The Disarmers Dexterities Examined, Chapter 6 – Chapter 7
CHAP. VI.
A defence of the seventh Chapter of Schisme.
SECT. I.
Henry the eighths vices not schisme. The cause of Bishop Fishers death, from his Chaplains history. The fear of the praemunire caused their serious consideration; The recantation in Queen Maryes dayes. Charge of Schisme on the Romanist.
HIs 8th Sect: of this second part, beginning his Reply to my 7th Chap: is spent on the view of Henry VIII. his fact in casting off the obedience to Rome; And his first and principal task, assumed on himself spontaneously, being to declaim against the lust and other vices of that Prince, who, saith he, had a little before set out very excellent doctrine against Luther, I have no obligation to make any return to it, having said already upon the Cath: Gent: his importunity,Repl. ch. 7. sect. 1. as much as our present question requires of me, and the vices of this Prince being no more chargeable to the prejudice of our Reformation, if it be otherwise regular, than the as many, and as eminent vices of some Bishops of Rome, who have advanced the Papal greatnesse to that height, wherein it now stands (particularly those of Pope Hildebrand) can prejudice the legality of their present praetensions, in case there were nothing else against them.
We know that S. W. hath great fluency in the declamatorie style, and that Henry VIII. was no Saint; yet when all is done, tis still manifest, that neither his lust, nor his sacrilege was schisme (any more than his burning of Protestants, or his writing against Luther) much lesse is my confessing him guilty of these, my excusing, as S. W. saith, the imputation of them. In brief, the sins which I acknowledge him guilty of, I mean not to defend, and the schisme, which I deny to be caused by him, cannot 1. be supposed to be chargeable on him, and then the original of it be examined, without begging the question of the whole Booke, which is too unreasonably large to be put into one request, and yet the undertaking to discover the grounds of this schisme, and to devoid it of all excuse (which is the designe of the greatest part of this section) is visibly that, and therefore this is all I have to say to his first proposition. For as to those grounds of mine, which he saith, absolved the Rebell, Outlaw, and Anabaptist, and might absolve King Henry too, by saying it was his present perswasion, I have long since discovered what a calumnie that was, when 'twas first suggested against me, and it hath not yet provided it self with any more artificial visard, to perswade or deceive any man.
His 2d consideration, beginning with the mention of King Henry's force to make the Ecclesiastical state subscribe, to the ejecting of the Papacy, and the examples of Bishop Fisher, and Sir Thomas More] will lose its weight by remembring what King James …ffirms knowingly of the cause of the death of Bishop Fisher, In Apol. pro Juram. Fidel.which was the onelyonly Ecclesiastical person, that is pretended to have suffered on that score. Is nec solùm nec praecipuè carceri mandatus est propter causam Primatus, the supremacy was not the onelyonly or principal cause of his imprisonment. And this is more fully exprest in that Bishops life, written soon after his death by his Chaplain, in these words: After the Bishops had been with him, his own man blames him for not assenting, and tells him, he may think as he list. To whom Bishop Fisher replied, Thou art a fool, thou knowst little what this matter means, thou mayst know more he…eafter; but I shall tell thee, 'tis not for the Supremacy onelyonly that I am thus tossed and troubled, but also for another thing, (meaning the Oath of the King's succession) which if I would have sworn, I doubt whether I should ever hav… been questioned for the Supremacy or no: God being my good Lord, I will never agree to any of them both. And this thou mayst say another day, thou heardst me speak, when I am dead and gone. Thus farre the words of that History.
What he adds from my words, of their fear of the praemunire, which he will resolve to have been of force to make the Clergie subscribe against conscience, and to conclude my charity to them uncharitable, a censure of their obduration, instead of weaknesse] is wholly destitute of all grounds to inferre it; For as it is obvious to believe, that their feare put them upon deliberation of all lawfull means to avert their danger, and so upon the study of the question of the Pope's supremacy, from the very bottome, and root of it, so tis no lesse than duty of charity in us, who see by the Books, then set out by them, the solidity of the grounds, whereon they founded their resolution, to believe, that their consciences being duly satisfied, their subscriptions were after that, cordial and unfeigned.
