that Councel against some special abuses of the Pope and his Cardinals And by the advises of Ments made and concluded in that City by the States of the Empire in the time of the Councel of Basile for preserving the authority of General Councels for relief from grievances for procuring of conditions from the Pope for preservation of their just liberties and for prevention of the abuses and excesses and extortions of the Roman Court And by the hundred Grievances of the German Nation proposed to the Popes Legate by the Princes and Lords of the Roman Empire against the injuries extortions and usurpations of the See of Rome and the incroachments and oppressions of Ecclesiastical Courts and persons And lastly by the gracious promise of Charles the fifth to hold a Dyett within half a year wherein it should be resolved what way the differences in Religion should be settled and quieted whether by a General or National Councel or Imperial Dyett Neither did the Emperour and the German Nation onely indeavour to reform but they did in some measure actually reform the excesses of the Roman Court and other Ecclesiastical abuses and innovations as it hath already been verified of Charles the Great and Ludovicus Pius This appeareth yet more plainly by the concordates as they are stiled of the German Nation with Gregory the 13th And the agreements of Frederick the third and the Princes of the Empire with Pope Nicholas the fifth whereby the excesses and abuses of the Roman Court are something abated and reduced And by the Ghostly or Ecclesiastical reformation made by Sigismond the Emperour in the year 1436 containing 37 Chapters or Articles for regulating the Pope and his Court Cardinals Archbishops Bishops Suffragans Abbats Monks Friars Nunnes and all sorts of Ecclesiastical or religious persons I cannot here omit a witty answer of this Emperour as he was deliberating with some Ecclesiastical persons about a Reformation and one said it must begin with the Minimes No said he non à Minoritis sed à Majoritis not with the Minimes but with the Maximes or great ones that is the Pope and the Cardinals and the Court of Rome This appeares also by the Interim or declaration of Religion made by Charles the fifth attested with his Imperial seal and accepted and approved by the States of the Empire assembled in a Dyett at Ausburge May 15. in the year 1548 where the whole exercise of Religion is established untill the definition of a Councel I produce it not to shew what it was but what power the Emperour did assume in point of Religion wherein these words are contained Quod autem in supradicta declaratione sub rubrica de caeremoniis usu Sacramentorum inter alia dicitur in quas tamen si quid irrepsit quod causam dare possit superstitioni tollatur Reservat sibi soli Caesarea Majestas c. And whereas in the aforesaid declaration under the rubrick of ceremonies and the use of the Sacraments among other things it is said into the which neverthelesse if any thing have crept that may administer occasion of superstition let it be taken away His Imperial Majestie doth reserve unto himself alone in this and the like Articles where and as often as it shall be needful now and hereafter the right to correct to adde to detract as it shall seem just and equal to himself according to the present exigence of affaires Lastly this appeareth by the declaration of Ferdinand the Emperour made in the year 1555 in favour of the Augustane Confession and the professours thereof Secondly the Kings of England in their great Councels did make themselves the last Judges of the liberties and grievances and necessities of their people even in cases Ecclesiastical not the Pope They had reason In vain is the Court of Romes determination expected against it self The Emperours did the same So Lodovic the fourth in his Apology against Pope Iohn the 22th declareth that the Pope ought not cannot be a competent Judge in his own cause The Pope challenged such a confirmation of the Emperour without which his election was invalid The Emperour determined the contrary in the Dyet of Frankford An. 1338. Declaramus quòd Imperialis dignitas est immediatè à solo Deo c. We declare that the Imperial dignity is immediately from God alone And that election gives a sufficient title And that the Popes approbation or disapprobation signifies nothing The Pope attempted to divide Italy from the German Empire by his fulnesse of power The Emperour declares the Act to be invalid and of no moment When the Princes and States of the Empire had presented the hundred grievances of the German Nation to the Popes Legate they adde this conclusion Quod si enumeratâ— onera atque gravamina c. But if the abovesaid burthens and grievances be not removed within the time limited or sooner from the eyes of men and abolished and abrogated which the Lay-States of the Empire do not expect then they would not have his Holinesse to be ignorant that they neither can nor will bear or indure the aforesaid most pressing and intolerable burthens any longer but find out other means of ease and vindicate their former liberties and immunities As the sense of their sufferings was their own so they would have the remedy to be their own and not leave the cure to a tyrannical Court To this adde the Protestation and the Oath of the Electoral Colledge and the other Princes of the Empire mentioned in their letter to Benedict the 12th Quod jura honores bona libertates consuetudines Imperii c. That they would maintain defend and preserve inviolated with all their power and might the rights honours goods liberties and customes of the Empire and their own Electoral right belonging to them by law or custome against all men of what preheminence dignity or state soever that is to say in plain termes against the Pope and his Court notwithstanding any perils or mandates or processes whatsoever that is notwithstanding any citations or bulls or excommunications or interdictions from Rome Take but one instance more Ferdinand the present Emperour out of an unavoidable necessity to extinguish the flame of a bloody intestine war and to save the Empire from utter ruine contracts a peace with the King of France the Swedes and their adherents whereby sundry Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical dignities were conferred upon Protestants lands and other hereditaments of great value were alienated from the Church in perpetuity free exercise of their Religion was granted to those of the Augustan Confession Annates confirmations and other pretended Papal rights were abolished The Popes extraordinary Nuncio protested against it And Pope Innocent himself by his Bull bearing date Novemb. 26. in the year 1651 declared the contract to be void annulled it and condemned it as injurious and prejudicaial to the Orthâ—dox
all ages affronted and curbed the Roman Court and reduced them to a right temper and constitution as often as they deviated from the Canons of the Fathers and incroached upon the liberties of the Gallicane Church Whereby the Popes jurisdiction in France came to be meerly discretionary at the pleasure of the King Hincmare had been condemned by three French Synods for a turbulent person and deposed Pope Adrian the second takes Cognisance of the cause at Rome and requires Carolus Calvus the King of France to send Hincmare thither with his accusers to receive justice The Kings apologetick answer will shew how he relished it Valde mirati sumus ubi hoc dictator Epistolae scriptum invenerit esse Apostolica authoritate praecipiendum ut Rex corrector iniquorum districtor reorum atque secundum leges Ecclesiasticas atque mundanas ultor criminum reum legaliter ac regulariter pro excessibus suis damnatum sua fretum potentia Roman dirigat We wondered much where he who dictated the Popes Letter hath found it written as commanded byâ— Apostolical authority that a King who is the Corrector of the unjust the punisher of guilty persons and according to all Lawes Ecclesiastical and Civill the revenger of crimes should send a guilty person legally and regularly condemned for his excesses to Rome He tells him that the Kings of France were reputed terrarum Domini not Episcoporum Vice-Domini or Villici Lords paramount within their Dominions not Licutenants or Bayliffes of Bishops Quis igitur hanc inversam legem infernus evomuit quis tartarus de suis abditis tenebrosis cuniculis eructavit What hell hath disgorged this disorderly law what bottomlesse depth hath belched it up out of its hidden and obscure holes The Kings of France have convented the Popes before them So Charles the Great dealt with Leo the third and Lotharius with Leo the fourth The Kings of France have appealed from Popes to Councels So Philip the 4th with the advise of all the orders of France and the whole Gallicane Church appealed from Boniface the eighth and commanded his appeal to be published in the great Church at Paris So Henry the great appealed from Gregory the 14th and caused his appeal to be affixed to the gates of Saint Peters Church in Rome So the School of Sorbone appealed from Boniface the eight Benedict the eleventh Pius the second and Leo the tenth The Kings of France have protested against the Popes decrees and sleighted them yea in the very face of the Councel of Trent Witnesse that protestation of the Ambassadour of France made in the Councel in the name of the King his Master We refuse to be subject to the commands and disposition of Pius the fourth we reject refuse and contemn all the judgements censures and decrees of the said Pius And although most holy Fathers your Religion Life and Learning was ever and ever shall be of great esteem with us Yet seeing indeed you do nothing but all things are done at Rome rather then at Trent And the things that are here published are rather the decrees of Pius the fourth then of the Councel of Trent we denounce and protest here before you all that whatsoever things are decreed and published in this Assembly by the meer will and pleasure of Pius neither the most Christian King will ever approve nor the French Church ever acknowledge to be decrees of a General Councel Besides this the King our Master commandeth all his Archbishops and Bishops and Abbats to leave this Assembly and presently to depart hence then to return again when there shall be hope of better and more orderly proceedings This was high and smart for the King and the Gallicane Church so publickly to reject refuse and contemn all Papal decrees and to challenge such an interest in and power over the French Archbishops and Bishops as not onely to license them but to command them to depart and leave the Councel whither they were summoned by the Pope The French Kings have made Lawes and constitutions from time to time to repress the insolencies and exorbitances of the Papal Court so often as they began to prejudice the liberties of the Gallicane Church with the unanimous consent of their Princes Nobles Clergy Lawyers and Commons As against their bestowing of Ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in France and their grosse Simony and extortions in that way against the payment of Annates and tenths to Rome and generally for all the liberties of the Church of France Against reservations and Apostolical graces and all other exactions of the Court of Rome Charlâ—s the seventh made the pragmatical Sanction to confirm all the Acts of the Councels of Constance and Basâ—l against the tyranny and usurpation of the Pope It is true that Lewis the eleventh by the flattering perswasion of Aeneas Sylvius then Pius the second did revoke this Sanction But the Kings Proctour and the Rectour of the University of Paris did oppose themselves formally to the Registring and Authorizing of this revocation Whereupon the King desired the advise of his Parliament in writing which they gave to this effect That the revocation