Toleration and at the Popes Agents and Nuntio's here in London were much more offended at the changes suddenly made by Bishop Laud. The blotting out the name of the Pope and Antichrist and the Zeal for Altars and Bowings and the report of a Treaty for Union with Rome Printed by some with the particulars and their conceit that Arminianism lookt towards Popery and the casting out many Conformable Ministers and many such things especially when they thought the Liberty of their Persons and their Properties had been Invaded and that A. Bishop Laud and the new Clergy Men Sibthorp Mainwaring Heylin c. were the Cause of all I say These things raising in men a dread of Popery our greater distances were here begun And though in A. Bishop Abbot's days the Church of England was against the Syncretism and few went with Bishop Laud at first he afterwards got many to adhere to him He that would see all the Case in an unsuspected Author let him read Dr. Heylins Life of A. B. Laud where he shall find much of the proceedings and the Articles and Reasons of the Treaty with the Papists And if he add Laud's Tryal and Rushworth's Collections he may see more Heylin tells us that the Design was but to bring the Papists in to us by removing that which kept them out They that feared a Toleration of Papists did much more fear a Comprehension or Coalition though their Conversion they desired For they knew that they must still be Members of the false Universal Papal Kingdom and that we must in the greatest points come to them who without changing their Religion could not come to us And if we could hardly now keep out the Pope what should we do when he had got so much more advantage of us Besides all other Changes we must change our very Church-species or else we should not be of the same Church though we sate in the same Seats For a Church which is but a subject part of a Sovereign greater Church is no more of the same species with one that is subject to no other but Christ than our Cities are of the same species with a Kingdom § XVI These distances between the old Church-men and the Laudians having increased to that which they came to in 1641. suddenly on Octob. 23. the Irish Rebellion Murdering two hundred thousand and Fame threatening their coming into England cast the Nation into so great fear of the Papists and next of Bishop Laud's new Clergy who were supposed to be for a Coalition as was the Cause where-ever I came of Mens conceit of the necessity of defensive Arms and this was increased by two or three Opinions which many were then guilty of who had not Learning enough to know which side was right according to the Law One of their Opinions was That the Law of Nature is the Law of God Another was that no men have Authority to abrogate it Another was that the Law of Nature inclineth men to Love their Lives and to private Self-defence Another was that every Kingdom or Nation hath by the Law of God in Nature a right of publick Self-defence against professed Enemies and apparent danger of its destruction And another was that They whose profest Religion obligeth them on pain of Damnation to do their best to exterminate or destroy the Body of the Kingdom are to be taken for its profest Enemies if they renounce not that obligation Especially if they or their Confederates Murder two hundred thousand fellow-Fellow-Subjects and apparently strive for power over the rest These Opinions being then received and by many ill-applyed things then ran to what we saw § XVII When the old Churchmen and Parliament on one side and we know who on the other side began the War necessity caused them to call in the Scots as Auxiliaries who brought in the Covenant and attempted Illegally the Change of the Church Government and all after falling into the hands of Cromwell and his Army the King destroyed the Parliament pulled down and other unthought of Changes which we saw Discord and War grew odious to the Nation And we longed to be reconciled to those that we had differed from especially in matters of Religion Among others more considerable I attempted in Worcestershire a Reconciliation with them I tryed first with my Neighbours The Gentry that I spake with of the Royal Party professed willingness and that they desired but the Security of the Essentials of Episcopacy Dr. Good and Dr. Warmstrie with others of them Subscribed their approbation to our Agreement When I tryed with others distant Bishop Vsher easily consented Bishop Brownrig on somewhat harder terms but such as would have healed us Dr. Hammond on harder yet but yet such as we could have born save that he left all to the uncertain determination of a Convocation Put shortly Dr. Warmstrie withdrew his Consent and as the reason of it sent me a Writing against our Agreement saying It was a confederacy with Schism and labouring to prove that they were no Ministers or Churches which had not Episcopal Ordination and much more to that effect I wrote a full answer to it which satisfied all that I shewed it to but did not publish it The writing answered was Dr. Peter Guning's now Bishop of Eli. Presently I found this opinion That they were no true Ministers or Churches that had not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesane Ordination from the Apostles but that they were true Ministers and Churches that had Roman Ordination became the stop to our desired Agreement and I saw that it proclaimed an utter renunciation of the Reformed Churches which have no such Succession and yet a Coalition with the Roman Clergy though the Bishops of Rome have had the most notorious intercisions And having read Grotius his Discussio Apologetici Rivetiani in which he more plainly pleads for Canonical Popery than he had done in his Votum or Consultatio c. I thought I was bound in Conscience to give notice to the Royalists of the Grotian Party and Design and after printed a small Collection out of Grotius his own words These Dr. Pierce wrote against and others were offended at But in the Second Part of my Key for Catholicks I shewed the utter impossibility of this Conceit of Sovereign Government by General Councils § XVIII When God was pleased by the restoration of the King to raise Mens hopes of Protestant Agreement I need not repeat what was done towards it among many worthier Persons by my Self the Earl of Manchester and the Earl of Orery first making from us the motion to His Majesty who readily consented and granted us the healing Terms exprest in His gracious Declaration of Ecclesiastical Affairs 1661 for which the London Ministers subscribed a Thanksgiving and the House of Commons gave him their Publick Thanks as making for the Publick Concord But when the King under the Broad Seal granted a Commission to many on both Sides to treat and agree of
Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Things or Causes as Temporal And that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have ANY JURISDICTION Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forreign Jurisdiction Priviledges Preheminence and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness his Heirs and Successors or united or annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm Here all the Kingdom swears That none have or ought to have any Jurisdiction here who is Forreign Yet some Papists have been encouraged to take this Oath by this Evasion Obj. No Jurisdiction is here disclaimed of Forreigners but what belongs to the King But Spiritual Jurisdiction called the Power of the Keys belongs not to the King Ergo. Ans. For securing the King's Jurisdiction All Forreign Jurisdiction is renounced signifying that there is no such thing as a Jurisdiction over this Realm but the King 's and his Officers The Power of the Keys or Spiritual Power is not properly a Jurisdiction as that word includeth Legislation but only a Preaching of Christ's Laws and administring his Sacraments and judging of mens capacity for Communion according to those Laws of Christ And this under the Coercive Government of the King Much like that of a Tutor in a Colledge or a Physician in his Hospital What can be more expresly said than this here that No Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate have or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Preheminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm Is that of Pope or Councils neither Ecclesiastical nor Spiritual Is not the word Prelate purposely put in to exclude that Power hence which Prelates claim Though the King claim not the Power of the Keys he knew that by the claim of that Power the Pope and Councils of Forreigners had been the disturbers of his Government And therefore all theirs here is excluded as a necessary means to secure his own 1. Popes and Councils have claimed a Legislative Power over us and all the Church But the Laws of this Land know no such but in Christ over all and in King and Parliament under him over this Land And therefore the Oath excludeth the Power claimed by Popes and Councils 2. As to Judicial Power these Forreigners claim a Power of Judging who in England shall be taken for a true Bishop and Minister who shall have Tythes Church-Lands and Temples whether the Kings Lords and all Subjects shall be judged capable of Church-Communion or be Excommunicate And our Laws declaring that all this Forreign Claim is Usurpation fully proveth that it was the sense of the Oath to exclude them They claim also a Power of Judging who shall pass here for Orthodox and who for Hereticks And in their Laws the consequence is who shall be burned for a Heretick or be exterminated or after Excommunication deposed from their Dominions and their Subjects absolved from their Allegiance But certainly the Oath excludeth them from all this The most of the Papists claim no Power directly due to their Pope but that which they call Ecclesiastical or Spiritual the rest is but by consequence and in ordine ad Spiritualia But if this be not excluded in the Oath then they intended not to exclude the Papacy And then what was the Oath made for or what sense hath it or what use And who can believe this If the meaning of the Oath be not to exclude the Pope's Ecclesiastical Power then they that take it may yet hold that the Pope is Head of all the Churches on Earth and hath the Authority to call and dissolve and approve or reprobate General Councils and may Ordain Bishops for England and his Ordinations and his Missionaries be here received and Appeals made to him and Obedience sworn to him his Excommunications Indulgences imposed Penances Silencings Absolutions Prohibitions here received All which our Statutes Articles Canons c. shew notoriously to be false It is evident therefore that this Oath renounceth all Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction II. The second proof is from many Acts of Parliament Those which prohibit all that receive Orders beyond Sea from the Pope or any Papists to come into England on pain of death Those that forbid the Doctrine Worship and Discipline both of Popes and Councils The words of 25 H. 8. c. 21. are these Whereas this Realm recognizing no Superiour under God but the King hath been and is free from Subjection to any man's Laws but only such as have been devised made and ordained within this Realm for the wealth thereof or to such other as the People of this Realm have taken at their free liberty by their own consent to be used among them and have bound themselves by long use and custom to the observance of the same not to the observance of the Laws of any Forreign Prince Potentate or Prelate but as to the accustomed and antient Laws of this Realm originally Established as Laws of the same by the said sufferance consent and custom and none otherwise It standeth therefore with natural equity and good reason c. that they may abrogate them c. Moreover the Laws of England determine that no Canons are here obligatory or are Laws unless made such by King and Parliament And if it be true which Heylin and some others say that the Pope's Canon-Laws are all here in force still except those that are contrary to some Laws of the Realm that is but as the Roman Civil Law is in force not as a Law of the Pope or old Romans but as made Laws to us by King and Parliament The Roman Senate and Emperor give us the Matter of the Civil Law and the Pope and Councils of the canon-Canon-Law but the Soveraign Power here giveth them the Form of a Law as the King coineth Forreign Silver III. The Articles of Religion prove the same 1. The twenty first Article saith General Councils may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of Men whereof all be not governed by the Spirit and Word of God they may err and sometime have erred even in things pertaining to God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they are taken out of the Holy Scriptures Here note 1. That General Councils so called in the Empire had no power to meet much less to Rule without the Commandment of Princes And so those called by the Emperor had no power over the Subjects of other Princes 2. And true Universal Councils will never be Lawfully called till either all the Earth have One Humane Monarch or all the Heathen Infidel Mahometan Papist Heretical and Protestant Princes agree to call them For one hath not Power over the Dominions of all the rest And so the Aristocratical Party put the
History be to be believed the Articles of King James and his Son our late King about the Spanish and French Matches do acquit both Kings from any just Accusation of Cruelty against the Papists Rushworth aftermentioned thus reciteth the private Articles of the first Match Pag. 86 87 88. 1. Particular Laws made against Roman Catholicks under which other Vassals of our Realm are not comprehended and general Laws under which all are equally comprized if repugnant to the Romish Religion shall not any time hereafter by any means or chance whatever directly or indirectly be commanded to be put in Execution against the said Roman Catholicks And we will cause that our Council shall take the same Oath as far as it pertains to them and belongs to the Execution which by them and their Ministers is to be exercised 2. That no other Laws shall hereafter be made anew against the said Roman Catholicks but that there shall be a perpetual Toleration of the Roman Catholick Religion within Private Houses throughout all Our Realms and Dominions which We will have to be understood as well of Our Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland as in England which shall be Granted to them in manner and form as is Capitulated Decreed and Granted in the Articles of the Treaty concerning the Marriage 3. That neither by Us nor by any other interposed Person whatsoever directly or indirectly privately or publickly will We Treat or Attempt any thing with the most renowned Lady Infanta Donna Maria which shall be repugnant to the Roman Catholick Religion Neither will We by any means perswade her that she should ever renounce or relinquish the same in Substance or Form or that she should do any thing repugnant or contrary to those things which are contained in the Treaty of Marriage 4. That We and the Prince of Wales will interpose Our Authority and will do as much as in Us shall lye that the Parliament shall approve confirm and ratifie all and singular Articles in favour of the Roman Catholicks capitulated between the most renowned Kings by reason of this Marriage And that the said Parliament shall Revoke and Abrogate particular Laws made against the said Roman Catholicks to whose observance also the rest of Our Subjects and Vassals are not obliged as likewise the general Laws under which all are equally comprehended to wit as to the Roman Catholicks if they be such as is aforesaid which are repugnant to the Roman Catholick Religion And that hereafter we will not consent that the said Parliament shall ever at any time enact or write any other or new Laws against Roman Catholicks Moreover I Charles Prince of Wales engage my self and promise that the most Illustrious King of Great Britain my most honoured Lord and Father shall do the same both by word and writing that all those things which are contained in the foregoing Articles and concern as well the Suspension as the Abrogation of the Laws made against the Roman Catholicks shall within three years infallibly take effect and sooner if it be possible which we will have to lye upon our Conscience and Royal Honour that I will interceed with the most Illustrious King of Great Britain my Father that the ten years of the Education of the Children which shall be Born of this Marriage with the most Illustrious Lady Infanta their Mother accorded in the Twenty third Article which term