As for his onelyonly foreign, which can pretend to salve his phaenomena, and make his way of arguing consistent to it self, the Recantation of all the Bishops in Queen Maryes dayes, 1. it is farre from all appearance of truth, we know that many of the Bishops in Queen Maryes dayes remained constant to death, and so sealed the contradictorie to what he suggests of them; and 2. for those that did recant, 'tis as visible, what their motive might be, the bloody examples before their eyes, now, as it can be imagined, that the praemunire over their heads before, could perswade their subscriptions. In Bishop Fishers story 'tis plain the Bishops perswaded him to assent and subscribe, and if some that so perswaded him recanted afterwards, their fears being granted to have force on them on both sides, is sure as argumentative to inferre mine, as his conclusion, and the advantage on my side, because the fagot was more formidable than the praemunire. But why strength, and force of conscience should make them recant against the reason of their subscription, rather than to subscribe what they afterward recanted, without answering those former grounds, or offering more powerfull reasons to the contrary, there is no other account to be expected from S. W. but that the one was agreeable, the other contrary to his espoused interest.
His 3d thing falls into the Cath: Gent: his way of proving us guilty of schisme, from the possession of their claim to the authority of the Romane See. And that hath been largely considered, and refuted in the Reply, Chap. 7. sect. 1. from n. 10. to the end of that Chapter; And that will secure us from the force of his syllogisme, and all the auxiliaries called in to support it, it being no undertaking of ours to confesse first, and then excuse our schisme, or avert the criminalnesse of it, but denying our selves to have separated from any our lawfull superiours, whilst we renounced the Papal supremacy, or from the body of the Catholick Church, to which both by faith and charity we are still close knit, in the unity of that sacred body, to lay all the charge of the separation and schisme on them, which will not admit us to their communion.
SECT. II.
S. W. his discourse of the nature of Schisme. The continual begging the question in it. Possession of obedience Romes onelyonly claim, invalid. S. W. his wonderfull arts. The Kings power of removing Patriarchs, a prejudice to the Papal power. The neglect of the use of Communicatory Letters. The use of them to Catholick Unity.
IN his ninth and tenth Sections he hath forsaken the propesed method of answering my arguments, and now he is become the assailant; And it will not be a work of any great length to shew him how litle he hath gained by this variety, the whole weight of his discourses being laid on such slender Elenchs, as is the begging the question almost in every period, which is a very ineffectual expedient to inferre his designed conclusion with that evidence, to which he hath oft pretended.
I shall shew this as briefly as I may. And first, when he undertakes to open, and describe the nature of Schism more clearely and exactly, and in order to that, to consider, 1. the formal unity it selfe, and 2. the reason of that unity; the unity it selfe, in submitting to one common head, and acknowledging the same Articles of faith with other Churches &c. and this not onelyonly negatively, a not disacknowledging, but positively, when there is an obligation, to doe both these; and the reason of that unity instantly resolved to be the infallibility of the Church.] What is this but to lay for the groundwork of all this new Treatise of Schisme, the obligation to acknowledge 1. the Monarchick (as that is opposed to Aristocratick) government of the Church, and that explain'd to import the chief Pastorship of the Bishop of Rome, which 'tis strange he should affirm acknowledged by us (whether that be by us now, or those which then cast it out) to be universally extended over all Patriarchs, and the whole Church, when he cannot but know that neither we now, nor they then de facto, or de jure, did, or doe think it is, or ever was so extended, and 2. the Infallibility of the same Church, the denying of which, he saith, is not onelyonly the reason of all schisme and heresie, but the very heresie of heresies it self. Thus the two things that are most denied by us (and must be evidently proved by him, before ever any charge of schisme can be found against us) are S. W. his postulata, his undeniable first principles, which for this onelyonly reason, that I guesse at, must not be questioned, because they cannot be proved; And to this issue is his whole argument suddenly brought, by attending him, while he layes the foundation of it.
