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more with Laud,) that England and Rome, constantly. Even the patriarchate character should meet together, but with forsaking of of Rome they only recognised as a human error and superstition; especially such as institution,' [1] as introduced by the canons grate upon and fret the foundations of reli- or customs of the Church,' as 'depending on gion as 'God forbid, but that, if this were the concessions of princes,' [2] and therefore done, we should labour for a reconciliation.' mutable by the Church. Even this they deIf this were done, but not without. And if clared that she had lost by seeking to turn we doubt whether this be possible, we but spiritual monarch.' [3] Even if she could reagree with Laud and all our soundest di- tain it, Britain was never rightly a part of her patriarchate.' [+] Even as patriarch, the Pope hath not power to impose laws in his own patriarchate, nor power to innovate anything, without the consent of his bishops.' [5] If any such title was supposed to be acquired upon the first planting of the Gospel here, yet, says Hammond, it is, and hath always been in the power of Christian Emperors and Princes, within their dominions, to erect patriarchates, or to translate them from one city to another.' [6] And, as Bishop Bull adds after the same assertion

'Princes,' says Jackson, speaking of the Romish doctrine of infallibility, may conclude a peace, for civil and free commerce of their people, though professing sundry religions; and they and their clergy might, perhaps, procure a mitigation of some other points, now much in controversy; but "though all others might, yet this admits no terms of parley for any possible reconcilement." The natural separation of this island from those countries wherein this doctrine is professed, shall serve as an everlasting emblem of the inhabitants' divided hearts, at least in this point of religion. And let them, O Lord, be cut off speedily from amongst us, and their posterity transported hence, never to enjoy again the least good thing this land affords: let no print of their memory be extant, so much as in a tree or stone within our coast; or let their names, by such as remain here after them, be never mentioned, or always to their endless shame, who, living here amongst us, will not imprint these or like wishes in their hearts, and daily mention them in their prayers.

"Littora littoribus contraria, fluctibus undas Imprecor, arma armis, pugnent ipsique nepotesque."" [1]

Our ancestors knew that the essence of the Papacy was the claim to dominion, and her spirit the lust of power-and that when this spirit was exorcised, if ever by a miracle from God it were accomplished, she would be left so humbled, so stripped of authority, so penitent, yet so exposed to the fresh temptations of her past crimes, that it would be her wisdom, and the wisdom of the Church, that she should rather retire from the world, and sit apart in some post of shame, than once more be placed on the pinnacle of the temple of God, and be tempted again to throw herself down. Even of what the Church, and 'such as are by God entrusted with the flock to judge of this politic problem, i. e, princes, the nursing fathers of every Church,'[2] in their wisdom might decide in fixing the patriarchal authority, under such distant or even impossible contingencies, they did not think it safe to speak, 'except in the Syrian language-not in the Jews' language, in the ears of the people that are on the wall.' But of anything beyond a primacy of order and honour, they did speak most earnestly and

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If it be objected, that our British Church afterwards submitted herself to the Bishop of Rome as her patriarch, which power he enjoyed for many ages, and that therefore our first reformers cannot be excused from schism, in casting off tha! power which, by so long a prescription, he was possessed of; we answer, we did indeed yield ourselves to the Roman usurpation, but it first forced, awed, and affrighted into this subwas because we could not help it: we were at mission. . . . When this force ceased, and we were left to our liberty and freedom of resuming our primitive rights, why might we not do it, as we saw occasion, without the imputation of schism ?' [7]

Rather, how could we be justified in not doing so, when the question was not one of men's device, but of re-establishing the divine constitution of the Church, on which the faith of the Church depends? They went still further:

'If a bishop acts as the Bishop of Rome has acted,' says Barrow, he, by such behaviour, ipso facto depriveth himself of authority and office; he becometh thence no guide or pastor to any Christian; there doth, in such case, rest decline him, to discast from him, to reject and no obligation to hear or obey him, but rather to disclaim him. This is the reason of the casethis the Holy Scripture doth prescribe-this is

[1] Bramhall, Vindication of Grotius, p. 630. [2] Hammond, Dispatcher Dispatcht, c. ii. s. ii., vol. ii. p. 194.

[3] Bramhall, Just Vindic. of the Church of England, Works, p. 211.

[4] Ibid.; Johnson's Clergyman's Vade Mecum, part ii. p. 84; Leslie, True State.

[5] Bramhall, Vindication of Grotius, p. 630. [6] Of Schism, ch. vi. s. 9, vol. i. p. 355.

