not form a very favourable Opinion neither of the one nor the other of those two great Assemblies But since I have named that Great Man I will let Mr. de Meaux see how easie it is to give an ill Character even of the greatest Men. I will not mention his indecent Invectives against Iulian nor his high Eloges of Constance But if we consider his Life after he was a Bishop he despised Zasim where he was first setled and was offended with his Friend S. Basil for putting him in it and in the end he forsook it for it was a mean place and a Town full of disorders as being situated on the great Road. After that he came and assisted his old Father at Nazianze but upon his Death he left that and without any Canonical Vocation he came to Constantinople where he acted long as Bishop And in conclusion when he saw it was like to be questioned by the Council he withdrew indeed But as appears by his Letter to Procopius he grew upon that so disgusted at all Councils that he could neither think nor write of them with patience Here are many Blots in a Life of which we have very little left us and yet after all this he was one of the greatest Men that not only his Age but the Greek Church ever produced But here Mr. de Meaux will complain that I am doing that which he apprehends so much and that I am recriminating He had Reason to apprehend this for the Subject is Copious and the Matter is Obvious only with this difference that a just Recrimination destroys the whole bottom on which the Roman Church is founded for the certainty of Tradition and the Infallbility of the Church being their Foundation if Variations are proved among them these are shaken and so their whole Fabrick falls but Variations even proved among us signifie nothing they only prove that the Reformers were Men subject to mistakes that in some things they might bend matters too far in opposition to that which they saw Reason to Condemn before they had so clearly discovered the Truth that was wrapped up in so much Corruption that it was to discern the Truths which might have carried Cranmer in opposition to the Ecclesiastical Tyranny to raise the Power of the Civil Magistrate too high In other points they thought they might retain some received expressions giving them sound Explanations and so change the Ideas of things without changeing the Language And thus tho' they retained the Real Presence with some other Phrases that were consonant to it yet they gave it another Sense And Mr. de Meaux ought not to make so much as he does of their Submission to some Princes when not to mention the base compliances of some Bishops in this Age who are indeed a Reproach to their Character nor what was mentioned formerly of Gregory and Remy even the Apostle of France S. Martin himself complied with the Tyrant Maximus in such a manner that as Sulpitius Severus sets it out it does little Honour to his Memory Only in this he differed from the Bishops of this present Age that he interposed vigorously to hinder the Persecution of a Sect that had neither Laws nor Edicts in their Favours and that are represented in History as a very odious sort of Men and indeed not worthy to live whereas in our days we have seen Bishops not only pushing on a Prince to an Infamous violation of Edicts and to an unheard of Cruelty but making Panegyricks upon it while others were most Impudently denying it even at the same time that they were writing private Letters in defence of it These are indeed unworthy and scandalous Compliances and yet those who are guilty of them have the Face to Reproach us for things that are not to be once named in comparison with them So true does the Character of a Pharisee remain to this day of warning others to take the Mote out of their Eye while there is a Beam in their own Among all the Compliances in Henry the 8th's Reign is there any one that carries with it such a Reproach to Religion as it is for the Bishops of a whole Church one or two perhaps only excepted to see Men required to Receive the Sacrament by the force of Royal Edicts in particular by that Famous Monument of the Impiety and Inhumanity of the Age against those who refused to receive it in their Sickness By which those from whom the violences of Dragoons had extorted a Signature are required to do that which in the Opinion of all Christians is a high Profanation of the Sacrament but in the Opinion of that Church is a Prophanation without a name and beyond all that can be set out in words This is an Edict relating to the Sacredest of all the Acts of Worship and is a higher Invasion of the Sanctuary than any that can be found in all King Henry's Reign And yet those who Reproach us so severely have not had the Honesty nor the Courage to interpose and require their Clergy not to give the Sacrament to any but to such as were duely prepared for it that believed their Doctrine and came to Receive it with that disposition of Mind which became them The Silence of those Bishops upon so Sacrilegious an Attempt is an indication of a Slavish compliance far above all that they can Charge on Cranmer As for those Tragical Exclamations that Mr. de Meaux makes on the Supremacy that was