the Pope of Rome desires to have prorogued to twelve years may be lengthened to the said term And I Promise freely of my own accord and Swear that if it so happen that the entire power of disposing of this matter be devolved to me I will also grant and approve the said term Further I Prince of Wales oblige my self upon my Faith to the Catholick King that as often as the Illustrious Lady Infanta shall require that I should give ear to Divines or others whom her Highness shall be pleased to imploy in matter of the Roman Religion I will hearken to them willingly without all difficulty and laying aside all excuse And for further caution in point of free exercise of the Catholick Religion and Suspension of the Laws above-named I Charles Prince of Wales Promise and take upon me in the word of a King that the things above-promised and treated concerning those matters shall take effect and be put in execution as well in the Kingdoms of Scotland and Ireland as of England The Privy Councillors Oath saith the same Author was this I A. B. do Swear that I will truely and fully observe as much as belongeth to me all and every the Articles which are contained in the treaty of Marriage between the most Gracious Charles Prince of Wales and the most Gracious Lady Donna Maria Infanta of Spain Likewise I Swear that I will neither commit to Execution nor Cause to be Executed by my self or any inferior Officer serving me any Laws against any Roman Catholicks whatsoever nor will execute any punishment inflicted by those Laws but in all things which belong to me will faithfully observe his Majesties word given on that behalf I have recited this to shew that the Papists deceive Forreigners when they tell them that they lived here under cruel Persecution And yet let none think that the King turned Papist For all this was on condition of the Spanish Match which was broken And the King well knew that the Parliament would never consent to it But his own words may satisfie us in this For saith Rushworth The King called a Parliament 1623. when the Match was broken and saith to them It hath been talked of my remisness in maintenance of Religion and suspicion of a Toleration But as God shall judge me I never thought nor meant nor ever in word expressed any thing that savoured of it But the stinging Petition against the Papists as the King called it which this Parliament offered him shewed still what they were against If the Papists say these Articles frustrate prove no forbearance of Severities against us Rushworth answers them saying pag. 156. of the French Match In Novemb. the Articles were Sworn to by King James Prince Charles and the French King The Articles concerning Religion were not much short of those for the Spanish Match And pag. 173. That the English Catholicks should be no more searched after nor molested for their Religion § 5. And they have the less reason to accuse the King of Cruelty or yet to report that he was in Heart a Papist when he rather endured their displeasure than he would turn to them and yet endured the disgust both of the Church-men and Parliament than he would lay by his Clemency toward them The Commons saith Rushworth pag. 213. An. 1625. censured Mr. Ri. Montague for endeavouring to reconcile England and Rome and to alienate the Kings Affections from his well-affected Subjects And the A. Bishop Abbot wrote this Letter to the King May it please your Majesty I have been too long silent and am afraid
by my silence I have neglected the Duty of the place it hath pleased God to call me to and your Majesty to place me in But now I humbly crave leave I may discharge my Conscience toward God and my Duty to your Majesty And therefore I beseech you freely to give me leave to deliver my self and then let your Majesty do with me what you please Your Majesty hath propounded a Toleration of Religion I beseech you take into consideration what your Act is what the consequence may be By your Act you labour to set up the most and Heretical Doctrine of the Church of Rome the Whore of Babylon How hateful it will be to God and grievous to your good Subjects the Professors of the Gospel that your Majesty who hath often Disputed and Learnedly Written against those Hereticks should now shew your self a Patron of those wicked Doctrines which your Pen hath told the World and your Conscience tells your self are Superstitious Idolatrous and Detestable And hereunto I add what you have done in sending the Prince into Spain without the consent of your Council and Privity and Approbation of your People And though you have a Charge and Interest in the Prince as Son of your Flesh yet have the people a greater as Son of the Kingdom upon whom next after your Majesty are their Eyes fixed and their welfare depends And so tenderly is his going apprehended as believe it however his return may be safe yet the Drawers of him into this Action so dangerous to himself so desperate to the Kingdom will not pass away unquestioned unpunished Besides this Toleration which you endeavour to set up by your Proclamation cannot be done without a Parliament unless your Majesty will let your Subjects see that you will take to your self ability to throw down the Laws of your Land at your pleasure What dreadful consequents these things may draw afterward I beseech your Majesty to consider And above all lest by this Toleration discountenancing the true Profession of the Gospel wherewith God hath blessed us and this Kingdom hath so long flourished under it your Majesty do not draw upon this Kingdom in General and your self in particular Gods heavy wrath and indignation Thus in discharge of my Duty towards God and your Majesty and the place of my Calling I have taken humble leave to deliver my Conscience Now Sir do what you please with me Thus you see what difficulties the King went through to avoid all shew of Cruelty to the Roman Sect when at the same time the Canons Excommunicated Protestants that affirmed any thing to be unlawful in the Liturgy Ceremonies or Church Government and the Laws were in force against them Chap. IV. Of the Papists Endeavours in the time of King Charles the First and the great wrong they did him § 1. THE same method they still continued 1. In vain they subtilly laboured to have perverted the King 2. And then pretended their great sufferings to procure Indulgence 3. And secretly gave out that the King was for them to draw on others that they thought would be still of the Kings Religion § 2. When he was in Spain the Bishop of Couchen a Trained Veterane and Head of the Inquisition was chosen to take the charge of labouring his Conversion and Carolus Boverius wrote to him that Book for Church Monarchy which is now extant And the Pope wrote to him an insinuating Letter to which this answer as returned by the Prince is recorded by Prin as out of Mr. De Chesne the King of France his Geographer and by the Caballa of Letters and by Rushworth who saith the Latine Copy was preserved by some then in Spain at the Treaty and this following in the Caballa is but an ill Translation of it Most Holy Father I received the dispatch from your Holiness with great content and with that respect which the Piety and Care wherewith your Holiness writes doth require It was an unspeakable pleasure to me to read the generous Exploits of the Kings my Predecessors in whose Memory Posterity hath not given those Praises and Elogies of Honour as were due to them I believe that your Holiness hath set their Examples before my Eyes to the end I might imitate them in all my Actions For in truth they have often exposed their Estates and Lives for the Exaltation of the Holy Chair And the Courage wherewith they have assaulted the Enemies of the Cross of Jesus Christ hath not been less than the Care and Thought which I have to the End that the Peace and Intelligence which hath hitherto been wanting in Christendom might be bound with a true and strong Concord For as the common Enemy of Peace still watcheth to put hatred and dissention among Christian Princes so I believe that the Glory of God requires that we should endeavour to unite them And I do not esteem it a greater honour to be descended from so great Princes than to imitate them in the Zeal of their Piety In which it helps me very much to have known the mind and will of our thrice honoured Lord and Father and the Holy Intentions of his Catholick Majesty to give a happy concurrence to so laudable a Design For it grieveth him exceedingly to see the great evils that grow from the Divisions of Christian Princes which the Wisdom of your Holiness foresaw when it judged the Marriage which you pleased to design between the Infanta of Spain and my self to be necessary to procure so great a good For it is very certain I shall never be so extreamly affectionate to any thing in the World as to endeavour alliance with a Prince that hath the same apprehension of the true Religion with my self Therefore I intreat your Holiness to believe that I have been always very far from Novelties or to be a partizan of any Faction against the Catholick Apostolick Roman Religion But on the contrary I have sought all occasions to take away the suspicion that might rest upon me And that I will employ my self for the time to come to have but one Religion and one Faith seeing we all believe in one Jesus Christ Having resolved in my self to spare nothing that I have in the World and to suffer all manner of discommodities even to the hazarding of my Estate and Life for a thing so well pleasing to God It rests only that I thank your Holiness for the permission you have pleased to afford me And I pray God to give you a Blessed Health and his Glory after so much pains which your Holiness takes in his Church Signed Charles Steward § 3. Read Rushworth's Copy p. 82 83. whether is most current I know not but this much shews that the Papists complaint of cruel usage here is unjust And lest any believe them that say King Charles was at the Heart a Papist let them note 1. How many and strong temptations he frustrated 2. That when he wrote this he was in their power 3. That
it in the Case in question yet were they Apostles to the Universal Church that which none are since their time III. If there be such a Vicarious Governing Soveraignty over the Universal Church it is either the Pope or a General Council or some Colledge of Pastors But it is none of these 1. As to the Pope you say that he is so far from being Head of the Church that he is not a Member So that I need not say more of this to you 2. That General Councils are no such Soveraign Power which all must obey that will be Christians or in a Church seemeth to me past doubt for these Reasons 1. Because there is no such thing in the Creed though the Catholick Church and Communion of Saints be there But it would be there were it of such necessity to Christianity 2. Because there is no such thing said in all the Scripture which would not omit so necessary a point What is said from Acts 15. is answered before it was no General Council A General Council was not then the necessary means of Concord or Communion 3. There never was one General Council representing the Universal Church in the World I have fully proved in my second Book against Johnson that the Councils called General were so only as to the Roman Empire and few if any so General and that the Emperor called all the Chief Councils who had no Power without his Empire nor called any that were without 4. I have oft proved the unlawfulness of calling General Councils now as the Church is dispersed at such distances over the Earth and under Princes of so contrary Interests and Minds 5. I have oft proved the Impossibility of such a Councils meeting to attain the ends of Government in question being to pass by Sea and Land from all quarters of the World by the Consent of Enemies that rule them and through Enemies Countreys and Men of Age that must have so long time going and sitting and returning and of divers Languages uncapable of understanding one another and a number uncapable of present Converse with other such insuperable difficulties 6. If such Councils be necessary to the Being of Christianity Church or Concord at least the Church hath seldom had a Being or Concord it seldom having had such a Council in your own esteem And you cannot say that it ever will have any 7. If General Councils have Supream Government visible it is 1. Legislative 2. Judicial 3. Executive But I. If Legislative then 1. Their Laws are either Gods Infallible Word or not If not all Men must disobey them when they err If yea Gods Word is not the same one Age as another and is Crescent still and we know not when it will be perfect 2. Their Laws will be so many that no Christians can know them obey them and have Concord on such terms 3. If they could agree who should call them and whither yet the Prince whose Countrey they meet in would be Master of the whole Christian World and so of other Christian Countreys by Mastering them 4. Princes would be Subjects 1. To Foreign Powers 2. Yea to the Subjects of other Princes 3. Yea of their Enemies 4. And to such Preâ—ates as they are uncapable to know whether they are truely called to their Office 5. Or whether they are erroneous or sound in Faith 5. And then the Ecclesiastical Laws of all National Churches and Kings might be destroyed by such Councils as Superior Powers 6. And no Princes or Synods could make valid Laws about Religion till they knew that no Law of any such Council were against them 7. The Laws of Christ recorded in Scripture would by all this be argued of great insufficiency â—f more were Universally necessary he that made the rest would have made them whose Authority is to the Church unquestionable 8. The Christian World is divided so much in Opinion that except in what Christs own word containeth plainly they are in no probability of agreeing So much of Legislation II. As to Judgment 1. To judge the sence of a Law Scripture or Canon for the common Obligation of the Church is part of the Legislative Power and belongs to the Law-makers 2. To judge the Case of Persons e. g. whether John Peter Nestorius Luther Calvin c. be a Heretick an Adulterer a Simonist c. requireth that the Accuser and Accused and Witnesses of both be present and heard speak But he that would have all Hereticks Criminals Accusers Witnesses travel for a Tryal to Jerusalem Nice Constantinople Rome even from America Ethiopia c. will not need any Confutation III. The same I say of Executive Silencing Ejecting Excommunicating c. II. A Soveraign Power that cannot be known is not necessary to Christianity or the Constitution Communion or Concord of the Church But General Councils so impowered cannot be known I. I have shewed that it cannot be known by ordinary Christians that there are any such Authorized by Christ. I know it not nor any that ever I was familiar with The main Body of the Reformed Churches know it not for they ordinarily deny it as the prime point of Popery They cannot prove it who affirm it Therefore they know it not as others may judge Millions are Baptized Christians that never knew it II. It is not to this day known which were true General Councils that are past Some say those were Latrocinia and Conventicles that others say were Lawful Councils Some are for but four some for six some for eight some for all so called there is no agreement which are true and obligatory Grotius is for Trent and all which others abhor 2. It is not known who hath Power to call them and whose call is valid 3. Nor what Individuals or Particular Churches are capable of sending and chusing and obliged to it Almost all the Christian World is judged uncapable by the most of Christians The Papists are so judged by the Greeks Protestants c. The Eastern and Ethiopian Christians are excluded by the Papists Greeks c. as Jacobites Nestorians Schismaticks c. The Greeks are excluded by the Papists and others as Schismaticks and Erroneous The Protestants are judged Hereticks and Schismaticks by the Papists and many Greeks c. How Lutherans and Calvinists Diocesans and Presbyterians c. judge of one another I need not tell And can all or any of them know which of these must make up a Legislative Council of the whole Church on Earth 4. It is not known how many must Constitute such a Council nor in what proportions If there be innumerable Bishops under Philippicus for the Monothelites out of the East as Binnius saith and few out of the West was that a true General Council If at Nice Ephesus Constantinople Chalcedon there be not one out of the West to twenty or forty or a hundred others is it a true representative of the whole Church If there be two hundred at Trent or a thousand at