of that Sanction tended to the confusioâ— of the whole Ecclesiastical order the depopulation of France the exhausting and impoverishment of the Kingdom and the total ruine of the French Church Hereupon the King changed his mind and made diverse declarations and edicts conformable to and in pursuance of the pragmatical Sanction After this the three Estates assembled at Towers made it their first and instant request to Charles the 8th that he would preserve inviolable the pragmatical Sanction which they reputed as the Palladium of France And in the National Councel assembled by Lewis the 12th in the same City it was again confirmed But the Pope stormed and thundered and excommunicated and interdicted Lewis the 12th Francis the first and the whole Realm and exposed it as a prey to the first that could take it And gave plenary Indulgence to every one that should kill a Frenchman King Francis fainted under such fulminations and came to a composition or accommodation with Leo the tenth which was called conventa or the concordate On the one side the Popes friends think he wronged himself and his title to a spiritual Sovereignty very much by descending to such an accommodation And exclude France out of the number of those Countries which they term pays d' obedience As if the French were not loyal obedient Subjects but Rebels to the Court of Rome On the other side the Prelates the Universities the Parliaments of France were as ill contented that the King should yeeld one inch and opposed the accord Insomuch as the University of Paris appealed from it to a future Councel and expedited Letters Patents sealed with the Universities Seal containing at large their grievances and the reasons of the appeal which after were published to the world in print I cannot here omit
the Roman Church to be a top-â—ranch unlesse it may be the root of Christian Religion or at least of all that Jurisdiction which Christ left as a Legacy to his Church In all which claime by the Church of Rome they understand not the essential Church nor yet the representative Church a Roman Synod but the virtual Church which is invested with Ecclesiastical power that is the Pope with his Cardinals and Ministers When any member how eminent soever scorns its proper place in the body whether Natural or Political or Ecclesiastical and seekes to usurpe the Office of the head it must of necessiâ—y produce a disorder and disturâ—ance and confusion and schisme of the respective members This is one degree of schismatâ—cal pravity But in the second place we presse the crime of schisme more home against the Court of Rome then against the Church of Rome It is the Court of Rome which partly by obtruding new Creeds and new Articles of faith And especially this doctrine That it is necessary for every Christian under pain of damnation to be subject to the Bishop of Rome as the vicar of Christ by divine Ordination upon earth that is in effect to be subject to themselves who are his Councel and Officers yea even those who by reason of their remotenesse never heard of the name of Rome without which it will profit them nothing to have holden the Catholick faith intirely And partly by their tyraninical and uncharitable censures have seperated all the Asiaâ—ick African Grecian Russian and Protestant Churches from their communion not onely negatively in the way of Christian discretion by withdrawing of themselves for fear of infection But privatively and authoritatively by way of Jurisdiction excluding them so much as in them lieth from the Communion of Christ Though those Churches so chased away by them contain three times more Christian souls then the Church of Rome it self with all its dependents and adherents many of which do suffer more pressures for the testimony of Christ then the Romanists do gain advantages and are ready to shed the last drop of their blood for the least known particle of saving truth Onely because they will not strike topsaile to the Popes crosse-keys nor buy indulgences and such like trinkets at Rome It is not passion but action that makes a schismatick to desert the communion of Christians voluntarily not to be thrust away from it unwillingly For divers years in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths reign there was no Recusant known in England But even they who were most addicted to Roman opinions yet frequented our Churches and publick assemblies and did joyn with us in the use of the same prayers and divine offices without any scruple untill they were prohibited by a Papal Bull meerly for the interest of the Roman Court This was the true beginning of the schisme between us and them I never yet heard any of that party charge our Leiturgy with any errour except of omission that it wanted something which they would have inserted I wish theirs as free from exception to trie whether we would shunne their communion in the publick service of God Charity would rather chuse to want something that was lawful then willingly to give occasion of offence But to lay the axe to the root of schisme in the third place the Papacy it self quâ— talis as it is now maintained by many with superiority above general Councels and a Sovereign power paramount to confirme or reject their sanctions is the cause either procreant or conservant or both of all or the most part of the schismes in Christendom To rebell against the Catholick Church and its representative a general Councel which is the last visible Judge of controversies and the supreme Ecclesiastical Court either is grosse schisme or there is no such thing as Schismatical pravity in the world I say the Bishops of Rome have exempted themselves and their Court from the Jurisdiction of an Oecumenical Councel and made themselves Sovereign Monarches and universal Bishops in totius Ecclesiae injuriam discissionem to the wrong of the Church and renting it in peeces making themselves to be not onely fathers but Masters of all Christians It is the Popes own expression in his letter to his Legate Contrary to their former professions of obedience to the Ecclesiastical constitutions of Sovereign Princes and Synods contrary to their own Lawes which allow appeales from them so often as they transgress the Canons and subject them to the judgment of the Church not onely in case of heresie which the most of themselves do acknowledge and Schisme and Simony which many of them do not deny But also of Scandal contrary to so many appellations from them by Christian Princes Prelates and Universities contrary to the judgement of almost all the Cisalpine Prelats Spanish French Dutch assembled at Trent contrary to the decrees of so many Councels both general and provincial which have limited their Jurisdiction set down the true reason of their greatnesse rescinded their sentences forbidden appeales to them condemned their pragmatical intrusion of themselves into the affairs of other Churches as being contrary to the decrees of the Fathers which have judged them and condemned them of heresie schisme Simony and other misdemeanours which have deposed them by two or three at â— time whereof one was undoubtedly the true Pope These things are so obvious in the history of the Church that it were vanity and lost labour to prove them But especially contrary to the Councel of Constance and Basile which have decreed expresly that the Pope is subject to a General Councel as well in matter of faith as of manners So as he may not onely be corrected but if he be incorrigible â—e deposed This is determined in the Councel of Constance and confirmed in the Councel of Basil with this addition that whosoever opposeth this truth pertinaciously is to be reputed an heretick This decree of the Councel wounds deep because it is so evident and clear in the point and because the decrees thereof were confirmed by Martine the fifth But the Romanists have found out a salve for it That Pope Martine confirmed onely those decrees which were conciliarly made that is with the influence and concurrence of the Pope As the condemnation of Wickliff and Hus But not those decrees which were not conciliarly made that is which wanted the influence of the Pope As the decree of the Superiority of the Councel above the Pope Which ought to be understood say they onely of dubious Popes For clearing of which doubt I propose several considerations First that it is not material whether the decree were confirmed by the Pope or not There are two sorts of confirmation Approbative and Anthoritative Approbative confirmation is by way of testimony or suffrage or reception And so an inferiour may confirm the acts of his Superiour As it is said that the Saints shall judge the world
addresse for Justice to a secular Magistrate But they do not forbid him to appear before a secular Magistrate being cited And they allow him in all cases though of pure Ecclesiastical cognisance to seek to a Soveraign Prince for an equal indifferent hearing by Bishops delegated and authorised by him The testimony of this Statute is so clear and authentick in it self that it need not be corroborated with any other acts of the same kind Yet three things are urged against it First that Henry the Eighth at this time was a favourer of the Protestants Secondly that he cared not for Religion but looked onely to the satisfaction of his own humours and lusts Thirdly that to withhold due obedience is as Schismatical as to withdraw it And that the reformed Church of England may be innocent of the one and yet guilty and accessary to the other To the first exception I reply That Henry the eighth was so far both then and long after from being a friend or favourer of the Protestants that he was a most bitter persecutor of them After this the Pope himself though he was not well pleased to lose so sweet a morsel as England was so well approved of Henry the Eighth's rigorous proceedings against the Protestants that he proposed him to the Emperour as a pattern for his imitation Insomuch as some strangers in those daies coming into England have admired to see one suffer for denying the Popes Supremacy and another for being a Protestant at the same time So though they looked divers waies yet like Sampsons Foxes each had his firebrand at his taile But to clear this point home there needs no more but to view the order of the Statutes made concerning Religion and Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in the raign of that King The Act for no person to be cited out of his own Diocesse except in certain cases The Act prohibiting all appeales out of England to the Court of Rome The Act for the submission of the Clergy to the King The Act for payment of first fruits to the Crown An Act for Exoneration from all exactions of the Court of Rome The Act declaring the King to be Supream Head of the Church of England An Act against Popish Bulls Faculties and Dispensations And the Act for utterly extinguishing the usurped authority of the Roman Bishop were all or the most of them enacted before the eight and twentieth year of Henry the Eighth And if my notes fail me not for we are chased from our books they were all received and established in Ireland the very same year the Lord Gray being then Lord Deputy of Ireland All this while there were no thoughts of any reformation All this while the Protestants found little grace from King Henry nor indeed throughout his whole raign ordinarily As for the suppression of Monasteries in his time I shall deal clearly and declare what I conceive to be the judgment of moderate English Protestants concerning that Act. First we feare that covetousnesse had a great oare in the boat and that sundry of the principal Actors had a greater aime at the goods of the Church then at the good of the Church Or otherwise why did they not as they pretended and gave out preserve the spoiles of the cloisters for publick and charitable uses as