in general and to all Nations in particular that it is not his will we should be led by strangers more than by guides of our own flesh and bloud for this cause Christ took upon him humane nature when sent by God John 17.3 to direct the world For verily he took not on him the nature of Angels for this purpose Heb. 2.16 which though greatly Holy is yet Forraign to ours and as it were of another Country and their best messages seldome received by the best Christians without fear and horrour and suspition Luk. 2.9 Math. 28.45 But he took upon him the seed of Abraham being sent unto his own John 1.11 And in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his Brethren to be the better fitted for Sympathy towards us on his part and the belief thereof on ours Heb. 2.17 18. In like manner in sending his Apostles for the conversion of Nations the first fruits in every Nation that were converted to Christ were appointed for Bishops and Teachers as soon as might be to convert their Brethren and the Supemacy over the Gentile Churches not entail'd upon a Jewish line and succession forever as our first Teachers but upon the Natives themselves in every City and Country when fitted for it to Govern and direct their people and every Province to have its own Metropolitan chief within it self and unsubordinate to Foreigners And it is likewise observed that the needs of every Country in point of food and Raiment and Physick is best supplied from within it self and whether it be for the health or interest of this Nation to delight to wear forraign Liveries above its own I shall not now dispute and but that the Witchcraft and fascination that is in errour doth Seal up the Intellect it deludes less dispute there would be with all sober minds but that we have Governours of our own Nation praised be God fitted as likely for ability and compassion to be faithful guides to their Inferiour Brethren as the greatest Angels of the Church of Rome to whom were it alwayes certain they would prove good Angels we are not so near and dear as to our own Pastors who are bone of our bone and flesh of our flesh And that our own wise Kings and Parliaments have and can make as wholesom Laws for this Church and State as the Conclave ever can or did how far and how dear soever fetched and bought To alledge as the Romanists do that Christ had his fix'd Officers his Apostles and Bishops in his Church before there were any Christian Kings which cannot be denyed that St. Peter was the chief of these Apostles which also may be granted for peace-sake as to his precedence but not any Jurisdiction that the present Popes are the successors of St. Peter in all his Authority and Holiness whether they follow him as he followed Christ or not and therefore are Superiours to all Christian Kings and Princes in their own Teritories as well as at Rome in all affairs relating to Religion is such a broken Title such a far-fetch'd Etymology and derivation of Authority as only fully proves the Antichristian humour of exalting themselves above every thing that is called God or 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Majesty as the word may imply which is the Jaundize that overspreads the face and vitals of that Church all over but cannot satisfie the conscience of any sober English Christian to relinquish and renounce his manifest allegiance and Subjection to his own Prince and Church to whom it is due to bestow the same to his own wrong and Spiritual danger as well as Temporal upon a forraign Power to whom it is not due and to rob his King to maintain a cheat For neither are our Brittish Churches more Subject to the Chair of Rome than is the Crown of France to the Crown of Spain which it had long a mind to but never any right neither if degrees and dignities be compared are Crowns to be Subject to the Mitre but the Mitre to the Crown For Kings if Heathen are without the Church and therefore not Subject to the Pope were he a lawful Vicar of Christ for what have I to do to judge them that are without them that are without God judgeth 1 Cor. 5.12 13. neither do they forfeit their Soveraignty by being Christian Kings by any colour or pretence of St. Peters supremacy St. Peter himself being judge who writes to his fellow Elders to feed the flock of God which was among them 1 Pet. 5.1 2. and to be subject for the Lords sake to the King as supreme for so is the will of God 1 Pet. 5.1 2. There is no where less love and honour from the heart to that blessed Apostle St. Peter no not perhaps in Hell than amongst them at Rome an out-side love or Philauty for Secular ends and designs they may have for him beyond any such as the Ephesian Silver-smiths had for Diana by which they had their wealth Act. 19.24 25. or Turks for Christs Sepulcher which turns to account unto them which is not their love to St. Peter but to themselves and bellies for if they had the least love and honour from the heart in Christ to his name and dignity they would rather chuse to starve or beg than face their frauds and cheats upon all degrees of men with his name and Authority or make him a complice or an Author to all their impious Usurpations and Rebellions against the Kings both of Heaven and Earth against his mind and principles as before For St. Peter himself from whom Popes derive all the power over Kings they can pretend to yea Christ himself from whom St. Peter had his and the whole Christian Church in his divine person while he was on Earth did submit to Magistrates and Presidents acknowledging their Power to be from Heaven John 19.11 and his Kingdom not to be of this world Joh. 18.36 as his pretended Vicars cannot also be by consequence for a Deputy cannot have more Power than his Soveraign St. Paul commands every soul to be Subject or subordinate to the higher Powers Rom. 13.1 which St. Chrysostom upon the place as before extends to Apostles and Ecclesiasticks as well as Lay and with good reason for no Crime can be Treason where is no Subjection and gives the title of excellency to Festus an Heathen President Act. 26. as St. Luke to Theophilus a Christian Luk. 1.3 an evident argument that neither would have denied the title of Majesty to a King and much more to a Christian King for as Servants gained no outward liberty by becoming Christians but continued Servants after as well as before their conversion 1 Cor. 7 20 21. So neither do Kings lose their Prerogatives or Supremacy by being Christians but are to be received into the Christian Society or Church in the same degree and quality they had in the Civil or State Superiour to all Inferiour to none And the Texts therefore that command
Conversion of the Isle of Man to the Brittish Culdees Usher 642. Man together in a miraculous manner which was his Christian retaliation to his enemies Whose reward is great with God and the greater by this that he hath the less of praise from men his very Adorers since his plantation was long obscur'd by a Romish Fog that still lasts upon it never ceasing to defame and traduce his Divine work with Superstitious descriptions and unworthy Legends though intended perhaps for Honour In 451. †Usher p. 978. Gildas Albanius born at Arcluit in Beda's time called Alcluid that is a Town upon the River Cluid now Dunbritton Inhabited then by the Brittains preach'd to and converted the North parts of Scotland beyond the Hills whether Ninias before had not reach'd And after him in 565. St. Columba of Irish Birth and Brittish Doctrine and Institution assisted by u Idem 540. Constantine Duke of Cornwall repenting of his Adulteries and Murthers upon the reproofs of Gildas Badonicus and taking orders perfected the Conversion of the Picts Serfus one of the Culdees and consequently of Brittish either Birth or Principle promoting the same work as far as the Orcades About the Year 560. St. Kentigerne y p. 686. Nephew to King Arthur and Founder of St. Asaph returned to his Bishoprick of Glasco and preached first the Gospel to the English though enemies permitted upon (f) Histor Brit. lib. 8. C. 9. M. Westm 489. submission and fealty under Octa and Ebusa Sons of Hengist newly conquer'd by Aurelius Ambrosius to live in that Brittish Territory between the Friths and the Wall where they suffer'd the Brittains before being worsted by them to reside upon like submission About 596 what by divisions among themselves what by great invasions by Gormond from Ireland as well as by the Saxons in their bowels what by a great and Epidemical Plague and Jaundize and the entrance of Monk Austin the greatest Plague of all two of their Candlesticks were removed Thadiock Arch-Bishop of the See of York and Theon of London being forc'd from their Sees and charge with the Clergy and Gentry from their Estates and Homes to retire for their safety into the parts of Wales and Cornwall and Ireland very probably none staying behind but the Peasantry at the Terms and for the conveniencies and interest of the conquerour York faring best of the two Sees for the Cambrian (m) Usher p. 1005. Kingdom or Cumberland called Valentia with Scotland or old Albany which formerly had been parcels of the See of York stood yet entire and safe under the Protection of their own Kings and Princes who were able to defend their Religion and Territories both from Pagan and Romish Encroachments about this time infesting them But in the See of London and the body of Lhoegr as the Brittains still call England the Inhabitants that remain'd behind Tributaries to the Saxon Conquerour were to retain their Faith between the heart and God after their Clergy were expell'd by the procurement of Rome as is to be suspected unless some lurked behind in cognitò as is usual for their comfort and assistance or the Pagan Conquerours as we shall see anon gave them toleration of Religion either by Grace or Articles as did Irmericus in Kent and Penda in Mercia and Kerdic in West Saxony c. whereof Bede takes little notice though he could not and doth not wholly conceale the passages But then as the loss of one sense adds strength to the other and the shutting of one eye enlarges the others Candle Ireland grew rich and famous upon this dispersion and accession of learned men into its Teritories for refuge whereby it became about this time the University as it were of these Western parts of Europe for the Christian Orthodox Religion and term'd Insula Sanctorum the Island of Saints whither recourse was made for Spiritual knowledge from all parts and Kingdoms and Wales and its Sees and Abbies was no less stock'd with choice of Able-men and particularly the famous Monastery of Bangor-is-y coed where we find about this time above two thousand learned Monks living together in a holy Fraternity all Subject to the Metropolitical See of St. David whither the Chair was removed from Caerleon by the Authority of King Arthur and a Synod about the year 521 These in 602 gave Augustine the Monk a meeting about Worcester where the pretended Supremacy of the Church of Rome with its superstitious Innovations were Synodically disclaimed and rejected Augustines design being to seize our Brittish Churches as it were by occupancy and to subject them to Rome under colour of Conversion For that their Sees were made too hot to hold Thadiock and Theon at the arrival of Augustine or not long before is some Argument that the Pagan fury was made to burn the fiercer with Roman-Catholick bellows and that the believing Brittains who needed not their Conversion must veil their Ancient Metropolitan Chair of St. David or Caerleon likewise to an upstart See of Romes erection as Austine expected this manifestly proves and discovers it was their Temporal Dominion and superiority which by them is call'd the Catholick Faith that was the chief aim of Rome by all Inhumane and Unchristian Arts to propagate here in Brittain And if we were constrained to submit in part and for a time to their yoke and superstition when the Crown in our Kings for a time was miss-led by their influence and were freed from the same yoke in H. 8. when the Crown was better rectified by Providence we stand as we were holding fast our Liberty with a better conscience than they could usurp it from us being now under no Tye or obligation to Rome either for our Faith or errours not for our first Faith which we never had from them nor for some latter superstitions which we restor'd back unto them continuing a right Church from first to last because when we were at the worst we were as Orthodox as themselves who corrupted us and recovering our clearness again from their forc'd mud and mixture we continue as well English as Brittains now mutually Incorporated to profess the same Faith which was planted here above sixteen hundred and odd years ago not only before Lutâ—er was born but before Rome it self had its Christian being SECTION VI. Brittain had not the Faith from Pope Eleutherius THe first point being thus clear'd It becomes as clear we had not our Faith from Pope Eleutherius by King Lucius and were the Epistle and the Persons contemporary it makes more against them than for them whereof the sum is this You desired of us to send you the Roman Laws which you would use in the Kingdom of Brittain we can never disallow Gods Laws but may Caesars You have lately by Divine mercy received the Law and Faith of Christ you have with you in the Kingdom both the New and Old Testament whence by the advice of your Peers and the Council of
obedience and submission to Heathen Magistrates do command the same much more to Christian And manifestly condemn the Pope as Antichristian in denying it And as in the World or the Kingdom of God they were Gods Deacons or Liturgists as they are stiled Rom. 13.4 6. or his Ministers for the encouragement and discouragement of Vertue and Vice v. 4. So in the Church or the Kingdom of Christ they are Christs Ministers to serve him with their Authorities in maintenance of Holiness and Order which is vertue in its highest degree and extirpation of Scandals which is Vice and Confusion under greatest aggravation Which trust and supremacy they bore in the Church of God in all Ages under all dispensations in Old Israel or the Jewish Church and New Israel or the Christian Gal. 6.16 For so Aaron gave place to Moses and Nathan though inspir'd counts himself but the servant of his King nevertheless bowing himself with his face to the ground when he came into his presence as his deportment is recorded not for naught by the Spirit of God 1 King 1.23 27. And such was the power and influence of the Kings of Israel in matters Ecclesiastical that the whole state and face of the present Church and the fate and destiny of the land it self is usually comprised by Scripture in one word in the Character of the Kings heart that reigned whether it was right with God or not When it sayes that such and such Kings did that which is good or that which was evil in the sight of the Lord and what was like to follow from such example for no face or figure of Heaven can be more benigne or fortunate No Comet so portending and ill boding to a Nation as a wakeful or a supine Prince in Mercy or Judgment appointed over it that eyes all himself in his Charge or trusts too far to others The Prince is the first and Master wheel even in the Church that gives motion and Order to all the rest all will be at a stand or out of order when this is He is the Architect in the building and ordering both of Tabernacle and Temple according to his Pattern from God he sets all to their proper work and erects and dedicates both the one and the other and places Aaron and Levi in their several Stations each one afterwards to look to their own work and duties of Instructing Sacrificing attoning interceding that God may dwell in the Camp or State as the Life and Soul and Strength there of And their care of Gods Church was not a free will Offering or a generous work of Super-erogation in the Kings of Israel which was their praise and honour to mind and attend and not their guilt to neglect and leave to others but it was the principal indispensable point of their trust and charge For Old Israel might be said to be more a Church than a Kingdom being the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Lot and Inheritance the Clergy or spiritual Kingdom of God The rest of the Heathen World being revolted from him and kept in slavery under the Prince of the power of the Air Ephes 2.2 And therefore the Governour of such a Nation was more the head of a Church than the King of a Countrey being truly both the one and the other the one supremacy being common to every Heathen Prince but the other proper and peculiar to Rulers in Israel For God himself by particular condescention was King of Israel 1 King 8.7 And men came to be Kings by his permission and allowance as his Vicars and Lieutenants to maintain his Worship and Honour wherein the peoples happiness as well as their Prerogative did consist In the World he was the best and completest Prince that had most of the Councellor or Captain in him to suppress all disorder and violence at home by Laws and all invasions and dangers from abroad by Arms and Courage But in Israel he was the best King that had most of the Priest and Bishop in him to win God of his side They conquered their enemies in the field then best when they served God best at home Their Victories and Successes depended not so much upon their Bow and Chariot or the Conduct of their Generals or the Courage and Number of their men as upon having the Lord of Hosts on their side to go along with their Armies which Blasphemous Lives never had the Happiness to procure that Rule of our Saviour that directs how to prosper in the World being true as well before as since his coming But seek ye first the Kingdom of God and his Rightousness and all things shall be added unto you Mat. 6.33 For it was their sins that gave valour and prevalence to their enemies and despondency to themselves Then was there War in the gate when they sought after new Gods Jud. 5.8 The children of Ephraim carrying Bowes turn'd their backs in the day of Battel because they kept not the Covenant of God Psal 79.9 And it was their Piety and Repentance made them miraculously Victorious when over-match'd Yea the Heathen Historian observes and confesses the like touching the Roman Empire that its progress and success was founded in sincere zeal for their Gods as its decayes and overthrow to arise from profane remissness and easie Luxury Upon good reasons therefore as well of Conscience and Equity to approve themselves Faithful and Loyal to Gods Honour and Interest to whom Kings are immediate Subjects as they expected the like Fidedelity and Loyalty from their people appointed to be their Subjects as of publick wel-fare and prosâ—erity to their Nation obliging Arguments with riâ—ht Princely dispositions We find the best Kings of Israel and even Heathen Kings when sober chiefly to imploy their Royal Authority and Power about matters Ecclesiastical to suppress Idolatry to reform Abuses to settle wholesom Laws and Fences about Doctrine Worship and Discipline in Gods Church To put down high places Groves Idolatrous Altars Sodomites-houses and all strange Religion as did Josia 2 Kings 23.4 5 6 7. And other Kings to break in pieces the Brasen Serpenâ— though made by Moses when abused to Idolatry as did Hezechia 2 King 18.4 To send able Teachers throughout the Land as did Jehoshaphat 2 Chron. 2.8 to Dedicate and Repaire and Purifie the Temple as did Solomon 1 King 8.29.6 and Joash 2 Chron. 24.4 and Hezechia 2 Chron. 5. To institute the Feast for the Dedication of the Temple as did the Macchabees 1 Macch. 4.56.59 which our Saviour honour'd with his presence Joh. 10.22 To restore the celebrating of the Passoever to its Ancient Rite 2 King 22.21 To appoint a Faâ—r to save his Nation as did the King of Niniveh with success Jon. 3.7 10. To decree Blaspheming Hectors to be cut in pieces as did the King of Babylon when converted Dan. 3.29 To appoint Judges in Causes Ecclesiastical as well as Temporal 2 Chron. 19.8 Amaria the Chief Priest in all matters of the Lord and