[7] Corrupt. of Church of Rome, sec. iii. vol. ii. p. 293. So Bishop Hall, Resolut. for Religion, vol. vi. p. 306.

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according to the primitive doctrine, tradition, and practice of the Church.' [1]

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to receive appeals of all sorts of men, out of all parts of the world; nay, without appeal or complaint, immediately to take notice of all causes in the diocese of all other bishops; so overthrowing their jurisdiction, and seizing it in his own hands. He exempted presbyters from the jurisdiction of and metropolitans of their primates and patritheir bishops, bishops of their metropolitans, archs; and, leaving unto the rest nothing but a naked and empty title, took upon him to determine all doubts and questions of himself alone, as out of the infallibility of his judgment; to excommunicate, degrade, and depose; and again to absolve, reconcile, and restore; and to hear his power. Neither did he there stay; but hav and judge of all causes, as out of the fulness of ing subjected unto him, as much as in him lay, all the members of Christ's body, and trampled underneath his feet the honour and dignity of all his brethren and colleagues, he went forward and challenged a right to dispose of all the kingdoms of the world, as being Lord of Lords and self by innumerable sleights and cunning devices, taking advantage of the ignorance, superstition, negligence, and base disposition which he found to be in many of the guides of the Church in those days, and by their help and concurrence prevailing against the rest that were of another spirit.'(1)

Even to acknowledge the Bishop of Rome as permanent president of a general council is, according to Bishop Cosin, criminalPorro summum concilii cujusvis prasidem alium quàm Christum quærere aut agnoscere nefas ducimus.'[2] To think the communion of Christ's Church,' says Bishop Bilson, 'de pendeth upon the Pope's person or regiment, is a most pernicious fancy.' [3] To make him chief pastor of our souls,' he says again, or to give him an episcopal or apostolical authority over the whole Church, though it be no treason, is yet a wicked and frantic heresy. [4] As for a union of all the Churches of Christ throughout the world, under one visible head, having a jurisdiction over them all, and that head the Bishop of Rome for the time being--such a union as this,' says Bish-King of Kings. To this height he raised himop Bull, was never dreamed of amongst Christians for at least the first six hundred years. [5] And he adds a remark,of no little importance to those who indulge a dream of restoring an ecclesiastical supremacy apart from the political usurpations of Popery:

He prevailed, let it be remembered, by degrees, step by step, line upon line, (2) beginning with a complimentary title and a conceded power of arbitration, passing on from this to intrusive admonitions, and ending in a tyrannical usurpation; till this terminated, as a natural development, in 'that allegiance which the Jesuits seek to establish unto the Romish Church,' and which Jackson-the sound

The universal pastorship and jurisdiction of the Roman Bishops over all bishops and churches is now no longer a mere court opinion, maintained only by the Pope's parasites and flatterers, but it is become a part of the faith of the church of Rome; it being one of the articles of the Trent creed, to which all ecclesiastics are sworn themselves, and which, by the same oath, they are obliged to teach the laity under their care and charge. So that now there is no reason for that distinction, wherewith some have minded, deep-thinking Jackson-does not soothed and pleased themselves, between the hesitate to pronounce, upon 'irrefragable deChurch and court of Rome; for the court is enter-monstrations,' to be a solemn apostacy from ed into the Church of Rome, or rather the court and Church of Rome are all one.' (6)

Lastly, to admit in the Pope anything beyond a precedency of order and honour, has been the cause of horrible confusion in the Christian Church, and almost the utter ruin

and desolation of the same:'-

'For,' continues Field, after that this child of

pride had in this Lucifer-like sort advanced himself above his brethren, he thrust his sickle into other men's harvests; he encroached upon their bounds and limits; he pretended a right to confer all dignities, whether elective or presentative,

Christ; and the belief of it to be the very abstract of sorcery, the utmost degree of Antichristianism that can be expected ;' (3)-in which they make it, in their own words, sacrilege, to dispute of his fact; heresy, to doubt of his power; paganism, to disobey him; blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, to do or speak against his decrees and canons; and, that which is most horrible presumption, not to go to the devil after him without any grudging.-'Oh, shameful and sinful subjec tion,' exclaims Bilson, 'such as Lucifer himself never offered the bond-slaves of hell!' (4)

(1) Field, book v., Epistle to the Reader, p. 407. (2) For an historical account of the degrees and

[1] See a very strong passage, Treatise on the practices by which the bishops of Rome attained

Suprem., vol. i. p. 744, Sup. vii. 9.

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[4] Ibid., Preface.

their greatness, see Bishop Overall's Convoc. Book, b. iii., c. 2, &c.