the foundation of Hospitalls and freeing the common Wealth from a great part of its necessary charges why did they not restore the appropriated or as we call them truly impropriated tythes to the Incumbents and lawful owners who had actuall cure of souls from whom they had been unjustly withheld especially considering that in some parishes the poore vicars stipend was not sufficient to maintain a good Plow-man The Monks pretended that they had able members to discharge the cure of souls and what difference whether the Incumbent were a single person or an aggregated body But what meer Lay-men could pretend is beyond my understanding Secondly we examine not whether the abuses which were then brought to light were true or feined but this we believe that foundations which were good in their original institution ought not to be destroyed for accessary abuses or for the faults of particular persons So we should neither leave a Sun in heaven for that hath been adored by Pagans nor a spark of fire or any eminent creature how beneficial soever upon earth for they have all been abused Therefore Licurgus is justly condemned because out of an hatred to drunkenness he cut down all the Vines in Sparta whereas he should have brought the fountaines of water nearer Thirdly when the Clergy in a Kingdome are really and not upon the feined pretenses of Sacrilegious persons grown to that excessive Grandeur that they quite overballance the Laity and leave the common wealth neither sufficient men nor sufficient means to maintain it self it is lawful by prudent lawes to restrain their further growth as our Ancestors and all the nations of Europe have done by prohibiting new foundations of Religious houses and the alienation of Lands to the Church without special License As we shall see hereafter And if the excesse be so exorbitant that it is absolutely and evidently destructive to the constitution of the common wealth it is lawfull upon some conditions and cautions not necessary to be here inserted to prune the superfluous branches and to reduce them to a right temper and aequilibrium for the preservation and well-being of the whole body Politick It hath been alwayes held lawful in some cases to alienate some things that had formerly been given to the Church as for the redemption of Christian Captives for the sustenance of poor Christians who are living Temples in the daies of famine and for preservation of the Church it self from demolition But Eradication to pluck up good institutions root and branch is not reformation which we professe but destruction To conclude this digression So as Monasteries were moderated in their number and in their revenues So as the Monks were restrained from medling between the Pastor and his flock that is the Bark and the Tree as it was of old Monachus in oppido Piscis in arido a Monk in a great town was thought like a little fish upon dry land So as the abler sort who are not taken up with higher studies or weightier imployments were inured to bestow their spare howers from their devotions in some profitable labour for the publick good that idlenesse might be stripped of the cloak of contemplative devotion So as the vow of perpetuall coelibate were reduced to the forme of our English Vniversities so long a fellow so long unmarried or of the Canonesses Biggins on the other side the Seas which are no longer restrained from wedlock then they retain their places or habits So as their blind obedience were more inlightened and secured by some certain rules and bounds So as their mock poverty for what is it else to professe want and
by the favour of the country carried the cause So as the Pope was forced to Recall him to Lincolne Having mentioned the statutes of Mortmain I cannot but do my native country and the Church of England that right to clear it from an heavy accusaâ—ion framed against it upon mistaken grounds That the English protestants had made a Law to maintain and patronize Sacriledge that no man how penitent soever could restore any thing to the Church which had been formerly taken from it God forbid First the statutes of Mortmain were not made by Protestants but in the daies of Henry the third Edward the first and Richard the second between the last of which and Henry the eighth there raigned six Kings successively That is one great mistake Secondly the Statutes of Mortmain did not at all concern the restitution of any thing that had been taken away There was no use for that in those daies The onely scope of those Lawes was to restrain the first donation of Lands to the Church without royal assent That is another mistake Thirdly these very Lawes of Mortmain are not so incredible nor so hard to be believed nor so altogether destitute of presidents and examples as that authour doth imagine so as posterity should scarcely believe that ever any such Law had been made He might have remembred the Proclamation of Moses when the people had already offered abundantly for the adorning of the Sanctuary Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the Sanctuary So the people were restrained from bringing He might have called to mind a like law of Theodosius a godly Emperour and propitious to the Church to moderate the peoples bounty and the Clergies covetousness Which Law Saint Ambrose and Saint Hierome do so much complain of not against the Emperour who made the Law but against the Clergy who deserved to have such a Law made against them He might have found the like Law made by Nicephorus Phocas and afterwards revived by Emanuel Comenus He might have remembred that the troubles between the Pope and the Venetians did spring partly from such a Law Briefly with a little search he might have found like Lawes in Germany Poland France Spain Italy Sicily And if he will trust Padre Paâ—lo in the Papacy it self The Prince cannot wrong his Subject that is an owner or possessour of Lands or haereditaments in a well ordered State Then why should it be in the power of a Subject that is an owner to wrong his Prince and his Country But by such alienations of Lands to the Church in an excessive and unproportionable measure the Prince loseth his right that is both his tribute and his military service and fines upon change of Tenants The Common-Wealth loseth its supportation and due protection Therefore they were called the Lawes of Mortmain because Lands so aliâ—nated to the Church were put into a dead hand from whence they never returned And so in time the whole Signioury should be the Churches as it is elegantly expressed by the Venetian Oratour to Paul the fifth Nè fortunis omnibus exuantur ne quicquid sub coelo Veneto homines arant ferunt aedificant omnia veluti quodam oceano Ecclesiae absorbeantur â—ihilque sibi reliqui fiat unde Rempublicam patriam tecta templa aras focos sepultura majorum defendere possint Lest the Citizens should be turned out of their estates lest all which men plow sow build under the Vâ—netian heaven should be swallowed up into the Ocean of the Church And nothing be left where with to defend the Common-Wealth their Country their houses their temples their altars their fires and the sepulchers of their Ancestors To prevent this great inconvenience the Lawes of Mortmain were devised prudently to ballance the spiritualty and the temporalty that the one do not swallow up the other to which all wise Legislators have ever had ought to have a special regard In France no man can build a new Church without the Kings License verified in Parliament A new Monastery builded in Genua without License is to be confiscated In Spain without License Royal no new Religions can enter into the Kingdome The Fathers of Saint Francis de Paula began to build a Church in Madrid upon their own heads but they were stopped So aequitable so necessary hath this Law of Mortmain been thought to all Nations But to leave this digression and to come up closer to the direct point without any consequences In the Reign of King Henry the second some controversies being likely to arise between the Crown and Thomas Bâ—cket Archbishop of Canterbury The King called a general Assembly of his Archbishops Bishops Abbats Priors and Peers of the Realm at Clarendon where there was made an acknowledgment or memorial cujusdam partis consuetudinum libertatum Antecessorum suorum Regis videlicet Henrici avi sui aliorum quaeobservari debebant in Regno ab omnibus teneri of a certain part of the Customes and Liberties of his predecessors that is to say his Grand-father Henry the first son of the Conquerour and other Kings A parte but ex ungue Leonem from the view of this part we may conclude of what nature the rest were of the customes The customes of England are the Common Law of the Land of his predecessors that is to say the Saxon Danish and Norman Kings successively And therefore no marveil if they ought to be observed of all This part of their ancient customes or liberties they reduced into sixteen Chapters or Articles To which all the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks with all the Peeres and Nobles of the Realm did not onely give their acknowledgment and consent but also their oathes for the due observation of them It would be tedious and impertinent to relate them all I will onely cull out some of them One was that all appeales in England must proceed regularly from the Arch-Deacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and if the Archbishop failed to do justice the last complaint must be to the King to give order for redresse that is by fit Delegates But there might be no further or other Appeales without the consent of the King whereby the Nunciatureâ— and Legantine Court and the Court of Rome it self are all at the Kings mercy Wherein did the Popes great strength lie in those dayes when his hands were fast tied both at home and abroad Another Custome was that no Ecclesiasticall person might depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings License no not though he were summoned by the Bishop of Rome And if the King permitted them to go yet if he required it they must give caution or security to act nothing hurtful or prejudicial to the King or Kingdome in their going thither abiding there aâ—d returning home You see our Ancestors were jealous of Rome in those daies Whether it was their providence or their experience
