the severity of our Lawes or the rigour of our Princes since the reformation a motive to his revolt from our Church Surely the Inquisition was quite out of his mind but I meddle not with forrein affaires He might have considered that more Protestants suffered death in the short Raign of Queen Mary Men Women and Children then Roman Catholicks in all the longer Raignes of all our Princes since the Reformation put together The former by fire and faggot a cruel lingring torment ut sentirent se mori that they might feel themselves to die by degrees The other by the gibbet with some opprobious circumstances to render their sufferings more exemplary to others The former meerly and immediately for Religion because they would not be Roman Catholicks without any the least praetext of the violation of any political Law The latter not meerly and immediately for Religion because they were Roman Catholicks for many known Roman Catholicks in England have lived and dyed in greater plenty and power and reputation in every princes raign since the Reformation then an English Protestant could live among the Irish Roman Catholicks since their insurrection If a subject was taken at Masse it self in England which was very rare it was but a pecuniary mulct No stranger was ever questioned about his religion I may not here omit King Iames his affirmation That no man in his Raign or in the Raign of his predecessor Queen Elizabeth did suffer death for conscience sake or Religion But they suffered for the violation of civil Lawes as either for not acknowledging the political Supremacy of the King in Ecclesiastical causes over Ecclesiastical persons which is all that we assert which the Roman Catholicks themselves in Henry the Eighth's daies did maintain as much or perhaps more then we We want not the consent of their own Schooles or the concurrent practise of Kings and Parliaments of their own communion As Sancta Clara doth confesse Valde multi doctores c. very many Doctours do hold that for the publick benefit of the Commonwealth Princes have Iurisdiction in many causes otherwise being of Ecclesiastical cognisance by positive Divine Law and by the Law of Nature And though himself seem rather to adhere to others who ascribe unto them meerly a Civil power yet he acknowledgeth with the stream of Schoolmen that by their Soveraign Office by accident and indirectly for the defence of the Common-wealth and the preservation of publick Justice and peace they have great power over Ecclesiastical persons in Ecclesiastical causes in many cases As they may command Bishops to dispose their spiritual affaires to the peace of the Common-wealth They may remove the froward from their offices They may defend the oppressed Clergy from the unjust oppressions of Ecclesiastical Iudges c. which he confesseth to be as much as our Article setteth forth What the practise of other Kings and Princes is herein we shall see more fully when I come to handle my fifth Proposition Or else for returning into the Kingdome so qualified with forbidden orders as the Lawes of the Land do not allow The State of Venice doth not the Kingdom of France hath not abhorred from the like Lawes Or lastly for attempting to seduce some of the Kings Subjects from the Religion established in the Land In all these cases besides religion there is something of Election He that loves Danger doth often perish in it The truth is this An hard Knott must have an heavy Mall Dangerous and bloody positions and practises produce severe lawes No Kingdom is destitute of necessary remedies for its own conservation If all were of my mind as I believe many are I could wish that all Seditious Opinions and over rigorous statutes with the memory of them were buried together in perpetual oblivion I hold him scarce a good Christian that would not cast on one spade full of earth towards their interrement Pardon this digression if it be one Cruelty is a Symptome of Schisme Secondly I answer that though the Romanists could be contented to brand their own friends for the principall Schismaticks yet they shall never be able to prove us accessaries or fasten the same Crime upon us who found the separation made to our hands who never had any thing to do with Rome who never ought them any Service but the reciprocall duty of love who never did any act to oblige us to them or to disoblige us from them indeed it were something if they could produce a patent from Heaven of the Popes Vicariate Generall under Christ over all Christians But that we know they can never do Or but so much as an old Canon of a generall Councel that did subject us to their Jurisdiction So as the same were neither lawfully revoked nor their power forfeited by abuse nor quitted by themselves untill then they may withdraw their charge of Schisme Nay yet more though they could justifie their pretended title yet we acting nothing but preserving all things in the same condition we found them are not censurable as formal Schismaticks whilest we erre invincibly or but probably and are implicitely prepared in our minds to obey all our just Superiours so far as by law we are bound whensoever we shall be able to understand their right There have been many Schismes in the Roman Church it self Sometimes two Popes sometimes three Popes at a time One Kingdome sâ—bmitted to one this to another that to a third every one believing him to whom he submitted to be the right Pope and every one ready to have submitted to the right Pope if they had known who he was Tell me were all those that submitted to Antipopes presently Schismaticks That were too hard a censure The Antipopes themselves were the Schismaticks and the Cardinals that Elected them and all these who supported them for avaritious or ambitious or uncharitable ends We may apply to this purpose that which St. Austin said concerning Haereticks Qui sententiam suam quamvis falsam atque perversam nulla pertinaci animosâ—â—ate defendit praesertim quam non audacia praesumptionis suae pepererit sed à seductis et in errorem lapsis parentibus accepit quaerit autem cauta solicitudine veritatem câ—rrigi paratus cum invenerit nâ—quaquam est inter haereticos deputandus He that defends not his false opinion with Pertinacious animosity having not invented it himself but learned it from his â—rring parents If he inquire carefully after the truth and be ready to embrace it and to correct his errors when he finds them he is not to be reputed an Heretick If this be true in the case of Heresie it holds much more strongly in the case of Schism especially that Schism which is grounded only upon Humane constitutions He that disobeys a Lawful Superiour through invincible ignorance whom he deserted not himself but found him cast off by his parents if he be careful to understand his duty and ready to submit so far
