The Life of William Archbishop of Canterbury Examined, Chapter 1
The main scope and delineation of the subsequent Treatise. CHAP. I.
OUr Adversaries are Our adversaries de cline to answer ou greatest challenge.very unwilling to suffer to appeare, that there is any further debate betwixt them and us, but what is proper unto our Church, & doth arise from the Service Book, Canons, & Episcopacie, which they have pressed upon us with violence, against all Order Ecclesiasticall and Civill: In the mean time, lest they become the sacrifices of the publike hatred of others, in a subtle Sophistication they labour to hide the … wrongs and assronts which they have done openly to the Reformed Religion, to the Churches of ENGLAND, and all the Reformed Churches in the main and most materiall questions debated against the Papists ever since the reformation: for such as professe themselves our enemies, and are most busie to stirre up our gracious Prince to armes against us, do wilfully dissemble their knowledg of any other controversie betweene them and us, but that which properly concerneth us, and rubbeth not upon any other Church. In this their doing the Judicious may perceive their manifold deceit, whereby they would delude the simple, and many wittie worldlings do deceive themselves: First, they would have the world to think that wee obstinately refuse to obey the Magistrate, in the point of things indifferent, And therefore unnecessarily, and in a foolish precisenesse draw upon ourselves the wrath of the King. Secondly, when in our late Assemblies, the order of our Church is made known, and the seeds of superstition, heresie, idolatrie and antichristian tyranny are discovered in the service Booke and Canons, they wipe their mouth, they say, No such thing is meant; and that wee may upon the like occasion blame the service Booke of England. Thirdly, when by the occasion of the former quarrellings, their palpable Poperie and Arminianisme are set before their eyes, and their perverse intentions, desires, and endeavours, of the change of Religion and lawes are upon other grounds then upon the service Booke and Canons objected against them; they stop their eares, or at least shut their mouths, and answer nothing. This challenge they still decline and misken; they will not let it be heard, let bee to answer to it; And for to make out their tergiversation, for to dash away allutterly this our processe, they have bin long plying their great engine; and at last have wrought their yondmost myne to that perfection, that it is now ready to spring under our wals. By their flattering calumnies they have drawne the Prince againe to arms, for the overthrow of us their challengers, and for the affrighting by the terrour of armies on foot all others elswhere, from commencing any such action against them.
As for us, truly it were the greatest happinesse The scope of the treatise.we do wish for out of Heaven, to live peaceably in all submission and obedience, under the wings of our gracious Soveraigne, and it is to us a bitternesse as gall, as wormwood, as death to be necessitate to any contest, to any contradictory tearms, let be an armed defence, against any whom hee is pleased to defend: Yea certainly, it were the great joy of our hearts, to receive these very men, our mortall enemies, into the arms of our affection, upon any probable signes in them, of their sincere griefe, for the huge wrongs they have intended, and done to their Mother church and Country. But when this felicity is denied, and nothing in them doth yet appeare but induration, and a malicions obstinacie; going on madly through a desperate desire of revenge, to move a very sweet Prince for their cause to shed his own bloud, to rent his own bowels, to cut off his own members, what shall wee doe but complain to GOD, and … to the Worlds eyes the true cause of our sufferings, the true grounds of this Episcopall warre, or rather not Episcopall but Canterburian broyle? for wee judge sundry Bishops in the Isle to be very free of these mischiefs, and believe that divers of them would gladly demonstrate their innocency, if so be my Lord of Canterbury and his dependants, were in any way to receive from the Kings justice some part of their deserveings.
Howsoever, that wee may give a testimony to the truth of GOD, which wee are like at once to seale with our bloud, wee will offer to the view of all Reformed Churches, and above the rest to our neerest and sibbest sister of England, as it were in a Table, divers of these errours, which our party first by craft and subtilty, but now by extreame violence of fire and sword, are labouring to bring upon us; to the end that our deare brethren understanding our sufferings in the defence of such a cause, may be the more willing at this time to contribute for our assistance from God, the helpe of their earnest Prayers, and for ever hereafter to condole with the more hearty compassion, any misery which possibly may befall us, in such a quarrell.
Albeit truly our hopes are yet greater then our All our …, but one ….…, if we could become so happy as once to get our plea but entred before our Prince; for wee can hardly conceive what in reason should hinder our full … of a favourable decision from that Sacred mouth, whose naturall equity the World knows in all causes whereof he is impartially informed, since our whole action is nought but one formall argument, whereof the Major is the verdict of our judge, the Minor shall be the open and avowed Testimony of our party, need wee feare that either our Judge or party will be so irrationall as to venture upon the deniall of a conclusion, whereof both the premisses is their own open profession?