New Discoverer Append. P. 206 207 208 where he is for one Government of the whole Church Not in specie only for so we are as well as he each Governing per partes in his own Province as Kings in their several Kingdoms but numerically by one Aristocracy the Pope being Principium Vnitatis And Aristocracy is a Government formed and unified in unâ Personâ Politicâ consisting ex pluribus Personis naturalibus Else it would not make one Soveraignty nor one Political Church or Society Therefore his saying P. 206. that the Pope's Primacy as Universal and his Western Patriarchate is no Monarchy but exactly reconcileable with an Aristocratick Government of the Church reconcileth not me at all to his Model who am past doubt that 1. One Aristocratical College is far more uncapable of Universal Government of the Christian World than a Pope If inter impossibilia daretur Magis Minus 2. And that a College of the Subjects of Foreign Kings e. g. France Spain Portugal Armenians Abassines Turks Moscovites c. are unfitter for Foreign Jurisdiction and particularly to Govern Britain than a Pope is The Confutation of Dr. Pierce is sufficiently done before and after I now only recite his Opinion And am sorry that he is sure that Dr. Hammond was of the same Religion with Grotius and for such a Jurisdiction But if any be for the French Church form of Government call them Papists or Protestants as they shall themselves desire It is the Thing and not the Name that I oppose The French know by feeling what that is God grant we feel it not Chap. XXI That this New sort of Prelatists who were for a Coalition with the French or Roman Church have been the great Agents of all the Dividing Silencing Persecuting Laws which have brought and kept us these Twenty seven Years in our dangerous lacerated State § 1. THat the Church of England before the days of Buckingham and Laud were quite of another Mind I have before fully proved And no reasonable Man can doubt of it who hath read the Apology of the Church of England and Jewel's Defence of it and the Writings of Whitaker Fulk Humphrey Field Willet Airy Bernard Crakenthorpe Sutliffe G. Abbot Rob. Abbot I. Reignolds Morton Vsher Downame John White Birkbeck Cook Perkins Bilson Andrews Hall Davenant and many such Bishops Dignitaries and other Conformists besides Cranmer Ridley Latimer Hooker Farrar Bradford Philpot and the rest of the Martyrs Besides the Nonconformists § 2. And that the true Church of England even in Laud's time and since have never consented to this Coalition is evident 1. In that Heylin confesseth that Laud prevailed but with four or five more Bishops to be so much as Arminians viz. Neale Howson Corbet Buckeridge and Mountague And he that readeth Buckeridge his Book for Kings and Mountague's Works will think that even they were against this Coalition 2. And he confesseth that Laud durst not put his Cause to a Convocation because so small a Number there were for him 3. And to this day the Church or Parliament have not revoked the Homilies Articles Liturgy Apology or any of the Writings of the Bishops and Doctors aforesaid who have written against Popery 4. And excellent Writings have all along to this day been Published by the Church Doctors against all such Confederacies with Papists such as Dr. Stillingfleet who though to please his Superiors he defended Laud yet defended not all that he said or did Dr. More Dr. Tillotson Dr. Tennison Bishop Th. Barlow Mr. Wake yea even Henry Fowlis and many more But above all Dr. Isaac Barrow of the Supremacy unanswerably though S. Parker had Confidence enough to pretend a Confutation § 3. The Endeavours for a Coalition that were publickly attempted in Scotland Ireland and England by Laud and his Agents have been so voluminously written of Accused and Condemned in Parliaments and his own Death and the long Wars and all the Fractures that have followed were so much of the Consequents that to say more of this is Vain Dr. Pet. Heylin's Life of Laud doth acknowledge and justifie all And Prin's History of Laud's Tryal largely openeth it § 4. When the Parliaments and Scots Opposition and the ensuing Civil War had broken this Design and the Bloody Massacre in Ireland had rendred Popery more odious and dreadful than all Arguments could do before our War here the Parliament that had before the War begun to Purge the Church Ministry of Drunkards Scandalous and ignorant incompetent Men proceeded too far on Civil Accounts and ejected some for adhering to the King and being against them in the War though some of us disswaded them from all such severity Cromwell first rebelled against the Parliament and usurped the Government and shortly died and his distracted incoherent Army striving against the Democratical Relicts of the Parliament dissolved their usurped Government which Dissolution brought in King Charles II. by Monk and the Presbyterians as the Dissolution of the Parliament had brought in Cromwell And with the King return many of the ejected exasperated Clergy full of the Desires of Revenge and of preventing all Danger to their Dignities and Promotions for the time to come But at first they were diffident of their present Strength and thought they must execute their Revenge and Mutation by degrees The Lords Knights and Gentlemen that had suffered for Fighting against the Parliament for the King Published many Protestations to draw in the Presbyterians to restore the King that they would be for Love and Concord and seek no revenge Dr. Morley was sent before the King to Cajole the Ministers to believe that the King was a Protestant and inclined to Moderation And thereupon a moderate Party of Episcopal Men met with some called Presbyterians and declared their desires of Concord on sober terms viz. Dr. Bernard Dr. Gulston Dr. Allen and others such But Dr. Morley used them to his Ends and shifted off all discovery of his Designs still quieting them by general pretences of Moderation and Treaties He had the Chief Power over Chancellor Hyde who ruled the Land And Sheldon was next him and Hinchman the third But under them truckled many of the same Mind The King published a Declaration of Liberty for tender Consciences at Breda expounded since by 27 Years barbarous Persecution laying all on the Protestant Prelatists that would not make a Law for it I was past doubt in 1660. that the King was as he Died or had engaged himself to promote it here first by giving them Liberty of their Religion and afterwards the Power of the Land in Magistracy Militia and the Church Knowing Men said that Morley Sheldon Guning and the other Chief Agitators knew this and thought they had no other way to oblige him to keep up the English Prelacy but to engage that they would be firmer to his Absolute Power and sole Legislation and for Passive Obedience and for the Extirpation of Puritans and Parliament Power than the Jesuites
and then I said May it Please Your Majesty This reverend Dr. Guning just now accused us as if we would let in Socinians and Papists We suppose that this is not intended as our deed The King answered There be many Laws against the Papists I replyed We understand this to be for a dispensation with those Laws There was no more said and that was the Conclusion of the day III. In 1662. came out a Declaration for Liberty of Religion naming the Papists to have their part in it but not a Toleration I was desired to get the City Ministers to Subscribe a Thanksgiving for it I told them that it was the King's Work and not to be done by us But I knew it was the Bishops design to cast the Odium of a Toleration of Popery on the Nonconformists while they would gratifie the King by forcing us to Consent But they should never do it They should do it themselves or it should not be done And it presently died IV. The Lord Bridgman called Dr. Wilkins and his Chaplain Dr. Hez Burton and Dr. Manton and me and Dr. Bates after as by the King's Order to attempt an Agreement for a Comprehension to the Presbyterians and a Toleration for the Independents We agreed of the Comprehension in terminis and Judge Hale drew it up into the form of an Act But when we came to the other part the form proposed was for a Toleration of all not excepting the Papists I told the Lord Keeper that we could not meddle in measuring out all other mens Liberty but only to declare what we desired our selves Others must be consulted about their own concerns we were not for severity against any But it was the King's Work and we unmeet to be his Counsellors in it And so all was cast off by the Parliament by that means and the Act forbidden to be offered § 8. At last the King himself broke the Ice and Published a Declaration for Licensing a Toleration The Cruelty of the Prosecution of the Nonconformists being still the seeming Necessity for all But the Parliament broke it and it did the Papists much more harm than good for the Nonconformists continued to Preach though Persecuted § 9. The Clergy now would lay all the Severities on the Parliament and wash their own hands as guiltless of all But 1. It was they even their chief Bishops and Drs. that when the King Commissioned them to Agree on such Alterations as were necessary to tender Consciences after all importunity concluded that no Alteration was so necessary 2. And it was the Bishops and Convocation that altered the Book for the worse and put in new matter harder than before 3. And the Bishops in Parliament were the Chief Agents in all the Laws by which we are undone 4. And it is known that it was the Interest of the Bishops and their Church way that engaged the Long Parliament in all their terrible Acts against us Viz. The Act of Uniformity the Acts for Banishment the Five mile Act the Corporation Act the Militia Act the Vestry Act and others 5. And who knoweth not that it is they and their Disciples that make the great stir against our Healing in jealousie of their Interests which nothing but their own over-doing is like to overthrow 6. And when did they ever once Petition any Parliament to reverse the dividing wicked Laws or to restore the Silenced Ministers or to free them from dying with Rogues in Jails or to prefer the Ministers of Jesus before Barabbas or to request that the Eminent Ministers of Christ might have no greater Punishment for Preaching Christ than debaucht Whoremongers Drunkards Swearers and Blasphemers usually have in England 7. Yea if a Godly Conformist do but write against their Cruelty to the Nonconformists such as are Mr. Pierce Mr. Jones Mr. Bold they have for it Persecuted him as if he were a Nonconformist himself And that you may know that it is not the old Church-men nor yet a few single Persons when Dr. Whitby Prebend of Salisbury who had wrote against Popery did write an excellent Treatise for Peace and Reconciliation the Oxford University Decreed the Publick burning of it together with my Holy Common-wealth The Lord Convert and Pardon them that they prove not the burned fewel when Reconciliation and a Holy Common-wealth are prosperous c. God shall judge at last § 10. All this time from Laud till now it is a hard Controversie which of the two Parties is to be called The Church of England Both Parties pretend to it and some call both of them the same Church But the Infamous Roger L'Estrange set the Name of Trimmers on the old and reconciling Party pretending that the other were the Genuine Members of the Church And was imployed by his Genius and the Court and the Papists and the New Clergy-men to do a work so truly Diabolical as I never read of the like in History even for many Years together to Write and Publish twice a Week a Dialogue called Observations mainly levelled against Love Peace and Piety to perswade all men to hate their Brethren and to provoke men to destroy them whom he Nick-named Whigs and to render odious all save the Wolves whom he called Tories as if he owned the Irish Robbers so that a Trimmer with him was the same as a Peace-maker Blessed by Christ and Cursed by L'Estrange § 11. But whether the New Clergy or the Old be the Church of England and whether both be of one Church remaineth still doubtful But whoever hath the Name that one Name is equivocal when applied to Parties contrary and inconsistent 1. That Church which owneth a Foreign Government and Jurisdiction cannot be one and the same with that Church which renounceth and abhorreth it and owneth only Christ's Universal Government and a Foreign Concord and Communion But this is the difference between the Old Reformed Church of England and the New that call themselves the Church Two Kings make two Kingdoms For the Form denominateth And the Relative Vnion of the pars Imperans and Subdita is the Form That Church which hath a Human Head above National must have a Form and Name above National that is Above a Church of England which makes them all talk so much of The Universal Church in this false humane Form An Universal Church hath an Universal Soveraign Power which is only Christ. If the Pope be Antichrist it is his claim of this that maketh him so because it is Christ's Prerogative which no mortal Man or Council or College is capable of And if so is it not a Papal or Antichristian Church that these Foreign Subjects own and are of whether it be of the French or Italian Form if one be Antichristian both are so when the Claim of Universal Jurisdiction is the Cause I have voluminously detected the mistake of these deceived Men who are deluded by the Name Oecumenical Catholick and Universal which they find in the Councils and Fathers and
fully proved to them that it signified no Councils above the Imperial or National But distinguished those that were Universal in that one Empire from the Provincial 2. The Reformed Church of England taketh the Parish Communicants to be true Churches and the Pastors to have as much of the Oversight as is necessary to the Constitution of a true Political Church Though their Canons sinfully fetter them in the Exercise But the Foreigners hold the Diocesses to be the least or lowest Churches and the Parishes to be no true Churches for want of Bishops in them but only Parts of a Church that hath a Bishop over them all 3. The Old Church of England owned the Foreign Protestant Churches as true Churches and their Ministers as true Pastors and own Communion with them But the Innovators say that they have no true Bishops because they have not Diocesans and are no true Pastors if they have not an uninterrupted Succession of Diocesane Ordination from the Apostles whereas for some Hundred Years after the Apostles there was no such Bishops known in the World as were not either Congregational Parochial Bishops or Apostolick Overseers of such and no Diocesans over many Hundred or Score Parish Churches that had no Bishops under them § 12. When you consider what Power the New Foreigners had at Court and with the Parliament that made the Act of Uniformity and required Re-ordination and that made all the other persecuting Acts and with the Justices that executed them And when we see how they promoted the Roman Interest and when we see how potently and obstinately they frustrated all attempts of the Protestant Union here and read how they reviled the old Reforming Bishops from Parker to Abbots and the Parliaments as going too far from Rome And when we consider that we have not one Bishop but who was chosen by K. Charles II. and K. James and what Men they may be supposed to choose we Contradict not these Men when they call themselves the Church of England But when we consider that the old Homilies Apology Articles Liturgy Canons c. were never yet repealed and that they are all Sworn to Endeavour no Alteration of Government of Church or State we have cause to think that the old Party have more right to be called The Church the altering Endeavours having not changed its Essentials By this much the Reader may Expound whom I speak of in my Treatise of Episcopacy § 13. The Church is nothing but the Men that constitute the Church If 1. It be denominated by their Numbers no man can tell which Party hath the greater Number till they are further put upon the tryal 2. If they are denominated by Laws the better part are rather to be called the Church because the Old Laws against Popery are not yet Repealed Though yet some late Laws are to the Old as poyson to a living Man So if they be Denominated by Power the Innovators have been the Church at least these 31 Years For that Party Ruled and had the Countenance of the Kings who chose them And indeed in the Days of the differing Emperors Constantine Constantinus Valens Theodosius Arcadius Marcian Leo Zeno and the rest that usually went for the Church or Orthodox party which the Emperor owned The uppermost will have the Name § 