by the favour of the country carried the cause So as the Pope was forced to Recall him to Lincolne Having mentioned the statutes of Mortmain I cannot but do my native country and the Church of England that right to clear it from an heavy accusaâ—ion framed against it upon mistaken grounds That the English protestants had made a Law to maintain and patronize Sacriledge that no man how penitent soever could restore any thing to the Church which had been formerly taken from it God forbid First the statutes of Mortmain were not made by Protestants but in the daies of Henry the third Edward the first and Richard the second between the last of which and Henry the eighth there raigned six Kings successively That is one great mistake Secondly the Statutes of Mortmain did not at all concern the restitution of any thing that had been taken away There was no use for that in those daies The onely scope of those Lawes was to restrain the first donation of Lands to the Church without royal assent That is another mistake Thirdly these very Lawes of Mortmain are not so incredible nor so hard to be believed nor so altogether destitute of presidents and examples as that authour doth imagine so as posterity should scarcely believe that ever any such Law had been made He might have remembred the Proclamation of Moses when the people had already offered abundantly for the adorning of the Sanctuary Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the Sanctuary So the people were restrained from bringing He might have called to mind a like law of Theodosius a godly Emperour and propitious to the Church to moderate the peoples bounty and the Clergies covetousness Which Law Saint Ambrose and Saint Hierome do so much complain of not against the Emperour who made the Law but against the Clergy who deserved to have such a Law made against them He might have found the like Law made by Nicephorus Phocas and afterwards revived by Emanuel Comenus He might have remembred that the troubles between the Pope and the Venetians did spring partly from such a Law Briefly with a little search he might have found like Lawes in Germany Poland France Spain Italy Sicily And if he will trust Padre Paâ—lo in the Papacy it self The Prince cannot wrong his Subject that is an owner or possessour of Lands or haereditaments in a well ordered State Then why should it be in the power of a Subject that is an owner to wrong his Prince and his Country But by such alienations of Lands to the Church in an excessive and unproportionable measure the Prince loseth his right that is both his tribute and his military service and fines upon change of Tenants The Common-Wealth loseth its supportation and due protection Therefore they were called the Lawes of Mortmain because Lands so aliâ—nated to the Church were put into a dead hand from whence they never returned And so in time the whole Signioury should be the Churches as it is elegantly expressed by the Venetian Oratour to Paul the fifth Nè fortunis omnibus exuantur ne quicquid sub coelo Veneto homines arant ferunt aedificant omnia veluti quodam oceano Ecclesiae absorbeantur â—ihilque sibi reliqui fiat unde Rempublicam patriam tecta templa aras focos sepultura majorum defendere possint Lest the Citizens should be turned out of their estates lest all which men plow sow build under the Vâ—netian heaven should be swallowed up into the Ocean of the Church And nothing be left where with to defend the Common-Wealth their Country their houses their temples their altars their fires and the sepulchers of their Ancestors To prevent this great inconvenience the Lawes of Mortmain were devised prudently to ballance the spiritualty and the temporalty that the one do not swallow up the other to which all wise Legislators have ever had ought to have a special regard In France no man can build a new Church without the Kings License verified in Parliament A new Monastery builded in Genua without License is to be confiscated In Spain without License Royal no new Religions can enter into the Kingdome The Fathers of Saint Francis de Paula began to build a Church in Madrid upon their own heads but they were stopped So aequitable so necessary hath this Law of Mortmain been thought to all Nations But to leave this digression and to come up closer to the direct point without any consequences In the Reign of King Henry the second some controversies being likely to arise between the Crown and Thomas Bâ—cket Archbishop of Canterbury The King called a general Assembly of his Archbishops Bishops Abbats Priors and Peers of the Realm at Clarendon where there was made an acknowledgment or memorial cujusdam partis consuetudinum libertatum Antecessorum suorum Regis videlicet Henrici avi sui aliorum quaeobservari debebant in Regno ab omnibus teneri of a certain part of the Customes and Liberties of his predecessors that is to say his Grand-father Henry the first son of the Conquerour and other Kings A parte but ex ungue Leonem from the view of this part we may conclude of what nature the rest were of the customes The customes of England are the Common Law of the Land of his predecessors that is to