Project Canterbury

The Way and Manner of the Reformation of the Church of England
declared and justified against the clamors and objections of the opposite parties
by Peter Heylyn

London, 1657.


SECT. II.
The manner of the Reformation of the Church of England declared and justified.

HItherto I had gone in order to your satisfaction and communicated my conceptions in writing to you, when I received your letter of the 4. of Ianuary, in which you signified the high contentment I had given you, in condescending to your weaknesse, (as you pleased to call it) and freeing you from those doubts which lay heaviest on you. And therewithall you did request me to give you leave to propound those other Scruples which were yet behinde, relating to the King, the Pope and the Protestant Churches, either too little or too much looked after in the Reformation. And first you say it is complained of by some Zelots of the Church of Rome, that the Pope was very hardly and unjustly dealt with in being deprived of the Supremacy so long enjoyed and exercised by his predecessors, and that it was an innovation no lesse strange then dangerous to settle it upon the King. 2. That the Church of England ought not to have proceeded to a Reformation without the Pope, considered either as the Patriarch of the Western world, or the Apostle in particular of the English Nation. 3. That if a Reformation had been found so necessary, it ought to have been done by a General Councel, at least with the consent and co-operation of the Sister-Churches, especially of those who were engaged at the same time in the same designs. 4. That in the carrying on of the Reformation the Church proceeded very unadvisedly, in letting the people have the Scriptures and the publique Liturgie in the vulgar tongue, the dangerous consequents whereof are now grown too visible. 5. That the proceedings in the point of the Common-prayer Book were meerly Regall, the body of the Clergy not consulted with, or consenting to it; and consequently not so Regular as we fain would have it. And 6. That in the power of making Canons and determining matters of the Faith, the Clergy have so fettered and intangled themselves by the Act of Submission, that they can neither meet, deliberate, conclude nor execute, but as they are enabled by the Kings authority, which is a Vassallage inconsistent with their native Liberties, and not agreeable to the usage of the Primitive times. These are the points in which you now desire to have satisfaction, and you shall have it in the best way I am able to do it, that so you may be freed hereafter from such Troubles and Disputants, as I perceive have laboured to perplex your thoughts, and make you lesse affectionate then formerly to the Church your Mother.


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