Against the Revolt to a Foreign Jurisdiction, Chapter 6 – Chapter 7
Chap. VI. Grotius's Judgment in his own Words.
§. 1. TO give you Grotius's Judgment to the full, would be to transcribe many Books: I shall choose some plain Passages.
Discussione Apologet. Rivet. p. 255. Those that knew Grotius, knew that he always wished for the restitution of Christians into one and the same Body. (a)So they are: even of that one Body of which Christ is Head.But he sometime thought even after he was known to the most excellent Vairius, that it might be begun by a Conjunction of the Protestants among themselves: Afterwards he saw that this was altogether unfeasible; because, besides that the Genius of almost all the Calvinists is most alien from all Peace, the Protestants are not joyned among themselves by any common Government of the Church, (b)They are united in all the 7 terms of Unity required, Eph. 4.4, 5, 6. They desire not to be of any Universal Body but Christs, no more than under one Monarch of the World.which are the Causes that the Parties made cannot be gathered into one Body of Protestants, yea and that more and more Parties are ready to rise out of them. Wherefore Grotius now absolutely judgeth, and many with him, that the Protestants cannot be joyned among themselves unless at once they be joyned to them that cohere to the See of Rome, without which there can be no common Government hoped for in the Church. (c)Nor in Kingdoms neither under one Man or Senate; But they have a better Union.Therefore he wisheth that the Division which fell out, and the Causes of that Division were taken away. The Primacy of the Bishop of Rome according to the Canons, is none of these, &c.
Ib. P. 185. Grotius professeth that he will so interpret Scripture, God favouring him, and Pious Men being consulted, that he cross not the Rule delivered by himself, and by the Council of Trent, &c.
P. 239. The Augustane Confession commodiously explained hath scarce any thing which may not be reconciled with those Opinions which are received with the Catholicks by Authority of Antiquity and of Synods as may be known out of Cassander and Hoffmeister. And there are among the Jesuits also that think not otherwise.
P. 71. (The Churches that join with Rome have not only the Scriptures, but the Opinions explained in the Councils, and the Popes decree against Pelagius, &c. They have also received the egregious Constitutions of Councils and Fathers, in which there is abundantly enough for the Correction of Vices: But all use them not as they ought: And this is it that all the Lovers of Piety and Peace would have corrected (as Borromaeus did.)
Page 18. Speaking of false Doctrine, [These are the things which, thanks be to God, the Catholicks do not thus believe, though many that call themselves Catholicks so live as if they did believe them. But Protestants (so live) (by force of their Opinions, and Catholicks by the decay of Discipline.
Page 95. What was long ago the judgment of the Church of Rome, the Mistress of others, we may best know by the Epistles of the Roman Bishops to the Africans and French, to which Grotius will subscribe with a willing mind.
Page 7. They accuse the Bull of Pius Quintus, that it hath Articles besides those of the Creed; but the Synod of Dort hath more. — But these in the Bull are New as Dr. Rivet will have it. But very many Learned Men think otherwise, that they are not new, if they be rightly understood, and that this appeareth by the places both of Holy Scripture, and of such as have ever been of great Authority in the Church, which are cited in the Margin of the Canons of Trent.
Page 35. And this is it which the Synod of Trent saith, That in that Sacrament Jesus Christ true God and truely Man, is really and substantially contained under the form of those sensible things: Yet not according to the Natural manner of existing, but Sacramentally, and by that way of existing, which though we cannot express in words, yet may we by Cogitation illustrated by Faith be certain that to God it is possible. (The Councils expressions are, that [There is made a change of the whole substance of the Bread into the Body, and of the whole substance of Wine into the Blood; Which Conversion the Catholick calleth Transubstantiation.
Page 79. When the Synod of Trent saith, That the Sacrament is to be adored with Divine Worship it, intends no more, but that the Son of God himself is to be adored.
Page 14. Grotius distinguisheth between the Opinions of School men, which oblige no Man, (for saith Melchior Canus our Church alloweth us great liberty) and therefore could give no just cause of departing (as the Protestants did) and between those things that are defined by Councils.