Zebadia the Ruler of the house of Juda for all the Kings matters v. 11. To assemble Synods and Councells about Sacred Affairs for settling the Ark as did David 1 Chron 13.2 For dedicating the Temple as did Solomon 1 Reg. 8. and reforming the Nation and bringing them back unto the Lord God of their Fathers as did Jehoshaphat 2 Chron. 19.4 To maintain their Command and Soveraignity in such matters not only over all the people in general 1 King 23.21 but over the High Priests themselves in particular by assigning their work and duty 2 King 22.8 12. Where Jehoshaphat layes command upon Hilkiah the High-Priest thrusting them out of their High-Priesthood for their Disloyalty as Solomon did Abiathar 1 King 2.27 And sparing them their Lives in courtesie to their Coat v. 26. And this their pious care and zeal for God and Religion which in the Popes account were little less than intermeddling in other mens rights is recorded in Gods account as their Eternal praise and honour and good service to their Countrey And like Josiah was there no King before him that turn'd to the Lord with all his heart and with all his Soul and with all his might Neither arose there any like him 2 King 23.25 And Jehoshaphat sought to the Lord God of his Father and walked in his Commandments and not after the doings of Israel Therefore the Lord established the Kingdom in his hands and all Juda brought to Jehoshaphat Presents and he had Riches and honour in abundance 2 Chron. 17.5 And the contrary neglect about the Worship of God in their wicked Kings and making their people to sin by their defection or ill example was the ruine of their Land 2 Chron. 36.17 And a Brand of Infamy upon their names in particular forever as the followers of Jereboam the Son of Nebat which made Israel to sin and therefore liker to Satan therein than to Gracious Kings and Fathers And what was thus their bounden duty and honour in the Kings of Israel to imploy their Authority and Government for God and his Church upon the like ground and proportion is the duty and interest of all Christian Kings for a Kingdom that becomes Christian becomes a Church thereby or the 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 1 Pet. 3.5 the Heritage and Clergie of God a Christian Kingdom is a new Israel of God Gal. 6.16 and Christian Kings by consequence are heyres of the same Prerogative and Supremacy that did belong in Israel to the Kings of Israel where the High-Priests were subordinate in externals to the Kings and not the Kings to the Priests It is a contradiction to be a King and to be Subject wherein Popes are made Supreme Kings are made Subjects there cannot be two Supremes in the same Church or Kingdom and it were a great snare and Spiritual misery to be subjects under two contrary Soveraigns and to be bound in conscience to obey contrary injunctions and commands whereby inevitably their obedience to the one becomes their sin and transgression against the other Soveraign which is the condition of Roman Catholicks who own the Pope for supreme to the wrong of those Christians Soveraigns over them whose right it is whereby their conscientious Catholick obedience becomes unconscionable disobedience to their right Superiour It concerns and behoves them therefore and every other Christian subject in whom the word of Christ ought to dwell richly in all wisdom Col. 3.16 to be fully satisfied who is to rule them He that mistakes his Soveraign will mistake his Loyalty The Old and New Testament knows but two Soveraigns God or the King Christ or Caesar 2. Chron. 19.11 Math. 22.21 so the Jewish so the Ancient Christian Church so the Church of England held upon the Reformation when the whole Nation both Parliament and Convocation unanimously agreed that the Pope had no more to do in England than any other Bishop The Soveraignty of the Lord the Pope starting up when the Church began to degenerate strongly savours of a fifth Monarchy or an Antichristian erection Christ only is the Immediate Soveraign of the Inside of men in his Church Kings the Immediate Soveraigns of the outside in their Dominions the Pope or Prelate is Soveraign in neither Pet. 5.3 Rom. 13.1 therefore there is no obedience due from the heart and conscience to spirituall Governours but wherein they agree in their Doctrines with Christs mind and clash not in their outward order and Discipline with the rights of Christian Kings for delegates are to be obeyed in and for and not against their Principals and the soul is subject to none but to a supreme either the Lord Christ who is absolutely such or our Lord the King who is such in externals by Christs concession Prov. 8.15 subject also it is to Governours but for his sake and by his command that is to say it 's subject not to them but to him But it will be still objected what have Kings to do with Religion that wholly belongs to Spiritual persons and the Clergy and to the Pope the Patriarch in such matters and by consequence Supreme and it must still be answered and acknowledged That the substantial part of Christian Religion lyes out of the Horizon and Territory of Kings in another world as it were where yet none is Soveraign but Christ alone Popes and Bishops and Inferiour Priests being all officers and Ministers under him in this Kingdom all of equal degree and power without difference in their Authorities or Keys saving that in equity and merit they are foremost and chiefest who are most painful and faithful in this trust Kings well observe their bounds therein they do not as they ought not intermeddle in such matters between the soul and God as are of divine Institution or immortal importance they meddle not with the Priestly office and great would be the peace of Churches and of the world if the Pope did as little meddle with the Kingly they take not upon them to preach and publish the Laws and mind of Christ in his name and Authority nor to denounce wrath and War against offenders high or low nor of themselves to Excommunicate the unworthy from the Holy Society of Christs Church and all hopes of mercy till they repent and change nor to arbitrate as for Christ who are fit and worthy of Grace or pardon neither do they travel between Heaven and Earth upon messages between Christ and souls as the Angels upon the ladder being now Gods mouth to the people in wholsom Counsels and Instructions anon the peoples mouths to God in humble confessions or thanskgivings as neither did the Kings of Israel ever offer to enter the holy place or order the Shew Bread or Sacrifice or incense which might have been done with the same skill though not with the same Authority by Common persons as by Priests and hath been attempted by one or two but to their wo No under both Law and Gospel these offices did solely belong to
with the first in its adversity and contempt For every Religion expresses what honour it hath for the Deity it worships by the respect and honour it enjoyns to be paid to its Ministers and Attendants And amongst all degrees of Christians from the lowest to the highest neither Christ nor his Ministers can be said to be either lov'd or honour'd where both are not lov'd and honour'd equally if not above themselves And no man can despise the Ministers of his Religion without despising his Religion nor despise his Religion without despising himself for where is a man's self more than in his God or Idol If Christ and his Religion be to be honoured it is to be invited to sit equal with us in our Feasts if not above wherein no Church is more proportionable than this of England which hath its Minâ—stry so adequate and comporting with the several degrees and conditions of its Laity like Arteries with the veins along the body from the toe to the head But now far otherwise is it amongst Christians Teachers and Disciples when the world hath possessed their hearts And Christ dwells but at their tongues only many there are besides Quakers it is to be feared that would be well contented to be without any Gospel at all on condition to be Tith-free and judge no sort of men better to be spared or retrenched in this Commonwealth than Christs Ministers And if they had Power enough in their hands would judge an 100 l. per annum to be revenew enough or two much for any Bishop to support himself and Family and to keep Hospitality and relieve the poor and strangers and to defend the Church against its Enemies and not 10000 l. per annum too much for themselves to spend upon their lusts and Vanity And in some Nations the Lay sort Raign and Rule and the Clergy hold the stirrup or serve under revocable pay like other workmen and trained thereby to be as observant of the state as of God neither hath the degenerate Clergy been behind in over-reaching to the degenerate Laity in grudging and subducting especially in the Roman Church who conceived she never had enough untill she had all not only their Lands but their Liberties and all became her Tenants or Vassals or tributaries from the Plow to the Throne Now how would these two contrary lusts tear and destroy one another if God had not raised Kings to preserve the peace between them How would Religion and good literature all fall to the ground and Atheism and Barbarism or equivalent Ignorance and superstition come again in their place if Kings were not Nursing Fathers to secure their Rights and Defenders of the Faith to maintain their Priviledges and quietness to correct on the one hand the Idolatrous Avarice of some hard hearts who would starve the Lord Christ to cherish their Lord Mammon And to check the Hypocrisie and worldliness of others on the other hand who Christopher-like carry Christ upon their backs to begg mens hearts who make use of Purgatory and the world to come to gull men out of this present who call all men to be their Paymasters for the unvaluable unrequitable mysteries of the Gospel which they at best but counterfeit and make them Vassals for ever afterward upon the score of that Tribute and acknowledgement who claim a Supremacy over Princes not upon the score of the Pulpit and the Eternal obligations thereof which they quit but upon the score of their Chairs which was borrowed from the Throne and intended it should return to its subordination thereunto Though Spiritual Graces wherewith they are ill stock'd are above all Temporal reward as much as Salvation is above an Earthly Crown yet it doth not follow that the Instruments and conveyers of Grace are Superiours here in in this world to all that receive it by their Ministry The message and Author is but not the messenger Kings hear Gods word as Subjects to Christs whole word it is but not as Subjects to those that Preach it but their Masters rather It is an ill and Un-evangelical Inference and too much savouring of Antichrist from Spiritual Doctrines to raise Secular Superiority and to make wordly Rule and Ambition the chief end of the everlasting Gospel Ego Rex meus was a perfidious Traiterous crime in Wolsey to transfer his Masters honour and Soveraignty upon himself which is their great Disease at Rome and constant Boldness upon Christ A Pursiveant though sent from a King to Arrest a Peer is not Superiour in quality thereby to the Peer although his Authority and errand be we may as well conclude all Centinels to be Generals of the Field or every Chaplain declaring Christ will in a Sermon before the King to be Primate of the Church and every Christian who Conquers the world by his Faith to be Emperour of this world as Popes to be Supremes in Christian Kingdoms and Churches over mens souls and bodies because they are the Servants and Officers of Christ who is When St. Ambrose boldly durst suspend his Soveraign and Theodosius meekely yielded to the censure of his Subject there was no Superiority either lost or got by this in either both doing their parts of Servants herein the Bishop of fidelity about his Master's mysteries the Emperour of Submission to his Saviours Steward All orders and degrees in the Church are every one in the Postures of Servants to Christ and Servants to another for Christ his sake 1 Cor. 3.22 and he alone the only Master and Soveraign Math. 23.8 In this world it 's true it 's otherwise where some are Servants others are Masters some Rulers and others Ruled all to be regarded as unto Christ in their several Superiorities by Christians who are to serve and obey them all from the heart upon Christs account in addition to their Civil obligation which is correlative to their Civil Superiority for as we are Christians we serve none but Christ and those that Rule and Govern if Christians do it as his Servants and Pious Kings have justly esteemed it to be a greater Dignity to be Servants of Christ than Soveraignes of this world Whosoever therefore misguides or mis-governs his Inferiour or wrongs or deceives his Neighbour or disobeys or dishonours his Superiour Christian violates his Faith and duty first to his Heavenly Soveraign in his heart before he wrongs any other on Earth by his outward Act. And it is our concern and honour as to detect and shun all such as are Traytors and Faithless to our Saviour so dearly to embrace and love them from our hearts that are true But though Kings meddle not with the Substantialls of Religion or the rights of Christ yet with the out-side or Circumstantials that fall within their charge and cognizance they well may and must whatsoever in Church matters is of Temporal not of Eternal moment neither determined by Christ nor necessary to Salvation but conducing only to Order and Peace and Decency and good
