III.

placed and to be; which two, though they be different DISCOURSE in names, yet retain the same sense. This was well so long as the empire continued in the same state and the provinces kept their ancient bounds. But now,-when the state of the empire is altogether changed, the provinces confounded, and the dominions divided among lesser kings, who are sometimes in hostility one with another, and the subjects of one prince cannot freely nor securely repair for justice into the dominions of a foreign prince, without prejudice to themselves, and danger to their native country,—it is very meet, that the subjects of every sovereign prince should have final justice within the dominions of their own sovereign, as well in ecclesiastical causes as political. And this is agreeable with the fundamental laws and customs of England, which neither permit a subject in such cases to go out of the kingdom, nor any foreign commissioner to enter into the kingdom, without the king's license. Upon this ground the Bishops [A.D.1471] of Scotland were freed from their obedience to the Primate

of York 4, and the Bishops of Muscovia from the Patriarch of [A.D.1589] Constantinople e.

.66

But (saith he) that, which is for the benefit of the king214 dom, may be contrary to the good of the Church;" and should we "prefer a kingdom before the Church, the body before the soul, earth before Heaven f?"

loss all cir

to be con

I answer, that gain and loss, advantage and disadvantage, In gain or ought not to be weighed or esteemed from the consideration cumstances of one or two circumstances or emergents. All charges, gidered. damages, and reprises, must first be cast up and deducted, before one can give a right estimate of benefit or loss. If a merchant do reckon only the price which his commodity cost him beyond sea, without accounting customs, freight, and other charges, he will soon perish his pack. If the benefit be only temporal, and the loss spiritual, as to gain gold and lose faith, which is "more precious than gold that perisheth," 1 Pet. i. 7. it is no benefit but loss; "what should it advantage a man [Matt. xvi.

26.]

PART

I.

Our reformation not

the decrees

to gain the whole world and lose his own soul?" The English Church and the English kingdom are one and the same society of men, differing not really but rationally one from another, in respect of some distinct relations. As the vine, and the elm that sustains it, they flourish together, and decay together. Bonum ex singulis circumstantiis,'—that which is truly good for the kingdom of England, cannot be ill for the Church of England; and that which is truly good for the English Church, cannot be ill for the English kingdom. We may in reason distinguish between Alexander's friend who studies to please him, and the king's friend who gives him good advice; the one is a friend to his person, the other to his office: but in truth, whilst Alexander is king, and the person and office are united, he that is a true friend to Alexander is no enemy to the king, and he who is a true friend to the king is no foe to Alexander. Indeed, if by the Church he understand the Court of Rome, then that which was good for the kingdom of England was prejudicial to the Church, in point of temporal profit; but seeing, as he confesseth, the soul is to be preferred before the body,' it turns to their greater advantage by lessening the account of their extortions.

He addeth, that "a kingdom is but a part of the Church, contrary to and it is not in the power of any part, only for its particular of general profit, to alter what is instituted by the Universal Church for Councils. her universal good; no more than it is in the power of a part of the kingdom, as one shire or province, to alter for its private interest what hath been decreed by Parliament for the good of the kingdom 1."

His instance of a shire or a province is altogether impertinent; for no particular shire or province in England hath legislative authority at all, as the kingdom hath. But particular corporations, being invested with power from the Crown to make ordinances for the more commodious government of themselves, may make and do make ordinarily bye-laws and ordinances, not contra-against the Acts of Parliament, but præter-besides the Acts of Parliament. And let him go but a little out of the kingdom of England, as suppose into the

[Plut., Apophthegm. Reg., in Alexand. num. 29, Op. Moral., tom. i.

p. 505. ed. Wyttenb.]

h

[Surv., c. vi. sect. 1. pp. 79, 80.]

III.

Isle of Man, or into Ireland; though they be branches of the DISCOURSE English empire, yet he shall find that they have distinct Parliaments, which, with the concurrence of the king, have ever heretofore enjoyed a power to make laws for themselves contrary to the laws of the English Parliament. But we are so far from seeking to abrogate or to alter any institution of the Universal Church, or its representative a general Council, in this case, that on the contrary we crave the benefit of their decrees, and submit all our differences to their decision. No general Council did ever give to the See of Rome jurisdiction over Britain. And though they had, yet, the state of things being quite changed, it were no disobedience to vary from them in circumstances, whilst we persist in their grounds.