14. Though the French and English aforesaid designed a Coalition the long possession of their different ways unavoidably hindered them from an immediate Union But they were forced to approach by leisurely Degrees England would not suddenly turn the Liturgy to a Mass-Book nor France suddenly turn the Mass-Book Corrected into French But what fair Approaches were made and what further intended Grotius his Counsel Magnified by both Churches and the present practices of the French declare The Council of Grotius was to bring down the Pope to Moderation that he might Rule but by the Canons and not be above Councils nor deprive Kings nor Bishops of their Rights and that the Lives of the Clergy be Reformed and School Niceties left indifferent and the Lutheranes as Reconcileable Courted to a Concord and the unreconcileable Calvinists brought down by force But the Lutheranes are not so Reconcileable as they imagined Princes that are once free are loth to become Subjects to a Foreign Priesthood § 15. And how much the French meant to bring down the Pope their late Transactions shew a little but their Doctrines much more Mr. Jurieu himself in his Posteral Letters Engl. p. 216.217 thus Describeth them 1. That the Church of Rome is no more than a Particular Church as other Churches are 2. That St. Peter had nothing but a Primacy of Order and Presidence above the Apostles 3. That St. Peter could give to his Successor over other Bishops no more but that Primacy which he had over the Apostles 4. That the Bishop of Rome Originally and by Divine Right had no Power over the Universal Church 5. That he did not receive Appeals in the first Age of the Church 6. That he had no Right to Assemble General Councils 7. That he could take Cognizance of the Affairs of no other Provinces but his own no not by Appeals 8. That he had no Right to take Knowledge of Matters of Faith to make Decisions therein which should oblige the whole Church 9. That before the Council of Nice and after he had no inspection over other Churches but those which were in the Neighbourhood of Rome 10. That he could not Excommunicate other Bishops otherwise than the other Bishops could Excommunicate him 11. That a Man might separate himself from the Bishop of Rome without being a Schismatick and out of the Church 12. That the Pope had no Right over other Bishops 13. That the Council of Sardica is the Fountain of that Right of receiving Appeals which the Pope claimeth 14. That the Rights which the Pope hath at this Day excepting his Primacy are by Human Laws and because he hath assumed them to himself and because they have bin conceded to him 15. To which they add he is not Infallible nor Superior to Councils nor Master to the Temporalities of Kings This is the French Religion and who would think that this is Popery No wonder if the Pope be more hearty for other Friends than for France § 15. Lay all this together and it 's Notorious that though Whetgift and some other Calvinists were too much guilty of the Persecutions to keep up the Dominion and Preferments which they were jealous of yet it was the French Reconcilers that have set and to this Day kept on foot our present increased Divisions and Dangers Since Le Strange new-named them the old Church Protestants are called Trimmers and are Men that love not Division or Persecution and would fain see a Coalition of Protestants though they have not zeal enough save too few to put it on openly lest they provoke the opposites But the Laudians called Tories are still as much against the Removal of the Dividing
is so hard a work that it seldom goeth well down with any party to hear of their sins especially the most heinous because they are most frightful and odious But yet it is so necessary a work to Repent necessary to the sinners and necessary to this Land that a Dying Minister of Christ who daily lamenteth his own sin should not for fear of the anger or reviling of the impenitent omit so necessary a work while Danger and yet Hope seem to tell us that this is the time Having oft done it to the displeasing of many I will though it yet displease add this brief warning If the remembrance of the years 1643 to 1660. of all that was done in England Wales and Scotland against Order Peace Government Ministry sound Doctrine and Discipline by the Sectarian Army and the Antinomian Anabaptist and Separating Ministers and People that encouraged them and the fatal end they came to without any bloodshed to overcome them and the consequent changes I say if all this convince not the Separating Sectarian sort of professors that they have been heinously injurious to the Protestant interest and have ignorantly kept up the life of Popish hopes I know not what means can convince such men II. And if after all the Miseries of former divisions and uncharitable violence before and in the Wars those that have added the greater burdens and revengefully done what I love not so oft to mention by Laws execution and additional reproach upon Corporations Churches Universities Ministers and brought and yet keep the Land by resolved obstinacy in its divided dangerous sinful state and lock up their Church door against desired Unity and Concord and all this for nothing but to justify the revengeful changers and their own complying acts I say again and again if all this after the last thirty years experience added to all before seem to the guilty no wrong to the Protestant interest nor to the Nations Peace and Hopes nor any advantage to Popery nor any sin against Christ in his Servants the Lord take some extraordinary effectual way to convince heal and save so blind and obdurate a people for I see no hope of ordinary means The God of Peace have mercy upon an Ignorant Vnpeaceable World and prepare us by Faith Hope and Love for the World of Love and Peace Amen Postscript § 1. I Perceive some cannot digest it that a Christian Soveraign should be the Head that is the Forma informans specifica unifica of a National Church and that it is not said to be a National Sacerdotal Head either Monarchical in one primate or Aristocratical in several Metropolitanes or Diocesanes as one College Persona politica Or as Mr. Hooker Dr. Beveridge and the Republicane Politicians and most fanaticks think in the Major part of the Body ruling by their Representatives and chosen Proxies which is called a Democracy or mixt of these by natural right § 2. And if any thing with these men were strange it would seem strange that the same men that subscribe to or approve the Canons of 1640 for the Divine making or institution of Kings and that fill Pulpits and Books with Invectives against Rebels Fanaticks and the Parliaments Wars and many Writers of Politicks for holding that the King is singulis Major universis Minor and that the Power of the Head is from the Majority of the Body and that the Legislative Supremacy is in them radically as in the Majestas Realis derived to the King as the Majestas personalis should come themselves to build their Church Power on so rotten a foundation And that the poor Nonconformists long called Rebellious must now become against such Churchmen the defenders of the Soveraigns Power But such is the case of this blind giddy factious World § 3. According to my usual despised method I will distinguish the Controversie de re from that de nomine And I may say That de re all men are agreed of all these following things 1. That Civil Power in genere is of Gods institution and his Laws made their supreme Law and his Will and Glory their ultimate end 2. That as all are thus bound so Christian Soveraigns are both bound and qualified as from God and for God and therefore are sacred persons 3. That the forcing power of the Sword is only committed to Magistrates to be exercised FOR and UNDER GOD and by Christians for under Jesus Christ And therefore such Christian Princes are not to be called Civil as exclusive of Religious or Spiritual work but as exercising their power pro civibus for the good of their Kingdoms even religious 4. That God is the Author or institutor also of the Sacerdotal Office and hath specify'd it in his Word And that the Magistrate or the sacred Ministry can neither of them put down each other nor alter any part of either Office which God hath instituted 5. That it belongeth to the Sacerdotal Office or Clergy to be the official Preachers of the Gospel and to judge by the Power of the Keys who is fit or unfit for Church entrance by Baptism and for Church Communion and to Baptize and administer the Lords Supper admonish suspend and excommunicate from their communion such as deserve it and to absolve the Penitent 6. That the Priesthood or Pastors have no power to use the Sword by force on Body or Estate by Stripes or Mulcts nor yet to force or require the Magistrate to do Execution by the meer Sentence of the Clergy without trying and judging the Cause himself 7. The Pastors that the Magistrate chuseth for the care of his Soul may declare him unfit for Communion if by impenitency in gross scandal he deserve it but may not disable him from Government by a publick dishonouring Excommunication much less send such a reproach abroad in the Land or World 8. The Bishops and all the National Clergy are Subjects to the Soveraign as Physicions and Philosophers c. are And he is Governour over them in matters of Religion which belong to the determination of National Laws as well as in worldly things The Pastor as the Physicion is judge judicio privato personali how to use his own Art and Work and when and on whom But the King is Judge judicio publico of all that is to be the common Rule As that Physicions use no Poysonous Drugs take not too great Fees what Hospital he shall be over c. And so for the Ministry that they preach not Heresie or Schism and Strife that they neglect not their Work that they use a fit Translation of the Bible that they have due Maintenance Place c. 9. The Soveraign is Judge whether his Christian Kingdom shall be divided into Provinces Diocesses and of what extent they shall be or shall have one Primate or all particular Churches shall be equal or some Tolerated and Priviledged from the Diocesans 10. The King may make publick Laws for Family Religion that
dissolved (h) And Men taught to be Perjured by taking in Foreign Ecclesiastical Power (i) And yet Obey his Councils Canons (k) Christ hath given us a sufficient Law for the Government of the Church else saith Gerson he were not a perfect Lawgiver Must we be beholden to the Pope for leaving us a little of that which Christ gave us Who gave him Power to take any of it from us Would our Conciliators have magnified the Men that for the Peace of England would have agreed with Cromwell to allow the King the Isle of Wight or Wâ—les Or to have made a Law that every Highway Robber shall reâ—urn â—ne half to the Owner And with what Conscience could the Subjects of Christ have obeyed all the rest of the Usurpers sinful Canons (a) Confusion 1. The form denominateth The Church of Rome which we separate from is a pretended Soveraignty over all Christians This is no true Church of Christ. 2. But we separate not from them in point of Christianity But 1. From their Usurpation 2. And other Sins (b) And having before made the Church of England Schismaticks he makes all Schismaticks that Communicate with it (c) Here is 1. An Universal Legislative Power over all the Church on Earth 2. This Power is in Councils of which the Pope is the chief Member and the only reasonable means of the Union of so great a Body is his Regular Power as distinct from Infinite Power 3. All the Canons Rites and Customs are these Laws of the Church 4. All Kings and Kingdoms are bound to obey them 5. No man must question whether these Laws or Customs or any of them are contrary to God's Law 6. The men that must have this Absolute Power over all the Kings and Kingdoms on Earth that will be Christian are themselves the Subjects of the Turks the Moore the Emperor of Abassia the Persian the Emperor of Indastan called the Mogal the Kings of Poland Hungary Spain France England Denmark Sweden the Emperor of Germany and abundance more when it 's known that few Bishops are chosen in any of these Countreys Mahometans or Papists but such as the Princes like and that they dare not go against their wills in any great matter 7. Their minds are known already and consequently what they would do in Councils if all these Princes would agree to call an Universal Council The Major Vote if it were called in Mesopotamia or that way would be such as Rome calleth Hereticks If called in Greece it would be Greeks If in Italy or Germany or France they would be Papists no where Protestants Few would travel above a thousand miles to the Council 8. Tho' one would think that this platform of Governing the whole Earth could be believed by no man in his wits yet you see Learned men are so far deceived And it is by judging of the World by the Old Roman Empire There indeed Councils were Nationally General They were Courts They had Legislative Power and Pretorian Command None might appeal from them for Relief in Foro Humano Emperors gave them this Power It was but rational over their own Subjects What Power had they over others The Convocation in England or the General Assembly in Scotland may be made and called a Court by the King But France or Spain were never Governed by them nor took them to be over them unquestionable Legislators Yea I believe King and Parliament at home are not so subject to their Laws (d) And are not these unmerciful men that will let men take up with a damning Baptism and will not rebaptize them that they may have a saving Baptism which yet they hold necessary to Salvation They fear Anabaptism it seems more than mens Damnation (e) The true Church that is an Usurped Power of Universal Legislation is here made by him and Mr. Dodwell as necessary to Salvation as Christ and more than the holy Scriptures But what will now become of all the Papists that by dispensation come in to Protestant Churches They also are all damned as Schismaticks for communicating with them unless he forgot to except them that the Pope dispenseth with (f) How much wiser are these men than Christ and St. Paul who made it the duty of all that were baptized Christians to live as one Body of Christ in Love Him that is weak in the faith receive but not to doubtful disputations Rom. 14.1 The Kingdom of God is not meat and drink but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Ghost He that in these things serveth Christ is acceptable to God and approved of men (g) This yet is some mercy to us But is it as your grant 1. How will this stand with all that you have written for the continued Universal Legislative Church Did it cease at Charles the Great 's time and yet are all damned that are not subject to it 2. How shall we be sure that the Canons bind us till Adrian's time and not since 3. But Sir we take him for a Papist that is for all the Canons and Customs till Charles the Great And there are many things before that which we cannot Conform to without renouncing the Laws and sufficient Government of Christ which we cannot do upon such pitiful reasonings as yours (a) The standing Power of the Head or Soveraign and that of Official Ministers much differ (b) All necessary power since Christ by his Apostles published his Universal Laws is but that all Ministers in their several Churches guide the Flocks by these Laws of Christ and teach them the people and determine of incidental Circumstances pro loco tempore and not to make new Universal Laws (c) Christ expresly limiteth the Apostles to teach the Churches what he had commanded them and promiseth to give them the Spirit to bring all to their remembrance and lead them to all Truth (d) When the King sendâ— out Judges and Justices he doth not make them Kings or Legislators The Apostles had the Spirit for promulgating and recording Christs Laws Others have it only to preserve and teach them and rule by them and not to make more such as if they were insufficient and Christian Religion were still to be changed by new additions and were half Divine and half Humane Gods Word and the Bishops in medley (e) The three first Ages had no General Councils The three next had National or Imperial General Councils The thousand years last past which you include in All Ages had such Councils and practices as prove not her right Else why do not you now practise accordingly Bishop Guning owneth but six General Councils which were all but in three Ages And others but four and none that I know of but eight who do not openly profess Popery Hath Christ given any new commands since those which he sent the Apostles to deliver Have you any more of his commands to give us than the Apostles delivered in their times If you may make new ones you have more than