example before men belongs to Christian Kings to regulate by discretion with the advice of their Clergy Numb 27.21 Mal. 2.7 for their Transitory Nature makes them more allyed to this present world where Kings are Soveraigns than their bare Connexion to Holy duties doth make them appurtenances to the other immortal world where Christ only Raigns and Rules For Instance whether it be more decent to perform Divine service in a Gown or Surplice or in a Cloak or Querpo whether with the people having all their Hats on as do the Jewes or the Minister as the French or all bare both Minister and People as usually amongst us whether kneeling or sitting be the best and seemliest postures at several Offices before men for it is clear before God that the heart is all in all whether a Bason at the Ministers Elbow be more comly than a Font or whether the Font stand best in the Chancel with the other Table for the other Sacrament or at the Church door in token of our entrance by it Whether the Cross may be used in Baptism or the Ring in Marriage Whether the King have not power to found and endow Churches and to alter Sees and to translate the Metropolitan from one place to another as he thinks fit for any new convenience or redress These things are nominally spiritual but really secular and belong to Christian Temporal Jurisdiction which no way intrenches herein upon Divine Institution or Soveraignity which hath left out such matters and causes free for Christian Kings to regulate even in the Church and Temple as did the Kings of Israel The Church being part of their state and Province where Kings and Subjects are Christian and the one to order every thing to the Lord Christ whose Deputies and Vicars now they are and the other to obey them in all such their Orders from the heart as to the Lord Neither is there any peril of Soul or Salvation by such transitory matters as wears and postures of the Body where they are not ordained for to honour or acknowledge Idols and false Gods there may be great danger in contention 1 Cor. 11.16 and disobedience to those Divine and Eternal Laws which command obedience and Conformity to humane Neither are the Circumstances of Religion made equal hereby to the substantial parts thereof being observed to such several Ends and intents sufficiently distinct and different as are the Authorities that appoint both the one and the other God himself in those and Kings as his Deputies and delegates in these though many mens too much placing their Heaven and zeal and humour and scruples upon Ceremonies and shadows make them substances as to themselves For the difference between Time and Eternity or the Body and the Soul or sense and faith or word and sword or Heaven and Earth or peace of Conscience and the peace of the Kingdom is not more fixt and manifest and unconfounded than is that between the inside and outside of the Church the one lying within the Perambulation and Jurisdiction of Divine Soveraignty the other of humane neither of the Popes over us in England nor the latter but only there where he is a Temporal nor the former even at Rome it self where so he is And O! the Unchristian Arts and Methods that have been us'd by Popery all along both above and under-board according as it was high or low to wrest this Ecclesiastical Supremacy and Prerogative from Christian Kings which is their manifest and undoubted right and chiefest Glory in their Temporal Crowns and a peculiar Talent for their management in order to an Eternal Sometimes openly and above-board by an impudent pretence of Plenitude of Power when they had none at all they have eagerly endeavoured to hook unto themselves our Kings Royal Priviledges about Investures and nomination of Bishops and the Crowns off from their heads which is too well known For any ones Temporal right that had any reference or Relation towards the Church was straightway the undoubted Appurtenance of St. Peters Chair under that pretence they caus'd King Henry the Second in the Controversie about the exemption of the Clergy which was an absolute invasion of his Royal Government and Authority to be whipt and stript by his Subjects like a Malefactor in Bridewell for the good of his Soul and in breach of his Royal Trust and Dignity to allow Appeals to Rome to heal his wounded Conscience Their poisoning Attempts and Invasions and Powder-plots against Queen Elizabeth and King James are fresh in Memory When open Arts can do no good they 'l work their Ends in Masquerade and smaller undertakings Here possessing Quakers and raising Sects to resist and Blaspheme our Religion and Government There endeavouring to get more considerable Instruments into power to promote their Romish Interest in Protestant Shapes with greater succcess and lesser noise because less discern'd to corrupt our hopeful Clergy and destroy honest men under-hand and imbroile the Nation by widening the differences between Protestants which were ready to close and multiplying Non-conformists whether they would or not For it is obvious and easie to observe that all or most of our Presbyterian Dissenters of the younger sort throughout the Nation did see their Errour and desert their Party upon the Restauration of our Church And that the Elder sort were no less convinc'd from the experience of late confusions but that it was harder for the one than for the other in point of Reputation to change and walk contrary on a suddain to their former Actings And the secret enemies of our Protestant peace and union laid hold of this advantage as Non-conformists alledge and cast in politick Provisoes and obstructions to make their Repentance harder still if not impossible to the trouble of our Government and the joy of Rome Some ambodextrous Pens like Mountebanks upon a Stage shall publickly wound and confute and presently heal and defend the Church of Rome as faithfully as any of her own Inquisitors and as safely as any of our own Authors by this double stile falling fiercely upon their first Deserters and such as begin to espy and loath any of its grosser Errours enough in time if not so carefully prevented and discourag'd to cause a general defection throughout the host because they are not perfect Protestants in a moment able to see and relinquish all her Corruptions at first waking And therefore the sincere Irish Clergy shall be rigorously chid for beginning an Orthodox Allegiance in disobedience to their Church and violation of their Oaths And the Jansenists for defending Catholick Doctrines with the like sincerity to Christ and dis-rellish to the Pope And the Distinguishers of the Church of Rome from its more corrupt Court as Pestiferous and rash beginners or some Ho-body Hoyes and no right Sons of the one Church or of the other against all Principles of Christian Charity which forbids to quench the smoaking Flax or break the bruised Reed as also against common humanity and
Regions are parted from neighbouring Kingdoms by impervious Mountains and wild and inhospitable deserts or whether it were that the Ink then in use was Bloud and their best evidences and Records flames and Martyrdom Nevertheless the acknowledged increase of Religion over all the Land in King Lucius his time will attest the zeal and fidelity of this Age to their Principles when it shall appear from the Epistle of Eleutherius that Christian Religion is pre-supposed therein to be settled in this Land before and the King pre-instructed in it And the c Usher p. 141. great Vsher Marshalls about 20 or 30 Authors both Foreign and Domestick to confute and stop the mouths of some ignorant suggestions as if Religion had fail'd or expir'd in this Land between the time of its first planting and Dioclesians persecution For the third Age Origen and Tertullian early Fathers mention Religion to flourish here the one writing about the year 201. Brittannorum in accessa Romanis loca Christo vero subdita That Christ was received as Lord here where the Romans had much ado to enter the other that they were united to Christ in Brittain though divided from the rest by situation And Dioclesians persecution in the beginning of the fourth Age about the Year 303. largely proves the existence of the Christian Faith in this Land which it so fiercely endeavour'd totally to suppress but to little effect Yea to the more corroborating of Christianity here by the exemplary constancy of Martyrs St. Alban and Amphibalus and Julius and Aaron c. establishing it the more by their sufferings and d Bed lib. c. 7. Converting their Executioners with their invincible meekness and patience And occasioning its larger extent and the full Conversion of the Scots dwelling then in the Northwest of Scotland beyond Dunbritton Frith by the Brittish Culdees e Buchanan Rerum Scoticarum Regit ◠p. 122. Spotswood Hist lib. 1. retiring to those parts as Archbishop Spotswood and Buchanan acknowledge the Providential benefit from whose Cells the Ancient Scots denominated their Churches Who in after Ages were extruded saith the same Author e Buchanan Rerum Scoticarum Regit ◠p. 122. Spotswood Hist lib. 1. by a new sort of Popish Monks Tanto Doctrinâ pictate illis inferiores so much coming short of the other for Learning and Piety as they exceeded them in Riches and Ceremonies wherewith they affect mens Senses and infatuate their minds In the Year 313. when peace was restor'd by Constantine they begin saith Gildas f Gildas Epist to Re-build their Churches demolished to the ground and her exil'd Children dissipated into Corners gather themselves together into the bosom of the Church to Celebrate their Festivals and Triumphs over their Enemies to give God the Glory and to attend his Sacraments with pure heart and mind In the following year the Church being in good order we find the three Archbishops of Brittain taking their places and subscribing in the great Councel of Arles in France Eborius Ivor Arch-Bishop of York Restitutus Edrud Archbishop of London and Adelfius Brawdol Archbishop of Caerleon upon Vsk a Roman Colony where a Legion in the Brittish Leon kept their Garrison corruptly set down in the Council with several other places h Concil Arelat Edit Reg Paris Civitate Colonia Londinensium where an uniform Celebration of Easter was agreed upon and thereupon Constantine i Constantini Epist apud Spelm. Conc. p. 4. with good reason assures all the Orthodox Bishops that were not present at the Council of Nice which was held eleven Years before that of Arles that the Church of Brittain with others did agree with the rest of the World in the Orthodox observation of Easter In 347. in a Councel of about 400 Western Bishops we find the Bishops of Brittain to joyn in the Condemnation of the Arrian Heresie and the clearing of k Apol. 2. Athanasius as himself doth testifie About the Year 390. l Usher 787 St. Chrysostom likewise magnifies the Divine power of Christ from the Holy Faith and Life the Churches and Altars in Brittain as it were in another World In the latter end of this Age m Gildas Epist Maximus in this Island making for the Roman Empire exhausted the Nation of all its Fighting men and Arms and Treasure wherewith he Coped with two Emperours Gratian and Valentinian driving the one out of Rome the other out of his Life and leaving the Nation weak and open to the Incursion of its Enemies round about but made far more weak by Gods desertion upon the follies and ill life of Vortigern inviting the Saxons into his pay against the Scots and Picts and prefering the Beauty of Hengist's Daughter before his Faith and Countrey and his Christian Subjects after his example inter-marrying with the Saxon Infidells which was one o Ubbo Emmius Rerum Frisic Hist lib. 3. of the reasons brought over St. German and Lupus to disswade them from such wickedness but all in vain till God gave them and their Countrey over to be barbarously and mercilessly destroyed by their perfidious mercenaries Confederating with their enemies against them who were before too strong for them in their weakness yet God in his mercy rais'd them pious and Couragious Princes Aurelius Ambrosius and Vter Pendragon and the Renowned Arthur who by the strength of a Christian p Ubbo Emmius Rerum Frisic Hist lib. 3. League enter'd into with Picts and Scots made great slaughter upon the Infidels and subdued and chas'd them out of the Land And what further proves not only the continuation but the true temper and life of the Christian Faith amongst them our Brittains were zealous and successful to preach and plant the Gospel amongst their Enemies and Invaders As the most Reverend and Holy Bishop Ninian as Beda stiles him lib. 3. c. 4. about the year 412. Converted by his Preaching the Southern Picts dwelling then between the Frith of Edenburgh and the Hills having his See amongst his own Countreymen at Whitern or Candida Casa translated afterwards to Glasgow that Territory r Usher p. 663. from Dunbritton Firth down to Cumberland remaining then in the possession of the Ancient Brittains and the names of Rivers and Towns and Mountains are as Brittish as in the heart of Wales In the Year 432. the great St. Patrick a Brittain born whether about St. Davids in ſ Humph. Lhuid Frag. Britt p. 63. Wales as some say or at Kirpatrick t Usher p. 819 near Dunbritton as others will have it it matters not much the people and Language in the one place and in the other being then of the same Brittains whence he was stollen with about an hundred more by Irish Pirates and sold for a Slave whereby he had time to learn their Language and was enabled by God to Captivate the whole Nation to Christ both Princes and people and the Isle of ſ Hist Ch. Scot. lib. 1. Spotswood ascribes the
the Lords-day least good-friday should thereby be observ'd of necessity before the 14th day against the Law of Moses but differ'd it to the following Sunday being the 22th but if the following Sunday was on the 16th day after the full Moon or 14th the former Inconvenience was prevented So the Latines before they were rectified from Alexandria observed their Easter on such Sundayes as fell out between the 16th and 22th never went so far as 23 nor began at 14 or 15. y Usher p. 321. Sulpitius Severus of France about the year 410 to amend the errour and overplus of about two dayes which he observ'd invents another new way of observing Easter between the 14 th and 20th which the Brittains are taxed in Bede for observing likewise whereby when Easter is kept the 14th the Evening of the 13th preceeding is taken into it against the limits of the Law which confines the beginning of the Passover ever to the Evening of the 14th and not before or latter So the Roman Church having for about 100 years laid aside her wonted Cycle and rule of 84 and from 16 to 22 to follow the exacter tables of Dionysius and the Church of Brittain for about the same space of time following the Gallican method of Sulpitius from 14 to 20 being more intent upon the sincerity of their duty than exactness in hours and scruples and seconds this gave occasion to Augustine the Monk and his followers to espy a mistake to raise a quarrel upon to disturb z Bed l. 2. c. 2. our Churches for they confidently affirm'd that their Alexandrine Calandar was a tradition deriv'd from St. Peter who kept the keyes of Heaven upon which a Bed l. 3. c. 25. Oswi King of Northumberland was deterr'd from his Brittish institution to follow the Roman Church for fear of being shut out Colman being discredited quitted his Bishoprick and went back into Seotland and the spotless Church of Brittain had a fowle imputation fastened upon it of being no less than Heretical for want of better skill or heed in Almanacks and Accounts and trusting too much her Neighbours of France to tell the Clock whilst she was busie With the like Ignorance though not with the same mischief and scandal a gifted Preacher preferring the Illumination of the spirit before all human learning whatsoever being ask'd by a grave Divine to expound the meaning of Arcturus Orion and the Pleiades Job 28.31 comparing them with Leviathan thereabouts that was as hard a word in his phancy answers presently they were Sea-Monsters and earnest he was the learned Minister should veyle and submit to his Ignorant inspirations Consent and Harmony among Churches were to be wish'd in every rite and truth however to be followed in points that are least considerable but of the two it is easy to believe God is better pleased with Sincerity than Punctillioes and that a clean heart stylo veteri is far more acceptable with its searcher than an old heart puffed with pride and malice stylo novo the Virgins saith St. Chrysostom were shut out for want of Oyle Math. 25.11 another for not having his wedding garment Math. 12.12 13. but we read of none that were arraign'd or punished for mistaking the Month of the Passover The Church of Rome therefore its Adversary largely proves our Brittish to be Orthodox in Doctrine in that she had no more but this Easter difference to lay to her charge or to justifie her self above her And as her Doctrine throughout was sound and Scriptural so was her Government Ancient and Primitive by Bishops who were chosen by their b Usher p. 81. Godw. Catalogue in Bernard St David Clergy and People as their Arch-Bishops c Convocato clero populo Pyramo Archiepiscopatûs Eborac sedem concessit M. Westm de Arthuro An. 522. Spelman Conc p. 60. Hist Brit. l. 8. c. 12. l. 9. c. 8. by their Kings and Synods and Parliaments to Rule at home and to appear a broad in General Councils Nice Sardyca Ariminum as there be Instances That there were here 28 Bishops and three Arch-Bishops erected over the rest by King Lucius and the d Usher p. 125. Revenues of the Druides tranferr'd from Idolatry to endow the Church and so kept still sacred fot the use of Religion in general as Geoffrey of Monmouth and e in Eleutherio Platina intimate and is prov'd as to London by the early Simony of Wini Bishop of Winchester buying the same of King Wolfer is not the less improbable because some learned men are offended with the newness of the word Arch-slamins us'd by the Interpreter who writ in an ignorant Monkish age when the thing meant thereby and that there was subordination and one set over the rest is expressly affirmed by Caesar in his Account of their Discipline and Order yet others are inclin'd with Baleus and and Powel and Sir H. Spelman to believe that the Church of Brittain took her pattern from the East and from Scripture rather than Idolatry in the founding of her Bishopricks And that f Usher p. 90 the 7 Bishops of Wales under the Arch-Bishop of St. David who are recorded to meet Monk Augustine were founded and erected after the g Idem p. 800. Spelm. Conc. p. 107. number and example of the 7 Churches of Asia and their Angels Revel capp 1.2 3. as those Churches likewise after the like remarkeable number in the Angelical Hirarchy Zach. 4.10 Rev. 1.4 5. which opinion Arch-Bishop Vsher recites without any censure or dislike Accordingly h Usher p. 73. we meet with 7 Bishops in the North under the Arch-Bishop of York in like manner And twice 7 under the Arch-Bishop of London being twice as large as the two other Provinces or 7 only perhaps but each of those of larger extent than now they are as was i Heylin help to History p. 115. Lincolne before Eli Peterburgh and Oxford were taken from it or Lichfeild Sidnacester Dorchester Legecester and Worcester when all made but k Monast Angl. part 1.137 Spel. Concil p. 27. one Bishoprick and whereas Rome had 10 suburbicarian Provinces under it l Praesat Monast Angl. Millain which was more Oriental in her Customs had but 7. But one discord note we may find in the Brittish Doctrine touching persons Ecclesiastical which yet well agrees with St. Paul disallowing any to be fit guides that did not follow his example in living as he followed Christ Phil. 3.17 though not so well with Roman practice or profession where Bishops may be holy maugre all their scandals and impieties and Infallible in their monstrous errours because they sit in the Chair of St. Peter whereas in the sence of m Epist Gildas and consequently of our Brittish Church all holy Ministers are the successors of Peter in his Chair and they that are otherwise are Judas his successors being not Ministers of Christ but of the Devil and their bellies who
