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AN Historical Vindication OF THE Church of England in point of SCHISM.
CHAP. I.
1. IT is now more than twenty yeares since de∣fending the Church of England as it was setled 1 Eliz. for the most perfect and con∣formable to Antiquity of any in Europe, a Gentleman, whose conversation for his Learning, I very much affected, tole me, He was never satisfied of our a∣greeing with the Primitive Church in two particulars; the one in denying all manner of Superiority to the Bi∣shop of Rome, to live in whose Communion the East and Western Christian did ever highly esteem. The other, in condemning Monastique living, so far, as not onely to reform them, if any thing were amiss, but take down the very houses themselves. To the first of these I said, We did not deny such a Primacy in the Pope as the Antients did acknowledge, but that he by that might exercise those acts he of some years before Hen. the 8th had done, and had got by encroaching on the English Church and State meerly by their tolerance, which when the King∣dom