demonstrate clearly if it were needful that the dependence of Bishops and other Orthodox Christians upon the Pope being rightly conceived as it is and as it is really necessary according to the certain and true princâ—ples of Catholick Religion doth not bring any the least shadow of danger to the Common-Wealth though in hostility with the Pope or of a different communion from the Pope If we lived in Plato's Common-Wealth where every one did his duty this reason were of more force Far be it from us to imagine that the right exercise of any lawful power grounded upon the certain and true principles of Catholick Religion should be dangerous to any Society But this is not our case What if the Bishops and Court of Rome have swerved from those certain and true principles of Catholick Religion or have abused that power which was committed to their trust by Christ or by his Church Or have usurped more authority then did belong unto them Or have Engrossed all Episcopal Jurisdiction to themselves leaving the Bishops of the Land but Cyphers in their own Diocesses Or have hazarded the utter ruine and destruction of the Church by their Simony extortion provisions reservations and exemptions Or have obtruded new unwarrantable Oathes upon the Subjects inconsistent with their allegiance Or have drained the Kingdome of its treasure by pecuniary avaricious arts Or have challenged to themselves a negative voice against the right heir of the Crown Or authority to depose a crowned King and absolve his Subjects from their Oathes and allegiance to their Soveraignes And have shewed themselves incorrigible in all these things This is our case In any one of these cases much more in them all conjoyned it is not onely lawful but very necessary for Christian Princes to reform such grosse abuses and to free themselves and their Subjects from such a tyrannical yoke if they can by the direction of a general Councel if not of a Provincial And it is not Schisme but Loyalty in their Subjects to yeild obedience The same Author proceeds That no civil power how Soveraign soever can correct the fundamental articles of Christian faith nor pervert the order of sacred rites received by universal tradition as instituted by Christ nor justifie any thing by their Edicts which is against Christian charity To all this we do readily assent and never did presume to arrogate to our selves or to exercise any such power But still this is wide from our case What if the Bishop of Rome have presumed to coyn and attempted to obtrude upon us new Articles of Faith as he hath in his new Creed and to pervert the sacred rites instituted by Christ as in his with-holding the Cup from the Laity Then without doubt not we but he is guilty of the Schisme Then it is lawful to separate from him in his innovations without incurring the crime of Schisme This is laid down by the Author himself as an evident conclusion and we thank him for it That it is necessary for every Christian to acknowledge no authority under heaven either Ecclesiastical or Civil that hath power to abrogate those things that are revealed and instituted by Christ or to determine those things which are opposite unto them quod Schismatis origo foret which should be the original of Schisme But where that Author infers as a corollary from the former Proposition That no Edict of a Soveraign Prince can Iustifie Schisme because all Schisme is destructive to Christian charity I must crave leave with all due respect to his person to his learning to his moderation and to his charity to rectifie that mistake If by Schisme he understand criminal Schisme that which he saith is most true That were not onely to Justifie the wicked which is an abhomination to the Lord but to justifie wickednesse it self But every separation or Schisme taken in a large sence is not criminal nor at all destructive to Christian Charity Sometimes it is a necessary Christian charitable duty In all the cases that I have supposed above and shall prove hereafter they that make the Separation continue Catholiques and they that give the cause become the Schismatiques But it may be urged That this proceeds from the merit of the cause not from the authority of the Soveraign Prince I answer It proceeds from both Three things are necessary to make a publique reformation lawful Just grounds due moderation and sufficient authority There may be just grounds without sufficient authority and sufficient authority without just grounds and both sufficient authority and just grounds without due moderation But where these three things concur it justifies the reformation before God and man and renders that separation lawful which otherwise were Schismatical Lastly it is alledged That the power of the Soveraign Magistrate is not so absolute that he can command any thing at his pleasure so as to oblige his Subjects to obedience in things repugnant to the Law of nature or the positive Law of God No Orthodox Christian can doubt of this truth The authority of the inferiour ceaseth where the Superiour declareth his pleasure to the contrary Da veniam Imperator tu carcerom ille gehennam minatur Pardon me O Emperour thou threatenest me with imprisonment but God Almighty with hell-fire But this is nothing to our case neither the Law of Nature nor the Law of God doth injoyn Brittish Christians to buy pardons and indulgences and dispensations and Bulls and Palls and priviledges at Rome contrary to the fundamental Laws of the Realm Boniface the eighth by his Bull exempted the University of Oxford from the Jurisdiction of the Archbishop of Canterbury whereupon did grow a controversie between Thomas Arundel Archbishop and the University And the said Bull was decreed to be void by two succeeding Kings Richard the second and Henry the fourth in Parliament as being obtained in praejudicium Coronae suae Legum consuetudinum Regni sui enervationem to the prejudice of his Imperial crown and to the weakning of the Lawes and Customes of his Realm But this disobedience to the decrees of Soveraign Princes must be joyned with passive obedience it must be onely when and where their commands are evidently unjust such as Phaâ—aohs commanding the Hebrew Midwives to kill all the Male children or Sauls injoyning his guard to slay the Priests of the Lord or like Nâ—buchadnezzars idolatrous edict charging all men to fall down and worship his golden Image For otherwise if the case be doubtful it is a rule in Case divinity Subditis tenentur in favorem Legis judicare Subjects are bound to judge in favour of the Law Otherwise they run into a certain crime of disobedience for fear of an uncertain A War may be unjust in the Prince and yet the Souldier be guiltlesse Nor is the Subject obliged to sift the grounds of his Soveraigns commands too narrowly It happens often that reum facit Principem iniquitas
that by which it was acquired I say in this our case there can be no doubt at all And yet it can much lesse be doubted whether a Soveraign Prince with a National Synod may remedy the incroachments and usurpations of the Roman Court within his own dominions or exclude new Creeds and new Articles of faith lately devised and obtruded contrary to the determination of the General Councel of Ephesus of which let us hear what is Doctor Holdens opinion Notum est inter Catholicos omnes tanquans axioma certissimum c. It is known that all Catholicks do hold this as a most certain axiome that nothing ought or may be maintained for a Christian revealed truth but that which was received by our Ancestors and delivered from one generation to another by continued succession from the times of the Apostles This is all that we have done and done it with due submission to the highest Judge of Ecclesiastical controversies upon earth that is a general Councel If the Court of Rome will be humorous like little children who because they cannot have some toy that they have a mind to do cast away all that their parents have given them we cannot help it Over and above all the former grounds which the Romanists themselves do in some sort acknowledge I propose this further that Patriarchal power in external things is subject and subordinate to Imperial When Mauritius the Emperour had made a Law that no Souldier should turn Monk untill his warfare were accomplished St. Gregory Bishop of Rome disliked the Law and represented his sense of it to the Emperour but withall according to his duty published it Ego quidem missioni subjectus eandem legem per diversas terrarum partes transmitto quia lex ipsa omnipotenti deo minime concordat Ecce per suggestionis meae paginam dominis nunciavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolvi qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro deo quid sensi minime tacui I being subject to your command have transmitted your Law to be published through diverse parts of the world And because the Law itself is not pleasing to Almighty God I have represented my opinion thereof to my Lords wherefore I have performed my duty on both sides in yeelding obedience to the Emperour and not concealing what I thought for God A most rare and Christian president of that great Patriarch and fit for our observation and imitation in these dayes He acknowledged the Emperour to be his Lord and himself to be subject to his commands And though no humane invention can warrant an act that is Morally evil in it self yet if it be onely impeditive of a greater good as that blessed Saint did take this Law to be the command of a Soveraign doth weigh down the scale and obligeth a Patriarch to obedience in a matter that concerns Religion How much more doth the command of the English Monarch and the English Church disoblige an English subject from a forrein Patriarch whose Original right is but humane at the most and in the case in question between Rome and England none at all But to come up yet closer to the question The general Councels of Constantinople and Chalcedon with the presence concurrence and confirmation of Theodosius the great Martian the Emperours notwithstanding the opposition of the Roman Bishop by his Legates did advance the Bishop of Constantinople from being a poore Suffragan under the Metropolitan of Heraclea to be the second Patriarch and equal in dignity power and all manner of priviledges to the first and assigned unto him for his Patriarchate Pontus and Asia the lesse and Thracia and some other countries part of which territories they substracted from the obedience of the Roman Bishop at least over which the Roman Bishops challenged Jurisdiction and part from other Patriarchs And the reason of this alteration was the same for which Caesarea of old was a long time preferred before Hierusalem and Alexandria before Antioch and Rome before all others to conform the Ecclesiasticall regiment to the Politicall because Constantinople was made of a mean City the seat of the Eastern Empire and had as many Diocesses and Provinces subject unto it as old Rome it self But lest it may be conceived that this was not done at all by Imperial power but by the authority of the Oecumenical Synods we may observe further that Iustiniâ—n the Emperour by his sole Soveraign Legislative power did new-found the Patriarchate of Iustiniana prima and assign a province unto it and indow it with most ample priviledges freeing it from all appeals and all acknowledgment of superiority giving the Bishop thereof equal power with that which the Bishop of Rome had in his Patriarchate The same priviledges and prerogatives were given by the same Emperour by the same Legislative authority to the Bishop of Carthage notwithstanding that the Bishops of Rome did alwayes pretend that Carthage was under their Jurisdiction I deny not that Vigilius and Gregory succeeding Popes did make deputations to the Bishop of Iustiniana to supply their places But this was but an old Roman fineness The Bishops of Iustiniana needed none of their Commissions Iustinian the Father and founder of the Imperial Law knew well enough how far his Legislative power did extend And though the Act was notorious the whole world and inserted into the body of the Law yet the Fathers of that age did not complain of any innovation or usurpation or breach of their priviledges or violation of their rights King Henry the Eight had the same Imperial power and was as much a Soveraign in his own Kingdomes as Iustinian the Emperour in his larger Dominions as William Rufus Son and successor of the Conqerour said most truly that the Kings of England have all those liberties in their own Kingdomes which the Emperours had in the Empire and had as much authority to exempt his own subjects from the Jurisdiction of one Patriarch and transferre them to another especially with the advise consent and concurrence of a National Synod So King Arthur his predecessor removed the Primacy from Caâ—rleon to Saint Davids and another of them to Canterbury for the advantage of their subjects according to the exigence of the times If the Pope had been the King of Englands Subject as former Popes were the Emperours he might have served him as they did some of his predecessours called a Councel regulated him and reduced him to order and reason or if he proved incorrigible have deposed him But the Pope being a stranger all that he could justly do was what he did rather then to see his royall prerogative daily trampled upon his Lawes destroyed his Subjects oppressed rather then to have new Articles of faith daily obtruded upon the English Church rather then to incur the peril of willful Idolatry against conscience and therefore formal to Cashier the Roman Court with all their pardons and
