a President, which, upon the account of Precedency, was the Gardener, who had the Care of the famous Gardens in Rome, and the Suburbicarian Countries belonging thereto. According to Rules and Orders agreed upon for the Government and Common Good of the Community, they liv'd a long Time in Peace and Concord under the Prefidency and Succeffion of the Roman Gardeners, till by Degrees of Ufurpation they claim'd and exercis'd an abfolute, Power and Soveraignty over all the other Gardeners, and declar'd the Garden of Rome to be the Mother and Mistress of all the other Gardens, into which they had fent to be tranfplanted many ufelefs, poisonous, and other noxious Weeds, commanding them to be fet and fown among the good Plants in all the Gardens under their ufurp'd Monarchical Jurifdiction. This made the other Gardeners very uneafy, and many of them fadly bewail'd the Depravation and Corruption of their Gardens by the exotick Plants, and fome of them attempted to weed them out, for which the Gardener of Rome, now become abfolute Lord, fufpended fome, and caft out others, and kill'd others, with a Rage, which made the Gardens, and all the Governors and Members of them, greatly fear him, and wonder at his Blafphemies, and that none was able to make War with him. In this fad Eftate were all the Gardens of the Weft, when the Gardeners of the more happy British Isles, not able any longer to bear the Tyranny and Impofition of the Roman Gardener, and the spoiling of their Gardens, agreed, as it was their Duty, to weed them, and purge them of all the unprofitable and noxious Herbs and Plants, which had over-run their feveral Plantations, and thereby restore them to their first Paradifaical Purity, when there was not among them all fo much as one Weed.

I doubt not but your Ladyship difcerns the meaning and Moral of this Parable, in which the Gardener of Rome is the Pope, the Gardens of the Weft

ern Europe the Churches of it, and the Gardeners the Bishops of them; the good Plants likewise are the Primitive Apoftolical Doctrines once deliver'd to the Saints, the Weeds the new, falfe and damnable Popish Doctrines, which in the Pale of the Romish Church have been long added to and mixed with the primitive pure Doctrines, and taught as equally neceffary to Salvation.

What think you now, Madam, of the Keepers of our English Gardens, the Bishops of our English Diocefan and Provincial Churches? Were they to be blam'd for agreeing together to weed their Gardens, and cleanse them from all the evil Plants, tho' without the Leave and against the Will of the Defpotick Gardener of Rome? Muft they not have been accountable to the great Lord of all the Spiritual Vineyards and Gardens, Jefus Chrift, if they had not reform'd the Gardens over which he had plac'd them, and put them in the fame pure State and Condition in which he and his Vicegerents the Apostles and Apoftolick Fathers planted the first Gardens, and left them to propagate the Heavenly Plants in Garden after Garden, and from Country to Country, unto the End of the World? Did they any more than root up the Plants which he and his Heavenly Father bad not planted, and advise their Flocks, as St. Ignatius, (not Ignatius Loyola, Madam, the Founder of the Jefuits, falfly call'd Saint, but St. Ignatius) St. John's Scholar, advis'd the Church of Tralles to avoid the evil Plants, which brought forth deadly Fruit, of which, if any one eat, he was fure to die, because they were not of the Fathers planting.

Here therefore, Madam, lyes the Point of the Controversy about Schifm between the Two Churches: If the Trent-Doctrines, against which we pro

teft,

བ་

4 φεύγετε ἐν τὰς κακὰς Γραφυάδας, τὰς γενώσας καρπὸν θανατηφόρον. δ' ἐὰν γνώσεται τις παρ' αὐτὰ ἀποθνήσκς. 28 εκ εἰσὶν φυλεία πολεις.

test, are evil Plants, not of God's planting, then our Reformation cannot be charg'd with Schifm, for the Reasons before mention'd; but on the other hand, if they are good and wholfom plants, of our Heavenly Father's planting, by his Son our Lord, or his Apostles, as your new Guide pretends, then indeed our Reformation was truly Schifmatical, and we have been Schifmaticks from the Reformation to this prefent Day. The Proof then of Schifm against us depends upon proving the Trent-Doctrines to be Primitive and Apoftolical, which I take upon me to tell your Ladyship again, cannot be prov'd, and in the full Affurance I have that they cannot be proved to be fuch, and as fuch to have been deliver'd down to this prefent Age, I tell you once more, that when that is prov'd, I will own my felf both Schif matick and Heretick, and return an humble Penitent to the Church of Rome. You fay the Gentleman, who hath unfettled you, tells you, that the Reafon why the Council of Trent determin'd thofe Doctrines to be Apostolical was, becafe they met with no Oppofition till near that Time. But that, Madam, is not true, for they met with ftout and vigorous Opposition at the first broaching of them, as the Worship of Images, the Doctrine of Chrift's Corporal Prefence in the Holy Sacrament, and the Supremacy of the Pope, which hath been oppos'd by the Greek Church from the first Claim to it to this present Day.