:

To make my word good, I will suppose the case to have been quite otherwise than it was that Protestants had made the separation; that they had had no ancient laws for precedents; that the Britannic Churches had not enjoyed the Cyprian privilege for the first six hundred years: yea, I will suppose for the present, that our Primates were no Primates or Patriarchs; and that the Britannic Churches had been subjected to the Bishop of Rome by general Councils. Yet,-all this supposed,-upon the great mutation of the state of the empire, and the great variation of affairs since that time, it had been very lawful for the king and Church of England to substract their obedience from the Bishops of Rome (though they had not quitted their Patriarchate) and to have erected a new Primate at home among themselves. Provided that what I write only upon supposition, he do not hereafter allege as spoken by way of concession.

215 We have seen formerly in this chapter, that the establishment of Primates or Patriarchs and Metropolitans in such and such sees was merely to comply and conform themselves to the edicts and civil constitutions of sovereign princes, for the ease and advantage of Christians, and to avoid confusion and clashing of jurisdictions; that, where there was a civil exarch and protarch established by the emperor, there should be an ecclesiastical Primate or Patriarch; and where a city was honoured with the name and privilege of a metropolis or

I.

PART mother city, there should be a metropolitan Bishop'. The practice of Bishops could not multiply these dignities, but the edicts of emperors could. And this was in a time when the emperors were pagans and infidels.

Afterwards, when the emperors were become Christians, if they newly founded or newly dignified an imperial city or a metropolis, they gave the Bishop thereof a proportionable ecclesiastical pre-eminence at their good pleasure: either with a Council, as the Councils of Constantinople and Chalcedon (with the consent and confirmation of Theodosius and Martian, emperors) did advance the Bishop of Constantinople from being a mean suffragan under the Metropolitan of Heraclea, to be equal in dignity, power, and all sorts of privileges, to the Bishop of Rome; and this very ground is assigned by the Fathers, "Because that city" (Constantinople) "was become the seat of the empire," so great a desire had the Fathers to conform the ecclesiastical regiment to the political; or without a Council, as Justinian the emperor by his sole legislative power erected the Patriarchate of Justiniana Prima, and endowed it with a new province substracted from other Bishops, freeing it from all appeals m. The like prerogatives he gave to the Bishop of Carthage", notwithstanding the pretensions of the Bishop of Rome. And this was not done in a corner, but inserted into the public laws of the empire, for all the world to take notice of it o. So unquestionable was the power of sovereign princes in things concerning the order and external regiment of the Church in those days, that neither the Bishop of Rome nor any other Patriarch or Bishop did ever complain against it. Shall the presence of an exarch or lieutenant be able to dignify the city or place of his residence with Patriarchal rights, and shall not the presence and authority of the sovereign himself be much more able to do it? Is so much respect due to the servants, and is not more due to the master? That the British and the

English kings had the same

[De Privileg. Archiep. Justinianæ, &c.; et Collat. ix, Novel.] 131. [tit. xiv. De Eccl. Titulis, &c., c. 3. ed. Genev. 1626.]

III.

imperial authority, to alter Patriarchates within their own DISCOURSE dominions, to exempt their subjects from the jurisdiction of one Primate, and transfer them to another,-I shewed in the Vindication by the examples of King Arthur, who translated the Primacy from Caer-Leon to St. David's above eleven [A. D. 512 516.] hundred years since; and Henry the First, who subjected [A.D.1115] St. David's to Canterbury above five hundred years since, for the benefit of his subjects P. Neither did any man then complain that they usurped more power than of right did belong unto them.

same.

suance of

This is not to alter the institutions of the Universal Church But in puror of general Councils (supposing they had made any such them. particular establishment), but, on the contrary, to tread in their steps, and to pursue their grounds, and to do that (with all due submission to their authority) which they would have done themselves in this present exigence of affairs. Make all things the same they were, and we are the To persist in an old observation, when the grounds of it are quite changed, and the end, for which the observation was made, calleth upon us for an alteration, is not obedience but obstinacy. General Councils did never so fix Patriarchal power to particular Churches, as that their establishment should be like a law of the Medes and Persians, [Dan.vi.8.] never to be altered upon any change of the Christian world whatsoever but to be changed by themselves (as we see they did establish first three Protopatriarchates, then four, then five 4); or, when general Councils cannot be had (which is the miserable condition of these times), by such as have the supreme authority civil and ecclesiastical in those places. where the change is to be made. Suppose a Patriarchal see should be utterly ruined and destroyed by war or other accidents, as some have been; or should change the Bible into the Alcoran and turn Turks, as others have done; suppose a succession of Patriarchs should quit or resign their 216 Patriarchal power explicitly or implicitly, or forfeit it by disuse or abuse; or should obtrude heretical errors and idolatrous practices upon the Churches under their jurisdiction, so as to leave no hope of remedy from their successors; or [See above c. v. sect. 3. p. 165.]

P [Just Vindic., c. vi. vol. i. pp. 178, 179. See also c. v. ibid. p. 163.]