here is no promise to subject himself to a Foreign Jurisdiction but to endeavour Peace and Concord which may better be by drawing the Papists to us than by coming to them The truest Adversaries to Popery are the greatest Lovers of true Concord and Peace § 4. All the lenity that was shewed them after here and the agency of Panzani Con. c. I pass by lest my recital be misunderstood The Reader may see enough if not too much in Rushworth and in Prin's Introduction c. I only add that this King who was so Zealous for Concord and that overcame so many Temptations to Popery distant and in his Bosom and was so firm as not to fear to grant them the audience promised yet was so much against all cruelty to them that he suffered very much for his Lenity and Clemency to them both from themselves and from the Protestants But the most odious injury that ever they did him was by pretending his Commission for that most inhumane War and Massacre in Ireland when in time of peace they suddenly Murdered two hundred thousand and told Men that they had the Kings Commission to rise as for him that was wronged by his Parliament the very fame of this horrid Murder and the words of the many Fugitives that escaped in Beggery into England assisted by the Charity of the Dutchess of Ormond and others and the English Papists going in to the King was the main cause that filled the Parliaments Armies I well remember it cast people into such a fear that England should be used like Ireland that all over the Countreys the people oft sate up and durst not go to Bed for fear lest the Papists should rise and Murder them And this is all that the Papists have yet got by their Bloody Cruelty to necessitate people in fear to take them for their Mortal Foes Bishop Morley saith in his Letter to the Dutchess of York p. 6 7. That by raising and spreading malicious and scandalous reports against the King that he was a Papist and intended to bring in Popery on that account only they raised many thousands against him without whose assistance they could never have overpowered him and oppressed him as they did And the success they had thereby against the Father encouraged them to make use of the same Engine against his Son by giving it out that the King by living so long abroad in Popish Countreys was so corrupted in his Religion that if he were suffered to return he would bring in Popery along with him So that with this groundless fear I found many considerable and very much interested Persons possest when I was sent into England about two Months before the Kings return most of which time I spent in undeceiving all I met with especially the Heads and Leaders of the Presbyterian and Independant Parties who seemed to be most afraid of such a Change by assuring them that those misreports they had heard of the King and his Brothers were nothing else but the malicious Inventions of those that were in fact or consent the Murderers of his Father For to my certain knowledge said I who was almost always an Eye-witness of their actions the King and both his Brothers c. And he was confident that this was the case of the Dutchess of York and that the Papists falsly gave it out that she was theirs to draw people to them And what then could have been more injurious to King Charles the First than this boast and report of the Irish Murderers By which they would make him to have so dreadfully begun for the rebellion was Octob. 23. 1641. and Edge-hill Fight the same day 1642. And hereby they have given the Scots occasion to publish to posterity these Scandalous words in their Books against the Cromwellians called Truth its Manifest printed 1645. pag. 17 19. The King seeing he was stopped by the Scots first in their own Countrey next in England to carry on his great design takes the Irish Papishs by the hand rather than be alway disappointed and they willingly undertake to levy Arms for his Service that is for the Romish Cause the Kings design being subservient to the Roman Cause though he abused thinks otherwise and believes that Rome serveth to his purpose But to begin the work they must make sure of all the Protestants if they cannot otherwise by Murdering and Massacring them p. 19. The next recourse was to the Irish Papists his good Friends to whom from Scotland a Commission is dispatched under the Great Seal which Seal was at that instant time in the Kings own Custody of that Kingdom to hasten according to former agreement the raising of the Irish in Arms who no sooner receive this new Order but they break out c. And I am not willing to believe this A report so dishonourable to the King his Life his Arms his Death and to all that fought for him that the Fifth Commandment forbids us to believe it though the Scots should say They saw the Sealed Commissions Yea though I had seen them my self seeing it is possible for the Irish to Counterfeit the Scots Broad Seal But by this it appeareth what wrong the King had by the Irish boasting of his Commission and the Papists pretending to more countenance than he gave them § 4. And as the said R. Bishop of Winchester was confident they slandered the Dutchess of York in her Life so he conjectureth that the Jesuit Maimbrough hath done since her death and that some of them devised the Confession which he printeth as hers which he professeth to be false as to the accusation of himself The words of Maimbrough translated are these A Declaration of the Dutchess of York translated out of Maimbourg's Histoire du Calvinisme A Person Educated in the Church of England and as much instructed in her Doctrine according to the Opinion of the most able Divines of her Party as her Condition and Capacity could admit ought to expect to be the Object of publick censure when she quits her Religion to imbrace that of the Church of Rome And as I freely confess that I have been one of her greatest Enemies if not in effect at least in will I have thought it reasonable that for the satisfaction of my Friends I should declare the Motives and Reasons of my Conversion and of the so suddain and unexpected change of my Religion yet without engaging my self in the Questions and Objections which might be made on this Occasion I Protest in the presence of Almighty God that since my return into England no Person whatsoever hath directly or indirectly perswaded me to imbrace the Catholick Religion It is a favour which I owe to the alone Mercy of God I dare not even think that the Prayers which I have made him every day since my return from France and Flanders to beg of him to discover to me the Truth have obtained for me It is very true that having seen the
not too distant may for mutual help and Concord meet in Councils And none should needlesly break their just Agreements because of the general Command of Concord But 1. They hold that these Councils be no representers of all the Christian World 2. Nor have any Universal Jurisdiction 3. Nor any true Governing Power at all over the absent or dissenters but an Agreeing Power 4. And if they pretend any such Power they turn Usurpers 5. And if on pretence of Concord they make Snares or Decree things that are against the Churches Edification Peace or Order or against the Word of God none are bound to stand to such Agreements These being the Judgment of Protestants what do these Men but abuse their words of Reverence to Councils and Submission to their Contracts as if they were for their Universal Soveraign Jurisdiction § 13. And next he saith Whereas Mr. B. doth usher in his Discourse with an intimation that this was only a Doctrine of the Gallican Church he cannot but know that this was the sence of the Church of England in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Reign Answ. 1. I honour the Gallican Papists above the Italian but I am satisfied that both do erre 2. There is a double untruth in Matter of Fact in your words 1. That I cannot but know that which I cannot know or believe 2. That yours was the sence of the Church of England which I have disproved But what is your proof D. S. For the 20th Article saith The Church hath Power to Decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith and the next Article doth suppose this Authority in General Councils Answ. The Church of England supposeth that Kingdoms should be Christian and the Magistrates and Pastors Power so twisted as that their Conjunction may best make Religion national as it was with the Jews But it never owned a foreign Jurisdiction or the Governing Power of the Subjects of one Kingdom over the Princes and People of another It followeth not that because the Church in England may Decree some Rites here that therefore foreign Churches may command us to use their Rites Our own Church Teachers no doubt have Authority in Controversies of Faith that is to teach us what is the truth and to keep Peace among Disputers but not to bind us to believe any thing against God's Word and therefore not meerly because it 's their Decree Therefore the Article cautelously calls the Church only a Witness and Keeper of holy Writ which we deny not And that besides Scripture they ought not to enforce any thing to be believed for Necessity to Salvation But you would have us believe the Soveraign Universal Jurisdiction of Councils yea and the lawfulness of all your Oaths and Impositions as necessary to escape damning Schism and is not that as necessary to Salvation 2. And one would think there needed no more than the next Articles to confute you which you cite as for you They knew that there had been Imperial General Councils which being gathered and authorized by the Emperors had the same Power in the Empire that National Councils have with us or in other Nations But there 's not a syllable of any Jurisdiction that they have out of the Empire Yea contrary it 's said 1. That they may not be gathered together without the Commandment and Will of Princes And therefore cannot Govern them without their Will nor have any Conciliar Power being no Council And one King cannot command the Subjects of another Indeed if Princes will make themselves Subjects to a Council or Pope who can hinder them 2. They are here declared to be Men not all governed by the Spirit and Word of God and such as may erre and have erred in things pertaining to God Therefore their meer Contracts and Advice are no further to be obeyed than they are governed by the Spirit and Word of God which we are discerning Judges of And it is concluded that things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither Strength nor Authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of the Holy Scripture So that even their Expositions of the Articles of Faith which you make their chief Work hath no further Authority than it 's declared to be taken out of the Scripture it self nor yet their decision of the sence of controverted Texts And such proof must be received from a single Man § 14. Such another proof he fetcheth from the Statute 1 Eliz. c. 1. Forbidding to judge any thing Heresie but what hath been so judged by Authority of Canonical Scripture or the first four General Councils or any of them or any other General Councils Answ. As if forbidding private Heretication were the same with the Universal Soveraignty of Councils we are of the same Religion with all true Christians in the World and we are for as much Concord with all as we can attain But is Concord and Subjection all one or Contract and Government § 15. The like Inference he raiseth from a Canon 1571. forbidding any new Doctrine not agreeable to the Scripture and such as the Ancient Fathers and Bishops thence gathered Answ. And what 's this to an Universal Church Soveraignty § 16. The Church of England's Sence is better expounded Reform Leg. Eccles. c. 15. Orthodoxorum Patrum etiam authoritatem minime censemus esse contemnendam sunt enim permulta ab illis praeclare utiliter dicta Ut tamen ex eorum sententia de sacris literis judicetur non admittimus Debent enim sacrae literae nobis omnis Christianae doctrinae Regulae esse Judices Quin ipsi Patres tantum sibi deferri recusarunt saepius admonentes Lectorem ut tantisper suas admittat sententias interpretationes quoad cum sacris literis consentire eas animadverterit § 17. D. S. P. 358. Mr. B. saith The doubt is whom you will take for good Christians into your Communion But this can be no doubt when I except only the Jesuited part of the Roman and other Churches Answ. So you take in the Church of Rome which you cannot do without taking in the pretended Soveraignty Essential to it Was not that Church Papal before there were any Jesuites But hold Dr. It 's France that you are first Uniting with and they say that the Jesuites are there the Predominant part And are you against them there § 18. P. 360. He takes it ill that I suppose him to separate from the Church of England I have fully given him here my proof The Church of England took not it self for a part of an Universal humane Political Church But his Church doth and is thereby of another Political Species as a City differeth from a Kingdom I will not tire the Reader with following him any further Vain Contenders necessitate us to be over tedious § 19. I am loth here to answer the rest of his Book against our Nonconformity 1. Because I would not follow them that
singly is counted so if it be done in unlawful Assemblies And sure none can think it reasonable to ratifie the acts of Rebells And if the Society be not represented by unlawful Assemblies how can it in justice be obliged by them How can any of its Rights be disposed of by them who are not its Legal Representatives P. 513. The most natural way is by abrogating the acts of such Assemblies Therefore the Jurisdiction of the Assembly by the President is a right consequent of the Office of a President as a President and a circumstance requisite to make the Assembly it self lawful specially where no certain places or periods of times are agreed on for the keeping of any There must be some who have the power of Assembling them when they judge it convenient for the publick and who may be allowed for competent Judges of that convenience Every one is not permitted to judge of the occasion But there is none concerning whom this Power can so probably be presumed None to whom all undisposed Power does by the common Rules of all Societies so naturally Escheat as the President of the Assemblies Even in the Assemblies a Veneration is due to him for his Office above all other Members but much more so out of the Assemblies where none is in a likely way to be able to oppose him He who calls an Assembly must have some advantage over all the Members called by him that he may oblige them to convene and it is necessary to the Publick that they be obliged to meet when they are so called that is when the IVDGE of Circumstances thinks it necessary c. But there is none who can pretend to this advantage I do not say of Jurisdiction but even of Authority and Reverence above his fellow Members besides the President Besides the Power of such Assemblies expires with the Assemblies themselves so that in the intervals of Assemblies there remains no more of that Power c. But the Convening of Assemblies is an act of Authority in that very interval and therefore cannot agree to any but the President whose Authority alone can be antecedent to the meeting of the Assemblies so that if it be the right of any it must be his because none besides him is capable of it Answ. 1. Did Hosius of Corduba or Eustathius Antiochenus or Cyril Alexandr Anatolius Const. c. call the Councils of Nice Ephesus c. or had an Antecedent right to it 2. Hath no King or Parliament a right to call a Convocation in England 3. Have not K. James Jewel Crakenthorpe Buckeridge Bilson Carlton Abbot Field Andrews and other English Bishops and Divines and Chamier Sadeel Chemnisius and the rest abroad fully proved that the Emperors called the General Councils as did the Spanish and French Kings and the Emperor Provincial ones 4. Doth not every Conformist Subscribe to the Articles of Religion which say that General Councils may not be called but by the Will of Princes Though Mr. Dodwell have the plain Honesty not to be Ordained or Subscribe these English Articles Mr. Thorndike Bishop Bromhall Bishop Guning Dr. Saywell Dr. Parker c. I suppose did But let us hear him further And this is more certainly true of him who has a right to preside in Assemblies when they are convened by Virtue of his General Right to preside over the whole Society as well when Assemblies are not Convened as when they are than of him who is chosen by the particular Assemblies for their