say the Saxon Danish and Norman Kings successively And therefore no marveil if they ought to be observed of all This part of their ancient customes or liberties they reduced into sixteen Chapters or Articles To which all the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks with all the Peeres and Nobles of the Realm did not onely give their acknowledgment and consent but also their oathes for the due observation of them It would be tedious and impertinent to relate them all I will onely cull out some of them One was that all appeales in England must proceed regularly from the Arch-Deacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and if the Archbishop failed to do justice the last complaint must be to the King to give order for redresse that is by fit Delegates But there might be no further or other Appeales without the consent of the King whereby the Nunciatureâ— and Legantine Court and the Court of Rome it self are all at the Kings mercy Wherein did the Popes great strength lie in those dayes when his hands were fast tied both at home and abroad Another Custome was that no Ecclesiasticall person might depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings License no not though he were summoned by the Bishop of Rome And if the King permitted them to go yet if he required it they must give caution or security to act nothing hurtful or prejudicial to the King or Kingdome in their going thither abiding there aâ—d returning home You see our Ancestors were jealous of Rome in those daies Whether it was their providence or their experience
that by which it was acquired I say in this our case there can be no doubt at all And yet it can much lesse be doubted whether a Soveraign Prince with a National Synod may remedy the incroachments and usurpations of the Roman Court within his own dominions or exclude new Creeds and new Articles of faith lately devised and obtruded contrary to the determination of the General Councel of Ephesus of which let us hear what is Doctor Holdens opinion Notum est inter Catholicos omnes tanquans axioma certissimum c. It is known that all Catholicks do hold this as a most certain axiome that nothing ought or may be maintained for a Christian revealed truth but that which was received by our Ancestors and delivered from one generation to another by continued succession from the times of the Apostles This is all that we have done and done it with due submission to the highest Judge of Ecclesiastical controversies upon earth that is a general Councel If the Court of Rome will be humorous like little children who because they cannot have some toy that they have a mind to do cast away all that their parents have given them we cannot help it Over and above all the former grounds which the Romanists themselves do in some sort acknowledge I propose this further that Patriarchal power in external things is subject and subordinate to Imperial When Mauritius the Emperour had made a Law that no Souldier should turn Monk untill his warfare were accomplished St. Gregory Bishop of Rome disliked the Law and represented his sense of it to the Emperour but withall according to his duty published it Ego quidem missioni subjectus eandem legem per diversas terrarum partes transmitto quia lex ipsa omnipotenti deo minime concordat Ecce per suggestionis meae paginam dominis nunciavi utrobique ergo quae debui exolvi qui Imperatori obedientiam praebui pro deo quid sensi minime tacui I being subject to your command have transmitted your Law to be published through diverse parts of the world And because the Law itself is not pleasing to Almighty God I have represented my opinion thereof to my Lords wherefore I have performed my duty on both sides in yeelding obedience to the Emperour and not concealing what I thought for God A most rare and Christian president of that great Patriarch and fit for our observation and imitation in these dayes He acknowledged the Emperour to be his Lord and himself to be subject to his commands And though no humane invention can warrant an act that is Morally evil in it self yet if it be onely impeditive of a greater good as that blessed Saint did take this Law to be the command of a Soveraign doth weigh down the scale and obligeth a Patriarch to obedience in a matter that concerns Religion How much more doth the command of the English Monarch and the English Church disoblige an English subject from a forrein Patriarch whose Original right is but humane at the most and in the case in question between Rome and England none at all But to come up yet closer to the question The general Councels of Constantinople and Chalcedon with the presence concurrence and confirmation of Theodosius the great Martian the Emperours notwithstanding the opposition of the Roman Bishop by his Legates did advance the Bishop of Constantinople from being a poore Suffragan under the Metropolitan of Heraclea to be the second Patriarch and equal in dignity power and all manner of priviledges to the first and assigned unto him for his Patriarchate Pontus and Asia the lesse and Thracia and some other countries part of which territories they substracted from the obedience of the Roman Bishop at least over which the Roman Bishops challenged Jurisdiction and part from other Patriarchs And the reason of this alteration was the same for which Caesarea of old was a long time preferred before Hierusalem and Alexandria before Antioch and Rome before all others to conform the Ecclesiasticall regiment to the Politicall because Constantinople was made of a mean City the seat of the Eastern Empire and had as many Diocesses and Provinces subject unto it as old Rome it self But lest it may be conceived that this was not done at all by Imperial power but by the authority of the Oecumenical Synods we may observe further that Iustiniâ—n the Emperour by his sole Soveraign Legislative power did new-found the Patriarchate of Iustiniana prima and assign a province unto it and indow it