declared to be in our Kings as well in Queen Elizabeth's time as in King Henry's and King Edward's this is also very unjustly urged by a Clergy that suffer under a much greater Invasion of the Rights of the Church than any that we can complain of By the Concordate the Kings of France have Invaded the Liberties of that Church and have assumed to themselves the Nomination of all the Bishops of France and by the Pretensions to the Regale they have assumed also a right of conferring Spiritual Employments to which a care of Souls is annexed and that pleno jure Their Courts of Parliament are the last resort even of all Spiritual Matters and receive all Appeals under the pretence of some abuse in the Sentence so that the whole Exercise of the Episcopal Power is subject to the Secular Court. And whatsoever they may talk of their Union with the Holy See even in this they are also Subject to the Secular Court since no Bull or Breve can be Executed in France without an approbation from thence And yet these are the men that complain of the King's Supremacy among us tho' there is nothing clearer than that this Servitude lies much heavier on them than it does on us For after
all we live under a Legal Government by which even our Kings are bound so that any Order that comes from them whether in Matters Temporal or Spiritual that is not founded on Law or that is contrary to it is null of it self The King's Supremacy among us amounts to no more than that the Execution of the laws that relate to Religion and to the Persons of Church men belongs to our Kings And all the difference between the French Constitution and ours as to this is that whereas the French King Acts Arbitrarily in those Matters ours are limited by Law. So that if a Clergy-man is legally proved to be guilty of a Crime our King indeed orders the Law to pass upon him in his Courts of Justice But the King can shut up no Clergy-men in Prisons or detain them there during Pleasure We do not know what those Letters of the Cachet are nor the Exiles or Imprisonments which go according to the Pleasure of a King and the Directions of a Father Confessor We retain the Freedome of the Elections of our Bishops there being only a Temporal punishment laid on us by Law if we do not follow the King's Recommendation And except in Matters of Marriages an Appeal from the Spiritual Court is scarce ever heard of in England And even when an Appeal is brought it is to be Judged by Delegates that are named by the King's Authority a considerable number of whom are always Bishops Nor have our Parliaments or our Princes medled any other way in Matters of Religion but that they have given the Civil Sanction to the Propositions made by the Church and this is that which all Christian Princes do in all places so that after all the Clamour that is made on our being Subjected to the Civil Power it is certain that the Gallican Church is much more Subject to it than we are And yet these Men who have abandoned all the Immunities of the Church Reproach us with Thomas Becket tho' there is not one of them that dares make any one of those steps which procured to him his Saintship These Men do also swear the Oath that is in the Pontifical to the Pope of which Mr. Claud put Mr. de Meaux in mind long ago but he is Wiser than to take any notice of a thing which he knows he cannot answer for I would gladly see how they observe any one of all the Articles that are in that Oath Mr. de Meaux is offended at Cranmer for the Protestation that he made explaining to what degree he thought himself bound to observe it and yet tho' he and his Brethren swore it it does not appear that it makes any great impression on their Consciences They are resolved to have no regard to it only they cannot endure Cranmer's Honesty for protesting to that purpose But if they fail in this part of their Oath they have been most exactly true to another Branch of it which obliges them to Persecute Hereticks to the utmost of their Power Thus it appears how just it was for Mr. de Meaux to apprehend that we should Recriminate And that in all points the Recrimination falls much heavier on their Church than the Charge it self can fall on ours He takes notice of an Objection that he finds I made upon the Subject of those prejudices which is that if we enter on a Personal Dispute concerning the Reformers the worst things that even their Enemies can lay to their charge come far short of those Enormous Crimes of which even their own Historians confess their Popes to have been Guilty and that some times in a Series of many Ages together in which not so much as one good Pope Interveened so uninterrupted was that Succession Now Popes being according to the general Doctrine of that Church the Infallible Oracles of Truth and the Universal Bishops and according to all the rest of their Communion they being the Heads of the Church Christ's Vicars and the Centers of Unity they are much more concerned in all that relates personally to their Popes than we are in the Lives of our Reformers All that Mr. de Meaux says to this is that the Reformers are the Authors of our Sect and that therefore we are more immediately