Privileges remain and were ever reserved though the Formality is obscured in a Great Cathedral Church This last Absurdity spoken of may be made to appear by these following Degrees N. I. First There never was a Time since the Foundation of the Cathedral within the Kings Castle of Old Sarum or since its Removal to the Close of New Sarum which Close must be distinguished in all our Discourses from the City which no body denies to be in the Bishops Jurisdiction and in the Sub-Deans two Years in three wherein the Bishop was or wherein the Dean of Sarum was not Immediatus Loci Ordinarius Let them name it and prove it who were bold enough to say there was such a Time as the Dean has named plainly and also proved the Space of Time of almost 300 Years between the Kings and Osmund's Charter on one side and the Infamous Composition on the other side by which the Bishop hath pretended some Jurisdiction over the Close five days in seven years though none at all before or after so great a space as seven years Which by the way is another Absurdity and Inconsistence No Instance can be given of any Will proved within the Close by any Bishop or any Letters of Administration granted or any matter of Instance tryed or any Fornication punished by any Bishop since the Foundation but only by the Dean of Sarum who is confessedly in the Statute of Bishop Roger himself though an high-flying Bishop Loci Ordinarius Immediatus See the Statute De Testamentis Decano insinuandis Now that is clearly an Immemorial Practice and Possession of the Dean which has been a Tempore per Tempus cujus contrarii memoria hominum non existit Which Allegation to the Archbishop for the Chapters Exemption from the Bishops Jurisdiction Bishop Ralph Erghum could not deny and thereupon was decreed against 2. Next the Decisions of Authority have been for the Dean and against the Bishop as often as Authority hath been appealed unto which has been seldom 1. In the Year 1301 when the then Bishop Simon de Gaunt endeavoured to invade the Decanal Jurisdiction over the Canons and other Members of the Cathedral Church of Sarum Petrus de Sabaudia then Dean of Sarum did by his Instrument in Writing on the Third of October Prohibit the Prebendaries or Canons and all other Members of the said Church and discharge them from submitting to the said Bishops Visitation N. II. No longer since than in the Year 1665 Iohn Elliot LL. Doctor Chancellor then to Dr. Alexander Hyde Lord Bishop of Sarum cited one Iohn Wickham Servant to Mr. Chafin living then in the Close of Sarum unto the Bishops Consistory for Incontinency c. Wickham not obeying the Summons was by the said Chancellor de facto Excommunicated Whereupon Mr. Richard Kent then Prebendary of Sarum and Surrogate to the Reverend Dr. Richard Baily Dean of Sarum perceiving the Invasion committed upon the Dean's peculiar Jurisdiction by Dr. Elliot the Bishops Chancellor in citing Wickham within the Close Absolves the said Wickham Whereupon the Bishop makes his complaint to the Archbishop Dr. Gilbert Sheldon The business came to an Hearing in St. Iohn's College Gallery in Oxford before the said Archbishop and Edward Earl of Clarendon Lord Chancellour of England the King then residing in Oxford And the Issue was this That the Bishop should not intermeddle with any Ecclesiastical Censures things or Persons out of his own Palace and Family but that the whole decision of Ecclesiastical Matters within the said Close did and do purely wholly and solely belong unto the Dean This is a True Copy of the whole Relation of the Matter from the Reverend Dr. Richard Baily received by me the Surrogate to the said Dr. Richard Baily Dean of Sarum It a testor Ricard Kent primo Jun. A.D. 1678. Sub-Dec Sarum N. III. Yea since the present Lord Bishops and the present Dean's Time there was a Crime committed within his Lordships own Pallace and by his Lordships chief Domestick which being a Crime of Ecclesiastical cognizance was by consequence to be punished by the King 's Ecclesiastical Laws The Bishop applied himself first by Letters to the Dean and Chapter conjunctim for the Punishing of the chief Party in that Commission proposing the Composition to them whereby his Lordship was in hopes a Correction de bene esse might be favourably inflicted The Dean and Chapter met on purpose in Dr. Drake's House to Read and to consider of the said Composition Which having done They unanimously agreed in this Judgment of which they sent his Lordship word That the whole Composition supposing it to be valid was wholly impertinent to the Matter in hand And that none but the Dean alone as the Sole Ordinary of the Close could Summon both Parties into his Consistory Court and put the Law in Execution The Dean however made a delay because the Principal Offender had committed the Fact in the Bishop's Palace which he was willing to esteem