with most ample priviledges freeing it from all appeals and all acknowledgment of superiority giving the Bishop thereof equal power with that which the Bishop of Rome had in his Patriarchate The same priviledges and prerogatives were given by the same Emperour by the same Legislative authority to the Bishop of Carthage notwithstanding that the Bishops of Rome did alwayes pretend that Carthage was under their Jurisdiction I deny not that Vigilius and Gregory succeeding Popes did make deputations to the Bishop of Iustiniana to supply their places But this was but an old Roman fineness The Bishops of Iustiniana needed none of their Commissions Iustinian the Father and founder of the Imperial Law knew well enough how far his Legislative power did extend And though the Act was notorious the whole world and inserted into the body of the Law yet the Fathers of that age did not complain of any innovation or usurpation or breach of their priviledges or violation of their rights King Henry the Eight had the same Imperial power and was as much a Soveraign in his own Kingdomes as Iustinian the Emperour in his larger Dominions as William Rufus Son and successor of the Conqerour said most truly that the Kings of England have all those liberties in their own Kingdomes which the Emperours had in the Empire and had as much authority to exempt his own subjects from the Jurisdiction of one Patriarch and transferre them to another especially with the advise consent and concurrence of a National Synod So King Arthur his predecessor removed the Primacy from Caâ—rleon to Saint Davids and another of them to Canterbury for the advantage of their subjects according to the exigence of the times If the Pope had been the King of Englands Subject as former Popes were the Emperours he might have served him as they did some of his predecessours called a Councel regulated him and reduced him to order and reason or if he proved incorrigible have deposed him But the Pope being a stranger all that he could justly do was what he did rather then to see his royall prerogative daily trampled upon his Lawes destroyed his Subjects oppressed rather then to have new Articles of faith daily obtruded upon the English Church rather then to incur the peril of willful Idolatry against conscience and therefore formal to Cashier the Roman Court with all their pardons and
that Councel against some special abuses of the Pope and his Cardinals And by the advises of Ments made and concluded in that City by the States of the Empire in the time of the Councel of Basile for preserving the authority of General Councels for relief from grievances for procuring of conditions from the Pope for preservation of their just liberties and for prevention of the abuses and excesses and extortions of the Roman Court And by the hundred Grievances of the German Nation proposed to the Popes Legate by the Princes and Lords of the Roman Empire against the injuries extortions and usurpations of the See of Rome and the incroachments and oppressions of Ecclesiastical Courts and persons And lastly by the gracious promise of Charles the fifth to hold a Dyett within half a year wherein it should be resolved what way the differences in Religion should be settled and quieted whether by a General or National Councel or Imperial Dyett Neither did the Emperour and the German Nation onely indeavour to reform but they did in some measure actually reform the excesses of the Roman Court and other Ecclesiastical abuses and innovations as it hath already been verified of Charles the Great and Ludovicus Pius This appeareth yet more plainly by the concordates as they are stiled of the German Nation with Gregory the 13th And the agreements of Frederick the third and the Princes of the Empire with Pope Nicholas the fifth whereby the excesses and abuses of the Roman Court are something abated and reduced And by the Ghostly or Ecclesiastical reformation made by Sigismond the Emperour in the year 1436 containing 37 Chapters or Articles for regulating the Pope and his Court Cardinals Archbishops Bishops Suffragans Abbats Monks Friars Nunnes and all sorts of Ecclesiastical or religious persons I cannot here omit a witty answer of this Emperour as he was deliberating with some Ecclesiastical persons about a Reformation and one said it must begin with the Minimes No said he non à Minoritis sed à Majoritis not with the Minimes but with the Maximes or great ones that is the Pope and the Cardinals and the Court of Rome This appeares also by the Interim or declaration of Religion made by Charles the fifth attested with his Imperial seal and accepted and approved by the States of the Empire assembled in a Dyett at Ausburge May 15. in the year 1548 where the whole exercise of Religion is established untill the definition of a Councel I produce it not to shew what it was but what power the Emperour did assume in point of Religion wherein these words are contained Quod autem in supradicta declaratione sub rubrica de caeremoniis usu Sacramentorum inter alia dicitur in quas tamen si quid irrepsit quod causam dare possit superstitioni tollatur Reservat sibi soli Caesarea Majestas c. And whereas in the aforesaid declaration under the rubrick of ceremonies and the use of the Sacraments among other things it is said into the which neverthelesse if any thing have crept that may administer occasion of superstition let it be taken away His Imperial Majestie doth reserve unto himself alone in this and the like Articles where and as often as it shall be needful now and hereafter the right to correct to adde to detract as it shall seem just and equal to himself according to the present exigence of affaires Lastly this appeareth by the declaration of Ferdinand the Emperour made in the year 1555 in favour of the Augustane Confession and the professours thereof Secondly the Kings of England in their great Councels did make themselves the last Judges of the liberties and grievances and necessities