Even by that of Trent: The Acts of which if any Man read with a mind propense to peace, he will find that they may be explained fitly and agreeably to the places of Holy Scripture and of the ancient Doctors that are put in the Margin. And if besides this by the care of Bishops and Kings those things be taken away which contradict that holy Doctrine, and were brought in by evil Manners, and not by Authority of Councils or old Tradition, then Grotius and many more with him will have that with which they may be content.]
Val. pro pace, That which he blameth is. 1. The School-mens liberty of disputing, and Opinions not agreeable to Councils. 2. And the Pride, Covetousness, and ill Lives of the Prelates and others (which all sober Jesuits and Papists blame.)
Page 16. That the labours of Grotius for the peace of the Church were not displeasing to many equal Men, many know at Paris, and many in all France, many in Poland, and Germany, and not a few in England, that are placid, and Lovers of peace: For as for the now-raging Brownists and others like them, with whom Dr. Rivet better agreeth than with the Bishops of England, who can desire to please them that is not touched with their Venom?]
And whereas you may find Grotius and his Adherents yet disclaiming Popery, and saying, They are no Papists, he tells you his meaning, Ib. p. 15. [In that Epistle Grotius by Papists meant those that without any difference do approve of all the sayings and doings of the Pope, for Honour and Lucres sake as is usual.]
By this description I suppose that many Popes even of late were no Papists, such as condemned the Acts and Persons of their Predecessors, and such as censured Liberius and Honorius, nor Adrian the sixth, that saith a Pope may be a Heretick; nor Baronius, Binnius, Genebrard, that exclaim against many of them: Nor Bellarmine, nor Queen Mary, nor More or Fisher, nor Bonner, nor Gardiner, nor any that ever I met with.
But others more moderately call only those Papists that are for the Popes Power above Councils: And so the French are none; nor the Councils of Constance and Basil were none: Grotius addeth p. 45. that By Papists he doth not mean them that saving the Rights of Kings and Bishops do give to the Pope or Bishop of Rome that Primacy which ancient Customs and Canons, and the Edicts of ancient Emperors and Kings assign them; which Primacy is not so much the Bishops, as the Roman Churches preferred before all other by common consent. So Liberius the Bishop being so lapsed that he was dead to the Church, the Church of Rome retained its right and defended the Cause of the Universal Church.]
Ans. If it be a Primacy of Name and Honour only without any Governing Power, it's nothing to our case. But seeing it's a Governing Primacy that he means, 1. It's against the right of Kings and Kingdoms, that Foreigners claim Jurisdiction over them. 2. Emperors never gave Popes or Councils power over other Princes Dominions, nor could give any such. 3. Nor did ancient Councils, nor could do. Who gave it them? And who knows to what Councils he will limit this power? Councils these thousand years have been for much of Popery. 4. If Common Consent give this power, it binds not the Dissenters.
The Judgment of others concerning Grotius.
1. Vincentius wrote a Book called Grotius Papizans.
2. Claud. Saravius an Eminent Parliament-man in Paris in his Epistles, p. 52, 53. ad Gron. saith, [Heri invisi Legatum— De ejus libro & libello postremis interrogatus respondet plane Mileterio consona: Romanam fidem esse veram & sinceram, solos que clericorum mores degeneres schismati dedisse locum. Adferebat que plura in hanc sententiam. Quid dicam? Merito quod falso olim Paulo Festus, [foreign, &c.] Sed haec tibi soli. Infensissimus est Riveto. Est sanè in praecipiti in quo diu stare non licet. Deploro veris lacrymis tantam jacturam: Deum que ex animo supplex veneror ut illi spiritum suum mentem que meliorem det.
And in another Epistle to Salmasius p. 196. he saith, being ask'd his Judgment of his last Books, [Tantum abest ut omnia probem, ut vix aliquid in co reperiocui sine conditione calculum apponam meum. Verissimè dixit ille qui dixit Grotium papizare. Vix tamen in isto scripto aliquid legi quod mirarer, quodve foreign occurreret. Nunquid enim omnes istiusmodi authoris lucubrationes erga Papistarum errores perpetuam foreign & foreign erga Jesuitas amorem, erga nos plusquam vatinianum odium produnt & clamant. In voto quod ejus nomen praeferebat an veritus est haec foreign profiteri?