a place Exempted from the Decanal Jurisdiction And this he pleaded to the Lord Bishop whom he desired to correct his own Domestick in his own Family or in his own Court which the Dean said he would warrant his Lordship the doing of by Letters Dimissory or License under the Seal of his Decanal Office But his Lordship urged with great strength of Reason as well as Earnestness 1. That such a Liberty in the Close was more than either the Dean could give away lawfully or the Bishop receive 2. That the Party cited into his Court might appeal to the Arches from the Bishop tanquam a non Iudice and make the very Iudge of that Court a Criminal 3. That the Dean might Summon a Prebendary to appear in his Court by a certain day from any part of the Kingdom but 4. That the Bishop could not cite him into His however nearly an Inhabitant Whereupon the Dean of Sarum acknowledging the Bishop too hard for him in the Contest was forced to own his Unavoidable Authority in the Close as inseparably annexed to the Imperial Crown of these Realms which is the language of several Acts of Parliament and not without Trouble and Self denial did satisfie the Law upon both the offending Parties N. IV. Since which time also no longer since than on the 15th of September 1681. the present Dean was desired by Mr. Archdeacon Woodward then the Bishop of Sarum's Surrogate Now the Chancellor of this whole Diocess to permit and allow the People of Broad-Chalk in Wiltshire to ask the voluntary Benevolence of Persons living within the Close of Sarum To whom the Dean gave his leave or permission rather in these words following As far as the Laws of this Realm permit and being earnestly requested as well as moved with the Resentment of so many mens Losses within the Parish of Broad-Chalk I do allow the said Sufferers to try the Charity of the Inhabitants within my Peculiar of the Close of New Sarum
Grace's Corrections also such as the Bishop of Sarum is And I do sometimes ask my self what Inconvenience could there be if the Bishop of Sarum or any other who is Subordinate to the Archbishop as the Archbishop to the King had no more Prebends to dispose of than the Archbishop hath Or if His Majesty now and then although but rarely only Fourteen or Fifteen in above 500 years should give a Prebend at large of Sarum to a Priest every way qualified with Want and Worth as well as he gives All the Prebends in All the Churches recited without Exception The Church and State might stand firmly as now they do and Christian Souls might be as salvable as now they are tho' the King's Power and Right were as much owned by All as it is by me The Bishops of London and of Lincoln and several others have a most undoubted Right to dispose of Prebends such at least as the Bishop of Sarum hath and that Right the more unquestionable by being held of the Supream and derived from it and Subordinate thereunto A Sole and Sovereign Right wholly exclusive of the King 's which is all I contend against and which my Lord Bishop of Sarum seems to aim at and effect or else his Lordship and I agree I am verily perswaded none of those Bishops will pretend to It cannot be said with any Truth that All the Bishopricks I have named wherein the King gives All the Prebends the Bishops none are not of Old but New Foundation For Worcester and Norwich are very Old Canterbury and Rochester two of the Oldest we have in England Besides that the King's Power and Right in the Church of Sarum is greater than in many others not only because of his Old Free Chappel which I shall prove in the next Chapter and cannot be disproved by some Negatives from some Interested and Passionate Opposers of the Prerogative but also because the Kings of England were the Co-Founders of that Cathedral in a Literal Sence as well as Founders in the Sence of our Common and Statute Law The Co-Founders at least because Osmund had his All from the Bounty of Will 1. and held his All of that King's Favour under Knights Service during Pleasure for which I cited Mr. Selden and Matth. Paris in the first Sect. of this Chapter King Hen. 1 in one day gave 20 Churches to that of Sarum besides the Tithes of New Forrest if the Record which was read by Sir Tho. Ridley said true which he mentions in his View of the Civil Law And passing by the lesser Bounties of Steph. and K. Hen. 2. it is confessed that Hen. 3. gave no fewer than 20 or 21 Prebends and other things even All the Tithes of all the Kings Forrests within Three Counties Wilts Berks and Dorset and the Removal of the Cathedral from Old to New Sarum is owned by Bishop Spondanus as well as others to have been at the King 's cost chiefly Next our Kings were Sole Founders in the Eye and Sence of the Law according to the Maxim cited before from Iudge Coke Instit. Cart 2. Chap. 33. upon Magna Charta p. 68. 