of their people even in cases Ecclesiastical not the Pope They had reason In vain is the Court of Romes determination expected against it self The Emperours did the same So Lodovic the fourth in his Apology against Pope Iohn the 22th declareth that the Pope ought not cannot be a competent Judge in his own cause The Pope challenged such a confirmation of the Emperour without which his election was invalid The Emperour determined the contrary in the Dyet of Frankford An. 1338. Declaramus quòd Imperialis dignitas est immediatè à solo Deo c. We declare that the Imperial dignity is immediately from God alone And that election gives a sufficient title And that the Popes approbation or disapprobation signifies nothing The Pope attempted to divide Italy from the German Empire by his fulnesse of power The Emperour declares the Act to be invalid and of no moment When the Princes and States of the Empire had presented the hundred grievances of the German Nation to the Popes Legate they adde this conclusion Quod si enumeratâ— onera atque gravamina c. But if the abovesaid burthens and grievances be not removed within the time limited or sooner from the eyes of men and abolished and abrogated which the Lay-States of the Empire do not expect then they would not have his Holinesse to be ignorant that they neither can nor will bear or indure the aforesaid most pressing and intolerable burthens any longer but find out other means of ease and vindicate their former liberties and immunities As the sense of their sufferings was their own so they would have the remedy to be their own and not leave the cure to a tyrannical Court To this adde the Protestation and the Oath of the Electoral Colledge and the other Princes of the Empire mentioned in their letter to Benedict the 12th Quod jura honores bona libertates consuetudines Imperii c. That they would maintain defend and preserve inviolated with all their power and might the rights honours goods liberties and customes of the Empire and their own Electoral right belonging to them by law or custome against all men of what preheminence dignity or state soever that is to say in plain termes against the Pope and his Court notwithstanding any perils or mandates or processes whatsoever that is notwithstanding any citations or bulls or excommunications or interdictions from Rome Take but one instance more Ferdinand the present Emperour out of an unavoidable necessity to extinguish the flame of a bloody intestine war and to save the Empire from utter ruine contracts a peace with the King of France the Swedes and their adherents whereby sundry Bishopricks and other Ecclesiastical dignities were conferred upon Protestants lands and other hereditaments of great value were alienated from the Church in perpetuity free exercise of their Religion was granted to those of the Augustan Confession Annates confirmations and other pretended Papal rights were abolished The Popes extraordinary Nuncio protested against it And Pope Innocent himself by his Bull bearing date Novemb. 26. in the year 1651 declared the contract to be void annulled it and condemned it as injurious and prejudicaial to the Orthâ—dox
all ages affronted and curbed the Roman Court and reduced them to a right temper and constitution as often as they deviated from the Canons of the Fathers and incroached upon the liberties of the Gallicane Church Whereby the Popes jurisdiction in France came to be meerly discretionary at the pleasure of the King Hincmare had been condemned by three French Synods for a turbulent person and deposed Pope Adrian the second takes Cognisance of the cause at Rome and requires Carolus Calvus the King of France to send Hincmare thither with his accusers to receive justice The Kings apologetick answer will shew how he relished it Valde mirati sumus ubi hoc dictator Epistolae scriptum invenerit esse Apostolica authoritate praecipiendum ut Rex corrector iniquorum districtor reorum atque secundum leges Ecclesiasticas atque mundanas ultor criminum reum legaliter ac regulariter pro excessibus suis damnatum sua fretum potentia Roman dirigat We wondered much where he who dictated the Popes Letter hath found it written as commanded byâ— Apostolical authority that a King who is the Corrector of the unjust the punisher of guilty persons and according to all Lawes Ecclesiastical and Civill the revenger of crimes should send a guilty person legally and regularly condemned for his excesses to Rome He tells him that the Kings of France were reputed terrarum Domini not Episcoporum Vice-Domini or Villici Lords paramount within their Dominions not Licutenants or Bayliffes of Bishops Quis igitur hanc inversam legem infernus evomuit quis tartarus de suis abditis tenebrosis cuniculis eructavit What hell hath disgorged this disorderly law what bottomlesse depth hath belched it up out of its hidden and obscure holes The Kings of France have convented the Popes before them So Charles the Great dealt with Leo the third and Lotharius with Leo the fourth The Kings of France have appealed from Popes to Councels So Philip the 4th with the advise of all the orders of France and the whole Gallicane Church appealed from Boniface the eighth and commanded his appeal to be published in the great Church at Paris So Henry the great appealed from Gregory the 14th and caused his appeal to be affixed to the gates of Saint Peters Church in Rome So the School of Sorbone appealed from Boniface the eight Benedict the eleventh Pius the second and Leo the tenth The Kings of France have protested against the Popes decrees and sleighted them yea in the very face of the Councel of Trent Witnesse that protestation of the Ambassadour of France made in the Councel in the name of the King his Master We refuse to be subject to the commands and disposition of Pius the fourth we reject refuse and contemn all the judgements censures and decrees of the said Pius And although most holy Fathers your Religion Life and Learning was