confess to prop his other Arguments and Interest to which he was more addicted nor left remaing in Brittish Histories as can yet be found It being justly believed that they were carefully suppressed or adulterated by the Romish Power while it here prevailed as Instance was made before in Geoffrey of Monmouth's History and Gualter who were both impos'd upon or else consumed y H. Lhuid fragm Brit. p 58. with their Libraries in Pagan Conflagrations of the Roman-Catholick Contrivance But in the Scottish Histories which better escap'd and can be less suspected of partiality nothing is more plainly delivered and repeated than that all the English Nation or a very great part in all probability were brought over to the Christian Faith before the arrival of Augustine or Mellitus Hector Boethius saith in one place there was a very great part of the English as yet unconverted before their landing z H. Boethius lib 8. p. 171. Augustinus Mellitus missi ut Anglorum gentem ad eam usque diem majori ex parte pietatem aversatam Christi dogmate ritè Instituerent But then gives the reason of this obstruction and defect a Ibid p. 150. Aspernabantur ut plurimum Saxones Brittonum sacerdotum tum Gualiam incolentium doctrinam tametsi veram proficerentur invisae magis Gentis quam discplinae de quà multa atque praeclara frequentiùs audverant odio permoti The Saxons for the most part slighted the Doctrine of the Brittish Clergy that Inhabited Wales although it was true and Orthodox being moved thereunto more out of hatred to that Nation than to the Institution of which they had frequently received many excellent characters and reports they were ashamed it seems to be converted by them whom they had Conquered right or wrong for their Converters were not yet driven to Wales as this Historian supposes but lived in Lhoegr amongst them as before and were in great part their flesh and bloud but God in great mercy to both removed this obstruction by the Victorious Arms of some of our subsequent Brittish Kings turning this their carnal Height and Pride into necessity and Interest to embrace the Faith For when they were reduced by King Aurelius Ambrosius whom Gildas calls vir modestus whose Tomb Polydor Virgil conceives Stonehenge to be the terms given them by the Conquerour were b Ibid p. 171. Migrant Ambrosii edicto Cuncti Saxonum generis ad bellum idonei c. All of English or Saxon Race that were fit for War were ordered to depart the Land and the rest made Tributary and suffered to remain behind in Albion or Lhoegr on condition of their embracing the Gospel so all that stayed behind became Christians in Truth or at least in Shew And when their Recruited Forces were afterwards Conquered by King Arthur c Hect. Boethius l. 9. p. 161. Saxones viribus fracti cum spem nullam haberent c. The Saxons when they were so quite defeated that they had no hopes of ralling any Forces together to make head any more came bare-foot and bare-head before King Arthur to beg his mercy and pardon supplicibus Regis clementia pepercit ea lege ut sacro ad moti lavacro Christiani fierent aut-si id minus placeret fortunis ac armis exuti Insula excederent The King Graciously pardoned them only with this proviso that they would become Christians and be Baptized or if this pleased them not that they should quit the Realm leaving all their Arms and Bag and Baggage behind them Whereupon all being to profess some did it in sincerity and Truth but many only dissembled their Religion to reserve themselves for better times Which last clause perhaps may have more of uncharitable conjecture though d Buchanan l. 5. Reg. 45. p. 148. Buchanan concur therein with Boethius than of Historical Truth for charity and kindness here where all was forfeited out weighed the force And nothing more agrees with the heart than Christian Religion managed by Right and Able masters of Assemblies such as our Brittish Clergy approved themselves to be towards others not long before who had been equally their Enemies towards the Irish in St. Patrick and the Scots and Picts and Caledonians in Ninius Kentigerne Constantine c. as before But after the three Christian Nations here of Brittains Scots and Picts ruined one another in e Hector Boethius lib 9. p. 165. Civil Wars between Arthur and Mordred who laid title to the Crown f Ibid. p. 160 The English came to prevail again and drove the Military Brittains in like manner as themselves were served into Wales and other places yet the rest were permitted to stay behind under Tribute and Subjection and their Clergy amongst others till Augustine's coming for about 100 years and here that obstruction of Force which is so contrary to Religion being removed the Saxons were again coped with with the meer power of the naked Gospel and the Sword of the Spirit only in the weak hands of their captives and were more reduced than ever as it fared before with the other parts of the Heathen-Roman-World whom the Gospel overcame with its arms tyed behind it Their work of Conversion in the Capital Kingdom of Kent arrived to a publick toleration by g Ibid p. 166. the Prince himself as was instanced before Father to Augustine's Ethelbert which argued himself was not far of from the Kingdom of Heaven if Pride or an equitable restitution of his Kingdom on Earth upon his own conversion to the right owners had not stood in the way so difficult is it according to the Gospel for the Rich and Great to enter there And also the great Kingdom of Mercia with King Penda himself as some conceived and Bede acknowledges h Bed l. 3 c. 21. Math. Westm Anno 640. thus much that he well liked those Christians that walked answerable to their Religion received Christ's yoak from those that were now under its own and so did the Other Heptarchs saving Ethelfred King of the North the sole Furious Patron of Heathenism and Resolved Enemy of Christianity †Hector Boethius l. 9. p. 169. Homo in Britanicum genus odio Infensissimo An implacable enemy of the Brittains upon that score who made War upon his own English for turning Christians k Ibidem p. 172. Mercios Saxonas quod Christi Religionem fuerant amplexi dispendio ingenti afflixerat Did greatly michief the Mercian Saxons for no other cause but their yeilding to be Christians so he served or threatned the other Kings Minatus ad hibito juramento Australibus threatning the Southern English that is with this Historian the rest of the Heptarchies in the South set against his own in the North For Redwald King of the East-Angles next unto him was feign to confederate with other Christian Heptarchyes for his preservation against him which supposes the like Conversion by his like danger and necessity of Allyance l H.
Boethius l. 9. p. 171. That because they deserted the Religion of their Fathers and violated the Worship of their Gods perinde atque Brittannis atque Scotis se hostem futurum that he would be their enemy no less than to the Brittains and the Scots And lost his life at last in his Holy War against the East-Angles having lost an eye before in Scotland and a great Army at Bangor where he was also wounded breathing out his impious Soul like Julian only better for his constancy but not inferiour for his Heathenish Cruelty Deorum Religionis Protector Christiani Nominis Hostis ut vixi morior m Ibid. p. 172. I dye as I lived the Protector of the Religion of the Gods and the enemy of Christ and all his Christians who therefore was a very fit and useful Instrument for Monk Augustine to comply with for the destruction of the true Christian Religion here in Brittain that opposed the Roman and to plant his Popery instead and accordingly made use off If therefore the English were not all converted in their Hearts under Arthur and Aurelius because of the force It may well be presumed from the contrary reason that the Heart it self did not hold out against the Divine power of the same Ministry acting in its external weakness and exinanition God by his great Providence having us'd all means both harsh and easie to soften and chafe the hard and stubborn hearts of the English to receive his Gospel and shap'd and cast the Brittish Nation for their use and the use of all Germany through them into the mould as it were of Christs first and second coming to work and make impression upon them if it were possible either of the two wayes With this difference that here Humility came after Power to to win by Intreaty what it could not compass by command and force as there Power will come after Humility to bruise with irresistable destruction what it could not prevail upon by Grace and love And when all would not do delivered them over to Popery as it were to Satan or Antichrist to be chain'd in spiritual slavery and darkness with many other Nations for about a thousand years And then visited them again in mercy with the comfortable light and Glorious Liberty of the Reformation handed also to them by their Kings when they came to be of Brittish race to try their love to truth once more before his last stroke and Eternal destruction of the Impenitent and Incorrigible But nothing of the former passages though the truth thereof hath left sufficient markes and effects behind it in Saxon Laws and Homilies extant quite dissonant to Popery in several principles as shall hereafter be mention'd how remarkable soever occurrs in Bede's Popish History not a word of n Munster Cosm p. 552. Offa the Son of Ethelfred preaching the Gospel to the Germans beyond the Rhine Anno 603. and building Offenburg and Schuttern as Munster Notes nor o Ibid. p. 580. St. Columbanus our Irish Monk of whom the same Munster saith Certò Constat We have certain knowledge of his propagating the Gospel far and wide through Germany the passages being within the time and business of his History and for the Honour of this Land only tending too much to discover that the Gospel was preached by the Brittains to the Saxons in the houses of their Fiercest Kings which Right to that Nation was against Bede's Theme and humour to acknowledge But Ethelfred and Oswald being both Princes of his Countrey and Climate he is Civil to them and endeavours to do Right to both respectively in Magnifying the Vertues of King Oswald which are undenyable to Superstition And Palliating and lessening the wickedness of Ethelfred which was as notorious to Indignity seldom doing the least Right to the Brittains the enemies of his Nation and of his Catholick Faith as he openly stiles them lib. 5. c. ult Saving sometimes out of unavoidable necessity and for other ends and Interests as where he is to commend the way and Religion of the Scots and Irish for whom he had greater kindness The Brittish Faith whence the other deriv'd and stifly kept to is inevitably extoll'd by consequence Or when he mention'd the good work of Augustine in repairing Canterbury Church whither Queen Bertha resorted he had like to have betrayed and discovered to a sagacious smell how all then stood How much the Christian Brittish Religion was received and flourished in Kent before the coming of Augustine So the West Saxon Kingdom shall be all in darkness p Bede lib. 3. c. 7. Paganissimi when Birinus comes to convert it but when Aldhelmus is to do exploits in bringing them over to the Roman Easter it shall be very q Idem lib. 5. c. 19. full again of Brittish Christians whom he is to reduce and such is his Conversion of all Mercia by Diuma and but two or three more and the like of the other Heptarchies yet no Ecclesiastical Writer is now more Classic and Authentick than Bede nor any passage of Church Antiquity to be well credited without his attestation so beneficial was his Partiality to the Roman-church to his Reputation and Authority in the World Therefore the other mixt Conversion of the English and full completion or confirmation of the former by Brittish Ministy and Doctrine but not all Brittish persons shall be clear'd out of Bede their own Author against our Romanists and irrefragably evinc'd by cross examination of his History whereby it will appear that the English under God owe their Conversion to the Brittains and others and not to Rome And that Augustine came hither to no better end than to destroy the true Religion like a messenger of Antichrist or at least miserably to corrupt it with adulterate mixtures and Superstitions And the positive proofs out of Bede of the Gospel being preached and planted among the English upon mixt account and especially Northward where the English did most abound and the Brittains were least intermixt amongst them are not so much Proofs and undenyable Instances as Divine Miracles and over-ruling Providences and the manifest Finger of God calling not only for Assent but Astonishment and Admiration That not only Augustin's plantation at York and Kent should be totally extirpated as it were by Divine Retaliation by the same means and method himself contrived and set on foot to destroy our Brittish Church But the Sons of Edelfred swho was Augustine's Executioner to Massacre the Brittish Clergy are made by Gods controlling power the chief Patrons and Propagators of the Brittish Faith over most part of England and Oswald the best of them who for his own virtues was no doubt rewarded with rest and Glory permitted by Gods severity and hatred of his Fathers Murders at Bangor to be slain and mangled and quarter'd by his enemies in view well nigh and sight of that very place And the Brittains by excess of wrong and cruelties from their enemies
put then in a fair posture not only to defend their Church and vindicate their Martyrs but well nigh as Bede intimates to exterminate †Bede l. 2. c. 20. or subdue all their Saxon enemies within the Land For Ethelfred having his greatest force routed at Bangor by the union of the Brittains was the easier conquer'd and kill'd by his Brother-in-law Edwin with the help of the petty King of the East-Angles with whom he lived in Exile through Ethelfreds jealousy least he should intercept the succession of his Sons and by that victory what he fear'd was fulfill'd and brought to pass For upon Edwins prevailing Oswald and Oswi c. his Sons being young were forc'd with several of their Nobles to quit Northumberland and flee into Scotland giving place to Edwin who received his Christianity wherewith he before was well acquainted among the Brittains from Paulinus one of Monk Angustine's Fellow labourers whom he makes Archbishop of York and greatly countenances the propagation of the Roman Faith among the Northern English but Cedwalla or Cadwalhan recovering for r M. Westminster 663. Edwin had beaten him out of all Wales with great slaughters upon the people beâ—â— Edwin again out of his Life and Kingdom and forc'd Paulinus and all his new Converts to shift for themselves exercising great Cruelties far and near as Bede complains both Princes dancing by turnes after Augustine's Pipe And upon the ruine of Edwin who kept but Ethelfred's Sons for about 17 years Eanfrid an Elder Brother of Oswald and Osric his Cousin were restor'd by Cadwalhan Å¿ Hect Boethius l. 9. p. 174. at the Intercession of the King of Scots to the Kingdoms of Deira and Bernicia and afterwards both destroyed t Bede l. 3. c. 1. M. Westm 634. by the same Cadwalhan for apostatizing from the Christian Faith u H. Boethius lib. 9. p. 174. § 50. after he had sent Bishops often to them to warn and advise and reclaim them but all in vain and x Ibid. § 70. Oswald was admitted King after them because in the Battel he was as zealous as Cadwallan himself against the Apostate Kings whereby it appears that the Restauration or plantation of the Christian Religion amongst the Northern English is chiefly owing to Cadwalhan's zeal and and Interest who plyed the English Commonalty with Brittish Preachers no doubt as he did the Apostate Kings with Brittish Bishops whereof Bede takes not the least notice though the passages are punctually recited in the Scottish Histories when it was not their main design as it was with Bede Which the more discovers his unwillingness to do right to the Brittains according to the Truth yea by him Oswald is restored to his Kingdom not by the Courtesie of Cadwalhan but by his y Bed l. 3. c. 1. death and overthrow against both our English and Brittish Histories z Hist Brit. lib. 12. c. 13. who relate Cadwalhan to have lived many years after Oswald and that King Penda of Mercia made War upon Oswi Oswalds Brother and Successor a M. Westm 665. Jubente Cadwallino by Cadwalhan's Order and that he died Anno 679. of b Idem 676. meer Age. But Oswald and his Companions during his Exile in Scotland were c Bede l. 3. c. 2. Baptiz'd and brought up in the Christian Religion according to the Brittish Institution as it differed from the Roman and being settled in his Throne by Cadwalhan sent to c Bede l. 3. c. 2. Scotland for Doctors to Convert the remainder of his Subjects to that end d Idem c. 3. Aidanus and Finnan and Diuma are sent who were Monkes of a Brittish Isle belonging to the Picts who bestowed the same upon St. Columbanus or Collymcille who built a Monastery there as he had done before at Armagh where the Abbot e Usher p 170. was Superiour to all the Clergy of those parts and to the Bishop himself and f Bede l. 3. c. 3 5. the Rites and Customes of the Brittains were most strictly observed and kept to the last the Monkes and Founder being all train'd up in the Principles and Religion of our St. Patrick from whom by Faith all descend as perhaps Aidan and Finnan and Dymma are by bloud of Brittish extraction as their f Aidhan the name of a King of Powys Ancestor to Blethin ap Cynwin Bwlch-Aidhan in Com. Montgom Aedani Ecclesia in Monâ Ins Gyrald Cambr c. 7. Annot. Descrip Cambr. Names may import for the Brittains flocked much to Ireland upon the Saxon persecution whereupon that Island grew very famous for Learning and Religion in those dayes as was said before being the rest bred and born some in Scotland some in Ireland as if by special Providence fitted and designed to represent and unite the four Nations into one the English by their Instruction the Scotch and Irish by their Birth and Education and the Brittains by their first Original in Faith and descent And though they had not the good fortune to be Grac'd and Canoniz'd far and wide for Saints by the Roman Church for which they had not that filiall regard and honour as for their Brittish Mother as others have been of a far lower form to them for Sanctity and Knowledge and Innocence yet that piece of Character Bede gives of Aidan may satisfie what He and the rest were and what honour they deserved and no doubt have enjoyed in Heaven though they fail'd thereof at Rome g Bed lib 3. c. 3. 