(3) Preface to Book iii.

(4) Bishop Bilson. See these assertions confirmed

[5] Bull, Corrupt. of Church of Rome, sec. i., vol. in Bishop Bilson's work by quotations. True Difii. p. 243.

(6) Ibid., s. ii., р. 248-9.

fer., sec. v. p. 230; and Patrick's Devot. of the Romish Ch.. P 217.

V. With this deep sense of the Christian | Church.' (1) So Stillingfleet: 'such holy, duty of maintaining the independence of na- learned, and excellent men, as our first re. tional churches, with this affectionate loyalty formers; men of so great integrity, such into their civil governors, and this firm convic- defatigable industry, such profound judg tion of the blessings of their own Mother ment.' (2) So Hickes: the reformers were Church of England, it is scarcely necessary as eminent for virtue and learning as any of to inquire what was the language of our di- that age; their judgment was and is approved vines on the English Reformation. As if by millions of Christians.' (3) So Bishop they could not be too thankful for its bless- Morton: that goodly vine, which many ing, or to its authors, under God, they scarce- Pauls, the industrious bishops and pastors, ly ever mentioned it without some expres- have planted by preaching; and many Apolsion of admiration. It is with Jackson, that los', the faithful martyrs of Christ, have water'discreet and judicious,' that happy Reform-ed with their blood.' (4) So Sanderson: 'our ation; (1) with Hall, 'that blessed Reform-godly forefathers, to whom (under God) we ation;' with Sanderson, a Reformation with- owe the purity of our religion.' (5) So Bishout constraint of precipitancy, freely and ad- op Nicholson, of Cranmer: that glorious visedly,' and 'brought to a happy end;' (2) martyr of our Church.' (6) So Brett, also of with Hooker, wonderfully marked by Di- Cranmer: truly styled that great reformer vine grace and favour,' and 'God's miracu- and glorious martyr-that great man and lous workings.' glorious martyr, who was the first and chief instrument in our happy Reformation.' (7) So Bishop Bull of Latimer: martyr constantissimus

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sanctissimus . . . . beatissimus pater.' (8) So Bishop Hall: the composers of it (the Liturgy), we still glory to say, were "holy martyrs and confessors of the blessed Reformation of religion;" and if any

What can we less conclude,' he says, 'than that the thing which he so blesseth, defendeth, keepeth so strangely, cannot choose but be of him? Wherefore, if any refuse to believe us disputing for the verity of religion established, let them believe God himself thus miraculously working for it, and wish life, even for ever and ever, unto that glorious and sacred Instrument rude hand have dared to cast a foul aspersion whereby he worketh.' (3)

'I earnestly exhort you,' says Ken, ' to a uniform zeal for the Reformation, that as, blessed be God, you are happily reformed in your faith, and in your worship, you would become wholly reformed in your lives.' (4)

on any of them, he is none of the tribe I plead for; leave him to the reward of his own merits. (9) So the University of Oxford would not hear of a new Reformation, nor yield 'the cause which our godly bishops and "Its characters or discriminative remarks,' says martyrs, and all our learned divines, ever Hammond, are principally two-one, the con- since the Reformation, have both by their forming all our doctrines to the primitive anti-writings and sufferings maintained.' (10) So quity, receiving all genuine apostolical traditions for our rule both in matters of faith and government; the other in uniting that any evrenica, fair, beautiful pair of Faith and Works, in the same degree of necessity and conditionality, both to our justification and salvation; and to all the good works of justice and mercy which the Romanist speaks of, adjoining that other most eminent one of humility; attributing nothing to ourselves, when we have done all, but all to the glory of the mercy and grace of God, purchased for us by Christ.'(5)

And so of the Reformers themselves 'those illustrious men,' says Bishop Andrews, ' never to be mentioned without the deepest reverence, whose services God employed in the restoration of religion.' (6) So Jackson: 'the sage and reverend reformers of our

(1) Vol. iii., pp. 685, 691.

(2) Preface to Sermons, vol. i., s. 15. (3) Book iv., s. 14.

(4) Sermon on Passion Sunday, at Whitehall. (5) Hammond, Parænesis, ch. ii. sec. 25, vol. i., p. 378.

(6) Illustres illi viri, nec unquam sine summâ honoris prefatione nominandi. Concio ad Cler, pro gradu Doct., Opuscula, p. 25.