ever and ever shall be of great esteem with us Yet seeing indeed you do nothing but all things are done at Rome rather then at Trent And the things that are here published are rather the decrees of Pius the fourth then of the Councel of Trent we denounce and protest here before you all that whatsoever things are decreed and published in this Assembly by the meer will and pleasure of Pius neither the most Christian King will ever approve nor the French Church ever acknowledge to be decrees of a General Councel Besides this the King our Master commandeth all his Archbishops and Bishops and Abbats to leave this Assembly and presently to depart hence then to return again when there shall be hope of better and more orderly proceedings This was high and smart for the King and the Gallicane Church so publickly to reject refuse and contemn all Papal decrees and to challenge such an interest in and power over the French Archbishops and Bishops as not onely to license them but to command them to depart and leave the Councel whither they were summoned by the Pope The French Kings have made Lawes and constitutions from time to time to repress the insolencies and exorbitances of the Papal Court so often as they began to prejudice the liberties of the Gallicane Church with the unanimous consent of their Princes Nobles Clergy Lawyers and Commons As against their bestowing of Ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in France and their grosse Simony and extortions in that way against the payment of Annates and tenths to Rome and generally for all the liberties of the Church of France Against reservations and Apostolical graces and all other exactions of the Court of Rome Charlâ—s the seventh made the pragmatical Sanction to confirm all the Acts of the Councels of Constance and Basâ—l against the tyranny and usurpation of the Pope It is true that Lewis the eleventh by the flattering perswasion of Aeneas Sylvius then Pius the second did revoke this Sanction But the Kings Proctour and the Rectour of the University of Paris did oppose themselves formally to the Registring and Authorizing of this revocation Whereupon the King desired the advise of his Parliament in writing which they gave to this effect That the revocation of that Sanction tended to the confusioâ— of the whole Ecclesiastical order the depopulation of France the exhausting and impoverishment of the Kingdom and the total ruine of the French Church Hereupon the King changed his mind and made diverse declarations and edicts conformable to and in pursuance of the pragmatical Sanction After this the three Estates assembled at Towers made it their first and instant request to Charles the 8th that he would preserve inviolable the pragmatical Sanction which they reputed as the Palladium of France And in the National Councel assembled by Lewis the 12th in the same City it was again confirmed But the Pope stormed and thundered and excommunicated and interdicted Lewis the 12th Francis the first and the whole Realm and exposed it as a prey to the first that could take it And gave plenary Indulgence to every one that should kill a Frenchman King Francis fainted under such fulminations and came to a composition or accommodation with Leo the tenth which was called conventa or the concordate On the one side the Popes friends think he wronged himself and his title to a spiritual Sovereignty very much by descending to such an accommodation And exclude France out of the number of those Countries which they term pays d' obedience As if the French were not loyal obedient Subjects but Rebels to the Court of Rome On the other side the Prelates the Universities the Parliaments of France were as ill contented that the King should yeeld one inch and opposed the accord Insomuch as the University of Paris appealed from it to a future Councel and expedited Letters Patents sealed with the Universities Seal containing at large their grievances and the reasons of the appeal which after were published to the world in print I cannot here omit
I answer that obedience to a just Patriarch is of no larger extent then the Canons of the Fathers do injoyn it And since the division of Britaigne from the Empire no Canons are or ever were of force with us further then they were received and by their incorporation became Britannique Lawes Which as they cannot noâ— ever could be imposed upon the King and Kingdome by a forreign Patriarch by constraint so when they are found by experience prejudiciall to the publick good they may as freely by the same King and Kingdome be rejected But I shall wind up this string a little higher Suppose that the whole body of the Canon Law were in force in England which it never was yet neither the Papall power which we have cashiered nor any part of it was ever given to any Patriarch by the ancient Canons and by consequence the separation is not Schismatical nor any withdrawing of Canonical obedience What power a Metropolitan had over the Bishops of his own Province by the Canon Law the same and no other had a Patriarch over the Metropolitans and Bishops of sundry Provinces within his own Patriarchate But a Metropolitan anciently could do nothing out of his own Diocesse without the concurrence of the Major part of the Bishops of his Province Nor the Patriarch in like manner without the advice and consent of his Metropolitans and Bishops Wherein then consisted Patriarchal authority In ordaining their Metropolitans for with inferiour Bishops they might not meddle or confirming them or imposing of hands in giving the Pall in convocating Patriarchal Synods and presiding in them in pronouncing sentence according to the plurality of voices That was when Metropolitical Synods did not suffice to determine some emergent difficulties or differences And lastly in some few honorary priviledges as the acclamation of the Bishops to them at the latter end of a General Councel and the like which signifie not much In all this there is nothing that