indulgences and other Alchymistical devices out of his Kingdoms until time should teach them to content themselves with moderate things which endure long Or untill either a free Oecumenical Councel or an Europaean Synod should settle controversies and tune the jarring strings of the Christian world In the mean time we pitty their errours pray for their amendment and long for a re-union Now the just grounds of such subduction or separation are of two sorts either the Personal faults of the Popes or their Ministers as in the case of Simony and Schisme which ought in justice to reflect upon none but the persons who are guilty Or else they are faulty principles and rules as well in point of Doctrine as of Discipline such as the obtruding of new Creeds the pressing of unlawful oathes and the palpable usurpation of the undoubted rights of others And these do justifie and warrant a more permanent separation that is untill they be reformed Wherefore having taken a view of the sufficiency of the authority of our Princes to reform In the next place it is worthy of our serious consideration what were the true grounds of the separation of the Kingdom and Church of England from the Court of Rome And secondly whether in the subduction or substraction of their obedience or Communion they observed due moderation The grounds of their separation were many first the intolerable extortions and excessive Rapine of the Court of Rome committed in that Realm by their Legates and Nuncios and Commissioners and Collectors and other inferiour Officers and harpies enough to impoverish the kingdom and to drain out of it all the treasure that was in it and leave it as bare as a Grashopper in winter by their indulgences and pardons for all kind of sin at a certain rate Registred in their penitentiary taxe Yea as Ticelius the Popes pardoner made his bragg in Germany though a man had ravished the Mother of God yet so soon as the money did but chink in the bottom of the Bason presently the soul flew out of Purgatory To these we may add their despensations of all sorts and Commutations and Absolutions and Contributions and Reservations and Tenths and first Fruits and Appeals and Palles and a thousand other Artifices to get money As Provisions Collations Exemptions Canonisations Divolutions Revocations Unions Commendams Tolerations Pilgâ—images Jubilees Nulla hic arcana revelâ— saith Mantuan Venalia nobis Templa Sacerdotes altaria Sacra coronae Ignis thura preâ—es coelum est venale deusqque Temples Priests Altars Myters holy Orders Prayers Masses Heaven and God himself are salable at Rome It is no marvel they that buy must sell And whilest I am writing these things comes fresh intelligence of a Book lately set forth de Simoniae praesentis Pontificis they say not penned but dictated by such as know right well the most secret Cabales and Intriques of the Conclave Nam propius fama est hos tangere Divos which I can easily impute more to the fault of the place then of the man The oblation of the body and blood of Christ is sold fastings and penitentiary works are sold qui non potest jejunare per se potest jejunare per aliam vel potest darâ— nummam pro jejunio The merits of the Saints being alive are sold their relicks being dead are sold Scapulars and Monastick garments are sold. The Iewes with their Oxen Sheep and Doves were but petty Merchants in comparison of these great bankers Did any man desire a pall the Law it self did direct them what to do pallium non datur nisi fortiter postulanti The Pall would not be given but to those that knocked hard with a silver hammer Was any man a Suppliant to the Court of Rome Matthew Paris puts him into a right way Tunc sedes clementissima quae nulli deâ—sse conscivit dummodo albi aliquid vel rubei intercedat prescriptos Pâ—ntifices Abbates ad pristinas dignitates misericorditer revocavit Then the most pittiful See which is not accustomed to be wanting to any suppliants so they bring white or yellow advocates along with them did mercifully restore the said Bishops and Abbats to their former dignities It is almost incredible what a masse of treasure they collected out of England in a short time onely from investitures and some other exactions from Bishops in foure years no lesse then an hundred and sixty thousand pounds sterling as was â—ound by inquisition Archbishop Cranmer paid for his Bulles that concerned his Consecration and Pall nine hundred Ducats To such an height were the extortions of the Roman Court mounted Ex ungue leonem Judge by this what the Popes yearly income or revenue out of England might be by all these arts which we have formerly mentioned and many more Sometimes under pretense of recovering the holy Land Sometimes to relieve the poverty of the Roman Court Sometimes in palfries Sometimes in forged bills of Exchange Sometimes in extorted subsidies Sometimes to a certain summe Sometimes to the fift part of their goods Sometimes to the third part of Residents and the half of non-residents Sometimes in yearly revenues as two Prebends of every Bishop and the value of the maintenance of two Monks from every Abbat Sometimes out of the goods of rich Clergy men who died intestate Sometimes a years wages for paiment of Souldiers some five some ten some fifteen according to their estates Sometimes in Jewels of all which he that desires to be more fully informed needs but to read Matthew Paris who describes the abuses and extortions of the Roman Bishops Graphically throughout his History And in one place he bemones the condition of England in these words Erat igitur videre dolorem praecordialem genas sanctorum irrigare querelas erumpere suspiria multiplicare dicentibus multis cum singulta cruentato melius est nobis mori quam videre malagentis nostrae Sanctorum Vae Angliae quae quondam princeps provinciarum domina gentium speculiem Ecclesiae religionis exemplum nunc facta est sub tributo conculcaverunt eam ignobiles facta est in praedam de generibus c. Therrfore a man might see sorrow of heart water the eielids of holy men complaints break out and grones multiplied many saying with bloody sighs It is better for us to die then to see the misery of our Nation and of holy persons Wo be to England which once was the Princess of Provinces the Lady of Nations the glasse of the Church a pattern of Religion but now is become tributary Ignoble fellowes have troden her under foot And she is made a prey to base persons Neither was this the complaint of the Vulgar onely All conscientious men were of the same mind Who hath not heard of the bitter complaints and free declamations of Grosthead the learned and Religious Bishop of Lincolne against the Tyranny and Rapine of the Roman Courts both in
in England for sundry ages following that a Dean and Chapter were able to deal with them not onely to hold them at the swords point but to soile them Lastly King Henry the eighth himself had been long a suiter unto Clement the seventh to have his Predecessor Iulius the seconds dispensation for his marriage with his Brothers wife to be declared void But though the Popes own Doctors Universities had declared the dispensation to be unlawfull and invalide and although the Pope himself had once given forth a Bull privately to his Legate Cardinall Campeius for the revocation thereof wherein he declared the marriage to be null and that the King could not continue in it without sinne yet the King found so little respect either to the condition of his person or to the justice of his cause that after long delayes to try if he could be allured to the Popes will in the conclusion he received a flat deniall This was no great incouragement to him to make any more addresses to Rome So what was threatened and effected in part in the dayes of Henry the third and Edward the third was perfected in the reign of Henry the eighth when the Jurisdiction of the Court of Rome in England was abolished which makes the great distance between them and us Different opinions are often devised or defended on purpose to maintain faction if animosities were extinguished and the mindes of Christians free from prejudice other controversies might quickly be reconciled and reduced to primitive general truths The power Paramount of the Court of Rome hath ever been and still is that insana laurus which causeth brawling and contention not onely between us and them but between them and the Eastâ—rn Churches yea even between them and those of their own communion as we shall see in the next Chapter Yea the originall source true cause of all the Separations reformations made in the Church in these last ages As all the Estates of Castile did not forbear to tell the Pope himself not long since in a printed memoriall and the Kingdom of Portugall likewise To conclude this point These former Kings who reigned in England about the years 1200. and 1300. might properly be called the first Reformers and their Lawes of Proviso's and Prâ—munire's or more properly premoneres the beginning of the Reformation They laid the Foundation and Henry the Eighth builded upon it Now having seen the authority of our Reformers and the justice of their grounds in the last place let us observe their due moderation in the manner of their separation First they did not we do not deny the being of any Church whatsoever Roman or other nor possibility of salvation in them especially such as hold firmly the Apostles Creed and the faith of the four first Generall Councels Though their salvation be rendred much more difficult by humane inventions and obstructions And by this very sign did Saint Cyprian purge himself and the African Bishops from Schisme Neminem judicantes aut à jure communionis aliquem si diversum senserit amoventes Iudging no man removing no man from our communion for difference in opinion We do indeed require subscription to our Articles but it is onely from them who are our own not from strangers nor yet of all our own but onely of those who seek to be initiated into holy orders or are to be admitted to some Ecclesiastical preferment So it is in every mans election whether he will put himself upon a necessity of subscription or not neither are our Articles penned with Anathema's or curses against all those even of our own who do not receive them but used only as an help or rule of unity among our selves Si quis diversum dixerit If any of our own shall speak or preach or write against them we question him But si quis diversum senserit if any man shall onely think otherwise in his private opinion and trouble not the peace of the Church we question him not We presume not to censure others to be out of the pale of the Church but leave them to stand or fall to their own Master We damne none for dissenting from us we do not separate our selves from other Churches unlesse they chase us away with their censures but onely from their errours For clear manifestation whereof observe the thirtieth Canon of our Church It was so far from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy France Spain Germany or any such like Churches in all things which they held and practised c. that it only departed from them in those particular points wherein they were fallen both from themselves in their aâ—cient integrity and from the Apostolical Churches which were their first founders So moderate are we towards all Christians whether forreigners or domesticks whether whole Churches or single persons But because the Roman Catholicks do lay hold upon this charitable assertion of ours as tending mainly to their advantage Behold say they Protestants do acknowledge a possibility of salvation in the Roman Church But Roman Catholicks