concerned in them But it seems Mr. de Meaux understands the Principles of the Reformation very ill We own no Sect but that of which Jesus Christ is the Author And we have no other Interest in the Reformers but that they were Instruments by whose Means the World was awakened to Read the Scriptures and to examine Matters of Religion And that they discovered many things of which the World was formerly ignorant and in which the Clergy studied still to keep them in a blind Subjection to them and since they found too much advantage in those Corruptions to be willing to part with them the Reformers went on in their Discoveries and at length by the Blessing of God and the Labours of the Reformers as well as by the Persecution of their Enemies this Work had so great a Progress that it will still be reckoned one of the wonders of Providence But after all the Reformers were only the Instruments of opening this Light but not at all the Authors of our Sect so that we are no other way concerned in them but that we gratefully acknowledge their Labours and honour their Memory And what Mistakes Weaknesses or Passions soever may have mixed with their Conduct this proves nothing but that they were Men and were Subject both to Sin and to Errour Mr. de Meaux is also at a great deal of pains to shew how unsteady the Protestants have been in setling some Notions in particular the manner of Christ's Presence in the Sacrament and the true Notion of a Church on which he enlarges himself very copiously But is it possible that he is so ignorant either of Antiquity or of the Age of the School-Men as not to know how long they were before they setled on almost all the Notions of Divinity F. Petaw can inform him how dark the Fathers of the first three Centuries were even in their Idea's of the Trinity and it were easie to shew that even after the Definition of the Council of Nice it was long before they setled on the same Notion of the Unity of the Divine Essence with that which has been received now for many Ages in the Church It were easy to shew how even the so much cited and admired Saint Austin differed from himself in his Disputes with the Manicheans the Donatists and the Pelagians and that one sees in his works very different Notions not only of the Freedom of the Will but even of the Nature of the Church When he writ against the Donatists who had contrary to all Reason broke the Peace of the Church he raised the Unity of the Church and the submission to the visible Authority that was in it very high But when he writ against the Pelagians the
of Councils Provincial and General of many Popes of all the chief Fathers both Greek and Latine particularly of the four great Fathers of the Latine Church whereas on the other side there was not one Father nor Doctor alledged And tho' Mr. le Grand pretends only that the Canons of some Provincial Councils against Incontinence and some passages out of Tertullian S. Basil and S. Ierome upon Virginity and against second Marriages were alledged Here I am sure the Reader will censure him for the want of somewhat that is more important to an Honest Man than great Capacity For the Canons of those Councils and Passages of those Fathers speak expresly of the degrees of Marriage forbid in the Book of Leviticus And tho' he names only three Popes whose Letters were cited to the same purpose he passes over the chief of them with Relation to England Gregory the Great in whose time the Saxons were Converted to the Christian Faith who gave an express Instruction to Austin the Monk to annul all Marriages with a Brother's Wife And this being a Rule setled in England when the Christian Religion was received in it it was consider'd as one of the chief supports of the King's Cause and therefore if Mr. le Grand had desired to have the Reputation of a sincere Writer he ought not to have passed it over nor ought he to have passed over all that was said against the Pope's Dispensing even with the Laws of the Church and much less with the Laws of God Nor that other Branch of the King's Plea that the Church of England according to the Council of Nice ought to judge this Matter and that it did not belong to the Pope If Mr. le Grand is a true Son of the Gallican Church he cannot disown those Principles and at least if he would be esteemed a sincere Historian he ought not to have passed them in silence But if he was defective in his account of the King's Plea he adds as much of his own to the Queens For he has pickt up a great many instances in History that were never mentioned in the Books to of that time and yet they all amount to no more but shew that these Rules of the degrees of Marriage were not at all times observed with the same exactness But the Church is Govern'd by Rules and not by Examples And all that he saies of the Law in Deuteronomy appointing the Brother to Marry his Sister-in-Law when his Brother dyed without Children had been ever looked on in the Christian Church as an exception from the general Law that belonged only to the Iewish Nation with relation to their Succession which being taken away under the Christian Religion the Laws in Leviticus which have been ever