particular Occasions And he who has his Precedency not by virtue of any particular Election but for term of Life must have such a Presidency as I am speaking of Not only the Assemblies convened by him are in this regard lawful but also no Assemblies are lawful but what are called by him because there is no other way of making them lawful but the lawfulness of their Call nor any Power to Call them distinct from that of such a President Do you wonder that this Man Conformeth not Or do you not wonder that those Subscribe and are called Protestants that are of his Mind If they can answer the Articles the King and Parliament that say the King hath Power to call Synods what do they make of their Readers that obtrude such Baronian fictions on us without once attempting to answer Protestants who with all credible Historians prove it past all modest Contradiction that Emperors were the ordinary Callers of the General Councils and not the Presidents or Pope Pag. 516 517. He goeth on asserting Assemblies called without the President to be unlawful nullities and by the highest common interest to be punished so far must we think the Councils of Nice Ephesus c. to be from binding us and saith Indeed the Bishops could not renounce this Power without dissolving the Society by making the Exercise of Government unpracticable or without changing the whole frame of Government For who must have it If none had had it how could the Society be secured that Assemblies should meet if none had Power to oblige particular Members to be present at them when called If at any time no meeting were ascertained the Government would be dissolved Ans. 1. Did this reading Man never hear of the Claim of Princes to call Councils in their Dominions Did he not know where he lived Did he never read the late Act of Parliament in Scotland that asserts all Church-Power in Exteriors to be in the King Nor any of the Protestants Confessions or Divines Should I think he had quite forgotten all this or that he had the craft to take no notice of it as that which was too hot to handle 2. And was it not a piece of Wit to take it for granted that such Assemblies as he calleth the Councils are so Essential to the Church that the Government and Society is dissolved without them or without a Ruling Presidents Power to call them And the Pope must have a Power to oblige all particulars to come when he calleth them And no wonder when unless Men be Cheaters the whole Power Escheateth into the Presidents hands when the Council is dissolved which is when ever his Holiness please And long enough may you Petition him for these Church Parliaments when to call them is to surrender part of his Power Answ. 3. But what if all these Church Councils as such have no Governing Power at all over any of the particular Bishops any more than a Synod of Schoolmasters have over each others Persons and Schools but meet only by Christ's general Obligation to do all their work with greatest Prudence for Mutual Help and Concord He hath been told on both Ears oft enough that this is not only his Adversaries Judgment but such great Bishops as I have oft named yea and of Grotius his Friend when he wrote de Imp. sum Potest And where do you find this Disputant once attempt in all this begging presuming Volume to prove any
were and therefore that he should be more for them than for the Jesuites And withal that they would begin where Laud was interrupted and would attempt a Coalition or if that failed would yield to Liberty for the Popish Religion which joined with their power would soon prevail § 5. At that time Mr. Calamy and I motioned a Treaty with the Prelatists for Union and Concord with which the Earl of Manchester and the Lord Orery acquainted the King which he presently accepted as an Opportunity to quiet Men till his Absoluteness was settled He promised us that the Church Bishops should meet us in the mid-way if we would come as far as we could without Sin The Drs. that were for the nearer approach to Rome and the defenders of Grotius his design were the chief Agents Commissioned by the King to Treat with us viz. Dr. Sheldon Dr. Guning Dr. Peter Cousins Dr. Sparrow Dr. Heylin Mr. Thorndike Dr. Tho. Pierce Dr. Hinchman Dr. Lany Dr. Stern and such other but by their Power with the Lord Chancellor Hyde Dr. Morley Dr. Sheldon and Dr. Guning over-ruled all the Work When we told them how great a number of the most Godly and Loyal people of the Land would be undone for nothing by the Impositions which they seemed to resolve for and how unavoidable a Division it would cause throughout the Nation and what Encouragement Prophaneness and Popery would thence take and what mischievous Effects among the Clergy and People would unavoidably follow and how easily all this might be by them prevented and the Love and Honour of their Persons and Order hereby won Dr. Guning and others told us plainly that they had a greater party than we are to consider that must not be alienated to please us And when Dr. Bates said that abundance more of the Popish Ceremonies might be introduced by the same Reasons as were pleaded for those imposed Dr. Guning answered They must have more and not fewer And Dr. Morley told me That he had good reason to believe that most of the Roman Church on this side the Alpes that is France would have joined with us were it not for the stumbling Blocks that Calvin had laid in the way They charged us with Sedition for telling them how many would dissent and suffer and what a weakening such a Division and the Penalties that must enforce it would be to the Protestant Interest and to the Land And they all agreed save Dr. Gauden that they would not abate one Ceremony to prevent all this Yea lest they should not cast out enough of the Ministers they put in more and harder Impositions and made the Terms of Concord and Ministry such as they knew would turn out more Sheldon and others of them saying They were afraid too many would Conform and if this much would not turn them out there should be more for Enemies in the Church were more dangerous than without § 6. It is likely that the Drs. and Bishops that had been with him beyond Sea knew the King's Religion and Designs and to keep up their worldly Greatness Dominion and Wealth resolved to please him that he might please them What Religion King Charles the Second was of at his Death his Brother hath told us And what he was before his Return I marvel not that Huddleston tells us so obscurely But I had rather believe his own words and deeds than the reports or conjectures of others It was the Opinion of the wisest Papists that Liberty for all Religions with the Power of Disposing of all Offices of Government and Preferments would be enough to bring in Popery and that there was no other way And that till the King could safely declare himself for Popery his way was to do all as a Protestant that might advantage them Especially to divide and break the Protestants and root out those of them who were most unreconcileable to Rome and to engage the other to persecute and destroy them that it might not be doneas by the Papists but they might seem their Fellow-Dissenters and might come whenever the Necessity of others should open the Door The King had the Choice of the Bishops and Deans and other Church Preferments and of the Masters of Colleges and of the Judges and other Civil Powers and Honours Accordingly he made those Bishops Deans Masters of Colleges c. who were known to be the most obedient to his Will and the greatest Enemies to those called Puritans and those that Philanax the Papist called Protestants of Sincerity And by the help of the Lord Chancellor Morley Sheldon and the rest got the mastery of all the Dependent Clergy when it was seen that all their preferments came much by their Wills And that those called Puritans and Presbyterians might end with that Generation they laboured to place all the Students in the Universities under such as would possess them with the greatest contempt and hatred of those men and to perswade them that all that Conformed not to all their Oaths Covenants and Impositions were but a pack of Fanaticks Schismaticks and Rebels And by their great Industry the Universities Dignities and Clergy in most Power were much thus constituted And the Nonconformists being men who were noted for more seriousness in Religion than the common sort of men and accordingly for a more serious way of Praying Preaching Discoursing and Living than the Multitude of Hypocrites that are Religious but as far as pleaseth their Bellies their Purses and their Masters it unhappily fell out that the doors of Preferment being open to those that had no Scruple of Conscience against any of the imposed Covenants or Practices the main Body of those that had truly no Religion became an engaged Party against the Nonconformists and took the powerful Bishops for their Captains and so Prelacy and Hypocrisie and Prophaneness united their Interests and became the strength of one another And this is become the fatal Odium of Prelacy among the most Religious of the Land and I fear will either finally root it out or a Worldly Prelacy confederating first with the Prophane and after with the Papists will root out from the Publick Churches true serious Religion § 7. From first to last King Charles shewed his own Judgment I. In his Declaration for Toleration at Breda II. When he granted us his Declaration about Ecclesiastical Affairs which was to try whether we would consent to a commoner Toleration In the Conclusion of the Day the distaste fell on me The Lord Chancellor drew out another Paper desiring a Liberty of Religion for all others that lived peaceably And said He knew not what to think of it himself but desired the Company to speak their Minds Neither Lords or Bishops or any of their Drs. said a word to it After twice or thrice asking no one answered Dr. Wallis standing next me said I pray thee say nothing It is an odious Business I forbore till I perceived that they would take our Silence for Consent
Persecuting Snares and against the Coalition of English Protestants on any possible healing Terms as ever and as fiercely seek the Continuance of our Slavery and Silence Chap. XXII How they have been stopt and in â—hat Danger we are yet of those that are for a Forreign Jurisdiction § 1. THe continual Endeavours of Parliaments to Suppress all the Relicts and Advantages of Popery in Queen Elizabeths and King James Days long kept this Papal inclination from appearing And when Laud raised it up and King James and Buckingham Countenanced it to promote first the Spanish and after the French Marriage the Articles of Liberty for Popery Consented to by King James and after Ratified by King Charles greatly Distasted the Nobility and Gentry and the People much more so that the Kings and Parliaments were never after easy to each other till King Charles II. got a Parliament fitted to his turn § 2. The new raised Impositions of King Charles I. and Laud first Exasperated the old conformable Clergy by â—uspending and vexing them for not reading the Book for Sports on the Lords Days and for Preaching twice a Day and by Altars and Bowing and other Innovations And the Severities against Burton Prin and Bastwick made a murmuring noise And the driving many hundred Families of Godly Men out of the Land much more And the newly Altered and Imposed Liturgy Exasperated the Scots who were Encouraged by the English Discontents Yet all this had done the less had not the same Church-Innovaters been against Parliaments and kept them out because Parliaments were against them And had they not Preached for and promoted the Kings power to Raise Taxes without a Parliament But this leavened the Nation with an Averseness to the Frenchified Reconcilers And the Scots knowing all this began Resistance which proceeded to a Mutual diffidence of King and People which brought forth after a Civil-War § 3. While the King and Parliament were Labouring under the Mortal Disease of mutual distrust the Irish by an Insurrection Murdered most Barbarously two hundred thousand Protestants just the day Twelmonth before Edghil Fight Dublin escaped And this Horrid Cruelty hastened the War in England and made Popery more odious than ever it was before and rendered the French Conciliators more distasted § 4. The Conciliators having the chief Ecclesiastical Power under King Charles I. and having too much Modelled the Churches and Universities to their Minds the Parliament began a Reformation before the War and carryed it on after and cast out many Hundred for Insufficiency through gross ignorance and for Drunkenness and Vicious Lives And some for being against the Parliament and prospering till Cromwell cast them out and Cromwell going much further against Prelatical Tyranny and an ignorant Vicious Ministry than they thirteen or fourteen or fifteen years time not only stopt the French design of Coalition but also wore out the chief designers and promoters of it To which the Death of Laud with all the Accusations against him struck deep of which see Prins Introductions and his Canterburies Tryal And many old Conformists which was all the Westminster Assembly of Divines saving eight were the Men that chose rather to put down the English Prelacy than to run the hazard of the change of Civil Government and Introduction of Popery So that both Popery and the favorers of it seemed quite cast out in England But Cromwell and his Armies Usurpation and Treasons so Exasperated the two Kingdoms both Episcopal and Presbyterians that after his Death his Army having cast themselves and the Land into Confusion they brought in King Charles II. who by his Declaration from Breda and his Treaty in 61 with the Nonconformists and his Declaration 1662. called Bristols and by his Treaty with us by the Lord Keeper Bridgman and by his Declaration for Toleration still laboured so Strenuously to give Popery a Toleration that discerning Men were satisfied that he was then of the Religion that he dyed in if he had any or at least had engaged himself to introduce it To which ends 1. The dividing of the Protestants 2. The Ejecting Silencing Ruining Imprisoning or Banishing those of them that were most unreconcileable to Popery 3. The keeping such out by new Impositions of Oaths Subscriptions Professions and Practices were found to be the fittest means 4. To which was added the Exasperating the long Parliament of Men before Exasperated against them 5. And the Declaring and Swearing the People against the Lawfulness of any Military Defence of Parliament or Kingdom against any Commissioned by the King 6. And to bring all those that scrupled such Oaths under the odious Name of Nonconforming Rebels Though they were all against Defensive War by any private Men or Faction or for any Cause less than the saving of the Kingdom from apparent Ruine Subversion or Alienation 7. To which was added the taking away of all Legislative Power from Parliaments and appropriating it only to the King the strenuous Endeavour of Bishop Morley's last Book against me and of many others 8. Which were all thought an unresistible force while the King of whatever Religion had the choice of all the Bishops Deans and Dignitaries and consequently of that called The Church of England 9. And also the choice of Judges and the making of Lords 10. And the changing of Corporation Charters § 5. To these uses that we may not accuse the Innocent it was comparatively but a few men that were the visible prime Instruments besides the non-appearing Jesuits or other Papists That is Chancellor Hide Dr. Sheldon Dr. Morley Dr. Guning whom not only Dr. Hinchman Dr. Cousins Dr. Lany Dr. Sterne and several others followed ex animo but also most of the worldly sequacious part of the Clergy and Laity for Interest and Preferment sake when they saw that the Interest of Sheldon and Morley with the Chancellor was a great and necessary means of obtaining their desires § 6. But the bringing us to French Popery by the Grotian way proved so slow by many stops that it hath by God's Mercy been hitherto much frustrate and prevented For the King must not make professed Papists to be Bishops Deans and Convocation Men lest the notoriety of the Design should raise unconquerable Offence and Opposition The Name of Popery was to be renounced even by those that were for a Foreign Jurisdiction And a Government like that of the French Church must be said to be no Popery but only that which made the Pope Arbitrary or Supereminent above Councils And the very retaining of the Name of Popery in their Renunciation spoil'd their Game And specially being necessitated to avoid Suspicion to make divers firm Protestants Bishops Deans and Judges Yet the slow way of K. Ch. II. was like to have been the surest could their Patience have held out § 7. But God used K. James II. as the great Instrument of frustrating all the Plot till now by his and his Instigaters Impatience of this delay and confidence
