.380 A VINDICATION OF THE ANIMADVERSIONS ON FIAT LUX.
To make onr way the more clear, some of the ambiguous expres- sions which you make use of to cloud and hide your intention in your inquiry after the head of the church, must be explained : —
1. By the church you understand not this or that particular church, not the church of this or that nation, kingdom, or country, but the whole catholic church throughout the world. And when you have explained yourself to this purpose, you endeavour, by six arguments no less (pp. 67, 68), to prove that no king ever was or can be head of it. He said well of old, —
" In causa facili cuivis licet esse diserto." — Ov. Trist. iii. 11, 21.
I wonder you contented yourself to give us six reasons only, and that you proceeded not at least unto the high hills of eighteenthly and nineteenthly that you talk of in your " Fiat Lux,'' where you scoff at the preaching of Presbyterians. It may be you will scarcely ever obtain such another opportunity of showing the fertility of your invention. So did he flourish who thought himself secure from ad- versaries,—
" Caput altum in prgelia tollit,
Ostcnditque liumeros latos, alternaque jactat
Brachia protendcns, et verberat ictibus auras." ^"ii'g- ^^- "^^ ^75.
But you do like him, — you only beat the air. Do you think any man was ever so distempered as to dream that any king whatever could be " the absolute head of the whole catholic church of Christ?" We no more think any king, in any sense, to be the head of the catholic church than we think the pope so to be. The Roman empire was at its height and glory when first Christianity set forth in the world, and had exteuded its bounds beyond those of any kingdom that arose before it, or that hath since succeeded unto it ; and yet, within a very few years after the resurrection of Christ, the gospel had diffused itself beyond the limits of that empire, among the Parthians and Indians, and unto " Britannorum Romanis inaccessa loca," as Ter- tullian calls them. Now, none ever supposed that any king had power or authority of any sort in reference unto the church, or any members of it, without or beyond the precise limits of his o^vn domi- nions. The inquiry we have under consideration about the power of kings, and the obedience due unto them in ecclesiastical things, is limited absolutely unto their own kingdoms, and unto those of their subjects which are Christians in them. And thus, —
" Hi motus aniraorum atque hcec certamina tanta Pulvei'is exigui jactu compressa quiescunt." Virg. Georg. iv. 87.
A little observation of this one known and granted principle renders not only your six reasons altogether useless, but supersedes also a great part of your rhetoric, which, under the ambiguity of that ex- pression, you display in your whole discourse.
POWER OF KINGS IN MATTERS ECCLESIASTICAL. 881
2. You pleasantly lead about your unwary reader with the ambi- guity of the other term, " The head." Hence, p. 58, you fall into a great exclamation against Protestants, " That, acknowledging the king to be the head of the church, they do not supplicate unto him and acquie.sce in his judgment in religious affairs;" — as if ever any Protestant acknowledged any king, or any mortal man, to be such a head of the church as you fancy to yourselves, in whose determina- tions in religion all men are bound spiritually, and as to their eternal concernments, to acquiesce, and that not because they are true accord- ing to the Scripture, but because they are his. Such a head you make the pope ; such a one on earth all Protestants deny : which eva- cuates your whole discourse to that purpose, pp. 58, 59. It is true, in opposition unto your papal claim of authority and jurisdiction over the subjects of this kingdom, Protestants do assert the king to be so head of the church within his own realms and dominions, as that he is, by God's appointment, the sole fountain and spring amongst men of all authority and power to be exercised over the persons of his subjects in matters of external cognizance and order; being no way obnoxious to the direction, supervisorship, and superintendency of any other, — in particular, not of the pope. He is not the " only striker," as you phrase it, in his kingdoms; but the only protector under God of all his subjects, and the only distributer of justice, in rewards and punishments, unto them, not depending in the adminis- tration of the one or other on the determinations or orders of your pope or church. Not that any of them do use absolutely that ex- pression of " Head of the church;" but that they ascribe unto him all authority that ought or can be exercised in his dominions over any of his subjects, whether in things civil or ecclesiastical, that are not merely spiritual, and to be ministerially ordered in obedience unto Christ Jesus. And that you may the better see what it is that Pro- testants ascribe imto the king, and to every king that is absolutely supreme, as his majesty is in his own dominions, and withal how ex- ceedincy vain your unreasonable reproach is, which you cast upon them for not giving themselves up unto an absolute acquiescency in human determinations, as merely such, on pretence that they proceed from the head of the church, I shall give you a brief account of their thoughts in this whole matter: —