44 Ed. 3 cap. 24. And our King at this day according to that other Maxim in Coke 2 Inst. in Statute of Employments p. 742. Whatever Right our Former Kings had our King hath now It seemeth strange to most men who have considered the matter throughly that the King who gets the Right of giving every Ecclesiastical Possession in England not only where Church men but where Saecular men are Patrons by promoting an Incumbent unto a Bishoprick should immediately loose All even in That very Church where he makes the Bishop Or that the King who hath All in his own Disposal during the Vacancy of All the Bishopricks in England should have nothing to dispose of without the Bishop's good leave as soon as the Vacancies are filled tho' filled up freely by himself They are Betrayers of the Churches Rights who go about to undermine and betray the King's And they tempt the King and his Royal Successors to let their Bishopricks lye void as Q. Eliz. and her Ancestors thought fit to do even as far as for 20 or 30 yea for 40 years together Signal Instances of which in the most of our Churches if not in All 't were too easy for me to give if it would not occasion too great a Length Alas we may judge of the King's Regale within the Cathedral Church of Sarum supposing there had been never a Royal Chappel in the Old Castle which yet I shall shortly make apparent by the Exercises of it in other Churches They having in their Pleasures and Displeasures Created some Bishopricks and Supprest them soon after whereof Westminster is an Example Dissolved and Restored whereof Durham is an Example United two into one and again Divided into Two an Instance of which we have in Worcester and Gloucester Taken three out of one as Hen. 1. took Ely out of Lincoln Hen. 8. Oxford and Peterborough out of the same Tho' the Diocess of Lincoln is still the greatest ' its Parishes being no fewer than 1255. Ordered one Bishoprick to be held with Another in Commendam as that of Bristol with that of Gloucester for 23 years together Gave the Bishoprick of Hexam in Augmentation to the Archbishoprick of York from which it was taken again in the 37. of Hen. 8. Converted Canons Saecular into Regular vice versa made the Prior and Convent of Westminster a distinct Corporation from the Abbot Conferred the Patronage of a Bishoprick upon a Subject as Hen. 4. that of Man upon the Family of the Stanleys Gave Temporalities and Reassumed them as in 14 Ed. 3. cap. 3. deprived Bishops for very small Failings Examples of which are elsewhere given Subjected them to the Statute of Praemunire and to the Judgments of Saecular Men As All at once to the Lord Cromwel and Sir Io. Tregonwel to that of Sarum Made Inferiour Clergymen to be the Judges of their Superiors as the Dean of St. Pauls over Bonner Bishop of London Translated Bishops in Displeasure from the Greater Bishopricks to the lesser As Nevil from York to St. Andrews in Scotland and Iohn Buckingham from Lincoln to Litchfield which was not then half so good Made a Saecular Man a Dean as the Lord Cromwel Dean of Wells In a word the same Authority which took four Bishopricks out of Sherburn and added Sherburn with about 40 Parishes about it to the Dean of Sarum's Iurisdiction And gave away the Jurisdiction of the Rest of all Dorsetshire from the Bishop of Sarum to that of Bristol but never gave away one from the Dean of Sarum can give a Prebend of Sarum or a Residentiaries Place to any man in full Orders and that de Iure for to a Lay-man and de facto it has frequently been done And if the Corporation of Dean and Chapter is not of the King's Foundation when the Bishoprick is
therefore is it for men to lessen that Monarch in his Prerogative who did not only make them but does still keep them Great How often had the Hierarchy been trodden utterly under foot if the King singly had not Sustained them How many Parliaments may be convened who will Vote down All Bishops and Deans and Chapters ab Actu ad potentiam optime valet Argumentum if the King will prompt them to it or but Consent when it is done They who look downwards upon themselves but neither backwards nor forwards on the years that are passed and the years to come do not consider what Protections they have received from the King at the King 's great cost or what Protections for the future they may have a sad Occasion to wish and pray for And here I should have ended this 2d Chapter but for a Passage out of the Annals of Burton Abby MS. 1245. Which shews that even then in the Time of Hen. 3. long enough after Osmund and Will 1. the King of England had Many Free Chappels and was resolved to keep them Free Indeed so many that diverse Parish Churches which did but Neighbour on the King's Castles were apt to pretend to that Priviledge Yea the Chappels in the King's Castles were Confirmed in their Immunities Exemptions and Liberties by Popes themselves As appears by that Kings Proclamation