this Land 6. It is contrary to the subscribed 39 Articles that tell us of the Errors and Fallibility of Councils 7. It is contrary to the Canons especially those of 1640. that determined Kingly Power to be of God's Institution 8. It is contrary to all the Writers and Fighters that were against Parliaments resisting the King Michael Hudson hath most strongly wrote against it Dr. Hammond against John Goodwin hath proved that the People have neither ruling Authority to Vse nor to Give How far then were Bishop Morley and such others from your Mind who write that the Parliament themselves have no Essential part in Legislation but only to prepare Matter which the King only maketh to be a Law All the Clergy have subscribed to the King 's unresistible Power and a Law made to that purpose by the Parliament that setled your Conformity and Church 9. Do you take the Major part of your Congregation to be your Governours Or the Major part of the Diocess to Rule the Diocesane Or are these no Societies 10. Is it not contrary to the Oath of Canonical Obedience 11. Are our Universities of this Mind when Oxford burnt my Political Aphorisms and Dr. Whitbye's Book and Mr. I. Humfrey's as derogating from the Regal Power when yet I abhord such a derogation as your Majority of the Society 12. In a word it is destructive of all Government For the truth is that Democracy in a large Kingdom is an Impossibility The People cannot all meet to try who hath the Major Vote They can but choose their Governours though called Representatives And that is an Aristocracy For to choose Governours is not to Govern Even Rome was not a true Democracy For the People had but a Negative part in Legislation S. P. Q. R. conjunct having the Supremacy And what were the People of one City to the whole Empire which was the Politick Body But how shall we know who constitute this Voting Society which you call the Church I know that the Papists appropriate that title to the Clergy But when it cometh to Practice in Councils or out how small a part have any but the Bishops Our Canons condemn those who deny the Convocation to be the Representative Church Who are the real Church which they represent Do they represent the Laity Or are they none of the Church How can they represent those that never choose them Patrons choose the Incumbents and the People choose neither Bishops Deans Arch-deacons or Proctors Is it the King and Parliament that they represent I confess the King that chooseth Bishops may most plausibly be pretended to be represented by them But are they indeed his Rulers and Lawgivers and he their Subject Was Moses so to Aaron or Solomon to Abiathar The King chooseth Justices and Constables mediately but not to be his Governours but his Ministers Or is the King and Parliament no Part of the Church of England Say so then that we may understand you But if indeed you confess the Laity 〈◊〉 be of this Voting Church whose Major part by Nature Reason and the Consent of all the World must Govern us I beseech you help us at last after all our lost importunity to know which of the Laity it is Is it all that are in the Parishes I doubt then that the Atheists Papists Sadduces Deists Hobbists Ignorant Irreligious Debauchees and Lads will be our Rulers Is it only Communicants Then the Parish Priest of one place will have a Church of one sort and another of another sort And how knoweth he in great Parishes who are his Communicants when he knoweth not who or what they are or whence they come nor whether ever they came before The Law is the likest test which obligeth all to Communicate that will have a License to sell Ale or Wine or that will not lie in Jail a place that few Love and many would avoid at so cheap a rate as eating a bit of Bread and drinking a little Wine And shall the Majority of these be Rulers of Kings Bishops and Pastors But what if you mean but the Major Vote of Bishops which it seems our Lower House of Convocation mean not Verily Sir you must not too sharply blame the King of England Sweden Denmark c. if they be loth to be Subjects in so great a Matter as their Religion to the Clergy of Italy France Spain Poland Germany Moscovy Constantinople and Asia Africa c. while we know what Power their own Princes have over them And do not we know that there is no one common Language which they can use to understand one another as a College Even of our great Learned Schoolmen few understood Greek And few of the Greeks understand Latin or true Greek either And few Abassines Armenians Syrians Moscovites c. understand either If Christ hath been so defective a Legislator as to leave us to a necessity of Universal Humane Legislation O let us not have them made by such Babel Builders Let us have those that can meet together in less than an Age whether their Princes will or no and can learn in an Age to speak to one another Or if you first prove that Mortal Men are capable of such an Universal Government try it first on Kings and settle one King or Senate of Kings to Rule all the World by Legislation and Judgment For verily more of Sword-Government may be done per alios than of Priestly Government else you may appoint Presbyters to Ordain and Lay-men to celebrate the Sacraments And if we must have a Vice-Christ let him be a Monarch that we may know where to find him and not a Chimera called a Collective Person or College of Bishops Or at least if it must be Patriarchs let us know who shall make them and where they are and what we shall now do when of five so called Four are called Schismaticks and are under the Turk Christ hath instituted National Church Politie Prove more if you can VI. And I should rejoyce if you could prove what you affirm that the Major part of the Church even in Rites and Discipline is guided by the Spirit of God 1. It was not so in necessary Doctrine in the Arians reign 2. If it be so at this day England is Schismatical 3. If it be not always so in General Councils as the Articles of our Church say how much less in the diffusive Body of People or Clergy 4. It is not so in any one Kingdom or National Church yet known in the World no not the World And what is the whole but the Parts Conjunct Dr. Dillingham in a late Book against Popery concludeth that there was never yet any Kingdom known where the tenth part were truly Godly And I think you take the Church of England to be the best in the World And how many Thousands would rejoyce if you could prove that the Major part even of their Teachers were guided by the Spirit of God And is it better with
of the Matter 17. That the Church ever held it unlawful for a whole Kingdom to defend it self against a Prince that would deliver up half the Government to a Foreiner and force them to a Religion which requireth them to be Damned or to Dye When the Clergy and Church at Jerusalem Alexandria Antioch Rome c. did so oft by force and Blood resist even Christian Emperors such as Theodosius II. Zeno Anastasius and many others 18. That all the Churches held it lawful to Swear and Covenant never to endeavour any Amendment or Alteration of any such as the forementioned Church Government If all these things be contrary to the constant judgment or practice of the Church Quaere whether Dr. Beveridge and his Approvers pronounce not the Church of England Schismatical as so far separated from the Church Universal But again I conclude O! What must the Christian World suffer even by Learned and I hope pious Doctors I. Because they will not distinguish National or Imperial Vniversality of Church and Councils from those of the whole World II. Nor Communion from Regiment nor Contracts from Laws nor a Regent Excommunication from a Renunciation of Communion by Equals III. Nor Divine Obligations to Concord and human demands of obeying Usurpers or the hurtful Agreements of an injurious Majority of equal Votes IV. And by their Deposing Christian Kings and Magistrates from their Sacred Power over Bishops in Church-Government and for Mens Souls as if they were made only for the base things of the World and Flesh and Priests only were trusted with Religion and Souls And Kings were not Heads of National Churches V. And their shameless calling them Adversaries to Episcopacy that would have one Hundred Bishops for one and are for the old three sorts Episcopi Gregis Episcopi praesides and Arch-Bishops and calling those the Episcopal part that put down all the Bishops in a Diocess save one As for your self I profess to be so far from Censuring any thing of you save these Mistakes that as I have long so I do still Love and Honour you as a Man fearing God and of a good and blameless Conversation as far as ever I Credibly heard And I thought the like of Bishop Guning though as it is with many Religious Papists his Opinions more prevailed against his Charity for that Mischievous hurtfulness in which he served the Subtilty of Sheldon and the fierceness of Morley and the Designs of Papal Courtiers But I hear that your Piety and Charity prevaileth against the evil tendency of your mistaken Doctrine Though Mr. Thorndike threaten England unless they Reform the Oath of Supremacy I confess I wish it restored and am Displeased with those Scots that have causelesly quarrelled with it and so helpt to open a Door to a Foreign Jurisdiction which the Kingdom is Sworn against Since the writing of all beforegoing I first read your two great Volumes of Canons and your Answer to Dallaeus In the Prolegomena of the first to my Grief I find you more express for an Universal Legislative Power and Foreign Jurisdiction than in your Sermon And yet not at all telling us where to have access to this Universal Soveraignty for Judicature out of the times of General Councils nor how to know but by believing your bare word what Councils are our Universal obliging Laws when you confess the vast difference of the Eastern and Western numbers nor how to know what our Religion is while we know not what be our Laws Nor how to know whether the Church be extinct when it hath no human Head by the Cessation of such Councils nor who must call them nor whence nor what is their Constitutive Matter only you say they must be called out of all the Christian World But need not all be there And will a Call make a General Council if the Men come not And can they come from all the Dominions of the Abassines Armenians Turks Persians Muscovites c. And who hath right to call them hath the Pope Or our Emperors or Kings what power hath he over all other Princes Subjects You confess they were called out of the Imperial Provinces And how few if any other Names are Subscribed But I am sorry that you still so contrary to all Evidence take National or Imperial Universality for Terrestrial Universality of Church and Councils I beseech you if we must be Papists let us be of the more reasonable sort that know where to find a Papal Monarch or Vice-Christ and not sent to seek a Church-Parliament Universal or Universal Aristocratical College that is no where extant in the World nor can be especially now the five Patriarchs are what and where they are How much more Rational to be Governed by the Pope as Patriarch of the West only till we can find out the Aristocratical Head But since the Empire was turned into many Kingdoms who can prove that those many must have all one Human Head But I am yet more sorry that you joyn with Hildebrand in making Princes to be but for the Body and Civil Peace and Bishops and Priests to be the Church and for the Soul Which God willing as I have oft done I shall fullier Confute in a Treatise for true National Churches proving that Christ hath made no Higher Visible Humane Church Power or Form And that Christian Kings are as Sacred Persons and Ministers of Christ as Bishops and Superior Heads of National Churches though the Power of the Keys belong only to the Clergy And that a true National Church is but a Christian Kingdom as such the King being the Head and Confederate Pastors and Churches the Subject Body The Second Part. The Stating of the Controversie and full Confutation of the Pretences for a Foreign Jurisdiction The CONTENTS CHap. I. The clear stating of the Controversie and Confutation of the Pretenders In 60 Propositions proving it a perjurious alteration of Government c. Ch. II. Why Parliaments and the Church of England before Bishop Laud were so much against such a Coalition with the Papal Church Ch. III. The said Coalition is not the way to Catholick Union Ch. IV. The Deceits that are pleaded for an Universal Humane Soveraignty Ch. V. A Foreign Jurisdiction by College or Counsels unmaskt Ch. VI. The Grand Consequential Case Whether it be lawful for Presbyters to Swear or Profess Obedience to those Bishops who profess Subjection to a Foreign Jurisdiction or for the people to own them Ch. VII Of the second part of the design to bring the Papists to our Churches as in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's days Ch. VIII Why it will not serve for a Coalition for the Papists to abate their last 400 years corruptions as Archbishop Bromhall maintaineth Ch. IX Whether the instance of the Apostles Church Government prove an Universal Soveraignty in man Ch. X. Many Questions about Councils to be resolved before we can take them for an Universal Aristocracy Ch. XI A Breviate of both the Aristocratical
Catholick Church and makes that the Body of the Pope which should be but the Body of Christ. 17. It is a certain means of Schism while thereby they separate that humane Society of the Usurper from all the Church that will own no Head but Christ. 18. This Idol Head or Vice-Christ in plain Pride setting up himself as the Governour of the World and setting the World together by the Ears about his Title by Usurping the Government over them must needs make it a hard question at least to Christians whether this Idol be not the Antichrist that is the Pro-Christ while he makes himself the Vice-Christ And especially when it 's considered what men abundance of the Popes have been and how much they have done against the Doctrine Worship Discipline and faithful Servants of Christ. 19. They have no way to give the World any satisfactory certainty who is Pope and who not How then can the World be ruled by him 1. They cannot tell whether the Electors or Consecrators be they that necessarily give him his Power or make him Pope 2. If it be the Electors they cannot tell us who those must be If any will serve the Turk may make a Pope And then ten sort of Electors may make ten Popes If it be tied to any one sort of Men the Papacy hath long been extinct for in some Ages the People of Rome chose with the City Clergy In some Ages the Neighbour Bishops and People chose In some the Emperors In some Cardinals And sometimes General Councils If God had appointed one Vnifying Head to his Church he would have determined who should choose him and told us how to know him If it be Consecration that maketh him Pope God would have authorized some to Consecrate him If any will serve some may Consecrate one and some another and some a third Every one may have three Bishops If it must be both a just Election and Consecration the uncertainty will be the greater when neither of them is certain And none can give Power but they that have it to give But Electors and Consecraters being Inferiors have none to give If they say that God only giveth the Power and the Electors do but choose the Receiver and the Consecrators invest him I answer It is so indeed in the true Colâ—ation of Church-offices and Power Whether Mr. Dodwell and such others will or not But that 's here all one as to our uncertainty Who is the Man 2. And this is no feigned case when in such a multitude of Schisms there have been two or three Popes at once and once six alive at once that were or had been Popes And these made Bishops and Cardinals and those Bishops made Priests and no man yet knows which of them if either had the right 3. And is it the Name of a Roman Bishop or the Thing that is necessary to the being of an Universal Pastor If the Name a Hundred may be so called And bare Names give not so great Power If the Thing how were those Bishops of Rome that divers Score Years did dwell in France and never did any Bishop's Work at Rome nor had Rome's Consent Might not one in Armenia have been as truly called the Bishop of Rome But if it be Possession that gives validity to the claim then the strongest hath the best title And they that have by turns driven out each other were all true Popes And who was Possessor when one was at Rome and another that carried it at last at Avignion or in Germany 20. Tying an Unifying Head of all the Church on Earth to Rome doth leave it in the Power of any Infidel or Arian that can get Rome to set a Head of the Christian Religion on the Church that is To un-church it destroy it or corrupt it For all that know the World know how ordinarily the Present Powers can prevail with their Subjects to Elect whom they please As Theodoricus and other Arians at Rome have done And if the Turk should conquer Rome how easily could he keep them from having any Bishop at all and so the Church were dead as headless 21. Yea Rome hath long been without any true Bishop And the Church is no Church without it's Constitutive Head In divers times of Wars Desolations and Persecutions yea long by the Disagreement of the Electors and many ages by the nullity of uncapable Popes some set up by Whores and Tyrants and some deposed by General Councils as Hereticks and yet continuing as Eugen. 