And yet when this is done, there being yet another paire of difficulties still behinde, In case the Government of the Church were Monarchick, to assure us that Rome is that Monarch, and in case the Church were thus infallible, to prove the Church of Rome to be this onelyonly infallible Church, these two are by turns either to be believed, as principles again, or to induce and prove one the other; One while each of them is to be believed, as a principle; the later, when it is silently assumed, and yet the denying thereof affirmed to be the heresie of heresies, for certainly it is the Infallibility of the Church under the obedience of the Pope, i. e. of the Western and the Roman Church, which he then speaks of, as soon after he makes no scruple to expresse, p. 197. The former, when he resolves that the unity it self consists in the obligation of submitting to this, without rendring any other reason either for that obligation of submitting, or for Ʋnities consisting in it, but onelyonly his affirmation, that it doth so, and his mention of an undoubted possession, which ought to be founded in, and not it self to be the ground of the obligation. By the way, What now is become of the title from S. Peter, & Christs donation to him? which formerly was, and §. 11. is again voucht, as their onelyonly tenure, and yet here is no one mention of it in this whole discourse, or intimation of any such thing, nor indeed of any other, but that which may equally be had, without any original right, an establishment (as it seems, first, principles may be confirmed à posteriori) in an undoubted possession: And yet this again cannot possibly hold, as to the Ʋniversal Church (whatsoever it is feigned to doe, in respect of this Church of ours, at the time of the Reformation) for Rome cannot pretend to have had the possession of the supremacy over the Greek Church, when they acknowledge them Schismatick…; nor over the Abassines, when they acknowledge them aliens; nor of any other, but of those, which for the time, upon what motives soever, acknowledged obedience to them: which bare acknowledgment, if it were of force, without farther right, the disacknowledgment upon due proofs of liberty, will be of greater force against it, whensoever tis pleaded, as by us it hath been, ever since we renounced it.
And yet another while (in the laying these very grounds) each of these is mutually brought to induce the other. For 1. the subjection to the one head (which sure must suppose the head to be one, and to the Romanist, that the Pope is that head) is*A positive obligation to acknowledge that Pl…ad is that which only can make a Chu ch. Scis Dis. p. 194. brought as the medium to prove that they are a Church, which till they are proved to be, they cannot be supposed to be, though it were granted that the Church is infalli…le. And 2. the infallibility of the Church being†Pag. …95. made the onelyonly tye to communicate (among other things, particularly) in Government, that is again (by way of retribution) become the medium to induce the subjection to the one head. And indeed when at the same time that he concludes the necessity of the subjection, he contents not himselfe with the negative subjection (or indifferent acknowledgment, having no tye) but exacts the expresse positive obligation to obey this head, without which, saith he, it may be a multitude, but not a Church, as he will never be able to produce any such expresse positive obligation to all Christians, to obey the Bishop of Rome, save what is founded in the dictate of his infallible Church, so it is most evident, that this his Infallibility must be the principle of this subjection to this head of the Church, as before this subjection was the principle of the very being, and so of the Infallibility of his Church. And he that can doe such miracles as these, take two the most moveable ctones, and with no more then blowing on them, fixe them like two immov…able rocks (and yet St. Peter himselfe not so much as m…ntioned to be one of these) and whilst each of the…e stands thus fi…me upon its owne basis, without any help of the other, or indeed of any third foundation (a rock firme in the midst of the Aire or Sea, without any thing to support it) can, in the very twinckling of an eye, so conveigh one of these to beare and support the other, as that the other shall at the same time, beare the whole weight of that, which supports it, is, I confesse, too great a Master at his weapon, too profoundly skilled in the Magick, rather than Mathematicks of Armes, for me to fense with him at his owne foiles. So again, that he may with ease conclude us unexcuseably guilty of formall sin (which I professe to grant) in case we were proved guilty of dividing, and so of the material schisme, he will needs assume this as granted, and confest by us, which sure I expresly deny.