considered in the Church as Moral Laws must now take place Universally In short if any man will be at the pains to compare the Books that were Written upon this matter and the Accounts that are given of them by Mr. le Grand and by my self he will soon see which of us have Writ with the greatest sincerity and I will not envy Mr. le Grand's Opinion of his own Capacity so long as an unbiassed sincerity is acknowledged to belong to me 4. p. 222. Mr. le Grand tells us that the Parliament abolished the Oath which the Bishops were bound to sware to the Pope at their Consecration and drew a new one which they should make to the King. Here he gives me just Reason to say severer things than he may be willing to hear for in the Parliament the two Oaths that the Bishops swore both to the Pope and to the King were Read and it appearing that they contradicted one another they being both of the nature of an Oath of Homage which can only be made to one Superiour all that the Parliament did was to Repeal the Oath to the Pope and to let the other to the King remain in its full force I have given an undeniable Instance that the Oath to the King was in all former times made by the Bishops in a Record which I put at the head of my Collection of Instruments and which Mr. le Grand may have seen for tho' these Instruments have not yet appeared in the French Translation yet Mr. Bulteau has my Work in English where all these Records are In that Cardinal Adrian not only renounces all Clauses in his Bull that were contrary to the King's Prerogative or to the Laws of England but swears fidelity to the King in the same terms in which our Kings have continued ever since to have Homage Sworn to them by their Bishops And the Oath to the Pope as it was a Novelty not known before the twelfth Century so it contains in it so many wide and indefinite Clauses that it seems very hard to reconcile the taking of it either with the Doctrines of the Gallican Churches or with that Subjection which all Bishops owe their Lawful Prince since it is plain that is an Oath of Homage to the Pope 5. Mr. le Grand sets himself with no small force p. 244. to 257. tho' not with equal success to give Cranmer the worst Character that he could make for him He accuses me for endeavouring to make him pass for a Gentleman but tho' I knew he was one yet I said not a word of it for I thought that was too inconsiderable a thing to have a place among the Honours that belong to the Memory of that Great Man. He cannot believe that he was in Germany when by Warham's Death he was named to the Arch-Bishoprick of Canterbury And thinks that he could not have stayed seven weeks there after he had the News of his intended Promotion since he was present at the King's Marriage with A. Bolen Nor can he allow my saying that the thing was slowly set forward since there passed but three Months between September and Ianuary in which he was preconised at Rome Nor can he believe the Provincial Synod of Canterbury judged the matter of the King's Marriage Here are Errours enough for Mr. Varillas himself In Cranmer's Printed Tryal he appeals to his Judges who were all Witnesses of that Matter that he had unwillingly accepted of that See and that he had delayed his return out of Germany after he had the News of the King's Intentions for seven Weeks and this was passed over by the Bishops that judged him without any answer which was a plain acknowledgment of the Truth of it 2. There were twelve Weeks between Warham's Death that fell out the 23 of August and the King's Marriage on the 14th of November So allowing two weeks for the Currier to go to him ther is room enough for his seven weeks delay But our Author to turn five Months into three shuts out both September and Ianuary out of the account tho' both ought to be included And the Sentence of Divorce bears expresly that both the Provincial Synods of England had judged
the King's Matter but after all our Author cannot enough aggravate Crammer's taking the Oath of Obedience to the Pope at his Consecration with the Protestation that limited it with several restrictions Which he also reports upon the credit of some spiteful Authors quite contrary to what appears upon Record For he made the Protestation to be twice Read at the Altar when he was Consecrated So it is plain he had no mind to equivocate for he owned publickly all that he did And Protestations renouncing all Clauses that were in Bulls contrary to the King's Prerogative having been ordinarily made by Bishops it seems the Canonists who were accustomed to double dealing prevailed so far on Cranmer as to make him take the method of Swearing the Oath and then limiting it by a Protestation made at the same time In which it is plain that if he committed an Errour it was rather a mistake in his Judgment than a want of Sincerity 6. Mr. le Grand saies that the King pardoned More and Fisher the business of the Maid of Kent p. 280. to 282. and tho' he owns that More calls her in a Letter the silly Nun yet he takes no notice of that long Letter of Mores which I published among the Instruments of my second Volume in which he treats that matter as one of the horridest