we dislike or would seek to have abrogated Never any Patriarch was guilty of those exactions extortions incroachments upon the civil rights of Princes and their Subjects or upon the Ecclesiastical rights of Bishops or of those provisions and pensions and exemptions and reservations and dispensations and inhibitions and pardons and indulgences and usurped Sovereignty which our Reformers banished out of England And therefore their separation was not any waies from Patriarchal authority I confesse that by reason of the great difficulty and charge of convocating so many Bishops and keeping them so long together untill all causes were heard and determined And by reason of those inconveniencies which did fall upon their Churches in their absence Provincial Councels were first reduced from twice to once in the year and afterwards to once in three years And in processe of time the hearing of appeales and such like causes and the execution of the Canons in that behalf were referred to Metropolitans untill the Papacy swallowed up all the authority of Patriarchs and Metropolitans and Bishops Serpens serpentem nisi ederet non fieret draco Peradventure it may be urged in the fourth place That Gregory the Great who by his Ministers was the first converter of the English Nation about the six hundreth year of our Lord did thereby acquire to himself and his Successours a Patriarchal authority and power over England for the future We do with all due thankfulnesse to God and honourable respect to his memory acknowledge that that blessed Saint was the chief instrument under God to hold forth the first light of saving truth to the English Nation who did formerly sit in darknesse and in the shadow of death whereby he did more truly merit the name of Great then by possessing the chair of Saint Peter And therefore whilest the sometimes flourishing now poor persecuted Church of England shall have any being Semper honos nomenque suum laudesque manâ—bunt But whether this benefit did intitle Saint Gregory and his Successours to the Patriarchate of all or any part of the British Islands deserves a further consideration First consider that at that time and untill this day half of Britaigne it self and two third parts of the Britannique Islands did remain in the possession of the Britons or Scottish and Irish who still continued Christians and had their Bishops and Protarchs or Patriarchs of their own from whom we do derive in part our Christianity and holy orders and priviledges Without all controversie the conversion of the Saxons by Saint Gregory could not prejudice the just liberties of them or their Successours Secondly consider that the half of Britaigne which was conquered and possessed by the Saxons was not soly and altogether peopled by Saxons A world of British Christians did remain and inhabit among the Conquerours For we do not find either that the Saxons did go about to extirpate the British Nation or compell them to turn Renegadoes from their Religion or so much as demolish their Churches But contented themselves to chase away persons of eminency and parts and power whom they had reason to suspect and fear And made use of vulgar persons and spirits for their own advantage This is certain that Britaigne being an Island whither there is no accesse by land all those who were transported or could have been transported by Sea on such a suddain could not of themselves alone in probability of reason have planted or peopled the sixth part of so much land as was really possessed by the Saxons And therefore we need not wonder if Queen Bertha a Gallâ—ise and a Christian did find a Congregation of Christians at Canterbury to joyn with her in her Religion and a Church called Saint Martins builded to her hand And stood in need of Lethargus a Bishop to order the affaires of Christian Religion before ever Saint Austine set foot upon English ground Neither did the British want their Churches in other places also as appears by that Commission which the King did give to Austine among other things to repair the Churches that were decayed These poor subdued persons had as much right to their ancient priviledges as the rest of the unconquered Britons Thirdly consider That all that part of Britaigne which was both conquered and inhabited by the Saxons was not one intire Monarchy but divided into seven distinct Kingdoms which were not so suddenly converted to the Christian faith all at once but in long tract of time long after Saint Gregory slept with his fathers upon several occasions by several persons It was Kent and some few adjacent Counties that was converted by Austine It is true that Ethelbâ—rt King of Kent after his own conversion did indeavour to have planted the Christian faith both in the Kingdomes of Northumberland and the East Angles with fair hopes of good successe for a season But alas it wanted root Within a short time both Kings and Kingdoms apostated from Christ and forsook their Religion The Kingdoms of the West Saxons
and of the South Saxons under Kingils their King who did unite the heptarchy into a Monarchy were converted by the preaching of Berinus an Italian by the perswasions of Oswald King of Northumberland Oswâ—ld King of Northumberland was baptized in Scotland and Religion luckily planted in that Kingdome by Aidan a Scottish Bishop Penda King of Mercia was converted and christened by Finanus Successour of Aidan by the means of a marriage with a Christian Princesse of the Royal Family of Northumberland Sigibert King of the East Angles in whose daies and by whose means Religion took root among the East Saxons was converted and christned in France All these Saxons which were converted by Britons or Scots may as justly plead for their old immunities as the Britons themselves We acknowledge Saint Gregory to have been the first that did break the ice And yet we see how small a proportion of the inhabitants of the British Islands do owe their conversion to Rome in probability not a tenth