And how far he was familiar with Grotius he …ells us p. 248. Ad Vincent. Fabrit. [Cum eo nempe Communicaveram vel solebam mea fere omnia,] &c.
And what Salmasius thought of him these words of Saravius ad Salmas. intimate.
Ex quo à vera orbita in religionis negotio deflexit, captasti occasionem toto biennio antequam sato fungeretur, eum illudendi, certe irritandi.
I have formerly said that worthy Mr. Ereskin yet living, (since dead) told me that Petavius told him that Grotius was resolved to have declared himself for the Church of Rome, and joyned with them if he had returned safe from the Journey he died in.
Henr. Valesius in his Funeral Oration on Petavius saith, p. 684. Bates…i Collect. [Quid non praestitit ut clarissimum Virum Hugonem Grotium ad Catholica… Communionem adduceret? Erat ille quidem minimè à nobis alienus, & poene noster, quippe qui doctrinan Tridentim Concilii in omnibus sese amplecti palam profiteretur. Id unum supererat, ut Ecclesiae Sacrari…m ingressus Communionem nostram Sociaretur. Quod ille nescio quas ob causas dum ad Catholicae fidei umtatem plurimos secum sperat adducere Consultò differebat.
But I make no other mens, but his own words the Index of his Faith.
Chap. VII. Of the several sorts of Conciliators or Peace-makers about our Controversies with the Papists.
§ 1. IF any shall think that I who have spent so much time and labour for the Churches peace, am now against it, or would raise dishonourable suspicions, on any just endeavours to that end, they will utterly mistake me.
There are divers sorts of Endeavours for peace with the Papists, by real Protestants.
§ 2. I. The old Conformists that prevailed against the Dissenters in Queen Elizabeth's days, were for going no further from the Papists than they needs must, lest they gave them occasion of accusation.
II. Since then many Men have taken notice that many of our Doctrinal Controversies consist more in ambiguous words, and misunderstanding of each other than most on either side imagine: And they have endeavoured the lessening of such Controversies by better Explications and stating of the Case: In this kind Spalatensis and Bishop W. Forbes have done very Learnedly, but in some things yielded a great deal too far. Camero, Amiraldus, Capellus, Testardus, the Theses Salmurienses and Sed…nenses have done much: But no Man so much as Lude Le Blank in his Theses, which he sent me his desire here to publish. To these I adjoin my self, as (among many other Writings) in my Catholick Theology and Methodus Theologiae I have openly and largely shewed the World. And no Censures have deterred me from this honest and necessary way of pacification.
III. But there are others that would on pretence of Peace take in many of their Errors in Doctrine, Government and Worship; But yet are for no Foreign Jurisdiction.
IV. But those that I now write against go further, and some under the Name of a Prince, Patriarch, and the Principium Vnitatis Catholicae would come under the Pope, some by pretence of the power of General Councils, or an Universal Colledge of all Bishops, and some by these and Patriarchs conjunct, would bring us under a Foreign Jurisdiction, and contrive an Union on some French terms. And would to this end let in abundance of corruptions in Discipline and Worship on pretence of Obedience to the Canons of Councils. Yea some condemn those as Schismaticks, yea as in a state of Damnation who are not in these matters of their mind. It is these that I am against.
§ 3. While I oppose these, I still own my foresaid reconciling Books, and no reproach of those that run into a contrary extream shall ever drive me from the true terms of Peace, nor to desire any cruelty against them, or any of their Sufferings but what necessary defence (of Soul and Body) require: And though my Exposition of the Revelation have offended many, upon far closer study of it since, I am not less but more perswaded that Pagan Rome was Babylon, and that John Fox (Martyrol. Vol. I. p. III. who took his Oath of a Divine Revelation to him, which brought him to take the Pagan Empire for the Beast with Seven Heads and Ten Horns, and to expound the Times and Thousand years accordingly) is much to be regarded: But if I be uncertain of such points, I will rather suspend my Judgment, than in uncertainty venture on any thing that is against Christian Love and Peace. I hold Communion with the Romans in Christianity, though not in Popery: I take all true Christians among them for Part of the Catholick Church of Christ, though I take their pretended Catholick Church as Headed by the Pope, for no Church of Christ at all, nor as Headed by any Usurping Humane Head whatsoever.