Dated at Westminster March the 3d. in the 30. Year of His Reign Wherein he strictly Commanded that the said Freedom of his Chappels should be Perpetual Et ne Aliquis contra praedictum Privilegium aliquid audeat attemptare Nor hath any of our Monarchs taken away or surrendered that glorious Branch of their Prerogative whatever Subjects have attempted by joining with Boniface the 9th CHAP. III. WHereas 't was affirmed by the Bishop of Sarum to the Lords That there never was a Time when either the Dean and Canons were exempt from all Iurisdiction of the Bishop of Sarum The contrary to it is confessed and strongly proved by his Lordship himself in the very next Words following wherein his Lordship cites The Composition that was made between Bishop Waltham Dean Montacute and the Then Chapter of the said Church which was no longer since than in the Year 1391. whereas the Absolute Exemption of the Dean and All the Canons from the Bishops Jurisdiction was in the Year 1095. Between which two Dates there was an Interval of almost 300 Years Which Composition so called was indeed a Conspiracy of the said Bishop Dean and Chapter with Pope Boniface the Ninth by whom it was confirmed and for which by the Laws of England even c Then in force they did incur a Praemunire Which All the Bishops ever since are humbly conceived to have incurred who have presumed to Act according to That Conspiracy I. Against the Supremacy and Prerogative of the King II. Against the Common and Statute Law of the Land III. Against the Fundamental Statute of our Subordinate Founder Osmund IV. Against their own Souls in two respects first in respect of the Several Oaths which have severally been Sworn by all the Bishops Deans and Chapters That they would keep and cause to be kept as much as in them lay that Fundamental Statute of Osmund with all the Priviledges Dignities Immunities and Exemptions therein contained of which Oaths the said Conspiracy or Composition is a Professed Violation as shall be shewn in its proper place Secondly in respect of the heavy Curse which Osmund denounced against All those who should dare to pervert the said Fundamental Constitutions in any kind V. Against its own Being by reason of its several Inconsistences with it self and of the several Nullities contained in it Lastly Against the Well-being if not against the very Being of the whole College within the Cathedral Church of Sarum by reason of its most scandalous and most mischievous Effects But of each in its Order § 1. First It was a Conspiracy against the King of England and his Prerogative who is in Law declared to be the Founder as well as Patron of all the Archibishopricks and Bishopricks in England but took care in his Original Charter granted to his Favourite Osmund sealed first with the Seal of Will I. and then with the Seal of Will II. to exempt his Dean and All his Prebendaries or Canons from the Bishops Jurisdiction in as full and as plain a manner as Latin words could express an Exemption by In words so carefully contrived against all possible Affectation of Jurisdiction over the College of Dean and Chapter in any succeeding Bishop of Sarum that what the present Lord Bishop of Sarum would make an Argument for himself and his Affected Jurisdiction makes quite against him For the Voice and the Place which the Bishop has in Chapter common to him with all the 52 Canons he has as Prebendary of Pottern not as Bishop of Sarum nor has he so much as a Second Voice as he is Prebendary of Blewbery because he was never admitted to it by Installation nor lawfully could be For when Hen. 2. had given two Prebends to One man in one Church Pope Alexander the Third complained of it in his Letter as Unlawful and Uncanonical Not denying the King 's Right of conferring Prebends but the Evil use of it So that the Bishop in Capitulo has but one single Vote and the liberty to propose what he thinks may tend to the good of the Church or to complain of what he takes to be amiss as every other Prebendary has as free liberty to do and to be punished or amended by the Authority of Dean and Chapter Nor is it said to be the Duty but the Dignity of the Dean and of all the Canons ut Episcopo in nullo respondeant nisi in Capitulo To which 't is added in the next words what his Lordship does not mention judicio Tantùm Capituli pareant where the word Tantum excludes the Bishops Iudgment or definitive Sentence of any matter limits it wholly to the Body of the Great Chapter consisting of All the Canons Non-Resident and Resident whereof the Dean is the Head and the Prebendary of Pottern a worthy Member but the Bishop as Bishop is neither of them Nor was this Signal Exemption only in the Foundation of the Cathedral made at once by the Supreme and the Subordinate Founder but it was Repeated and Confirmed by Hen. III. and Bishop Poor in the Removal of the same from Old to New Sarum in the years 1220. And the same Oaths for the due observance of it have been ever since Sworn by all the Bishops Deans and Chapters without Exception All which was alledged with effect in the Chapters Accusation of Bishop Erghum to Archbishop Sudbury 1375 whom they charged before his Grace at once with Perjury and Usurpation for affecting a Jurisdiction over the Canons when the Dean was Dead and the Deanry Vacant at a Time wherein the Bishop had a little colour for it