part Fourthly consider that the conversion of a Nation to the Christian faith is a good ground in equity all other circumstances concurring why they should rather submit themselves or a General Councel assign them to that See that converted them then to any other Patriarchate As was justly pleaded in the case between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople about the right of Jurisdiction over the Bulgarians But the conversion of a Nation is no ground at all to invest their converter presently with Patriarchal authority over them or any Ecclesiastical superiority especially where too great a distance of place doth render such Jurisdiction uselesse and burthensome And most especially where it cannot be done without prejudice to a former owner thrust out of his just right meerly by the power of the sword as the British Primates were Or to the subjecting of a free Nation to a forreign Prelate without or beyond their own consent In probability of reason the Britons ought their first conversion to the Eastern Church as appeareth by their accord with them in baptismal rites and the observation of Easter Yet never were subject to any Eastern Patriarch Sundry of our British and English Bishops have converted forreign Nations yet never pretended to any Jurisdiction over them Fifthly and lastly consider That whatsoever title or right S. Gregory did acquire or might have acquired by his piety and deserts towards the English Nation it was personal and could not descend from him to such Successours who both forfeited it many waies and quickly within four or five years after his death quitted their Patriarchate and set an higher title to a spirituall Monarchy on foot whilest the most part of England remained yet Pagan when Pope Boniface did obtain of Phoeas the usurper an usurping Pope from an usurping Emperour to be universal Bishop Their Canon-shot is past that which remains is but a small volly of Muskets They adde that we have schismatically separated our selves from the Communion of our Ancestours whom we believe to be damned That we have separated our selves from our Ecclesiastical predecessours by breaking in sunder the line of Apostolical succession whilest our Presbyters did take upon them to Ordain Bishops and to propagate to their Successours more then they received from their predecessours That our Presbyters are but equivocall Presbyters wanting both the right matter and form of Presbyterial ordination To extinguish the order is more schismatical then to decline their authority And lastly that we derive our Episcopal Jurisdiction from the Crown First for our natural Fathers the answer is easie We do not condemn them nor separate our selves from them Charity requires us both to think well and speak well of them But prudence commands us likewise to look well to our selves We believe our fathers might partake of some errours of the Roman Church we do not believe that they were guilty of any heretical pravity but held alwaies the truth implicitely in the preparation of their minds and were alwaies ready to receive it when God should be pleased to reveal it Upon these grounds we are so far from damning them that we are confident they were saved by a generall repentance He that searcheth carefully into his own heart to find out his errours and repenteth truly of all his known sins and beggeth pardon for his unknown errours proceeding out of invincible or but probable ignorance in Gods acceptation repenteth of all Otherwise the very best of Christians were in a miserable condition For who can tell how oft he offendeth The second accusation of Priests consecrating Bishops is grounded upon a senselesse fabulous fiction made by a man of a leaden heart and a brazen forehead of I know not what assembly of some of our Reformers at the sign of the Nags-head in Cheapside or rather devised by their malicious enemies at the sign of the Whetstone in Popes-head-Alley Against which lying groundlesse drowsie dream we produce in the very point the authentick records of our Church of things not acted in a corner but publickly and solemnly recorded by publick Notaries preserved in publick Registers whither every one that desired to see them might have accesse And published to the world in Print whilest there were thousands of eye-witnesses living that could have contradicted them if they had been feigned There is no more certainty of the Coronation of Henry the eighth or Edward the sixth then there is of that Ordination which alone they have been pleased to question done not by one as Austine consecrated the first Saxon Prelates but by five consecrated Bishops Let them name the person or persons And if they were Bishops of the Church of England we will shew them the day the place the persons when and where and by whom and before what publick Notaries or sworn Officers they were ordained And this not by uncertain rumours but by the Acts and instruments themselves Let the Reader chuse whether he will give credit to a sworn Officer or a professed adversary to eye-witnesses or to malicious reporters upon hearsay to that which is done publickly in the face of the Church or to that which is said to be done privately in the corner of a Tavern These authentick evidences being upon occasion produced out of our Ecclesiasticall Courts and deliberately perused and viewed by Father Oldcorn the Jesuit he both professed himself clearly convinced of that whereof he had so long doubted that was the legitimate succession of Bishops and Priests in our Church and wished heartily towards the reparation of the breach of Christendome that all the world were so abundantly satisfied as he himself was Blaming us as partly guilty of the grosse mistake of many for not having publickly and timely made known to the world the notorious falshood of that empty but far spread aspersion against our succession As for our parts we believe Episcopacy to be at least in Apostolical institution approved by Christ himself in