Our Major is this: Who ever in the Kings Dominions The Major thereof.spreads abroad Popery or any doctrine opposite to the Religion and Laws of the Land, now established, ought not to be countenanced, but severely punished by the King. This Major the King hath made certaine to us in his frequent most solemne asseverations, not only at his Coronation both here and in England, in his Proclamations both here and there, aNeither shall We ever give way to the authorizing of any thing, whereby any innovation may steale or … into the Church, … shall preserve that unitie of doctrine and discipline, established in Queen … Reigne, whereby the Church of England have stood and flourished, since … the … of England, 1628. and therefore once for all, we have thought sit to declare, and hereby to assure all our good people, that we neither were, are, nor ever (by the grace of God) shall be stained with Popish superstition, … by the contrary, are resolved to maintain the true Protestant Religion, already professed within this our ancient Kingdome. We neither intend innovation in Religion or Laws, Proclam. … 8. 1638. … all our good Subjects of the least suspition of any intention in us, to innovate any thing either in Religion or Laws, and to satisfie not only their desires, but even their doubts. Wee have discharged, &c. Proclam. Septemb. 22. 1638. and to give all his Majesties people full assurance, that hee never intended to admit any alteration or change in the true Religion professed within this Kingdome, and that they may be truly and fully satisfied of the reality of his intentions, and integrity of the same, his Majesty hath been pleased to require and command all his good Subjects, to subscribe the Confession of Faith, formerly signed by his deare Father, in Anno 1580: and it is his Majesties will that this be insert and registred in the Books of Assembly, as a testimony to posterity, not only of the sincerity of his intertions to the said true Religion, but also of his resolution to mayntain and defend the same, and his Subjects in the profession thereof, Proclam. Decemb. 13. 1638.but also in his late large Declaration, oftimes giving out his resolution to live and die in the reformed Protestant Religion, opposite to all Popery; to maintaine his established Laws; and in nothing to permit the enervating of them: Yea, this resolution of the King is so peremptory, and publikely avowed, that Canterbury himselfe dare not but applaud thereto; bIf any prelate would labour to bring in the superstitions of the Church of Rome, I doe not only leave him to Gods iudgment, but if his irreligious … can be discovered, also to shame and severe panishment from the State, and in any just way, no mans hands should be sooner against him then mine.in his Starre-chamber Speech, who can see me more forward then hee for the great equity, to punish condignely all who would but mint to bring in any popery in this Isle, or assay to make any innovation in Religion or Lawes? Wee believe indeed that the man doth but juggle with the World in his faire ambiguous generalities, being content to inveigh as much against popery and innovation as we could wish, upon hopes ever when it comes to any particular of the grossest popery wee can name, by his subtile distinctions and disputations to slide out of our hands: But wee are perswaded what ever may be the juggling of sophisticating Bishops, yet the magnanimous ingenuity, the Royall integrity of our gracious Soveraigne is not compatible with such fraudulent equivocations, as to proclaime his detestation of popery in generals, and not thereby to give us a full assurance of his abhorring every particular, which all the orthodox Preachers of this Isle since the Reformation, by Queene Elisabet and King James allowance have ever condemned as popish errours. Our Major then wee trust may be past as unquestionable.
Wee subjoine our Minor, But so it is that Canterbury The Minor.and his dependars, men raised, and yet maintained by him, have openly in their printed bookes, without any recantation or punishment to this day spread abroad in all the Kings dominions, doctrines opposite to our Religion and lawes, especially the most points of the grossest poperie. In reason all our bickering ought to be here alone. This Minor I offer to instruct, and that by no other middes then the testimony of their own pens. If I doe so to the full satisfaction of all, who know what are the particular heads of the reformed Religion, and what the tenets of Popery opposite thereto, what are the lawes standing in all the three dominions, and what the contrary maximes of the Turkish empire, where with Machiavelists this day every where are labouring to poyson the eares of all Christian Princes, for enervating the laws and liberties of their Kinngdomes: I hope that reason and justice which stand night and day attending on either side of King Charles throne will not fail to perswade the chearfull embracement of the conclusion, which The conclusion.follows by a cleare and naturall necessity, from the forenamed premisses, to wit, that Canterbury and his dependars in all the three dominions ought not to be countenanced by the King, but severely punished: Let be that for their pastime a bloody and hazardous war should be raised in so unseasonable a time, for the undoing of that countrie and Church which God hath honoured with the birth and baptisme, both of his Majesties owne person, and of his renowmed father, and to the which both of them as all their hundreth and six glorious Predecessors, are endebted before God, and the World, all their Prerogatives both of nature, …, and estate, so much as any Princes were ever to their mother Church and native country.