4. 17. Cujus doctrinam id maxime commendabat omnibus quod non aliter quam vivebat cum suis c. Whose Doctrine saith he and their monastical Education must be remembred and allowed them nothing more set out than that he was known to teach no otherwise than he us'd to live for nothing of this present World did he care either to love or covet All the guifts and presents he received from the Princes and potentates of this World he delighted presently to bestow away amongst the first poor he met it was his manner never to be seen on Horse-back but to perform all his business on foot through all parts of City and Country unless upon great necessity if he met or saw any as he went either Rich or Poor he presently addressed towards them and invited them to the Faith if they were Infidels or if believers confirm'd them in it and stirr'd them up to alms and good works both by word and deed and all that walked in his company whether Regular or Lay so different saith Bede was his manner from the lazy kind of living in his time were to be given to mediation that is were to be ever reading the Scritures or getting some of the Psalms by heart this was his daily work and Custom and of all his Friars that were with him whithersoever they went and if it fell out which was but seldom that he was invited to Dinner by the King he went
attended but with one Clerk or two at the most and after a little refection he hastened presently away to read to his Disciples or to his private prayers after whose pattern and example in that time all devout men and women every where made it a Custom to fast every Wednesday and Friday throughout the year till three a clock afternoon except the 50 dayes between Easter and Whitsontide He never spared for fear or honour to reprove the Rich when ever they did amiss but corrected them especially with great severity He never us'd to give away Money or presents to the Rich and Great in this World but only a kind entertainment when ever they came to visit him but what ever such bestowed upon him he soon imployed it either for relief of the Poor or redemtion of Captives admitting them his Scholars and Disciples whom he so redeemed and fitting them by his pains and Instructions for the Priestly dignity Not a word of Vests and Ornaments or Palls or Crucifixes or Holy Water or Indulgencies or toyes or lyes or Prophetick Murders for they were no Roman-Catholicks but only good Brittish Christians The Right Pictures of Gildas who loved best and truest when they were most troublesom to offenders being lively Instances to guess at this distance at the spirit and efficacy of St. Patrick's Ministry upon the Ancient Irish and Scotch by the Apostolical stamp of such self-denial and contempt of this present World in their hearts and affections out of love to Christ and that to come This worthy Bishop Aidan as his name imports in the Brittish and Holy King Oswald were the Chief Authors and Instruments under God of the Conversion of the English to the Christian Faith over all the Land not only in Northumberland where they Reigned and resided but over the rest of the English Heptarchies by their Influence and good example for Oswald did not only the part of a King in the first Invitation and continual encouragement maintenance Protection of those men of God but bore a great share with them in their Ministry for as Aidan delivered Gods mind in his Doctrine and Preaching so h Bede l. 3. c. 3. 6. l. 3. c. 5. Oswald out of great zeal and humility to the better edification of his Subjects vouchsafed in his Royal Apparel to be his Clerk or Deacon interpreting Aidan's mind to the People wherein he was defective or unready for want of more skill in the tongue and which gave the greatest life of all to his endeavours exemplifying all his precepts by a leading conversation and holiness of life and largeness of Alms and charity hardly to be parallel'd parting with his meat out of his mouth with his dinner set before him to his poor Christian Subjects without that Aidan once wishing this unwearied Arm and liberal hand of his might never fail but be ever supplied by God with heart and substance for it gave occasion to Monkish Historians of the superstitious Letter wherein Bede himself was no mean proficient i Bede lib 3. c. 6. to fain and believe that his arm never rotted or decayed in the Grave forgetting or taking in the better to frame the Legend those Posts or Town Gates whereon King Penda hanged it For as by the Grace of God he exceeded all other Kings in Religion and vertue so in Gods just and unsearchable judgements he no less out went them in the disaster of his end being conquered in Battel by Penda King of Mercia his Enemy who quartered and hang'd up his head and arms for scorn and terrour to all about of which direful end of so good a Christian no conjecture can be made out of Bede of the cause but from the place of the Fathers murders and the Sons sufferings for Bede saith he was kill'd at a place call'd by the English k Math. Westm Marels-feild Bede lib 3. c. 12. Hen. Huntingdon Mesa-feild Locus conterminus Walliae Armonicae 7 millibus a civitate Schrowsbury versus Walliam Monastic Anglic. pars 1. p. 38. Maser-feild not expressing where it lay but Heaven-feild the place he Conquered and killed Cadwalhan about 46 years before Cadwalhan dyed by rearing the Cross he assigns to be about the Picts wall in the North But most probably the place of his Cross and Death was one and the same As Cambden more rightly guesses by several Circumstances to which I have particular reason to add one for at Oswestree where Oswald was kill'd by Penda thence called Oswaldsstree and in the Brittish Croâ—s Oswalht or Oswalds-Cross is to be found Cae-Nef as it is called to this day or Heaven-feild in the English which I have often gone over adjoyning near to the feilds where the ruins of Oswald's Chapel remain by a Well l Ibid. called Ffynnon-Capel-Oswalht where the late Noble Lord Capel drawing his Forces in a body was answered touching the place in my hearing that it was called Cae-Capel or Capel-feild by that famous and strong Warriour Mark Trevor Viscount Dungannon bred and born there and there abouts whom Cromwel had ever a great honour for being the only man that wounded and worsted him in the face of his Brigades which never had been known because concealed by his Armour but by Cromwel's own Ingenious Confession and kindness towards him for his Valour after the Loyal party was reduc'd as I have heard his Royal Highness relate the Story in publick Within 8 or 9 Miles of this place stands Bangor-îs-y coed whose Religious Monkes were so barbarously Murthered by his Father Ethelfred in such numbers as before By the Ministry of Aidan the m Bede lib. 3. c. 3. 6. M. Westmin A. 635. Nullus incredulus tempore Oswaldi in Northumbriâ Idem A. 634. whole Province of York this side Scotland and its English Inhabitants was restor'd to the Brittish Church that is the two Provinces of Bernicia and Deira as that Metropolitan See was divided into were entirely converted such as needed n Usher p. 1004. Bernicia containing in it Eastward the whole County of Northumberland and part of Durham On the West the North-Cumbrian Kingdom erected by the Brittains between the Rivers Derwen and the Friths upon the ruines of the Northumbrian n Usher p. 1004. And Deira the other part comprehending the Counties of York and Westmerland and Lancashire and the South part of Cumberland below Derwen Cheshire about this time being in great part within the Principality of Powys and Brochwael Scythrawg its Prince residing at West-chester as other times at Shrewsbury and there assaulted by King Ethelfred Bede lib. 2. A goodly part of the English Nation especially if we add thereunto the large Kingdom of Mercia where all the English according to Bede lib. 3. were Converted and brought up in the Faith by Finan a who was Discipulus Nennii Bannachorensis Cestriâ Elapsi Nennius his Disciple who escap'd from Chester saith Pitzeus but according to Bede both he and Diuma the other
Articles for the perpetual preservation of the Christian Faith amongst them besides the union and Intermarriadges of Saxons and Brittains in this Territory especially as elsewhere whereby the Brittains in withholding the Gospel from them as they are unjustly traduc'd did but withhold it from their own flesh and bloud so that the English Loegrian Brittains of these eight West-Saxon Counties may and ought with a good Conscience account themselves members of the old Brittish Church if they will as the other 26 Counties must whether they will or not As for the three remaining Heptarchyes which were not so large and considerable as the other four either that of the East-Angles m Usher p. 394. which contain'd the Counties of Norfolk Suffolk Ely and Cambridge or the other of the South Saxons which contain'd m Usher p. 394. Sussex and part of Surry with the Isle of Wight or Kent which was the first seat of the Aliens whereof the two first were gain'd together with the East-Saxon Heptarchy dolo non ferro as Malmsbury n lib. 2. de Episc Lond. words it the last by Carnal Lure that is in the Dialect of modern Christianity not much inferiour to their Heathenism one by Pimping and the other three by Trepanning of King Vortigern whom they well knew to be an Usurper as well as dissolute Neither were the generality of the former Inhabitants thereupon all put to the Sword immediatly but accepted for Tributaries to their new Masters in all probability and serviceable perhaps thereby to their Salvation yet it is to be examined how far the English in these Counties owe their first Faith and subjection to Rome after the Archbishoprick of London wherein they stood was recovered without any long Intermission to the Brittish Church If it be alleadged that Eorpwald Son of Redwald King of the East-Angles either Father or Son or both were won over to Christianity by the means of Edwin King of Northumberland and the Romish Ministry of Kent It appears out of the same Bede o Bede l. 2. c. 15. that both Conversions ended with their persons without any erection or succession of Bishops in that Territory the one revolting to Heathenism at the perswasion of his Wife or which was far worse serving Christ and Satan at the same Altar and Eorpwald shortly after his Baptism killed by one of his own Countrey and kindred and the Kingdom lying in its old Idolatry till his Brother Sigebert succeeded in the Throne who was not Converted by the means of Rome but p Ibid. in France where he lived in exile in his Brothers time and when upon his return he was desirous to make his people partaker of the same Christian Faith We find him in Bede assisted q Ibid. by Felix a Frenchman and r Idem l. 3. c. 19. Furseus a Noble man from Ireland both Nations fairly agreeing in Communion with the Brittish Church The one being made the Bishop of the East-Angles but ordained and Consecrated in Burgundy whence he came He is said to call one Honorius then Archbishop of Canterbury and to acquaint him with his desire to Preach the Gospel who sent him to these parts neither with Ordination nor guift of Tongues nor any other token of Dependance the King himself being his Patron who probably had been the Kings old acquaintance if not his Ghostly Father and first Converter And the chiefest assistance towards the good of the people that he is particulariz'd to give King Sigebert is about the ordering of his Å¿ Bede l. 3. c. 18. School for young Children after the manner he observed in France And his successor Thomas Diaconus sent by the same Honorius after the Decease of Felix was de Girviorum or †Usher 1027. Jarrow in the North part of Aidan's plantation under King Oswald in whose time not u M. Westm An. 605· one Infidel in those parts was left unconverted In whom or him that was next Bishop the Roman Race and succession must needs have given place to Brittish Ordination how else could it be true that in x Bede l. 3. 28. Wini Bishop of Winton's time who was contemporary Bede should affirm there was no other Bishop besides him throughout this Isle of Brittain that was not of Brittish Ordination as we often have occasion to urge But the Conversion of the body of the people is chiefly and deservedly attributed to y Idem l. 3. c. 19 20. Furseus and his Companions who first founded a Monastery in the Countrey called Knobhersburgh for a Nursery to his Ministry and an example to the people of Mortification and contempt of this present World which was then their usual method in the first planting of the Gospel whose main end is to bring this World with all its pompes and self ends more out of request with men and the life to come more in view and value This St. Furseus for his quality and extraction z Bede lib. 3. c. 19. Erat de Nobilissimo genere Scotorum He was of the Princely bloud of the Scotch or Irish who with Bede are one and the same People but for his temper and education he was more noble in mind than bloud brought up to learning and sanctity from his Infancy famed far and near for his Preaching and holy living his vertues and miracles and visions He first comes from Ireland to the Brittains a lib. 3. c â—7 from them to to the East-Angels and to the Leogrian-Brittains left amongst them ill supplied with Ministers for it is observable upon Monk Augustine's arrival it was the British b Clerici vero sacerdotes mucronibus undique micantibus ac Flammis omnes simul in exterminium pelluntur tunc Archiproesul Theonus Londonnensis Thadioc Eboracensis c Math. Westm ad An. 586. Clergy their Priests and Bishops more than their Laity that with fire and Sword were hunted and driven into Wales and not left there unpursued And being honourably received by King Sigebert he fell to his wonted work of preaching the Gospel for the Irish were no strangers about this time to the English tongue as neither the English to the Irish who us'd high and low Nobiles mediocres to flock from England to c Bede l. 3. c. 27. Ireland to be instructed in the Scriptures and strict way of living c Bede l. 3. c. 27. where it cost them nothing for Instructions or Books or Diet And brought numbers of Infidels to embrace the Christian Faith or conforted and confirm'd those that had believed already by the example of his life and the power of his Doctrine leaving his Brother Foilan with other Monks and Ministers to continue what he began the whole Teritory being afterwards reduc'd and Conquered by the Kings of Mercia whose Religion we have known before to be wholly Brittish as opposed to the Roman Neither are the descendants of South-Saxons in Sussex or Surrey or the Isle of