Having said this, I shall now therefore leave him to skirmish with the Aire, or his owne shadow, for those two Sections, which, by thinking it high time to returne to over-look the worke, he acknowledgeth (and I have many more reasons to grant) to be long digressions, and presently fall in with him at his returne, in the beginning of his eleventh Section.
OnelyOnly before I leave it, I shall first minde him of one fallacy, (oft before discernible) in accusing the frivolousnesse of my dig…ession, to prove that Kings may remove Patriarchs, when, saith he, the Papall is greater than Patriarchall power.] For 1. this is but the begging the whole question againe, viz: Whether there be any greater power in the Church, than that of Primates or Patriarchs? And 2. that question is decided in the Negative by this one, which he calls frivolous digression: For sure if there be any such power of removing Patriarchs, vested in any other but the Pope (as there must be, if Kings can remove Patriarchs) then the Pope is not the supreme Governor, or Pastor of the whole Church, over all the world, and consequently can be no more than the first Patriarch.
2ly. I shall aske his advise in two things, on occasion of*S…b. disa…a. pag. 94. his mention of the antient use of communicatory letters, which, saith he, was afterwards, by reason of the perfect colligation of the severall membe…s with their head neglected, as unnecessary.] 1. How then it can with justice be pretended, that the Popes Ʋniversal Pastorsh p or headship was a…tiently and universally acknowledged, for then sure the colligation being so early so perfect, the Communicatory Letters would, as antiently, have been unnecessary, as since that perfect colligation they are by S W. acknowledged to be: And 2. what hinders but that Ʋnity over the whole Christian world might still thus be maintain'd between all National Churches, each under their own Primate, by the help of these Communicatory Letters, without need of one visible head, in subjection to whom all unity is by S W. said to consist.
When these two questions, together with the exceptions here premised to the groundwork of his Argument, are satisfactorily answered, I shall have incouragement farther to inlarge on the view of the remainder of his 9th sect. and to make answers for my self instead of those, which in the 10th he hath put into my mouth (and may without much difficulty answer the questions, which himself hath proposed, and that on a subject, which before he begins, he acknowledges to be confest by me, viz: that there can be no just cause given of schisme.) In the mean, being confident I have here, and in the foregoing parts of this Reply laid sufficient, and evident grounds to satisfie all the objections, which here are made to us, I shall resist the temptations, which are before me, to pursue this new path any farther, and indulge no longer to such Divertisments.
SECT. III.
Concession of Kings renounced by S. W. Strictures on his 11th Sect. The King cannot alienate his regality. Some gifts revocable. The Suns light such. So Gods graces. The Popes Territory. The admission of Legates an acknowledgment of power. S W. his calumnies. The Oath of Supremacy to secure Allegiance.
IN the 11th sect: I am rebuked for mentioning the voluntary concession of Kings (as formerly the title of Conversion) for any part of the ground of the Popes pretensions to supreme authority in this Nation, which, saith he, they found onelyonly on the succession to S. Peter.] If this will indeed be stood to by all, I am again discharged of an unnecessary fear, and by analogie with, and consequence from this, of all need of considering the title of possession, which surely hath sometime been mentioned by some body, whilst the very name of S. Peter, or succession by him, was quite left out in the whole scheme, as was shewed in the last section; And then the whole matter is once more reduced to that one head of S. Peters right to Ʋniversal supremacy, and the Popes succeeding to him. And having not onelyonly disproved this, as I then thought, by those 4th and 5th chap: of Schisme, but also thus largely and doubly vindicated them now from all that hath been objected by the Cath: Gent: and S. W. to those chapters, I discern not, how it is possible, I should have any more to doe in this businesse; Or how I can safely adde any word to any other head but that, without danger of relapsing into this impertinent, as well as toilsome errour of treating those things, which are not questioned by them.
I shall therefore in obedience to his repeated Rebukes, indeavour to make short work of the remainder of this section, (and see whether the 3d part will afford any new reason of farther ingaging) there being indeed nothing behinde here, beside scurrility, that requires any further answer, than what is already made in the Reply, chap. 7. sect. 11. &c. and what the addition of a few strictures may discharge.