Impostures that ever was and for which Fisher tho' our Author denies it was Condemn'd for concealing Treason To this he adds that the Chancellor having asked Fisher and More what they thought of the Acts of the last Parliament they answered nothing but said that being cut off from all Civil Society they thought of nothing but our Saviour's Passion and this cost them their life This is such a corrupting of History that I forbear to give it its true name And indeed a prevarication in this matter is the less excusable because our Author might have found advantage enough by representing the matter truly as I had done from the Records They were Condemn'd first in a Premunire that imports loss of Estate and perpetual Imprisonment for refusing to swear the Oath for the Succession by the King's Marriage Enacted by Parliament And after that they were prosecuted for having spoken against the King's Supremacy and there is one Incident in More 's Process which perhaps would be thought enough at present for Condemning a Man as Guilty of High Treason for he said that as the Parliament could make a King so it could likewise Depose him But I limited my self to six Heads and I will not go beyond them The abundance of Matter that is before me makes it uneasie for me to pass over many important things which our Author has left out of his History tho' they are in that Collection of Letters published by Camusat and which I never saw till he himself not only shewed it me but did me the Honour to present it to me He does not tell us that the Pope promised to Cardinal de Tournon Melanges Hist. 1532. folio 8. M. that he would do all that was in his Power for the King of England and that the thing should be done tho' he must take such a Method in the point of Form as not to seem too partial to him And that the Cardinal thought he was sure of the Pope in that Matter The same Cardinal writes the 17 of Aug. 1533. that tho' the Cardinals of the Imperial Faction forced the Pope to what he had done fol. 9. N. yet if the King of England would save his Honour he would with all his Heart do what he desired and did not doubt but he should propose Expedients for this at the Interview that was to be at Marseilles fol. 19. O. By another Letter it appears that Francis the First owned to the English Ambassadours that the Pope had said to himself that he knew the King's Cause was just and he only stood upon a Procuration For the King being cited to appear at Rome in Person or by Proxy the King would take no notice of this fol. 177. and so Karne was sent over Excusator to excuse the King's Appearance But it appears by that Collection that he was sent over in the Name of the Nation and not in the King's Name So the King 's refusing to appear being thought a great Contempt the Pope promised to grant the Divorce if the King would so far acknowledge his Authority as to appear at Rome by a Proxy upon his Summons And in this Francis the First thought the King was in the right and he approved of his Marriage so far that he ordered his Ambassadour to Christen the Child in his Name fol. 140. P Q R. fol. 174 175 176 177. if it proved a Son. The French Ambassadour at Rome did also in many Letters to the Court of France write that the Pope would do all that was desired for the King of England and much more if he durst but he was so hard pressed by the Imperialists that against God and Reason and even against the Opinion of many of the Imperialists themselves he was forced to do whatsoever the Cardinal Dosme asked of him And that they wanted much the Cardinal Grandmont who was Bishop of Tarbes for no man durst speak Truth to the Pope It is true the Ambassadour who was then the Bishop of Auxerre says that he expected no good of the Pope and that all was but dissimulation Yet to shew that crafty Ambassadours change their Stile so that it is hard to know how much one ought to trust to their Letters the same day in which he had writ the former Letter to the Legate that was in France he wrote another to the Great Master in which he tells him that the Pope had said that the King of England 's Matter had been now four years in his hands and was not yet touched by him and that if he could do as he would it should be as they all would And he writes that he spoke this in such a manner to him that he believes he said what he thought fol. 177. S. These Letters bear all Date the 7th of February 1532. But the 13th of Iuly thereafter he writes that the Pope said to him that he resolved to put off the Business to a good time and he saw clearly what he meant by a good time and adds that if the thing had been then judged the Old and Learned Cardinals would have been for the King of England but the Imperialists were so much the stronger Party that it would have been carried clear against them And tho' Mr. le Grand speaks doubtfully of that Critical Matter that a Currier came from England within a day or two after the Sentence was given and passes over the haste in which it was given as a thing of which he knew nothing yet in that Collection there is a Letter writ from Lyons by Pompone Trivulce fol. 177. T. Cardinal Trivulce's Brother Dated