deny all possibility of Salvation in the Protestant Churches Therefore the Religion of Roman Catholiques is much safer then that of Protestants Hence proceeded their Treatise of charity mistaken and sundry other discourses of that nature wherein there are mistakes enough but little charity For answer If this Objection were true I should love my Religion never the worse Where I find little charity I look for as little faith But it is not true for when the businesse is searched to the bottom they acknowledge the same possibility of salvation to us which we do to them that is to such of either Church respectively as do not erre wilfully but use their best endeavours to find out the truth Take two testimonies of the Bishop of Chalcedon If they that is the Protestants grant not salvation to such Papists as they count vincibly ignorant of Roman errours but onely to such as are invincibly ignorant of them they have no more charity then we for we grant Church saving faith and salvation to such Protestants as are invincibly ignorant of their errours And in his book of the distinction of fundamentals and not fundamentals he hath these words If Protestants allow not saving faith Church and salvation to such as sinfully erre in not fundamentals sufficiently prâ—posed they shew no more charity to erring Christians then Catholicks dâ— for we allow all to have saving faith to be in the Church in way of salvation for so much as belongeth to faith who hold the fundamental points and invincibly erre in not fundamentals because neither are these sufficiently proposed to them nor they in fault that they are not so proposed Secondly as our separation is from their errours not from their Churches so we do it with as much inward charity and moderation of our affections as we can possibly willingly indeed in
respect of their errours and especially their tyrannical exactions and usurpations but unwillingly and with reluctation in respect of their persons and much more in respect of our common Saviour As if we were to depart from our fathers or our brothers house or rather from some contagious sicknesse wherewith it was infected Not forgetting to pray God daily to restore them to their former purity that they and we may once again enjoy the comfort and contentment of one anothers Christian Society We pray for their conversion publickly in our Letany in general And expressely and solemnly upon Good Friday though we know that they do as solemnly curse us the day before If this be to be Schismaticks it were no ill wish for Christendome that there were many more such Schismaticks Thirdly we do not arrogate to our selves either a new Church or a new Religion or new holy orders for then we must produce new miracles new revelations and new cloven tongues for our justification Our Religion is the same it was our Church the same it was our holy orders the same they were in substance differing onely from what they were formerly as a garden weeded from a garden unweeded or a body purged from it self before it was purged And therefore as we presume not to make new Articles of faith much lesse to obtrude such innovations upon others so we are not willing to receive them from others or to mingle Scholastical opinions with fundamental truths Which hath given occasion to some to call our Religion a negative religion Not considering that our positive articles are those general truths about which there is no controversie Our negation is onely of humane controverted additions Lastly we are ready in the preparation of our mindes to believe and practise whatsoever the Catholick Church even of this present age doth universally and unanimously believe and practice Quod apud multos unum invenitur non est errâ—tum sed traditum And though it be neither lawful nor possible for us to hold actual communion with all sorts of Christians in all things wherein they vary both from the truth and one from another yet even in those things we hold a communion with them in our desires longing for their conversion and re-union with us in truth CHAP. VII That all Princes and Republiques of the Roman Communion do in effect the same thing when they have occasion or at least do plead for it SO we are come to our fifth Conclusion That whatsoever the King and Church of England did in the separation of themselves from the Court of Rome it is no more then all Sovereign Princes and Churches none of whatsoever communion excepted do practise or pretend as often as they have occasion And first for all Protestant Kings Princes and Republicks it admits no deniall or dispute Secondly for the Grecian and all other Eastern Churches it can be no more doubted of then of the Protestants since they never acknowledged any obedience to be due from them to the Bishop of Rome but onely an honourable respect as to the prime Patriarch and beginning of unity Whose farewell or separation is said to have been as smart as ours and upon the same grounds in these words We acknowledge thy power we cannot satisfie thy covetousnesse live by your selves But my aim extends higher to verifie this of the Roman Catholick Princes and Republicks themselves as the Emperour the most Christian and Catholick Kings the Republick of Venice and others To begin with the Emperours I do not mean those ancient Christian Primitive Emperours who lived and flourished before the daies of Gregory the Great Such a Court of Rome as we made our secession from was not then in being nor the Colledge of Parish Priests at Rome turned then into a Conclave of Cardinals as Ecclesiastical Princes of the Oecumenical Church So long there was no need of any separation from them or protestation against them But I intend the later Emperours since Gregorie's time after the Popes sought to usurp an universal Sovereignty over the Catholick Church and more particularly the Occidental that is to say the French and German Emperours Yet the Reader may be pleased to take notice that the case of our Kings is much different from theirs in two respects First they believed the Roman Bishop to be their lawful Patriarch whether justly or not is not the subject of this present discourse But we do utterly deny his Patriarchal authority over us And to demonstrate our exemption do produce for matter of right that famous Canon of the General Councel of Ephesus made in the case of the Cyprian Bishops and for matter of fact the unanimous Votes of two British Synods and the concurrent testimonies of all our Historiographers Some have been formerly cited We might adde to them the ancient British history called by the Author thereof Brutus wherein he relates this answer of the British to Augustine Se Caerleonensi Archiepiscopo obedire voluisse Augustino autem Romano Legato omninâ— noluisse nec Anglis inimicis paulò antè Paganis à quibus suis sedibus pulsi erant subesse se qui semper Christianifuerunt voluisse That they would obey the Archbishop of Caerleon that was their British Primate or Patriarch but they would not obey Austine the Bishop of Romes Legate Neither would the Britanes who had evermore been Christians from the beginning be under the English who were their enemies and but newly converted from Paganisâ—e by whom they had been driven out of their ancient habitations The same history is related by sundry other very ancient Authours A second difference between our English Kings and the later German Emperours is this that our Kings by the fundamental constitutions of the Kingdome are hereditary Kings and never die So there is an uninterrupted succession without any vacancy But the Emperours are elective and consequently not invested in the actual possession of their Sovereignty without some publick solemnities Whereof some are essential as the votes of the Electours some others ceremonial as the last Coronation of the Emperour by the Bishop of Rome which was really and is yet titularly his Imperial City But the Popes who had learned to make their own advantage of every thing sacred or civil took occasion from hence to make the world believe that the Imperial Crown was their gift and the Emperours their Liegemen So Adrian the fourth doubted not to write to Frederick Barbarossa the Emperour Insigne corona beneficium tibi contulimus which was so offensively taken that as the German Bishops in their letter to the same Pope do affirm the whole Empire was moved at it the eaâ—es of his Imperial Majestie could not hear it with patience nor the Princes endure it nor they themselves either durst of could approve it Whereupon the Pope was forced to expound himself that by beneficium he meant nothing but bonum factum a good deed and by contulimus
Church may be restored Ludovicus Pius convocated a Councel at Aquisgrane to reform the abuses of the Clergy and confirmed the same and commanded the constitutions thereof to be put in execution as appeareth by his own Epistle to Arno Archbishop of Salzburge Otho the first called a Councel at Rome and caused Iohn the 12th to be deposed and Leo the eighth to be chosen in his place The sentence of the Councel was Petimus magnitudinem Imperii vestri c. VVe beseech your Imperial Majestie that such a Monster may be thrust out of the Roman Church And the Emperour confirmed it with a placet we are pleased Henry the fourth called a German Synod at VVormes And another of Germans and Italians at Brixia wherein sentence of deprivation was given against Gregorie the seventh and confirmed by the Emperour Quorum sententiae quòd justa probabilis coram Deo hominibúsque videbatur c. egoâ—quoque assentiens omne tibi Papatûs jus quod habere visus es abrenuncio c. Ego Henricus Rex Dei gratiâ cum omnibus Episcopis nostris tibi dicimus Descende descende To whose sentence because it seemed just and reasonable before God and men I also assenting do declare thee to have no right in the Papacy as thou seemest to have I Henry by the Grace of God King of the Romans with all our Bishops do say unto thee Descend from thy Seat descend So Frederick the first called a Councel at Papia to settle the right succession of the Papacy wherein Roland the Cardinal was rejected and Victor declared lawful Bishop of Rome And all this was done with due submission to the Emperour Christianissimus Imperator c. The most Christian Emperour in the last place after all the Bishops and Clergy by the advice and upon the petition of the Councel received and approved the election of Victor I will conclude this first part of the parallel with the words of the same Emperour in the same Councel Quamvis noverim officio ac dignitate Imperii penes nos esse potestatem congregandorum Conciliorum c. Although I know that by vertue of our office and Imperial dignity the power of calling Councels rests in us especially in so great dangers of the Church For both Constantine and Theodosius and Justinian and of fresher memory Charles the Great and Otho Emperours are recorded to have done this Yet I do commit the authority of determining this great and high businesse to your wisdome and power that is to the Bishops there assembled But it may be objected that the Emperours with their Synods never made any such Schismatical reformation as that which was made by the Protestants in England I answer First that the Schisme between the Roman Court and the English Church other Schisme I know none on our parts was begun long before that reformation in the daies of Henry the eighth and the breach sufficiently proclaimed to the world both by Romish Bulls and English Statutes We could not be the first separatours of our selves from them who had formerly thrust us out of their doors It is not Schismatical to substract obedience from them to whom it is not due who had extruded us out of their Society but it is Schismatical to give just cause of substraction Secondly I answer That there was a great necessity of Reformation both in Germany and England