As 1. when he saith, the Papacy was never imagined at any private King's disposal, till Dr. H. his time. I answer that till he hath solidly asserted the Popes Ʋniversal Pastorship from Christs donation to S. Peter, and all his successours in the See of Rome, there cannot any other colour of t…nure be imagined for the Popes having the supreme jurisdiction over this Church of ours, but the concession and disposal of some of our former Kings, and that was all I was to conclude in that place, and is no way invalidated by S. W.
2dly. When he blames my inference, that if it were in the Kings power to dispose of it to the Pope, then the same power remains in the Kings to dispose it from him to some other, instancing in the Kings yielding an Island &c. to an over powering enemy. I answer that the parallel holds not, upon this reason, because in that case, that Island must be supposed to goe out from under that Kings power, which notwithstanding, he may remain in the full intire supreme power over those parts of his Kingdome, which are left him, and so be a supreme Monarch still over all his remaining subjects, although his Province, or sphere of administration be lessened; but if the supremacy it selfe in every part of his Dominions be thus parted with, as that Island is parted with, i. e. not to remain to him, then he becomes lesse a King, than formerly he was, and, as I said, such acts, which make him so, are acknowledgedly invalid acts, it being above the power of a King himself, to alienate the supremacy or regality.
3dly. When from his sorts of prayers, and seekers which neither seek nor pray, he would have it believed, that I have committed the like absurdity in making one sort of gifts to be such as are not given, and this as a rare service to be rejoiced in, in the bill of fare, this is nothing but the obscuring and perverting of a plain intelligible proposition, the truth whereof is every day exemplified to us by a Kings removing his Chancellour from his place, upon any good cause, without any wrongfull diminution to his former liberality, which bestowed that office upon him. Is it not sense to say, some things are given revocably, as well as others irrevocably? some quamdiu se benè gesserit, some durante beneplacito, or as farre as to the usus fructus, as well as others by parting with the propriety, and finally divesting my self of all power and right either in, or to them? Or must this be foreign, a giftlesse gift, if I retain any such fundamental Original propriety in it, of ever recalling it again?
4thly. I wonder what infirmity it was, either in Philosophy or Theologie, to exemplifie this, either by the Sun communicating his beames, or God his graces, without emptying, or dispossessing themselves of that, which they bestow on others, and consequently without parting with this power of revocation. This, saith he, is to affirme, that the very beames sent hither by the Sun are notwithstanding reteined there still, and so in farre more d stant places at the same time, than I will grant the glorified body of Christ in the Sacrament.] I answer by denying his consequence, Tis onelyonly to affirme, that the Sun reteines the power over his own bounty, and may as freely withdraw it from this, and bestow it the next minute on some other, as it formerly bestowed it on this. This was evidently signified by the phrase of reteining all which it communicates] not reteining at that minute the particular beame, which was already sent out, and parted with, (that would indeed imply the same contradiction, that we affirme their doctrine of transubstantiation doth) but reteining the power over its owne light and beames in generall, so as to continue them no longer to any one, than it pleaseth, and so, that when it shall depart and inrich some other, the former usufructuarie cannot plead prescription against this act of revocation of free bounty.
And then S. W. might have spared the cost of providing the long strings and pullyes, which he talkes of, to fetch back those beames which he resolves incorporated in other bodyes, for unlesse the whole treasure of beames be so poured out, that the Sun reteines no power for the future, to withdraw from Rome and fixe on Canterbury, so that now for the future, the latter shall have the same benigne influences as largely, and as justly communicated to it as formerly the former had had, the parallel still stands exact enough, to conclude the Kings power to remaine to him of removing and revoking from Rome, what he had at any time bestowed on it.