alwayes at Rome for thousands at Jerusalem were in Christ before him Act. 2.41 who could not therefore be converted any where by him neither by St. Peter nor St. Barnabas nor any of the Jews at Rome by reason of their expulsion Nor by any of the Ancient Greek or Gallick Churches who had the one their Conversion from Dionysius the Areopagite at furthest as the other from St. Paul himself from whence therefore could it be first planted at Rome so early This best appears by the account themselves do make where the first meetings and Assemblyes of Christians for Worship were held at Rome And they agree it was in the house of Pudens a Senator whom St. Paul mentions in his 2d Epistle to Timothy with whom St. Peter had his first reception when he first came to Rome amongst the Gentiles and left the Street Old Jewry beyond Tybris where the Jews were bound to reside upon this Invitation and encouragement of Pudens whose house a Spondan Anno 44. n. 28. Postea patuit Omnibus Christianis ad agendas Synaxes At whose house that in the second year of Claudius the first Christians at Rome did use to meet for worship and Sacraments we take their own acknowledgement for one part though we can by no means allow the other that St. Peter at that time was any member of that Primitive Congregation though he might be afterwards and how should this noble Pudens and others at Rome become Christians so early before either Jews or Greeks or any other Eastern Nation could help to their Conversion how otherwise imaginably but through his wife Claudia Ruffina b Sect. 6. p. 145. before mentioned our accomplish'd Brittish Lady and her Chaplains whom St. Paul mentions likewise in the same second Epistle to Timothy who wrought upon her Husband as there be many like Instances in History bearing the Christian badge very probably in her Brittish surname Gruffydh for ffydh notes fides or the Christian Religion in Brittish but whether the other or first part of her name comes from Cryf which signifies strong I shall not now examine but if it be so it must be her Fathers name given at the Font and signifying strong in Faith who might be brought Prisoner to Rome or of his own accord have visited Caractacus our bold Brittain or Cradoc as his remaining Fort near Stretton in Shropshire still with the Brittains retains his name calling it to this day Caer Caradoc soon after the Resurrection and the landing of Joseph of Aramathea here which gives additional probability to that tradition how else could Claudia Ruffina and Pudens be Christians so early as the second of Claudius at least as is confessed and others before St. Paul himself who was converted within two years after the Resurrection as was proved But to insist only upon undeniable evidence for our Christian Brittish Superiority to Rome the Converting of Pudens his house afterwards into c Spondan Anno 44. n. 28. An. 159. n. 4â— a Temple titulo Pastoris but called at this day Ecclesia sanctae Pudentianae is a fair Instance sufficient to convince any free judgement which is the Mother Church at Rome that pretends to be a Mother of all by Original right and that it is St. Pudentian's Church upon a Brittish and not St. Peters upon a latter Roman score or Jewish To which may be added as a considerable Oare in their boate That the first Gentile Bishop they had at Rome and upon good desert Linus by name was of Brittish extraction by the surer side the Son of Claudia Ruffina as they may gather out of their own d Clem Constit Apost lib. 7. c. 47. Clemens And the highest Temporal Exaltation and endowment of their Roman Church which by modern humour is equivalent to the Gospel it self that they did owe to our Brittish Constantine as all Christians throughout the Roman world did their rest and peace is as undeniable as any of former Instances So that whether the first tidings and Plantation of the Gospel at Rome be considered which was 25 years before St. Peter there arrived or St. Peters first reception and kind welcome there which was by Brittish preparation for the Roman zeal and inclination destroyed and crucified him or their first Consecrations and fountain of their Orders and Ministry whereon none can lay more stress than they do at Rome or the highest Inthronization of their Popes and their countenance and respect with Christian Emperours which they have affected to excess and abuse or the first Peace and Security of their City and People and of all the whole Roman Empire from Heathen Persecution from Generation to Generation which ought never to be forgotten or undervalued all is mainly or solely owing from them to our Brittain from their first foundation to their highest Pinacle and Cupola which yet they have very ill requited by troubling our Churches and deluding our people for these last thousand years and above having the face to extoll the noble principle of obedience while themselves would trample under their feet their own Brittish Mother and Founder and Patron Our Induction hath gone through most part of Europe saving Spain with its Goths and Moors with whom and Brittain there was little Converse and the Gallick Churches which were very Ancient and were mutually amicable with our Brittish and ever serviceable toone another in their need They sending Lupus and Germanus and Felix hither we e Munster l. 3. p. 290. Alcuinus Rabanus Maurus or Raban the great for Mawr signifies great in the Brittish to found and direct their Universities as f Annal. Eccl. Gall. 667. n. 20. Columbanus and g Bede l. 3. p. â—9 M. Westmin A. 647. Furseus to order their Monasteries And if they had rather derive their Faith from Dionysius with the Legends that attend that Story than from their Neighbours of Brittain yet the Gospel being here in the dayes of Tiberius was before it could be there by Dionysius whose Conversion of Athens was 12 years at least after Tiberius died and it is Notorious we had Christian Kings and Emperours Lucius and Constantine some hundreds of years before their Clodovaeus And some of their Provinces had entirely their Religion as well as their Name and people from our Brittain and some other of their Provinces were invaded and denominated from Northern Nations on whom the Gospel had made some entrance and impression by the Ministry of our Willehad and Willeric as above some while before Withall the Modern French are more Germans than Gaules as our Highlanders are more Irish than Scotch For the Galli in France did not survive so distinct from the French Conquerours either in people or Language as did the Walli or Brittains from the Snxons for the Brittish and the Old Gallick Tongue are justly supposed by the Learned to be the same and accordingly we find the names of the Ancient Towns in Gallia to bear Brittish Etymologies
shall through the mercy of God be again recover'd and repair'd to its former state yea into a better condition than before And the fam'd g Dr. Davies Preface to Welsh Grammar for part thereof Taliessin to the same effect about the year 580. Which for several considerations are believed to come to pass in Henry 7th not only by others but by himself as may be conjectur'd from his Order h Powel Annot. in cap. 3. Descriptionis Cambriae Giraldi and Commission to the Heralds in Wales to give account of his Pedigree from the said King Cadwaladr and his designe to revive the name and memory of the renowned Arthur King of Brittain to the great joy of our own and the terrour i Hall 1 Henry 7. f. 5. of Foreign Nations saith an English Writer In him the Union of the Roses and in the Provident Marriage of his Daughter Margaret to James the fourth of Scotland from whom our King James descended the Vnion of the Kingdoms and the old Name of Great-Brittain early Commenc'd as it were in its causes In his time the several persons first appear'd who before they went off were the causes or great occasions of our Reformation or the Restoration of our Brittish Church to follow that of the Crown In his time and by his Order Catherine of Castile Prince Arthurs Dowager was design'd Wife for the second Brother by which Incestuous Marriage confirm'd by the Pope for k Antiquitates Eccles p. 316. a round sum both he and his Successors lost their credit and Supremacy in England ever afterwards It was his provident husbandry rais'd a Purse for Henry 8th to effect this change In his time was l Idem p 309 Fox Bishop of Winchester a Promoter of that Incestuous Match who by his favour thereby first Introduc'd Wolsey m Ibid into Court in whom Popery received its mortal wound both in Effigie as it were and in the Cause He being both the lively Type and Image of Rome and her Religion for pompous vain glory and pride and falshood and luxury and likewise the main cause of her fall and ruine through the match aforesaid which he first contriv'd to be scrupled n Idem p. 316. for other ends and his Romish Legatine power o Idem p. 325. which brought him and the whole Popish Clergy involv'd in the same guilt of Praemunire to the mercy of the King and to renounce the Pope and to acknowledge him for the head of the Church in his stead In his time to instance in more direct and positive causes and first glimmerings of our Reformation Dr. p Idem 306. Collet Founder of St. Pauls School q Pitzeus 691. where W. Lilly was his first Schoolmaster whose father was twice Lord Mayor of London appear'd zealous in his Divinity Lectures at Oxford for Scripture and Antiquity against Images and Legends and the two great Authority r Antiq. Eccles 306. of Scotus and Aquinas and the Schoolmen the great Pillars of Popery being followed in his Principles ſ Ibid. by Dr. Warner and others in that of Cambridge and especially in Court and City for his eloquent Sermons to the same effect And though Articled against as an Heretick †Ibid. Pitzeus 693. by Fitz James then Bishop of London yet King Henry the Seventh esteemed him before any other Let others chuse what Doctor they list u Antiq. Eccles 307. I am best pleased with Doctor Colet was that wise Kings saying whereby it is inferrible that the one being a Protestant in his Principles and tendency the other could be no less by his Approbation For all great Actions have smal beginnings like other things and are not in their perfection the first instant The first Alienation of Henry the Eight from depending so much on the Popes judgement and Authority to follow that of his own Clergy and Universities together with the judgement of others in Points and Cases of Religion and Conscience and particularly that of his mariadge is observ'd to be wrought by x Ibid. Cranmer afterwards Arch-Bishop at Waltham whither he retired from Cambridge where he read Divinity after the steps and Principles of y p. 323. Ibid. p. 331. Colet and Warner that went before so that if Cranmer who enlightened and Converted Henry the Eight had his first light from Colet the first motion and beginning of the Reformation must in all reason be referr'd to the time of Colet and Henry the Seventh for then I say Scripture and Fathers began to be regarded and followed before Schoolmen and Legends which is the nature and design of Protestancy And the instinct hath continued to our days amongst the learned who are restless till this Church become wholy Primitive and Apostolical and Orientall in its Doctrines and Discipline and Customs such as our Brittish Church before the mixtures of Popery appears from Records to have ever been In his time in a word it might be said Aspice venturo laetentur ut Omnia Saeclo The Nation had a manifest new Date and Epocha in respect of Church and Laws and Tenures and Fines and the Alteration of interests amongst all degrees Commons and Nobles as well as the Union of all Royal blouds and the end of former Wars and Divisions and the beginning and fair hopes of more blessed days in his time the Crown and Scepter of Brittain began after long shiverings to have its first rest as in its proper Centre from the time it was wrested from the right owners for it never rested with the Saxons who soon to quarrel about their prey being divided into seven or eight Kingdoms or Heptarchies in perpetual Wars and Jarrs with one another for about 270 years till the West-Saxon Kingdom where the Loegrian-Brittains were best us'd swallowed all the rest under King Egbert and Alured The Dane being upon their heels without above 9 years respite to swallow them The Norman afterwards swallowing both in one day and they soon after divided into bloudy Wars between Kings and Barons and especially the long contest between the two houses of York and Lancaster which never could be extinguished till Henry the Seventh and the right and Ancient owners or the Brittish line was found uppermost The Restoration of the Brittish Religion hastening after that of its Monarchy as it were by providential fate and consequence for where else better to fix the beginning of our Reformation as it is generally stil'd is hard to calculate To make those conspicious events and Audible stirrs that first accompanied it in the World by which the vulgar that are led by sence are most guided the standard of its Originals were to begin at the streame and not at the spring to place it in the visible alteration it self made by Laws in Parliament against Bulls and Palls and Supremacies and Appeals in 22.23 24. Henry Eight by which Popery in England was quite knocked in the head were to
affirm there is no day-light before Sun-rising It s more agreeable to reason therefore to date it à priori from its first discernible causes and designs and dawnings The change being manifest the question is about the circumstances of time and Persons and first Authors or who were the first Instruments either knowingly and designedly or without their knowledge or intent that were primarily subservient to providence in this work For that God himself in his providence was the first cause and Author of our Restoration not in general as he is the cause of all events he permits in the World but by particular purpose and design appears by this that it was not the first design or purpose of any other that were imployed as chief Instruments in it And what men vigorously promote beside their intention and above their own belief of the possibility cannot be attributed to themselves but to that fatall power that controll'd and pushed them on For that King Henry the Eight had neither an Original inclination nor any full confidence of Power to make such a stupendious change in the World is evident from History and reason and more from this consideration that though himself have given proof and example when Popery was infinitely stronger then now it is and its Divine Impostures not so much detected as since they have been by Protestant light whereby its reputation and main strength and Authority is slighted and under-valued in the World yet there is no Christian King or Emperour this day in Europe how high or great soever of power or Spirit that if he had a mind and perswasion or provocation to do the like that can or dare think himself able to follow King Henry by his own single power to shake off a new Roman Empire revived in Popes by a mystery of iniquity or an Antichristian Maskerade and to Combat Spiritual wickednesses in Heavenly places as it were as he did without the special aid of Heaven Besides Henry the Eight never departed from the Roman Church or Religion but from its Court and secular Supremacy over Kings which could never belong to Religion nor to Church-men miserably chastizing his Subjects the last ten years of his life on either hand Papists for adhering to the one and Protestants for departing from the other But the Pope for all this Excommunicates him with that zeal and severity as if he had rejected both for he best understood his own Religion and mystery and that both were contained in that one which he deserted so we see the Roman Religion which King Henry professed in all its Points and Doctrines was condemn'd as Heresie in him for his denyal of subjection to the Papall Vsurpation though it became better a Vicar of Christ to wave his personal heights and Punctillioes out of Christian humility and self-denyal rather than banish so Orthodox and Catholick a King from the Church of Christ And the rather he being in the right wherein he differ'd from his holiness whereby it clearly appears that the best Roman Catholick is but a Heretick at Rome if he cross the Popes Interest and Supremacy as doth the King and Church of z Ranchin Review of the Council of Trent France to this day in great part And indeed there is no bar to mens souls from embracing Truth and Protestancy but this spiritual Tyranny of the Supremacy for being entirely set free from this the soul returns to Truth in time even against the Power of Custom and Education as the Pope well perceived and is known by experience and hath before been touch'd As the change could not be attributed to any first design in King Henry much less to Wolsey than whom perhaps none yet Contributed more to the destruction of Popery nor intended less Nor to Bishop Fox of Winchester that introduc'd him through his great favour in Court for siding with the Incestuous Marriage which was more a cause of the Restoration than either enabling Fox to raise Wolsey to destroy Popery against both their Wills Nor did Henry the Seventh in the least intend this change as may be presum'd when he directed this Marriage which the Pope for a large Sum approv'd and dispensed which was his fault and overthrow and not so much the Kings who by the Customs and insuperable ignorance of the Age might sincerely believe that the Pope had really such a Power as he assumed and Father'd upon God himself for his Author seeing therefore there is so little of man's design for this Restoration in the very men themselves that were the Insturments but all appears to proceed from fate and Providence the first Epocha and beginning and shore thereof is there best fixed where the Salt waters and fresh first meet where the hand from Heaven first layes hold on Instruments and Tools on Earth to begin its work And there are three Rules or postulaâ—'s to direct our observation about this to more certainty and steddiness 1. The Reference between the Model and the building or the Prophecy and the Issue for a house or an event there begins where these two begin to meet 2. A general belief that the Prophecy of the Restoration of the Brittish Crown was accomplish'd in Henry the Seventh and not so much in any other 3. The Sympathy and concomitancy ever between the Brittish Church and Crown in their standing and fall and rise The first Instrument and instance therefore was in K. Henry the Seventh his own Person in whom the Brittish line return'd the Mitre hastning after the Scepter he landed in Wales but with 2000. and fought against King Richard but with 5000. men The next appearing pulse of some change for Brittish advantage was the Person of Prince Arthur and the design of his name as the Historian observ'd but God chose another Instrument and occasion to bring this work to pass Prince Arthurs wife a weaker vessel and the Permission of her unlawful Marriage which proved the main downfall of Popery The fourth and fifth might be Henry the eight and Wolsey the one designing a Marriage of the King with the King of France's Sister to be revenged of the Emperour hindring his design to be Pope in Catherin and therefore contriving the scruple about Incest And King Henry readily embracing it out of conscience and prevention of more York and Lancaster breaches in the Royal line as he publickly avowed or love to Anne Bulleigne but with no design or intention towards the Reformation in either That is first observed to begin with Colet propagating it in Oxford and City and Court for Warner had that from him who promoted the same Principles in Cambridge where Cranmer had them who was the first that perswaded Henry the Eight to follow them which he said had saved him much charge if he had known them sooner and with Colet's Preaching none was better pleased than Henry the Seventh to whom therefore we Ascribe the dawning of our Reformation though the actual completion as to the