Bancroft: they were most learned men, and many of them godly martyrs, who were the chief penners and approvers of the Communion Book in King Edward's time.' (11) So Whitgift, of the same first compilers: they were singular learned men, zealous in God's religion, blameless in life, and martyrs at their end.' (12) And so Bishop Taylor:

The zeal which Archbishop Grindal, Bishop Ridley, Dr. Taylor, and other, the holy martyrs and confessors in Queen Mary's time, expressed of their death, defending it by their disputations, for this excellent liturgy, before and at the time adorning it by their practice, and sealing it with

(1) Book x. c. 39, vol. iii., p. 187.

(2) Unreasonableness of Separat. vol. ii. p. 473
(3) Vol. i., of Cont. Lett. p. 219.
(4) Defence of Ceremonies, Epistle.
(5) Preface to Sermons, vol. i., s. 15.
(6) Apology, p. 102.

(7) On Church Govern., pp. 100, 104.
(8) Works, vol iv., pp. 428, 457, 459.
(9) Defence of Remonstrance, vol. x, p. 298.
(10) Oxford Reasons, sec 3.
(11) Survey, p. 357.
(12) Defence, pp. 710, 711.

their bloods, are arguments which ought to re- | what danger, what confusion, the contempt of commend it to all the sons of the Church of Holy Scripture and the following of human inEngland for ever, infinitely to be valued beyond ventions hath brought into the Church. So all the little whispers and murmurs of argument that the state of the Church is become merely pretended against it.' (1) brutish and monstrous; heaven is below, and the earth above; the spirit obeyeth, and the Not only in this, but in many other points, flesh commandeth.....That the Evangelical is their language respecting the Reformation Doctrine is not wholly fallen, and utterly overworthy of attention, and imitation by our-thrown, and extinct, is the great mercy of our God and Saviour.' (1)

selves.

In the first place they do not boast of it with thoughtless exultation. It was a rent,

Was reformation not to be longed and prayed for?

or rather the occasion of a rent in the one undivided garment of Christ's church. It 'You adore,' says Bishop Bilson, the creawas a publication, and in some sort a condem-tures of bread and wine instead of Christ; you nation, of the sins of the sister church. And break the Lord's institution with your private in neither of these lights can it be viewed by and half communions; you pray in a strange a truly Christian mind without sorrow. tongue, that the people understand not; you keep the simple from reading the word of God, As our separation,' says Archbishop Bram- and make them bow their knees to painted and hall, 'is from their errors, not from their church-carved images; you join nature with grace, es; so we do it with as much inward charity and verities with holy Scriptures, your own satisfacman's merits with God's mercies, unwritten moderation of our affections as we can possibly; tions with the blood of Christ; you take rent of willingly indeed in respect of their errors, and especially their tyrannical exactions and usurpa- sale the devotions, discipline, keys, and canons stews and dispense with incests; you set to tions, but unwillingly and with reluctation in of your church, yea the very sins and souls of respect of their persons, and much more in remen; and when we wish for the reformation of spect of our common Saviour. As if we were to these pestilent errors, and heinous impieties, depart from our father's or our brother's house, or rather from some contagious sickness where you say we blaspheme.' (2) with it was infected. Not forgetting to pray God daily to restore them to their former purity, that they and we may once again enjoy the comfort and contentment of one another's Christian society.' (2)

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They unite in one common voice in declaring, that of the schism, not the Church and State of England, but

the Church and Court of Rome are guilty-by intruding erroneous doctrines and superstitious practices, as the conditions of her communion; by adding articles of faith which are contrary to the plain rule of faith, and repugnant to the sense of the truly Catholic, and not the Roman Church; by intolerable encroachments and usurpations upon the liberties and privileges of particular churches, under a vain pretence of universal pastorship; by forcing men- if they would not damn their souls by sinning against their consciences in approving the errors and corruptions of the Roman Church-to join to gether for the solemn worship of God according to the rule of Scripture and practice of the primitive church; suspending communion with that church till those abuses and corruptions be redressed.' (3)

They believed that the Reformation was a reformation, and not as our adversaries blasphemously traduce it, an heretical innovation.' (4) They had studied history far deeper than we have, and knew that that which If we in our comparative ignorance of was done was long before wished for, expect-history-are troubled with the seeming and ed, and foretold by the best men that lived in sometimes real anomalies inseparable from former times in the corrupt state of the such a convulsion of society, they also were Church.' (5)

Was reformation not necessary ?

'No tongue,' says Field, using the words of Gerson, 'is able sufficiently to express what evil,

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aware of them, but knew how to explain them, and to bear them patiently, without compromising the character of their church, or undervaluing the merits of those great

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and holy men by whom the work, under, No one thing made me more reverence_the God's Providence, was accomplished.