affront the King by it takes upon it to decree the whole Revenue of the Deanry Decanatu vacante to the Chapter which as well as the Revenues of all the void Bishopricks in England belong by Law to The King alone Lastly The Goods of the Church as the Chapter words it which Osmund gave to the Dean and Canons he gave them even so as he had received them of the King with a Libere prout Ipse obtinueram meaning his Master Will. I. and adds a little after in his repeated Exemption of all the Prebendaries or Canons from all Intermedlings of any Bishop who should succeed him Habeant etiam Curiam suam in omnibus Praebendis suis Dignitatem Archidiaconalem ita ut nulla omnino Exigentia vel in Dono vel in Assisa aut aliqua alia Consuetudine ab Episcopo vel aliquo alio fiat c. Sed â— contra omnes Dignitates omnes Libertates plenarie pacifice habeant quas Ego Osmundus Episcopus in iisdem Praebendis habui aut aliquis alius cum â—as in Nostro Dominio haberemus 'T was in contempt and relation to this Emphatical Exemption as well as that which was instanced in before That the Bishop Dean and Chapter conspired with Boniface the Ninth against the Statute they were sworn to keep inviolate with a prodigious Non obstante Statuto and Charta pradicta And therefore § IV. Fourthly It was against their own Souls For it follows in the same Charter or the great Fundamental Statute wherewith all after Statutes must stand or fall that every one of the Foundation must take an Oath at his Admission Se Dignitates Consuetudines Ecclesiae Sarum inviolabiliter observaturum And if any one shall presume to violate or pervert the said Statute of the Foundation perpetuo Anathematizetur is the Form of the Curse used by the King and Bishop Osmund on the Transgressor Nor is it meant of the Lesser but Greater Cursing which the Old English Festival and the Articles found in St. Paul's Church at Canterbury A. D. 1562. do define to be Such a Cursing or Vengeance-taking that it departeth a Man from the Bliss of Heaven from Housel Christ and all the Sacraments of Holy Church and betaketh him to the Devil and to the Pains of Hell without end Such was the force of the word Perpetuo when such Cursings were in use In a due fear and for the prevention of such a Curse upon such a Perjury the Chapter of Sarum in their Complaint to Archbishop Sudbury against Bishop Erghum for violating his Oath by usurping a Jurisdiction and by presuming to visit certain Prebends whilst the Deanry lay void did present how All the Privileges which had been settled in the Foundation were continued and confirmed in the Removal of the Cathedral and that by a Bull from Pope Honorius cum hac clausula in Literis Apostolicis inserta Salvis ipsius Ecclesiae Sarum Privilegiis Dignitatibus Consuetudinibus Ad dictas etiam Ordinationes Consuetudines Libertates Dignitates fideliter tenendas inviolabiliter observandas Episcopi Decani Canonici Sarum Praebendarii eorum temporibus successivis omnes singuli juramentis Corporalibus ad Sancta Dei Evangelia praestitis realiter fuerunt sunt astricti Whereupon they prayed the Archbishop of the Province so to interpose his Metropolitical Power as that the said Bishop of Sarum for the salvation of his Soul might revoke and retract the Visitation he had begun and the Chapter enjoy their own without disturbance Place at igitur Paternitati Vestrae taliter interponere Partes Vestras ut dictus D. Episcopus Sarum omnia praemissa illicite attentata praecipue Visitationem sicut praemittitur Decanatu vacante de facto inchoatam pro Salute animae suae revocet praefatum Capitulum Prebendarii omnes singulos commodo Fundationis c. libere gaudere in solidum exercere quoad omnia praemissa in Pace permittat in futurum Lastly The Fundamental Statutes and Customs of our Church were so confirmed By Hen. 8. in his Regal Visitation of it An. Dom. 1535 that the Bishops of Sarum for ever are as much subject to them as any other The Bishop there by Name is the first bound up and bound up to the observance of no other Statutes and Customs than do agree with the Word of God and with the Laws of the Land with which the said Papal Composition hath been proved to disagree and as it professedly does oppose the Royal Charter and the Fundamental Statute on which our whole Endowment stands so I set This against That the Fundamental Charter and Statute against the Novel