Against the Revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction, Chapter 20
Chap. XX. Dr. Thomas Pierce now Dean of Salisbury's Judgment (and Dr. Hamonds.)
§. 1. I Think Dean Pierce is the only Man surviving, who was Commissioned by King Ch. 2. to Treat with us for Concord, as being of the Bishops part, in 1661: And who hath lived to see by near 30 years Experience whether his Zeal against the terms of Concord which we as humble Supplicants offered, hath done more Good, and prevented more Evil, than a Concord on those offered terms would have done. What it hath done on him I know not, but with others Experience hath had as little Success as Reason and Petitioning had.
§. 2. He hath written against me more Book's than one, which no Man hath excelled in insulting and in command of words: His work is to prove Grotius to have been no Papist. Few Men living think highlier of Grotius than I as to what he wrote before his change: Especially his Book De Satisfactione Christi, and that De Imperio Sum. Pot. & de Jure Belli, and his Annot. on the Evangelists. Valesius and Petavius took him to be of their Religion and Church, as did Vincentius, and Saravius. But 1. It is not the Name [Papist] that I regard, but the Thing. 2. Therefore the doubt between Dr. Pierce and me is, What is Popery? He thinks that it is not a proof that he is a Papist to be for an Universal Church Jurisdiction, the Church of Rome being taken for the Mistris of all Churches, and the Pope as Primate, and Patriarch of the West, governing according to the Canons of Councils, and not Arbitrarily; And taking the Articles of Pope Pius, his Creed and Oath added at Trent, which contain the Body of that which Protestants call Popery, to be such as may be Sworn and bear a fair sense. (Though Dr. P. himself cannot subscribe them.) This with all the rest cited by me out of Grotius he taketh to be no proof of a Papist. Let him call it how he please, The French Church Government, or the Protestant or the Catholick, it is the Thing (a Foreign Jurisdiction, and specially an Universal that I deny.)
§. 3. And this he himself owneth, for the proof of which I refer the Reader to his Books; particularly his New Discoverer, Append. P. 206, 207, 208: where he is for one Government of the whole Church: Not in specie only, (for so we are as well as he, each Governing per partes in his own Province, as Kings in their several Kingdoms) but numerically, by one Aristocracy, the Pope being Principium Vnitatis; And Aristocracy is a Government formed and unified in unâ Personâ Politicâ consisting ex pluribus Personis naturalibus; Else it would not make one Soveraignty, nor one Political Church or Society. Therefore his saying P. 206. that the Pope's Primacy as (Universal) and his Western Patriarchate, is no Monarchy, but exactly reconcileable with an Aristocratick Government of the Church] reconcileth not me at all to his Model, who am past doubt that, 1. One Aristocratical College is far more uncapable of Universal Government of the Christian World, than a Pope. [If inter impossibilia daretur Magis & Minus] 2. And that a College of the Subjects of Foreign Kings (e. g. France, Spain, Portugal, Armenians, Abassines, Turks, Moscovites, &c.) are unfitter for Foreign Jurisdiction, and particularly to Govern Britain than a Pope is.
The Confutation of Dr. Pierce is sufficiently done before and after: I now only recite his Opinion: And am sorry that (he is sure that Dr. Hammond was of the same Religion with Grotius, and for such a Jurisdiction. But if any be for the French Church form of Government, call them Papists or Protestants, as they shall themselves desire; It is the Thing, and not the Name that I oppose. The French know by feeling what that is; God grant we feel it not.