For proof whereof I produce two witnesses beyond exception the one a Pope the other a Cardinal The former is Adrian the sixth in his instructions to his Legate in the year 1522. which the Princes of the Empire take notice of in their auswer His words are these Scimus in hac Sancta sede aliquot jam annis multa abhominanda fuisse c. VVe know that for some by-past yeares many things to be abominated have been in this holy See abuses in spiritual matters excesses in commands and to conclude all things out of order c. wherein for so much as concerns us thou shalt promise that we will use all our endeavour that first this Court from whence peradventure sure enough all the evil did spring may be reformed that as corruption did flow from thence to the inferiour parts of the Church so may health and Reformation To procure which we do hold our selves so much more strictly obliged by how much we do see the whole world greedily desire such a Reformation O Adriane si nunc viveres The other witnesse is Cardinal Pool who makes two main ends of the Councel of Trent The one the reconciling of the Lutherans The other quo pacto ipsius Ecclesiae praecipua vel potiùs omnia ferè membra ad veterem disciplinam instituta à quibus non parùm declinârunt revocentur To consider how the principal members of the Church or rather almost all the members might be reduced to their ancient discipline and Ordinances from which they had swerved much Yet when himself was sent afterwards by Paul the fourth to reform the Church of England it seemeth that he had forgotten those great deviations of the principall members and those very representations which he himself with eight other selected Cardinals and Prelates had made upon oath to Paul the third Then he saw that this lying flattering principle that The Popâ— is the Lord of all benefices and therefore cannot be a Simoniack was the fountain ex quo tanquam ex equo Trojano irrupere in Ecclesiam Dei tot abusus et tam gravissimi morbi c. from which as from the Trojan horse so many abuses and so grievous diseases had broken into the Church of God and brought it to a desperate condition to the derision of Christian Religion and blaspheming of the Name of Christ And that the cure must begin there from whence the disease did spring by taking away all abuses in dispensations of all kinds and ordinations and collations and provisions and pensions and permutations and reservatitions and coadjutorships and expectative graces and unions and non-residence and exemptions and absolutions and all such pecuniary artifices because it is not lawful by any means to reap any gain from the exercise of the power of the Keyes Tollantur say they hae maculae c. Let these spots be taken away to which if any entrance be given in any Common-wealth or Kingdom whatsoever it must needs fall headlong instantly or very shortly to ruine Thirdly I answer that the Emperours and the German Church did not onely desire a reformation as appeareth by the Letter of Sigismond the Emperour to the King of France Maximo desideâ—io jamdudum tenebamur c. We have long desired greatly to see the onely Spouse of Christ the Catholick Church happily reformed in our daies but after we were assumed to the Imperial Government our desire passed into command c. And the advises of Constance conceived by the Deputies of the German Nation in
Religion to the See of Rome and to the rights of Holy Church notwithstanding the municipal Lawes and immemorial customes of the Empire and notwithstanding any Oathes taken for the observation thereof Yet the Emperour and the Princes of Germany stand to their contracts assert the municipal lawes and customes of the Empire And assume unto themselves to be the onely Judges of their own priviledges and necessities Thirdly Henry the eighth challenged to himself the patronage of Bishopricks and investitures of Bishops within his own Dominions The Emperours did more Adrian the fourth taxed Frederick the first for requiring homage and fealty of Bishops Et manus eorum sacratas manibâ—s tuis innectis and that he held their consecrated hands in his hands The Emperour denyed it not but justified it Ab his qui regalia nostra tenent cur homagium regalia Sacramenta non exigamus why may we not require homage and Oathes of Allegiance from them who hold their Lands of our Imperial Crown The Ecclesiastical Lords in their letter to Innocent the third do acknowledge that the fees which they held from the Empire they had received at the hands of Otho the fourth and had done him homage and sworn fealty to him And this before his Imperiall Coronation at Rome Henry the fifth goes yet further and accuseth Pope Paschal that without any hearing he sought to take away from the Empire the investitures of Bishops which the Emperours his predecessours had enjoyed from the time of Charlemain by the space of 400 yeares and upwards A fair prescription But this is not all The Emperours did long injoy the patronage of the Papacy it self and the disposition of the Roman Bishoprick Adrian the first with the whole Clergy and people of Rome quitted all their claim right and interest to Charles the Great as well in the elections of the Popes as investitures of Bishops And Leo the eighth did the like to Otho the first which is a truth in history so apparent that no man can deny it with his credit nor question it with reason Fourthly the Kings of England suffered no appeales to Rome out of their Kingdoms nor Roman Legates to enter into their Dominions without their License No more did the Emperours though they acknowledge the Roman Bishop to be their Patriarch which we do not Hadrian the fourth complained of Frederick the first That he shut both the Churches and the Cities of his Kingdom against the Popes Legates à latere And more fully in his letter to the German Bishops that he had made an edict that no man out of his Kingdome should have recourse to the Apostolique See To the former part of the charge the Emperour answers Cardinalibus vestris clausae sunt Ecclesiae non patent civitates quia non videmus eoâ— praedicatores sed praedatores non pacis corroboratores sed pecuniae raptores non orbis reparatores sed auri insatiabiles corrasores Our Churches and Cities are shut to your Cardinals because we do not see them Preachers but robbers not confirmers of peace but extorting catchers of money not repairers of the world but insatiable scrapers together of gold Thus much he writ to the Pope himself To the second part of the charge he answers That he had not shut up the entrance into Italy or the passage out of Italy by edict nor would shut it up to travellers or such as had necessary occasions and the testimony of their Bishops for their voyage to the Sea of Rome but he intended to remedy those abuses by which all the Churches of his Kingdome were burthened and impoverished That the whole body of the Empire were of the same mind it appeares by the Advises of Ments And by the hundred grievances of the German Nation which the Princes and Peeres of the Empire protested that they neither could nor would indure any longer Fifthly the Kings of England declared the Popes Bulls to be void They had good reason for they were not under his Jurisdiction nor within the sphere of his activity The Emperours did not so generally but yet they took upon them to be Judges whether the Popes key did erre or not Pius the second by his Bull condemned all appeales from the Pope to a General Councel as erroneous detestable void and pestilent and subjected all those who should use them after two moneths to execration ipso facto of what condition soever they were Emperours Kings or Bishops Yet long after this Charles the fifth appealed from Clement the seventh to a Generall Councel Ad sacri Generalis Concilii totius Christianitatis cognitionem et judicium remittenda censuimus Illiqque nos et omnia quae cum S. vestra habere possumus aut deinceps habituri sumus omnino subjicimus Wherein he did but insist in the steps of his predecessours Lewis the fourth did the same to Iohn the 22th And in the Dyet of Frankford decreed them all that should assent to the Popes Bull to be guilty of treason and to have forfeited all their fees which they held of the Empire because the sentence of a Pope contrary to God or to holy Scripture or to that due obedience which a Subject owes to his Prince is of no moment or validity And such the Princes and Peeres of the Empire did unanimously declare the Popes Bull to be contra Deum justitiam juris ordinem contrary to God contrary to holy Scripture and contrary to due order of Law Sixthly Henry the eighth deprived the Pope of his Annates tenths and first fruits in England of his pall-money and other extorted revenues What did the Emperour and the Germans lesse then he In the advises of Ments it is concluded that the Pope shall receive nothing either before or after for confirmations elections admissions collations provisions presentations holy order palles benedictions c. upon pain that the transgressour thereof either in exacting or giving or promising should incurre the punishment due to a Simoniacal person And though these were but Advises yet the King of the Romans and Electors did covenant mutually to assist and defend one another in the maintenance of them against all men And yet further procured them to be confirmed and inlarged in the Councel of Basile by the addition of investitures bulls annates first fruits c. This was too sweet a morsel for the Pope to lose willingly when the Archbishop of Ments paid for his pall worth about sixe pence thirty thousand Florens By the Concordates or accord made between the Emperour and Princes of Germany and Nicholas the fifth the Annates are in part remitted or taken away The Estates of the Empire assembled at Nurenberge represented to Adrian the sixth that Annates were given for maintenance of the war against the Turks and how comely a thing it were that they should be restored to the same use The Princes
I answer that obedience to a just Patriarch is of no larger extent then the Canons of the Fathers do injoyn it And since the division of Britaigne from the Empire no Canons are or ever were of force with us further then they were received and by their incorporation became Britannique Lawes Which as they cannot noâ— ever could be imposed upon the King and Kingdome by a forreign Patriarch by constraint so when they are found by experience prejudiciall to the publick good they may as freely by the same King and Kingdome be rejected But I shall wind up this string a little higher Suppose that the whole body of the Canon Law were in force in England which it never was yet neither the Papall power which we have cashiered nor any part of it was ever given to any Patriarch by the ancient Canons and by consequence the separation is not Schismatical nor any withdrawing of Canonical obedience What power a Metropolitan had over the Bishops of his own Province by the Canon Law the same and no other had a Patriarch over the Metropolitans and Bishops of sundry Provinces within his own Patriarchate But a Metropolitan anciently could do nothing out of his own Diocesse without the concurrence of the Major part of the Bishops of his Province Nor the Patriarch in like manner without the advice and consent of his Metropolitans and Bishops Wherein then consisted Patriarchal authority In ordaining their Metropolitans for with inferiour Bishops they might not meddle or confirming them or imposing of hands in giving the Pall in convocating Patriarchal Synods and presiding in them in pronouncing sentence according to the plurality of voices That was when Metropolitical Synods did not suffice to determine some emergent difficulties or differences And lastly in some few honorary priviledges as the acclamation of the Bishops to them at the latter end of a General Councel and the like