'We cannot doubt,' says Sanderson, but that the business of the Reformation under him [King Edward VI.] was carried on with such mixture of private ends, and other human frailties and affections, as are usually incident unto the enterprising of great affairs.... that such sacrileges were acted, and that under the name and pretence of reformation, as have cast a very foul blemish upon our very religion, especially in the eyes of our adversaries, who have ever showed themselves forward enough to impute the faults of the persons to the profession. And under the same pretence of reformation were also masked all the bloodshed, mischiefs, and outrages committed by Kett and his seditious rabble in the same king's reign.....Now what defects or excesses there might be in the Reformation of religion and the Church within these realms during the reigns of King Henry VIII., King Edward VI., and Queen Elizabeth, it doth not become me, neither is it needful, to

Reformation of my mother the Church of England, than that it was done (according to the apostles' defence-Acts xxiv. 18,) neither with multitude nor with tumult, but legally and orderly, and by those whom I conceive to have the reforming power, which, with many other inducements, made me always confident that the work was very perfect as to essentials.'(1)

If the Church remonstrated too faintly against the plunder of her property, Andrewes apologises for the

error of those illustrious men, never to be mentioned without the deepest reverence, whose services God employed in the restoration of religion, and who, too anxious for the restoration of the doctrine, paid less attention to the patrimony of the Church, and said almost as the king of Sodom said to Abraham, "Give us the souls, and take the goods to thyself."'(2)

Even as to the plunder of the Church property, and the violent suppression of monas

examine. But sure it is, they that had the managery of those affairs were ὁμοιοπαθεῖς ἡμῖν, made of the same clay with other men, sub-teries, Bishop Andrewes, and Jackson with ject to the same infirmities and passions.' (1)

Yet all this does not prevent the same wise and humble bishop from confessing that

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'it was a very pious care, and of singular example in so young a prince,' (that "religious and godly young king," as he elsewhere calls him,) to intend, and endeavour the reformation of religion and the church within his realins;' nor from acknowledging" the good providence of Almighty God in raising him up to become so blessed an instrument of his glory and our good;" nor from concluding that "we have far greater cause to bless God that in their then reformation in very many things they did not a great deal worse, than to blame them that in some few things they did not a little better than they have done.'(2)

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If Henry VIII. had any private, sinister grounds,' says Bramhall, they do not render the Reformation one jot the worse in itself, but only prove that he proceeded not uprightly, which concerneth him, not us.'(3)

No man who truly understands the English Reformation,' says King Charles, will derive it from Henry VIII., for he only gave the occasion.'(4)

Englishmen of the present time may be inclined to complain of the turbulence of the Reformation. But, says King Charles, in common with the greatest divines,

[1] Episcopacy not Prejud., S. iii. s. xvii. xix. xx.; so Laud, Confer. with Fisher, p. 101; and Stillingfleet, Disc. concerning Idolatry, Ep. Ded., Works, vol. v. p. 265. [2] Ibid.

[3] Bramhall's Just Vindicat., p. 240. [4] King Charles's Works, p. 164.

him, do not scruple to say that the former had increased to an excess, 'excreverat in immensum,' and that the latter in too many instances had become nothing less than monasteries, but rather lurking holes of sloth and wickedness, "desidiæ, nequitiæque latibula;" and that the crime was not so much in taking from the Church superfluous wealth, "nimium quod erat, quod modum excessit,” as in not transferring it to pious and charitable uses.'(3)

Our old divines, understanding truly and deeply the relative rights and operations of the Church and the State, could distinguish between the part which our princes, and that which the clergy bore, in a Reformation, of which the essence was at once 'to cast off

the Pope's usurpation, and, as much as lay in the Church, to restore the king to his right (4) In the former part indeed of the schism England was active. It did cast off and reject a yoke which had been laid upon it. But how little can those men know of history-even of the history of their own country-who require to be told that this yoke had never been formally submitted to; that the laws denying the papal supremacy were only declaratory; that, instead of re

[1] Papers between King Charles and Henderson, Works, p. 156, vol. i. s. xv. See also Stillingfleet, Div. Right of Ch. Gov. examined, Works, vol. ii. p. 396.

[2] Concio ad Clerum pro Gradu Doct. Opuscula, p. 25.

[3] Respon. ad Apolog. Bellarm., c. 6, pp. 137, 172; Jackson, vol. iii. p. 686.

[4] Laud, Confer. with Fisher, p. 100.

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