make no other account of the King of kings and of every thing that is called God who by their Principles and Practices shall be reduc'd to serve their private ends which are with them Superiour to them all The fate of the Church may be observ'd to follow that of the Crown and Empire it rose and fell of late years with the fall and Restoration of our last Kings we observed the like Sympathy in it towards the Brittish Crown heretofore Therefore all good Christians ought by their lives and Prayers to support our Brittish Monarchy that the Church and Religion may ever prosper in its safety 2 Tim. 2.12 The Civil Regality of our Kings cannot be destroyed but by a stronger Forreign Power or Domesticks broyls which God prevent And nothing ever hath and doth promote our divisions and rents and broyls more than the cherishing of Popery within our state which engenders Jealousies foments our Sects and sets on dissenters to affront and trouble our Church and Government and fits us for Invasion by division neither can their Ecclesiastical Regality be any way more Eclips'd or extinguished than by vitious scandalous living or Antichristian errours for how can he be a Head or Primate in Christ's Church who stands condemn'd and Excommunicate by its Laws from being a Member Truth and Holiness being as essentially requisite to the Church which is the ground and Pillar of truth 1 Tim. 3. and to every Member thereof as his being a Christian The neglect whereof destroyed our Brittish Church in Vortigern and its corrupt Princes heretofore as Subjection to the Pope depraved and enslaved the Conquering English and their Church all along Invasion and Captivity are best kept off by bolting out Popery and Debauchery A Prince that is Orthodox and Vertuous and Vigilant and Valiant a Quod pulchrius manus Deorun quam castus Sanctus diis similimus Princeps Plin. Paneg. is the greatest pledge and sign from Heaven of good weather in Church as well as State in such a Reign which therefore ought to be as it is order'd by the Church the daily Prayers of all good Christians throughout their lives The second point is how these Primacies or any of them ceased and discontinued and how Canterbury came to be erected and confirm'd in stead And first of the Imperial Primacy of York The See of York is conceived to have continued from Faganus or Wogan f being used for v by the Brittains the first Archbishop thereof in the time of King Lucius about 160 after Christ to the departure of Sampson about the year 500. from the Saxon fury into Armorica or little Brittain b Usher p. 74. 75. with Six or Seven of his suffragan Bishops with him whom after Ages called there the Seven Saints of Brittain whereof Maclovius was one who gave name to c Usher 533. Sâ— Maloes who were there received and preferr'd and Sampson made Bishop of Dole and Primate of little Brittain and above Tours as before But the Imperial Pall in time came to be over-rul'd by the Papall King Arthur recovering that Territory shortly after from the Saxons settles Pyramus his Chaplain Archbishop there about 522. whose successors there continued till Thadioc the last Archbishop was driven into Wales together with Theonus the last Archbishop of London about the time or little before the Arrival of Augustine the Monk as before an Argument of Romish foul play About the year 601. Pope Gregory takes order with Augustine to make d Bede lib. 1. c. 29. lib 2. c. 4. York with London Archbishopricks a new with dependance upon Rome Ad Eboracum civitatem te volumus Episcopum Mittere c. We would have you send a Bishop for the City of York whom you shall think fit to ordain but with this proviso that if that City and its Neighbourhood shall receive the word of God He may ordain 12 Bishops under him and enjoy the honour of a Metropolitan for We intend if God lend life to send him a Pall likewise by the help of God Neither shall he be any way Subject to the jurisdiction of the See of London the Priority of the one to the other shall be according to the Seniority of their Consecration When Edwin King of Northumberland in the year 627 after the death of Gregory and Augustine made Paulinus who Converted and Baptized him Archbishop here he was Ordain'd by Justus Archbishop of Canterbury with this Memorandum e Antiquit Eccles p 14. as Canterbury is Subject to Rome whence it had its Faith so is York to be Subject to Canterbury which sent to it its Bishops and Teachers thus they agreed to divide the spoyls But Paulinus was soon routed out of all the North by Cadwalhan upon King Edwins overthrow in 633. And the See manag'd afterwards by Bishops of Brittish Ordination and Principles Aidan Finan c. for 30 years who were f Usher p. 78. ex Sâ—eephan qui Aeddâ— Bedae â—quali â—im Dunelmenf Metropolitan Bishops of York yet had no Pall and chose to reside at Lindisfarne And Ceadda who was rightly Consecrated Archbishop there by Brittish Ordination was insolently and illegally laid aside by Theodorus as before whereby that Church recovering its Pall in Egbert became Subject to the Roman and so continued untill the time of our Protestant Restoration Conquests and Invasions of Countreys being common and tolerable amongst the Captains of the World and especially Heathen But the subduing and stealing of one another's Churches and Diocesses by Christians and Catholicks not so in the Church of God London continued a Metropolitan Church for 400 years and above from the time of King Lucius g Usher p. 69. ex Simonis Baldoc Episcopi Londinensis Chronico tabula pensili Ecclesiae St. Petâ—i in Cornhill to the Arrival of Augustine who Translated that its dignity to Canterbury against Law reason and the Canons of the Church Thean or Theonâ—s being her first Archbishop who is said to have built the Church of St. Peters Cornhill g Usher p. 69. ex Simonis Baldoc Episcopi Londinensis Chronico tabula pensili Ecclesiae St. Petâ—i in Cornhill in the time of King Lucius by the help of Cyranus the Kings chief Butler and Elwan her second before Embassadour with Dwywan and Medwin from the King to Pope Eleutherius who built a Library adjoyning to the said Church which continued for many Ages to the time of Leland who saw it And her last Brittish Bishop being Theonus likewise who was driven with Thadioc into Wales by a New Roman-Heathenish Persecution as afore Pope Gregory h Bede lib. 1. c. 29. c. 33. Antiq. Eccles p. 34. intended to settle his Romish Primacy at London where the Brittish was before as appears from his own Epistles to Monk Augustine and Mathew Westminster and Malmesbury and Polydor Virgil. But what induc'd Augustine to Translate it to Canterbury against the first Orders of his Pope or what
promoted by and promoting that Authority here in contempt and breacâ— of all the Laws and Canons of the Catholick Church and the rights of this particular And attended in the Heavens above with dismal signes and prodigies as the like was never seen before Tanta hoc â—eâ— pore prodigia f Platina in Gregor 1 mo quanta nunquam antea Comeâ—es perlucidus puer quadrupes c. which last might serve as a significant Emblem of this new Religion which serv'd to make men Babes in knowledge and Beasts in heart and conscience And accompanied on Earth below so uniform are its Antichristian Symptomes with another parallel Deceiver in the East the prophet Mahomet both alike feigning the Inspiration of the Holy Ghost by a Pigeon at the Ear wherein Gregory was not taught by Mahomet who was Junior to him and born in the year of Monk Augustine's landing here But rather Mahomet might have heard or borrowed it from Gregory or both perhaps been taught the Art by one and the same Tutor But both Reignes the Mahometan and the Gregorian have much the same Epocha and Horoscope And both began to prevail the one in the West the other in the East in the duske and twilight of that long and Greenland night that was to prevail by Gods permission and secret judgement over the whole face of the Christian Church for the space and duration of eight or 900 years or more to count from the year 600 when the Western part thereof first began to the dawning of our Restoration in Henry the seventh as before The success of this Romish Plantation among us being answerable to its first manner of entrance and proving in the end the Eclipse of the true Religion before in the Land and it self a degenerate sort of Christianity falling short of sober Heathenism in many respects Of which that of St. Paul may be rightly applyed And the times of this Ignorance God wincked at but now Commandeth all men every where to repent Act. 17.30 About the dead time of this dismal long night of Popery that is about the years 900 to 1300. answering to the hours from 12. to 3. in the morning The dreams of Purgatory and Transubstantion first possess'd mens fancies and dead Ghosts and Specters and Hobgoblins began to fry and skreek in Purgatory and to cry for help from private Masses And the Franciscan and several other Melancholly Orders to walk bare-foot up and down like Noctambulon's or night walkers in their sleeps and shirts And men stumbl'd upon many Tutelar Gods and Patrons groping in the dark for the true and still us'd Candles at Noon-day throughout their Worship without any need as it were further to prove that it is a time of night amongst them And the Dreams of Nunnes and Monks were rehears'd in Pulpits instead of godly Sermons as the g Bradwardin in Prefat in lib. de causâ Dei Deriving his name or descent I suppose from Brordordhun Castle in Herefordshire belonging to the Family of the Vaughans Profoundest and greatest Clerks then hardly abstain'd from their own in their Writings and the eyes of all both Clergy and Laity sealed up in a deep sleep of implicit Faith And the Host went from Street to Street with a Bellman and the Popes Rid sleepy Kings and Emperours For in the year eleven hundred Hildebrand or Pope Gregory the seventh depos'd the Emperour Henry the fourth And another took his Crown from King John while he was nodding About the same time Canterbury oâ—erlay St. Davids and in Thomas Becket began to sting our Princes that had given it warmth and being But the Fornications and other works of darkness in that time are not to be nam'd or number'd the peculiar concomitant of this fleshly Haeresie as they say to this day scarce reckon'd or censur'd for a sin for its commonness amongst the chief Saints of this dark perswasion And this dark season serv'd as well for Robberies of all sorts of Goods Lands Houses Churches throughout the Isle which were secur'd and appropriated to Sanctuaries and Monasteries by the same dark Arts they were committed till about the time of Ricâ—ard the second several were awakned out of their first sleep with the â—â—r as was Wickliff and Sir Joâ—n Old-Castle Lord Cobham and the Lollâ—rds who were desirous to rise before it was day and to reform these abuses before it was Gods appointed time But all between that and morning fell asleep again as fast as ever till dawning of day in the Henryes 7. and 8. of Brittish race which last finding himself thin and unattended expected more respect and observation for saith he in a speech h Hall 24. H. 8 fo 205. We thought that our Clergy of our Realm had been our Subjects wholly but now we have well perceived that they be but half our Subjects for all the Prelates at their consecration make an Oath to the Pope clean contrary to the Oath they made to us so that they seem to be his Subjects and not ours And began then to take course to recover his Spiritual Subjects whom the Pope stole from him and to rouse and awaken both Court and Kingdom against the Burglaries they committed upon others in the dead of night anâ— to seize upon the stolen Gooâ—â— which in England seldom â—evert to the right owners and to Discipline the whole Fraternity into better dependance upon their Soveraign burning several in the hand to make them cry God save the King instead of the Pope and as i Sinnych Saul â—x Rex some affirm arraigning Thomas â—ecket of high Treason against Henry the second after he had been prayed to in Heaven for about 400 hundred years to heal his people of the seditious influence of his Canonization By this time it was Sun-rising and the Gospel appear'd in our Horizon and in the English tongue and in Edward the 6th and Queen Elizabeth and King James after some Eclipse encreased in ful lustre to a perfect day that all eyes were open and sluggards began to rise and understand themselves and to be asham'd of their somnolent Religion yea the chief Calebs and Spies and Writers of the Roman Church by peeping into our Hemisphere and reading our Heretical Books as they reproach them became strangely alter'd and enlightened ever afterwards in stile and learning as well as our selves for the Polite World ows all its knowledge to Protestantism as it former Barbarous Ignorance to Popery but to their greater guilt and Condemnation with those in the Gospel That had eyes and would not see and ears and would not hear their hearts through love of its Idol more than God and the Truth being out of order But since the weather in our English Church hath been dark and cloudy for some years through the contrivance and malignity of some evil spirits Infesting our Air and troubling our Elements recommending poison to Grandees in Marriage Wine and Treaties to dispose them to old drowsiness and a far