5thly. For the instance of God, though S. W. hath chosen an unlucky phrase, saying that God never takes away what he gives, when the Scripture saith so often the contrary, If he take away our breath we dye, and from him which useth not his grace which he had, auferetur, it shall be taken away, yet his explanation of himself is the yielding of all I affirme in this whole matter, that God is then said to take away any thing, when he withholds his bountifull hand from a farther bestowing it. And then I that said the very same of Kings, that might thus give, and yet reteine power of thus withholding the hand from this farther bestowing, concluded all, by S. W. his own suffrage, which I attempted to conclude. And then ad quid perditio haec, why might not all, S. W. his laborious bounty, and expence of so many lines also have been otherwise bestowed?
6thly. What the territory meant which I said the Pope was willing to inlarge unlimitedly, was obvious enough by the foregoing mention of a Principality, and the contenting himself with that, might well enough be reconciled with his greatest zeale and industry in bringing in the fullnesse of the Gentiles to the faith of Christ, (which certeinly is a very distant thing from obedience to the Papacy, as Xaverius's Gospel of S. Peter was somewhat different from S. Matthewes of our blessed Saviour) and then to what purpose againe was all that ensuing harangue of the present prosperity of theirs, and improsperity of our Church?
7thly. What I observed of Queen Maries time did distinctly enough belong, and was applyed by me not to her own private affections or judgment, of which I never doubted, but to the publike acts of state made in her reign And then to what purpose is his justifying of that Queen, that she was no way favourable to our pretensions? But to that I have spoken in the Reply, p. 123. as also to the businesse of refusing the Popes Legates, the admitting of whom I now see to be made use of twice in a page by your Bishop of Chalcedon, in his late survey of the Bishop of Derry, as a testimony of our Princes acknowledging the Popes Supremacy; And then sure if the admitting will inferre the acknowledgement, the refusing must imply the disacknowledgment of it. Nor can I perceive what proportion that act of refusing of Legates can be thought to beare with the Peoples denying the Kings subsidies, to which he parallels it, for sure if the Pope have any supremacy in this kingdome, it must be the same offence against that supremacy to exclude his Judges of Assises, or his lieutenant, by him authorized, (and such his Legate is) as to exclude a Prince out of his Dominions (which is no way implyed, or intimated in the other) and if, as S. W. saith, all Catholike Countryes, when they see it convenient, doe the like, It will be lesse strange, that I thinke that safe, which hath so many precedents, and consequently that our offence was not great, when we excluded him, whom that legate represented.
8thly. I believe not that S. W. was ever Bishop Cranmers Confessor, or consequently hath had real intelligence of his being guilty of that Carnality, which no story that I ever could heare of, charges on him, till this impure pen suggested it against him. And with this may be associated another calumny that followes in the next page, that Robert Wisdomes hymnes were a part of our Reformation.
9thly. What is objected to the Ordination of Bishops in Queen Elizabeths dayes, was prevented in the Reply; Ch. 7. Sect. 4.
10hly. When he objects to me, that I know not the difference betwixt the Oath of Allegiance and Supremacy, adding that there could be no need to presse the latter to approve mens fidelity and allegiance; I answer, that this is not any error or ignorance, but a truth visible enough by the effects of it: If the Bishop of Rome be supreme in this Kingdome, and so our King in the number of his subjects, we know one obvious effect arising from hence, that then tis in the power of his Bulls to absolve all subjects from their oblig…tion to allegiance, and then what meanes can there be to secure, or approve any mans fidelity, and allegiance to an Excommunicated Prince, beside disclaiming that Papal supremacy, and these so consequent attendants of it, which is the matter of that Oath? As long as the allegiance is duely paid, there is no need indeed of any farther security, as whilst men doe universally performe their duty, there is no need of lawes or punishments; but when another supreme is acknowledged, beside and above the King, who need not unking him by any new act, having done it already by being his superior in his own dominions, the first contestation that shall happen between these two, must render the inferior criminous, and punishable, and the punishment we know is such, as renders him unfit for government, the King shall be in S. W. his style, the head of Schismatickes, and then what fidelity is he to expect from those, who acknowledge his enemies Supremacy?
This last objection of reforming end-wayes, had been made use of by the Catholike Gentleman; and is answered in Reply, p. 130. And so much for what hath been attempted by S. W. (not over prosperously) in his second Part.