4. And long much of Italy it self deposed the Roman Bishop and set up a Patriarch at Aquileia and took him for their Head 22. Yea it is certain by their Doctrine of necessary uninterrupted Succession that there is now no Pope nor ever can be For when so many false Elections Incapacities by Simony Heresie Schism Infidelity Councils Depositions have interrupted the Succession it can never by their way be restored 23. By all the Canons every City should choose their own Bishop And so Rome oft a Nest of Wickedness would be made the Mistriss or Head of all the World when as Cosmography is not so necessary to Christianity that all the World should be bound ever to know that there is such a place as Rome in the World And it were a strange thing that God should make it necessary to Salvation for them at the Antipodes and all the Earth to obey one City and him that they elect Was it ignorance or craft in Pope Zachary to Excommunicate one for saying there were Antipodes If he knew of no Men on the other side of the Earth he was unlike to Govern them If he perswaded Men that one half of the Earth was uninhabited that he might not be known to be no Governor of them it was vain Craft But it 's liker it was Ignorance He that would have more Proof may find enough in Dr. Barrow XXVIII The Pope by this Claim of Universal Government claimeth so much Power unjustly from and over all Princes on Earth as obligeth them all to take him for a Publick Enemy as one would do that should claim an Universal Monarchy and tell them on pain of Deposition they must be all his Subjects as the Pope doth on pain of Excommunication Deposition and Damnation None ever had the madness to dream of an Universal Schoolmaster or Physicion Gregory long ago made the claim of Universal Bishop to be a mark of Antichrist XXIX Christ bindeth all Christians to live in Communion as Saints as making up one Body Politick of a transcendent Species of which Christ is the Supreme Governor or Head This therefore is none of the Controversie between us All Christians are agreed that as many Members of different shape use and honour make up one Natural Body so do Christians that differ in Gifts Office and Grace make up one Body of Christ. And as every Member contributeth to the good of the whole Body so must every Christian to the good of
of the Vnity of the Catholick Church As if it were Vnified by One Humane Political Soveraignty Monarchical or Aristocratical Pope or Universal Council which hath Power of Governing all Christians on Earth by Universal Legislation and Judicature and not only by Christ who indeed is its only Universal Governour II. By extolling Monarchy as the best means of Unity and so inferring the Papal Monarchy so did Carolus Boverius to our late King Charles in Spain As if Princes were so weak as not to distinguish a National and a Vniversal Monarchy Let them try this Argument with any Papist King on Earth Monarchy is the best Government Ergo there should be One Monarch of all the Earth whose Subject you and all other Kings must be and see whether they will be so fooled into Subjection III. By dreaming of such a difference between Civil Government and Church Government that though no man in his wits pleads for one Humane King or Senate to Govern the whole Earth by the Sword yet it is our Religion to be for and under One Soveraign Church Governour Pope or Senate of all the Earth whereas he is unfit to Govern one Church who knoweth not that It is more impossible for the whole Earth to be Governed by One Church Soveraign Pope or Council than by one King or Parliament by the Sword IV. By confounding the Universal Roman Empire and Church and the Vniversal World and dreaming that what is said of the first was said of the last and when the Church is called Catholick or Universal and Councils General only as to the Roman Empire they would perswade men that it 's meant of all the World V. By pleading that Possession which Pope and Patriarchs and Councils had in the Empire as if it obliged the same Countries to them when they are fallen under other Princes And by pleading to the same Ends all the Possession which Popes or Patriarchs or Councils have got by deceiving any Nations of the World VI. By mistaking the Nature and Extent of the Pastoral Office because as every Christian so every Pastor is related to the Universal Church therefore they gather that there is one College or Council consisting of all Bishops in the World the Pope being President who as an Aristocracy must soveraignly Govern all the Christian World by Legislation and Judgment As if because Physicions are Licensed to Practice any where in the Land as they are called therefore they might gather into a General Council and Command all the Land to obey them as Law givers in all Matters of Health and Physick and might invade the Hospitals at their pleasure And so all the Churches and Church Affairs on Earth must be governed by Priests of Foreign Lands VII By first mistaking and then falsly claiming Apostolical Power Because Christ chose a few whom he first personally taught his Will and then endowed with the Gift of Infallibility by his Spirit to Preach first and Record after his Doctrine and Laws to oblige all the World therefore they pretend that ordinary Bishops who had no such Spirit Office or Commission may also make Laws to bind all the World And when every single Apostle had this Office Power and Spirit but they yet a while lived together at Jerusalem till their dispersion they pretend that at Jerusalem they were a General Council and that all Bishops therefore may Govern as a General Council whereas the Apostles Mission was Indefinite and not Universal else they had sinned in not going into all the World And it was easie to Guide the Universal Church while it was almost all at Jerusalem or near them And their Office as to Legislation differeth from common Pastors as Moses the Legislator's did from the Priests who were but to govern by his Laws and not to make more VIII By pretending a necessity of Judging and Ending Controversies and therefore of having one deciding Judge or Judicature for all the World As if any would be so mad as ever to expect that all Controversies about the Mysteries of Supernatural Revelation and the unseen World should be ended in this Life As if Ignorance would be without Errour And is he a Man that knoweth not how little it is that the wisest know and how much Ignorance all Mankind is guilty of Have these Pretenders yet ended Controversies Are there not many Horse-Loads of Volumes of Controversies among themselves Have they yet written any Infallible or Determining Commentary on the Bible Did not St. Paul write Rom. 14. 15 c. for bearing with tolerable Differences Is it not the Great Wisdom and Mercy of God to lay mens Salvation upon a few plain things though a multitude besides remain as Controversies Christ will decide them all at the Great approaching Judgment And is there any on Earth that can decide them all that hath either so great Knowledge or so Universal a decisive Power Why is the Christian World these Thousand or Twelve hundred Years divided into Greeks Armenians Nestorians Jacobites Papists Protestants c. if there be a Humane Judicature to End all Controversies And are such Popes as reigned from a Thousand to Fifteen hundred and such Bishops as made up their Councils Men of Ignorance and Vice fit to end all Controversies on Earth IX In order to these Ends they make a great cry of the Sects and Divisions which are among Protestants to draw men that love Unity to come for it to the Church of Rome And first they impudently falsifie the History of the Matter of Fact and perswade Men that the Differences among Protestants are ten times greater than they are They have thus pleaded it to my face when I had a Pastoral Charge at Kidderminster where we were all of one Religion and lived in love and Peace and had not one separating Assembly in a great Town and Parish And where to this day they live in Piety Love and Peace and I hear not of one person that for any difference breaketh this bond of brotherly love and liveth in any opposition to the rest Yet Strangers are told that we are mad in religious Sects and Strife Indeed zealous people that account all the Matters of the World but trifles in Comparison of things everlasting do make a greater Matter of them than men of no Religion do If among them one or two turn to any dangerous Sect or Course it stirs up much censure and opposition when in undisciplined Churches corrupted like the common World multitudes in a Parish may abstain from Sacraments and in Coffee-Houses or at Visits familiarly talk against the Immortality of the Soul and against the Scripture and all serious Religion and it maketh no great noise An Act of Fornication once in many Years among chast religious persons is a Scandal scarce ever to be expiated when among known Stews it 's little talkt of Weeds are not suffered in a Garden But in the Commons who pulls them up And what wonder if they strive most about
and Jesus Christ which I add because some think they may lawfully be subject to those Bishops that are subjected only to Universal Councils or Church Parliaments so they do but disclaim the Roman Papacy X. Though some may think that subjection to a pretended Universal Council may stand with Loyalty to Christ because such a Council is a Chimera or Non Ens and never will be in the World and so can do no harm as one may be true to the King who yet Sweareth Obedience to an Assembly of Mortal Angels yet the case is otherwise For 1. These Men that profess Subjection to Councils cannot be supposed to take such Councils for Chimera's or things impossible without being taken for mad Men. Therefore it is not a true General Council but something possible that they mean And they use to say themselves or as General as can be well had So that such a one as that at Trent or as they will call General as they do the old Imperial Councils will serve their turn 2. And let them disclaim Popery never so loudly they mean still that the Pope must be the ordinary Caller and President of these Councils and the Chief Patriarch and Principium Vnitatis Vniversalis And so all will come but to a limited Pope instead of an Absolute One And is he not a Monarch though he must Rule by Law For they intend not that there be no Catholick Church all the time that there are no Councils and therefore they intend some Unifying Constitutive Executive Supreme XI Obj. But if we may not own a Bishop that subjecteth himself to the Pope or other Foreign Vsurper of Vniversal Government then if the King be a Papist it will follow that we must not be subject to him Which all Protestants confess to be false Ergo so is the Antecedent as of Bishops Ans. I deny the Consequence speaking only of such a Kings Religion Nero was a Heathen and it was lawful for Christians to be subject to him for Conscience sake But it was not lawful to subject themselves to Heathen Bishops a contradiction A Heathen may be Gods Minister to preserve the common Peace and Execute the Laws of God in Nature and the Just Subordinate Laws But the Office of a Bishop consisteth in another matter viz. In teaching the true Doctrine and Laws of Christ and guiding the Church by them and keeping out all that is against them And therefore no other man can be a Bishop that doth not this as to the Essentials If the King command us to be Papists we must disobey him But if he command us to do things good and lawful we must obey True Christianity is Essential to a Bishops Office but not to a Kings as King But if any put the Question Whether a Ruler of a Protestant Kingdom who taketh himself bound by the Laterane or other Council on pain of Damnation to destroy all his Kingdom that will not forsake their Religion be Publicus Hostis And whether by the Law of Nature every Nation have a right of self-defence against open Enemies I meddle with no such Cases as these XII To conclude I advise all Christians to live peaceably in their places but to take care whom they trust with the Pastoral Conduct of their Souls and not to be seduced to enter into a Confederacy against Christs Prerogative by any pretences of Humane Authority or Catholick Vnity which really are against Divine Authority and the true Unity of the Church in Christ For a thousand years experience even by our Bishops confession who own but the Six first Councils have told us by the sad confusions of the Christian World that such Pretenders to Unity in a Humane Universal Soveraignty have but caused divisions and offences contrary to the Apostolical Doctrine not serving Christ but their own bellies and by good words and fair speeches deceived the hearts of the simple Our Unity consisteth in One Head Jesus Christ One God one Body or Church of Christ one Faith one Baptism one Hope one Gospel and Universal Law of Christ and that we live in Love and Peace and Order in Learning and in Worshipping God in several Congregations under their respective Guides as consenting Volunteers and that the conjunction of such under Christian Kings makes Christian Kingdoms where by the Counsels of Pastors in their own Dominions they may keep that Church-Peace and external Order which is left to the trust of their determination and that in cases of need the Counsel and Help of Foreign Churches be desired and that Communion in Christianity be professed with all the true Christian World and that we wait for perfect Unity in Heaven But that Princes and Kingdoms be not brought under a Foreign Jurisdiction specially if pretended Universal instead of Foreign Counsel Communion Peace and Aid Chap. VII Of the second Part of the Design to bring the Papists into our Communion as they were in the beginning of Queen Elizabeth's Reign § 1. Dr. Heylin saith That this was much of A. Bishop Laud's design and that it was in order to this that he made the Changes which he made And Dr. Burnet saith That even Queen Elizabeth thought that if she could some how bring all her Subjects into one Communion tho' of different Opinions in one Age they would come to be of one mind And therefore she was desirous to have kept up Images and other such things in the Churches till the reasons and importunity of some Divines prevailed with her § 2. If this be done it must be either by the Papists turning Protestants or the Protestants turning Papists or by meeting in some third State of Religion between both or by continuing in the same Church-Communion without change of their Religion § 3. I. If the Papists come into our Churches by Conversion it is not then Papists but Protestants that come in There is no true Protestant that is not earnestly desirous of this But bare coming in to our Churches and Communion is not a renunciation of Popery § 4. II. That the Protestants should turn Papists for Union is not openly pleaded for by them that we have to do with The name of Papists they earnestly disown § 5. III. If it must be by meeting in some middle way it must be by a change in the Papists or by a change in the Protestants or both 1. If the Papists change any thing of theirs it must be either the Essentials of Popery or also the grosser errours and sins which are its most corrupt Integral part or only some mutable Accidents or lesser faults and errours 1. If the Papists hold still that there ought to be one Universal Soveraign Power of Legislation and Judgment under Christ on Earth and that either the Pope himself with a General Council or a Council where the Pope is President and Principium Vnitatis is this Soveraign this is the Essence of Popery continued 2. If the Papists should quâ—t this Universal Soveraignty and yet