which signifie not much In all this there is nothing that we dislike or would seek to have abrogated Never any Patriarch was guilty of those exactions extortions incroachments upon the civil rights of Princes and their Subjects or upon the Ecclesiastical rights of Bishops or of those provisions and pensions and exemptions and reservations and dispensations and inhibitions and pardons and indulgences and usurped Sovereignty which our Reformers banished out of England And therefore their separation was not any waies from Patriarchal authority I confesse that by reason of the great difficulty and charge of convocating so many Bishops and keeping them so long together untill all causes were heard and determined And by reason of those inconveniencies which did fall upon their Churches in their absence Provincial Councels were first reduced from twice to once in the year and afterwards to once in three years And in processe of time the hearing of appeales and such like causes and the execution of the Canons in that behalf were referred to Metropolitans untill the Papacy swallowed up all the authority of Patriarchs and Metropolitans and Bishops Serpens serpentem nisi ederet non fieret draco Peradventure it may be urged in the fourth place That Gregory the Great who by his Ministers was the first converter of the English Nation about the six hundreth year of our Lord did thereby acquire to himself and his Successours a Patriarchal authority and power over England for the future We do with all due thankfulnesse to God and honourable respect to his memory acknowledge that that blessed Saint was the chief instrument under God to hold forth the first light of saving truth to the English Nation who did formerly sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death whereby he did more truly merit the name of Great then by possessing the chair of Saint Peter And therefore whilest the sometimes flourishing now poor persecuted Church of England shall have any being Semper honos nomenque suum laudesque manâ—bunt But whether this benefit did intitle Saint Gregory and his Successours to the Patriarchate of all or any part of the British Islands deserves a further consideration First consider that at that time and untill this day half of Britaigne it self and two third parts of the Britannique Islands did remain in the possession of the Britons or Scottish and Irish who still continued Christians and had their Bishops and Protarchs or Patriarchs of their own from whom we do derive in part our Christianity and holy orders and priviledges Without all controversie the conversion of the Saxons by Saint Gregory could not prejudice the just liberties of them or their Successours Secondly consider that the half of Britaigne which was conquered and possessed by the Saxons was not soly and altogether peopled by Saxons A world of British Christians did remain and inhabit among the Conquerours For we do not find either that the Saxons did go about to extirpate the British Nation or compell them to turn Renegadoes from their Religion or so much as demolish their Churches But contented themselves to chase away persons of eminency and parts and power whom they had reason to suspect and fear And made use of vulgar persons and spirits for their own advantage This is certain that Britaigne being an Island whither there is no accesse by land all those who were transported or could have been transported by Sea on such a suddain could not of themselves alone in probability of reason have planted or peopled the sixth part of so much land as was really possessed by the Saxons And therefore we need not wonder if Queen Bertha a Gallâ—ise and a Christian did find a Congregation of Christians at Canterbury to joyn with her in her Religion and a Church called Saint Martins builded to her hand And stood in need of Lethargus a Bishop to order the affaires of Christian Religion before ever Saint Austine set foot upon English ground Neither did the British want their Churches in other places also as appears by that Commission which the King did give to Austine among other things to repair the Churches that were decayed These poor subdued persons had as much right to their ancient priviledges as the rest of the unconquered Britons Thirdly consider That all that part of Britaigne which was both conquered and inhabited by the Saxons was not one intire Monarchy but divided into seven distinct Kingdoms which were not so suddenly converted to the Christian faith all at once but in long tract of time long after Saint Gregory slept with his fathers upon several occasions by several persons It was Kent and some few adjacent Counties that was converted by Austine It is true that Ethelbâ—rt King of Kent after his own conversion did indeavour to have planted the Christian faith both in the Kingdomes of Northumberland and the East Angles with fair hopes of good successe for a season But alas it wanted root Within a short time both Kings and Kingdoms apostated from Christ and forsook their Religion The Kingdoms of the West Saxons
and broiles between the Emperours with other Christian Princes and States and the Popes We have seen that from the excesses abuses innovations and extortions of that Court have sprung all the Schismes of the Eastern and Western Church and of the Occidentall Church within it self We have heard the confession of Pope Adrian that for some yeares by-past many things to be abominated had been in that holy See abuses in spiritual matters excesses in commands and all things out of order We have heard his promise to endeavour the Reformation of his own Court from whence peâ—adventure all the evil did spring that as corruption did flow from thence to the inferiour parts so might health and Reformation To which he accounted himself so much more obliged by how much he did see the whole world greedily desire a Reformation We have viewed the representation which nine selected Cardinals and Prelates did make upon their oathes to Paul the third That this lying flattering priâ—ciple that the Pope is the Lord of all benefices and therefore could not be Simoâ—iacall was the fountain from whence as from the Trojan horse so many abuses and so griâ—vou diseases had 〈…〉 into the Church and brought it to a desperate condition to the dâ—rision of Christian Religion and blaspâ—eming of the Name of Christ and that the cure must begin there from whencâ— the disease did spâ—ing We may remember the memorial of the King of Spain and the whole Kingdome of Castile That the abuses of the Court of Româ— gave occasion to all the Reformations and Schismeâ— of the Church And the complaint of the King and Kingdom of Portugal That for these reasons many Kingdomes had withdrawn their obedience and reverential respect from tâ—e Church of Rome These were no Protestants The first step to health is to know the true cause of our disease It hath been long debated whether the Protestant and Roman Churches be reconciliable or not Far be it from me to make my self a Judge of that Controversie Thus much I have observed that they who understand the sewest controversies make the most and the greatest If questions were truly stated by moderate persons both the number and the height would be much abated Many differences are grounded upon mistakes of one anothers sense Many are meer logomachies or contentions about words Many are meerly Scholastical above the capacity and apprehension of ordinary brains And many doubtlesse are real both in credendis and agendis both in doctrine and discipline But whether the distance be so great or how far any of these are necessary to salvation or do intrench upon the fundamentals of Religion requires a serious judicious and impartial consideration There is great difference between the reconciliation of the persons and the reconciliation of the opinions Men may vary in their judgments And yet preserve Christian unity and charity in their affections one towards another so as the errours be not destructive to fundamental Articles I determine nothing but onely crave leave to propose a question to all moderate Christians who love the peace of the Church and long for the re-union thereof In the first place if the Bishop of Rome were reduced from his universality of Sovereign Jurisdiction jure Divino to his principium unitatis and his Court regulated by the Canons of the Fathers which was the sense of the Councels of Constance and Basile and is desired by many Roman Catholicks as well as we Secondly if the Creed or necessary points of faith were reduced to what they were in the time of the four first Oecumenical Councels according to the decree of the third General Councel Conc. Eph Part. 2. Act. 6. c. 7. Who dare say that the faith of the primitive Fathers was insufficient Admitting no additional Articles bur onely necessary explications And those to be made by the authority of a General Councel or one so general as can be convocated And lastly supposing that some things from whence offences either given or taken which whether right or wrong do not weigh half so much as the unity of Christians were put out of divine offices which would not â—e refused if animosities were taken away and charity restored I say in case these three things were accorded which seem very reâ—sonable demands whether Christians might not live in an holy communion and joyn in the same publick worship of God free from all Schismatical separation of themselves one from another notwithstanding diversities of opinions which prevail even among the members of the same particular Chrches both with them and us FINIS Nothing more probably objected to the Church of England then Schisme But nothing more unjustly The method observed in this Discourse Every passionate heat not Schisme Acts 15. 〈◊〉 39. Ecclesiastical quarrels of long continuance not alwaies Schisme Hen Holden Append. de Schis Act. 1. pag 484. Infidelity unmasked Sect. 176. pag. 591. Idem pag. 516. The Separaters may be free from Schisme and the other party guilty Act. 19. 9. 1 Tim. 6. 5. Infid unmasked Ch. 7. Sect. 112. pag. 534. To withdraw obedience is not alwaies criminous Schisme Idem pag. 481. Theod. l. 4. c. 14. Cyril ep 18. ad Coelestinum Tâ—m 1. Conc. lib. Rom. Pâ—â—t in Anast. Libel ad mancit apud Bar. to 8. an 590. nu 39. 8. Syn. c. 10. What is single Schisme 1 Cor. 1. 10. 1 Cor. 3. 3 Wherein internal Communion doth consist Wherein External Communion doth consist External Communion may be suspended And withdrawn There is not the like necessity of communicating in all Externals Christian Communion â—mplies not unity in all opinions Reg. mor. tit pâ—aec decal lib. de A. P. Cons. 14. â—e unit eccl cons. 10. Lib. 2. de Rom. pont c. 29. Bar tom 10. an 878. Append. de Schismat Art 4. p. 516. The soâ—â—â— of Schisme What the Catholick Church signifies Collat. Carth. Col. 3. Each member of the Catholick Church is Catholick inclusively Schisme is changeable And for the most part complicated with heretical pravity Four waies to become heretical Who are Catholiques Aug. l. 2. cont casâ— Who are Schismaâ—cks What is understood by the Church of England Roman Catholicks first authors of the separation from Rome Act. and Mon p. 965. Râ—gist epist. Vni Oxon. ep 210. Sac. Syn. an 1530. et an 1532. 24 Hen. 8. c. 12. Romanists first gave the King the title of Head of the Church Resp. ad quaest 74. Râ—sp ad qu. 75. Conc. Mil. 2. Henry the 8th no friend to the Protestants Hist. Conc. Trid. 23. H. 8. 24. H. 8. 25. H. 8. 26. H. 8. 28. H. 8. The Authors opâ—nion of Monasteries Supplication of beggars Henry the 8th no friend to Protestants 31. Hen. 8. Much lesse those who joyned with him in the separation from Rome Act. Mon. an 1510. Conc. Tonst et Longlands Hist. aliquot mart et edit an 1550. Apol. sac Reg. pro jur fidel p. 125. England unanimous in casting out the Pope de verâ—â— obed Câ—ted