different Liquor unto others in Synods and Conventicles to make them turbulent and frantick and to worry their Rulers and destroy their Kings several have been so weary and tyred what with the noyse and scandal on the one hand what with the Narcotick steam and Operation on the other that they are ready to slumber and sleep at Noon-day and like sick men can find no rest but by changing their Religion as they do their Beds a deadly Symptom in both and to Rome they will go where they may sleep to purpose while their eyes are resign'd to their guides and their trust to man instead of God and never waken till the Trumpet and last Judgement to their Eternal wo. If it were to return to Rome Heathen in its glory and to change their Bibles for Tully or Seneca rather than for Lyes and Legends men might have some excuse for their intoxicated love of slavery which all free Spirits abhor and especially Spiritual slavery which is so contrary to the soul the freest of beings For there we should meet with Caesar and Cicero and Virgil and many other Heroes of several endowments we should light if not upon Christ yet upon the other part of my Text the Heart and Soul in that perfection and improvement by knowledge and virtue and valour as fully answer'd the Poets Character which compriz'd the utmost that men could do or Pen describe Imperium terris animos aequavit Olimpo they match'd the Gods with their parts and over-match'd the World with their Prowess And where the heart is well preserv'd and enlightened Christ is never far off even as Antichrist is never nigh but where the heart is first darkned and resign'd For the Sun of Righteousness was rising to the World about this time that Rome was so clear'd and enobl'd in heart and Spirit and mens souls were so awakned and sitted with Liberty and honour to receive his Truths The Roman Empire being raised and imployed in St. John Baptist's work as it were to prepare the way of the Lord and to train mens souls to value truth in the General above sordid self-love and to clense the eye in part to behold its lustre For as the Sun were of little use to people that had no eyes or were blinded with cataracts and scales so also is the Sun of righteousness to blind and servile and seal'd understandings and Christ to any heart that is muffled with Idols or enslaved to another Supremacy But in Popery neither Christ nor the Heart can well be met with both are so engrossed and devourâ—d by his Vicaâ— it is highest Honour there not to be true to Honour or Conscience which passes for a dangerous private Spirit against their Church and to quit on 's self of his soul and Heart and Judgement is the method to be a right Roman Catholick and Christ and the soul like correlates ever stand and fall together where the one departs the other seldom stays behind Which is the reason that Popish Rome in its highest manhood and perfection had little to shew of either for when it arrived to its highest pitch and all Crowns were Subject to its Mitre all Laws to its Canons where was its glory compar'd to the other Rome but in a Herd of Monkish-Blockheads to be set against the others Divine Classick Authors Bede Geoffrey Comestor or the Golden Legend against Livy and Tacitus and Plutarch c. Epistolae obscurorum virorum against those of Cicero or Seneca And who against Virgil and Juvenal and Horace Poetry was so Ingenious and true to human nature in whose exaltation it ever chirps as down in the mouth in its fall also that where the Heart was excluded it turn'd Protestant and never shewed more its head What they had left to boast of were men without souls Arguments without sence Sermons without Scriptures or Fathers Authors without the stile and dialect of men cloysterd Epicures fat and trading Monks Cardinals without Christian Lives and Popes without Faith or Religion In a word Christianity without a soul or Saviour the Image of Religion to mans eye without the life and truth thereof to God's The Pope and the Virgin Mary instead of Christ and blind Obedience instead of the heart that no time or Age since the Floud or Fall can be parallel'd to that of Popery in its full reign and adâ—ption for a total degeneracy of human and Christian nature in point of Morality and Grace and Learning and Knowledge and Pen. It were better to have our sight and Judgement and but Stars to guide us than to have a blind heart with such a Sun and Gospel It were more eligible to be Cicero â—s Servitour than a King of such Christian Cattel And this was the state of Popery in his highest culmination and plenitude of growth and Lustre And which it is still at to recover for Popery is not to be heeded by its present pretences but its known ends and humour when it hath attain'd its ends which of all things hates nothing more than eyes and private Judgement and light which Inseparablâ— accompany the heart for thieves are best at thâ—iâ— work in the dead of night and Kings are best gullâ—d of their Soveraignties and Subjects of their Câ—yn and Liberty by Ignorance and a scale or Ointment to blind their eyes and all are better cramped and confessed when they are asleep For to appeal to any mans sence or Conscience or observation is there any thing more experimentally manifest to the World in every Age than that the chief design of Popery as to its Leaders is to promote and compass secular ends and Grandeur and Wordly power upon what hazard soever to souls or disgrace to Christ and his Religion and that Mammon is as Catholickly servâ—d at Rome as God and that its main design is to have the Crowns of Kings and Purses of Subjects in its power and the Consciences of both in order thereunto Quae regio in terris c. What Territory or Kingdom can be nam'd in Europe whose Scepter it hath not made Feudatary and Tributary to St. Peters Chair by its Faith-craft as the Ancient Romans did more nobly and Lyon-like by their Arms and Manhood what hide of good land without the fence of mortmain had escap'd the Plow of mortified Monks what Chimney was in all the Kingdom without a Peter-pence what is more confessed and gloried in by our Modern Popes in their stamps and meddals wherein St. Peter is represented lifting up an old Woman from the ground with this motto Roma resurgens a fair and lucky Comment under their own Hand and Seal upon Rev. 13.12 And he exerciseth all the Power of the Beast before him and causeth the Earth and them that dwel therein to worship the first Beast whose deadly wounds was heal'd whereby is prov'd as by their own confession the Succession of Rome-Papal to Rome-Imperial it being the sence of the Ancient Fathers as before that the Empire which
many years set at naught the Power of the Roman Empire which induc'd Josephus c Apud Camden Ibid. being further off to be believe that Brittain could not be much less in bigness and number of men than the other World beside Vocatus ut ad insigne spectaculum populus The Citizens were invited and call'd together as to no ordinary sight and the Pretorian Cohorts made a Guard And the Empress her self which before was never known Novum sanè moribus veterum insolitum could not forbear to be absent And the Senate afterwards met Et multa magnifica super Captivitate Caractaci disseruére and had many discourses and high resentments of the reducing of P. Cradoc Judging it no less a Victory than Scipio's over Syphax or Paulus over Perses or over any other Kings that ever were led in Triumph by the Romans And when he was to speak before them in this condition nec c Tacit. Ann. lib. 12. vulta demisso nec verbis misericordiam requirentibus Neither with dejected looks nor precarious style he boldly deliver'd his mind to this effect Sâ—â—ing it was in fate that the Romans were to be 〈…〉 in necessity that others must be un … 〈…〉 … ey had an opportunity now to shew their 〈◊〉 and being observ'd to be near of Kin in spirit he was presently received into singular favour and honouâ— which might well conduce to the promotion of Christianity there by his Visitants from Britâ—aiâ— Not 〈◊〉 was the deportment of another Aged Gentleman d Dr. Davis Praefat. Gram. Cambr. ex Camden 〈◊〉 â—â—e same Countrey and in the like condition about 1100 years after before K. Henry the second who being ask'd whether he conceived his handful of Brittains were able to withstand or hold out against his Royal preparations now against them made answer with equal unconcernedness and Faith superlative This Nation O King may now as heretofore and often be overpowr'd and in great part ruin'd by your Armes and others but totally destroyed root and branch which was the design of this powerful and bloudy expedition and Allyance unless the wrath of God concurre with man they will never be And I trust for this Corner of the Earth however it may happen with the rest of the World that before the Supream Judge at the last day no Nation will be found to survive here to answer for themselves but Brittains and in no other Language but their own But to pursue the Comparison of Brittish and Roman Valour after our Reduction there appears a manifest difference in their own sense and styles of their Armies and Legions after they were animated with Brittish Levies from what they were before For before they were distinguish'd with numerical names only of first second third ninth tenth fourteenth Legion c. But their Cohorts and Legions rais'd out of Brittain ever bore the Plume and additional style of Victorious a Cambden p. 571. 458. Pancirol c. 35. p. 236. in â—â—e their Fields and Musters so the sixt Legion that lay at York a Cambden p. 571. 458. Pancirol c. 35. p. 236. was called Sexta Brittannica Victrix or Victorious the 20th at a Cambden p. 571. 458. Pancirol c. 35. p. 236. Chester was vicesma Brittannica Victrix or Victorious also the third at Caerleon-ar-Wysc higher yet being styl'd Augusta or the Imperial Legion And accordingly the Emperours themselves finding their greatest safety to be near them removed their Imperial Seat to this Island Which at first sight might not seem the best way to keep the rest of the World under them in peace to translate their habitation so far into a Transmarine excentric Corner Great Kingdoms like the dryed Oxe-hide being best kept even from Risings and Insurrections of every side by Treading in the middle But they looked upon their abode to be in the heart and Centre of the Empire when they had their Brittish Legions about them for their Life-guard judging their Brittish Forces to be the most Fighting and Faithful of any other besides And this difference between their several Legions in point of Valour came to be more distinctly perceived upon tryal and experience upon one another in their Civil Wars The Illyrick Legions in the Wars of Severus for b 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Herodian lib. 2. in Juliano 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Idem in Severo 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Ibid The Brittains for valour and warlike rage are no way short of the Illyrians strength of Body and Military Skill and Courage carried the Fame above any other Nation of the East or West beside not only the Roman which was now much degenerated but the German likewise which was in its prime yet these Hand to Fist were worsted by the Brittannic and the Emperour who trusted in them put to his disguise and shift Till they also were forc'd to give way when assaulted with fresh Legions By them Constantine the Great their flesh and bloud overthrew the Western and Eastern Forces of Maximus and Licinius setling himself and Christian Religion in the event in the Throne over Tyrants and Heathens by mighty Battles was it for this service that Brittain was made subject forever to the Roman Church and to forfeit all the liberty and honour they had either by their own Seniority or His Nativity and Christianity from among them And when their half Countrey-man Maximus drain'd and expos'd our Land to ruine with his numerous Levies how soon did he over-run and subdue all France Germany Spain Africa Italy and Rome it self with two of its Emperous instar fulguris like lightning saith one and was foil'd at last his cause being also not good by a third Emperour Theodosius not so much by Armes as the Prayers of all the Churches and Monasteries of the East and c Spondan Ann. 3888. n. 5. Aegypt and the victory ascrib'd to God alone at Rome by d Spond Ann. 388. n. 7. an Anniversary thanskgiving for their great deliverance whereby may be gather'd how considerable Great Brittain still is consisting of the same people and Courage when well united in perswasions as it is in its Monarchy and upon a good cause Is it fit then this Ancient Apostolick free-born Church Subject never to any Senior to all the Churches of Europe and dignified by Providence with several Preheminences of the first Christian King Emperour Reformer and the honour of first conveying and reconveying Arts and Religion and light to most Nations of this part of the World that now at last it must not only become a Pupil to its Junior but all its Sons become Slaves and Tributaries forever in their Bodies and Souls and Understandings and Purses and Posterity to a Novel Pseudo-Catholick Church no more to be compar'd to the old Roman Heathens than Foxes to Lyons nor to the Old Roman Christians than Apes to Mankind to neither whereof Brittain in her Sons was in any Age ever
p 70. Magistrates have no Supremacy here neither Bishops and Curates who are only Ministers and Stewards p. 71 102. The Harmony between Christ in the hearts of Preachers and of Hearers p. 72. The conscience of another is not our Rule but our own p. 72. Every conscience is to judge for it self of truths and guides p. 73. So many Souls so many Kingdoms Ibid. Atheism destroys God 〈…〉 himself but in the soul of the Atheist Ibid. God 〈…〉 … rserces and consciences p. 74. The Apostles app … d to conscience in every man which the Pope would â—eign suppress p. 73. 74. How Rome invades Christ's Soveraignty herein and neglects its own duty p. 74. 75 76 77 78. SECT III. Christian Kings are the Sovereigns of the out-side of the Church though not of its inside p 78.79 And Vicars of Christ in their Territories and Fathers of the Church p. 80. The outside of the Church is secular p. 82. 83. Of the Pope's encroachment upon Kings both in their Temporal are Ecclesiastical Supremacy p. 83. 84. seq Several Roman Catholick Gentlemen disclaim the first p. 85 an address to such p. 86. The Pope hath no Ecclesiastical Supremacy in Brittain but only our Kings and they as Christians p. 87. seq The Pope Originally had no Supremacy over the Church of Millain so near his own doors p. 88. The Original Supremacy of Christian Bishops sets as do the stars in the day when Kings become Christian like the Suns rising p. 88. 89. Yet keep still in the Firmament and shine in the day in case of an Eclipse or Antichristian Apostacy p 89. A soul depriv'd of Superiours is under Christ alone Ibid. Great Loyalty and disloyalty in chusing right or wrong Soveraigns p. 90 and the errour therein greater or lesser Ibid. Instances of Gods mind that men should be under Rulers of their own flesh and bloud rather then under Forreigners p. 91. Mitre Subject to the Crown not the Crown to the Mitre p. 93. And St. Peter no where more abused than at Rome ibid. p. 191 Kings loose no Supremacy or Prerogative in becoming Christians p. 95. Kings Supreme in the Jewish Church p. 95. 96. seq and by consequence in the Christian which is New Israel p. 94. 100. Of the Limits of Temporal and Spiritual Governours and whether Bishops are greater in their chairs or Pulpits p. 102 seq of maintenance due to the Clergy and the difference of tâ—mes and dispositions when God or the World is in the heart p. 107. seqq How great a bâ—essing from God Kings are to moderate between the excesses of the Roman Clergy and the defects of Protestant Laity p. 112. In the World there is difference of degrees in the Church all are fellow-servants under Christ their Lord. p. 113. How St. Ambrose and Theodosius did both the parts of Servants in suspending and submitting Ibid. Kings have power to regulate the outside of the Church And the Divine Law commands obedience to their human p. 114. 115. The manifest difference between the Internals where Christ alone is Legislator and the Externals of Religion where Kings have Jurisdiction p. 115 116. Romish Arts to wrest the Ecclesiastical Supremacy from our Kings p. 116. 117. seq Deserters of Romish errours though but in part are not to be discouraged p 118. Israel could not be cursed nor weakned but by dividing them from God How Balaams method hath been used in England p. 119. The true recreation of Princes p. 120. 121. SECT IV. The sum of Rome's pretences and Brittain's defences being the chief heads of the subsequent discourse p. 123. seq The Brittish Church proved to be Ancienter than the Roman from the confession of their own Writers and by better Arguments p. 127. and how many years Senior to it p. 136. The Gospel planted at Rome from Brittain before the Arrival of the Apostles or any other Christians and the tradition of Joseph of Arimathea corroborated p. 312. 313. Of precedence claimed in General Councils by our Embassadors upon this Seniority p. 1â—9 SECT V. Scotland a gainer in their Faith by Dioclesian's persecution here p. 136. Ireland and Germany by the Saxon Invasion p. 141 Sect. 10. The Brittains ever kept their Religion amidsts Persecutions and Invasions p. 423. and propagated it a broad amongst their Enemies p. 137. 138. The yoak and errours Rome thrust upon us were restored to it again at the Reformation when we were at the worst we were as Orthodox as Rome which corrupted us p. 142. SECT VI. Eleutherius his Epistle pre-supposes Christian Religion to be in this Isle p. 143. It is not in the least probable the Brittains received any Baptism froâ— Rome why p. 144. 145. Rome vainly ambitious of the Honour of Baptizing the first Christian King and Emperour p 146. Of Geoffry of Monmouth and the Welsh M. S. whence he Translated his History both corrupted by the Arts of Rome p. 146. Buchanan's zeal in vindicating the same of King Arthur p. 147. K. Lucius very probably was Baptized by Timotheus the Son of Claudia Ruffina p. 147. and of her Brittish name The Religion of Rome to be suspected why an Intimation to the Irish p. 149. 150. SECT VII The Scottish and Pictish Churches agreed with the Brittish in all Doctrines and traditions and opposition to Rome's Innovations p. 151. The Brittish Church was Scriptural in its Doctrine Episcopal in its Government Oriental in its traditions p. 152. Whether Popery be Hên-Fsydh p. 15â— Abbot Dunawd and the Brittish Clergy give a meeting to Monk Augustine p. 153. Christs example and submission to Superiours and General Councils a further Rule with the Brittains p. 153. 155. Of Pelagius or Morgan His heresie spread here not by him but from France Lupus and Germanuâ— serviceable by â—heir Neutrality to suppress it amongst the Brittains remaining in England under the Saxons p. 157. but fully suppressed in Wales by St. David p. 157. The Easter Controversie consisted of two parts Doctrinal and Astronomical How days and months are and are not to be observed by Christians p. 158. 159. Easter the first Lords day other Sundays 52. Octaves thereof by Christ's Institution p. 160. 161. Wednesdays and Fridays fasts upon the score of the Passion as Easter and Sundays Festivals upon the score of the Resurrection p. 161. The Church or New Israel bound by the decalogue and other reasons to observe these Christian Sabbaths Ibid. Why the Eastern Churches conform'd with the Jews in the observation of Easter p. 162. The stiffness of the Roman to the contrary proves their first Popes to have derived their succession from St. Paul and not from St. Peter p. 162. 163. A conjecture of the true reason of the Roman fast on Saturday contrary to Catholick tradition Ibid. The Bishops of Jerusalem had more to pretend from Antiquity to be Judges of Controversies in the Christian Church than Rome p. 164. Brittain more a follower of St. Peter and the East than Rome p. 165 Constantine in