Against the Revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction, Chapter 5
Chap. V. The foreign Leaders of the English Conciliaters, who are for introducing a foreign Jurisdiction.
§. 1. THe horrid Confusions in the Roman Church by two and three Popes at once (some Kingdoms cleaving to one, and some to another) constrained the Emperor and divers Princes to call a Council called General, for remedy. The Popes being by this Council condemned and deposed, it could not be expected that they should approve them and consent: so that the Council was necessitated (though cross to late Custom) to declare their Power to be above the Popes, so far as to judge and depose him if he deserve it: This way went the Councils of Pisa, Constance, and Basil. But the Pope's Upholders still stuck to him, and said, Parliaments may as well depose Kings. The Body cannot cut off the Head. And Eugenius 4th, though condemned by the Council and deposed as a Heretick, Simonist, Blasphemer, &c. kept Possession, and their Church succeedeth him to this day.
§. 2. This opinion for the Church Diffusive represented in a Council being above the Pope, was kept alive in Bohemia, France and other Countries, and in Luther's time did much further his Reformation; by encouraging Princes and People to disobey the Pope. And Luther at the first seemed to go but little further: But afterward quite cast off the Pope, and denied all his Claim of universal or foreign Jurisdiction.
§. 3. Some that joyned with Luther in reforming many Abuses, thought that the whole World (or Church) must have one Humane Head or Governor in Religion, and that we must not separate from subjection to the Pope, but only keep him to govern by Church Canons, and not Arbitrarily, as being singulis major, but universis minor. And so the Controversie came to be the same as between Monarchs that will be above Law, and those that are limited by the Laws. The Italians and some others are for the first; but the French and some others are only for his limited Power. Of these in Luther's time were Erasmus, Julius Pflug., Sidonius, Agricola, the Authors of the Interim, and Wicelius, Cassander, Haffmeister, and after Fr. Baldwin, and divers others. And in France some excellent Lawyers, yet more moderate, as the Chancellor Mich. Hospitalius, Thu…nus, and a great Party with them.
§. 4. Joh. Gerson Chancellor, and a Member of the Council of Constance before these, was so moderate (though he was for burning Hus and Jerome of Prague) that in the great Point of the sufficiency of God's own Laws, he condemneth even most of these Moderators. I will insert his words in Sermone in die Circumcisionis Domini habito Trasconae coram Papae (in the Pope's own hearing.)
[Schismatis praesentis sedationem invenire non sufficient leges humanae jam conditae, nisi superior Lex Divina vivae & architectonica consulatur. Quod fortè non satis actum est us que in praesens: Obliget quod ait Dominus in Isaia, Timuerunt me mandato hominum, & doctrinis; ideo ecce ego addam ut admirationem faciam populo huic miraculo grandi & stupendo; Peribit enim sapientia à sapientibus ejus, & intellectus prudentium ejus abscondetur: Ex quo loco sumpsit Jesus illud improperium contra Pharisaeos quod irritum faciebant mandatum Dei propter suas traditiones. Audirent utinam ista auribus suis hi qui legem Evangelicam, legem Divinam cum professoribus suis deserentes, humanis traditionibus incumbant toti, adeo ut ad superiorem legem illam oculos attollere vel non valeant ex ruditate, vel nolint ex iniquitate, vel negligant ex inerti segnitie, cum tamen rebus leges humanae non sufficiunt; prout in schismate praesente compertum videtur; & ad Legis divinae radicem & interpretationem Consultatio referatur, & secundum eam conscientia formetur necesse est, Quid autem mali, quid periculi, quid Confusionis attulerit contemptus sacrae Scripturae; uti que SVFFICIENTIS PRO REGIMINE ecclesiae Alioquin Christus fuisset Legislator imperfectus: Interrogetur experientia, consideretur clerus, cui desponsari debuerat Sapientia quae de sursum est, purifica & pudica; an ipse fornicatus est cum adultera illa meretricula, sapientia terrena, animali, diabolica: Status insuper ecclesiae nonne factus est totus brutalis & monstrosus? ubi coelum deorsum, hoc est, id quod spirituale est, & terra sursum, spiritus serviens & caro dominans: Principale accessorium, & accessorium principale; us que ad hoc ut quidam delirare non dubitent quod per inventiones humanas etiam melius, quàm per legem divinam & Evangelicam regeretur: Quasi minus sit anima quàm Corpus, & spiritualis quàm carnalis fructus: Haec assertio per meam fidem blasphema est; nedum falsa. Evangelica quippe doctrina per suos professores dilatavit Ecclesiam us que in Coelum, quam filii Agur exquirentes sapientiam quae de terra est detruserunt us que in coenum: Et quod ex toto non corruerit est ex gratia Dei & salvatoris nostri. Haec ego loquor eo liberius quia mihi Conscius sum, non ex quaestu, non ambitu, non ad laudem propriam meae professionis, sed pro assertione veritatis & utilit…e publica haec dicere.