I think, Madam, I have faid enough, fhould I fay no more, to vindicate the Church of England from the Guilt of Schifm. But that I may not omit to give your Ladyship all the Satisfaction you can expect, I now proceed to confider the Arguments which you fay stick most with and make you you, think her guilty of that heavy Crime. I think I may reduce them to these four Heads. First, That the English Bishops and Clergy liv'd in Subjection to the Bishop of Rome for a Thousand Years before the Reformation. Secondly, That all that Time

We

we receiv'd Ordination from the Bishop of Rome : And Thirdly, That we did not only own him for our Head and Superiour, but were under the Obligation of Oaths to him, and to maintain the Rights of the Church of Rome. And in the fourth place, That all this was done when most of the Corruptions we complain'd of were crept into the Church, and embrac'd by our Predeceffors:

r

I take the Liberty to begin with your Second Objection: That for a Thousand Years before the Reformation we receiv'd Orders from the Bishop of Rome. In anfwer to which I must first inform your Ladyship, That our Church derives her Succeffion, I mean the Lineal Succeffion of her Bishops and Clergy, by a mix'd Ordination from the British and Scotifb Churches, as well as from the Church of Rome, as hath been fhew'd by Dr. Bramhal, afterwards Archbishop of Armagh in his Juft Vindication of the Church of England. The fame, Madam, is lately fhew'd more at large by Two of our learned Divines, Dr. Inett in his Hiftory of the English Church, and Mr. Collier in his Ecclefiaftical History of Great-Britain, to which I refer your Ladyship, and those from whom by Contagion of Converfation you have infenfibly had this Objection. If they have read BEDE's Ecclefiaftical History they must know this to be true, and taking the Church of England, as it now ufually is, for the Churches in the British Isles, probably not a Tenth Part of it owe their Conversion to Rome; fo far is it from being abfolutely true that we originally, or for a Thousand Years, receiv'd our Orders, or Succeffion (only) from the Bishop or Church of Rome. Seeing then, Madam, that our Ordination was a mix'd Ordination, like a River made up of many Streams, before the Reformation, it is improperly afferted, That we receiv'd it originally, or for a Thousand Years before we reform'd,

P. 62. 132. of his Works.

from

from the Bishop of Rome. Nay, I must farther tell your Ladyship, That, properly speaking, St. Auguftin, after the Converfion of the English, went to Arles in France to receive Confecration from the Archbishop of that See, fo that in your way of speaking we owe that Stream of our Ordination rather to the Bishop of Arles, than the Bishop of Rome. I must also entreat you to obferve, That St. Auguftin in his Life-time confecrated his next Succeffor Laurentius, and those who were his Succeffors, Mellitus Bishop of London, and Juftus Bishop of Rochefter, who confecrated Paulinus, the Converter of King Edwin, and his Northumbrians, and fo the English Bishops confecrated one another to the Time of the Reformation, as the Bishops in all other Parts of the Catholick Church confecrated one another to fill up vacant Sees.

This being premis'd, I must tell your Ladyship in the Second place, That the receiving or deriving Orders from any Bishop or Church lays no Obligation on the derivative Church or her Bishops to hold Communion with their Original longer than they keep to the Catholick Church. But if they once corrupt the Faith, or Worship, or Polity of that, or in any one of these Inftraces, much more in all, depart from it, all other Churches, whether derivative, or underin'd, are bound to forfake their Communion, and in that Cafe, as I obferv'd before, the Mother-Churches, who give the Occafion, and not their Daughters, are the Schismaticks, and must answer to God for the Schifm. When Paulus Samofatenus, Archbishop of Antioch, the Mother-Church of Syria, and, next to that of Hierufalem, the first of the Christian World; I fay when that Primate or Metropolitan turn'd Tyrant and Heretick, in the Third

t

• Dr. Inett's Hiftory of the English Church. p. 230, 231. Joban. Pearfoni Annotationes in Epift. Ignatii ad Romanos : ¿monomor Σveías. Quum Antiochia effet Caput, & Metropolis

Syriz