O happy England, if Protestants had been as much in this against Popery and Error.
§. 5. And here the Roman Deceivers and some peaceable Men of them, have joyned to draw us to them on Pretences of Peace and Reconciliation. Some honest peaceable Men have been destroyed by the rest for their Moderation. The Learnedst Moderator that we have had, was M. Ant. de dominis Archbishop of Spalato, whose Books de Republ. Eccles. are full of both Learning and Judgment, and so moderate that I cannot call him a Papist: Though being enticed to Rome again by flattery, he perished by their Cruelty.
What Leander was, I am not fully acquainted. Fr. de Sancta Clara aliàs Davenport, was a real Papist, and designed on the pretence of Reconciliation to draw us over to them; And hath shewed more acquaintance with Scotus and other Schoolmen, than with the Protestants in his attempt to reconcile our Articles to their Doctrine.
Dr. Morley Bishop of Winchester tells us, That in his Conference with the Jesuit F. Darcy, he would have drawn him to them, by perswading him that they are not unreconcileable but can abate us many things; P. 5. [The Father replied, that perhaps we should not find them so stiff in all Points: for in things of Positive and Ecclesiastical Constitution only, the Church might in order to Christian Peace alter something which she had before Established; and he doubted not but she would: And his Instances were, the Latine Service, the Sacrament under one Species, and the Caelibate of Priests; But as for Matters of Faith, they could not alter or abate any thing, instancing in the Point of the Churches Infallibility.
And this is their ordinary Opinion, and yet they would not grant the Cup to the Bohemians, and to this day the Churches Peace hath not prevailed with them for such Alterations as they say are in their Power.
What of this Kind they offered in the Treaty with Archbishop Laud we shall see after.
The Book called The Catholick Moderator, goeth this way.
But no man hath attempted it with so much ability of Judgment and Success of late as Hugo Grotius, in his Votum Pro Pace, Consultatio and Notes on Cassander, his Annotations on the Revelations, and De Antichristo, and his Writings against Rivet. The Dutch dealt hardly with him as an Arminian, and Judged him to perpetual Imprisonment, (when they had not such another Man among them) from which his Wife delivered him, getting him carried out in a Trunk, on pretence of carrying from him his Arminian Books. And being escaped into France he was intimate with the Learned Jesuits, especially Petavius, and made the Queen of Sweden's Embassador, who shortly after turned Papist, and is yet living at Rome: And it is no censoriousness to suspect that his great exasperation might have influence on his judgment.
And because he is the Man whom our English Defenders of a foreign Jurisdiction own, I will next tell you what his late judgment was in his own words.
I confess I have a far greater honour for those Men that were bred in Popery and are Moderators, than for those being bred Protestants revolt from Reformation to a Coalition. I doubt not but Gerson, was a very holy Man: Cassander seemeth to have been an excellent Pious learned Man: And I doubt whether most of our nominal Protestants that are for a foreign Jurisdiction be near so moderate as he. He oft (as de Officio Pii Viri, p. 788, 789, &c) maketh the Church of Rome to be but a part of the Universal Church: He maintaineth (that some called Schismaticks, are not indeed departed from the Church for departing from Rome, as long as they depart not from Christ the Head of the Church: and that only defection of Love, and not diversity of Rites and Opinions cuts Men off from Christ! And that as long as they are joyned to Christ the Head by sound belief of him, and by the Bond of Charity and Peace, they are joyned to the Church, and are not to be taken for Schismaticks and Aliens from the Church, though they be rejected and seem separated from their Society and Communion, by another more powerful part of the Church, which doth obtain the Government. (How much more moderate and sound is Cassander, than such as Mr. Dodwell.) And Pag. 791. he saith the same of the Oriental Churches, and the Ethiopians that are not under the Pope. And he still speaketh so cautelously, that it is not easie to understand how far he took the Papacy to be necessary. Yet sometime he only excuseth the unwilling departers from Rome, and asserteth, Consult. de Pont. Rom. p 931. That it is not alien from the consent of the ancient Church, that Obedience to our Chief or Supream Rector the Successor of St. Peter in Governing and Feeding the Church, is required to the Unity of this external Church: And it is not only Primacy of Order, but Obedience to one Chief Ruler that he Pleads for. And in his Epistle to Lindanus, and frequently he still professeth only to desire some Reformation in the Roman Church, but never to depart from it, nor own those that do.