Composition or Combination § V. Add to this that the Composition hath several other Nullities in it arising from its several Inconsistences with it self 'T is inconsistent with an Episcopal Jurisdiction 1. Not to be impowered to Visit Triennially and 2. To be interdicted a Procuration 3. Only once in Seven years 4. And then without any Regard 5. And in the Chapter House only not where he will excepting the Archdeacons whom 't is said he may Visit elsewhere 6. A fault or default in a Prebendary at large to be corrected not by the Bishop but by Dean and Chapter or by the Dean alone as is usual without a Visitation fol. 66. b. 7. A Power is pretended to inquire what is amiss among all the Secular Inhabitants of the Close and to reform or correct if the Dean does not f. 66. which hath an absolute Inconsistence with the Salvo made before for the Rights of the Dean in these words Visitatione Iurisdictione Decanali in omnibus per omnia Decano Successoribus suis semper salvis Now when it shall be made to appear not only by immemorial Practise but by Decisions of Authority and by the Confessions of this present Bishop yes and by his earnest Contentions for the Dean against himself that the Close is the Dean's Peculiar and not the Bishops that the Dean has All the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and the Bishop none at all that all Persons and Causes of Ecclesiastical cognizance within the Close yea within the Bishops own Palace are to be Tried and adjudged in the Deans Court alone not at all in the Bishops Then I trow 't will be granted to be a monstrous Absurdity and Inconsistence for One Ordinary to be the Visitor of Another who hath a Co-ordinate Jurisdiction with himself in many other places of Wilts and Berks and a Superior to him in One and a sole Jurisdiction in that very Close wherein the Bishop pretends to be the Deans Visitor which is to take upon him a Regal or Metropolitical Authority to which two alone the Dean of Sarum is subordinate in his Peculiars as all others are who have Episcopal Jurisdiction within the Province even abstracting from the Relation the Deans of Sarum ever had to the King 's Free Chappel whereof the
Fees a great Fine for Entrance Finis pro Introitu to be paid in ready Money or well secured by Obligation And though at first no more was paid than Forty shillings to the Fabrick A. D. 1319. yet by the Statute of Dean Sydenham and his then Chapter 1428. Authorized at Florence by the said Titular Pope 1442. each Resident with Dignity is to pay for his Entrance 105 l. and each without Dignity is to pay for the same 71 l. 13s 4d besides a greater Sum required by a much younger Statute of which hereafter This Statute is bad enough but the Custom is worse For besides that the Fines for Entrance are diverted from the Fabrick and divided among the Residents of the Chapter the Custom hath violated the Statute in exacting no more from men with Dignity than without it so that the latter pay too much though less than the Statute does require and the former too little because much less than is due by Statute which yet they pretend and that with Contention to be in force Only the Dean of all four Dignities must be excepted who pay by Custom to the heighth of what the Statute does enjoyn and by Custom much more Nor is this all For Tyrant Custom which keeps up that Statute does beat it down at the same time in five remarkable degrees for which no Creature was ever yet able to give a Reason Yet these are Customs and Statutes which they who take to be Obliging do Swear to keep But as if this were not enough for a Learned poor man to be beggared by in his Advancement as how many the most deserving have the least Portion of Mony and none to spare and often dye without Re-imbursement there was another Statute made by a Bishop Dean and Chapter as well without the King 's as the Pope's concurrence and without the concurrence of Common Sense For by force of that Statute another effect of the Composition every Resident who is living must fast a Year from all Commons and every Resident when he is dead must eat a Years Commons in his Grave At least in Aristotle's sense 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 for what he does by his Executor he interpretatively does and accordingly 't is said with as much Pithiness as Impropriety to be the Dead Resident his Annus post Mortem that is his Unius anni proficua undecunque Provenientia 'T was not the Christian Self-denial of those Usurping Legislators who first invented this Law in their own behalf A Law resented very deeply by some Publick-spirited Bishops of other Churches who have expressed their Resentments to the now Dean of Sarum with a great deal of holy Indignation and heartily wished for a Remedy of this and other Impositions N. IX But hardly can a Remedy be brought about but by the long and mighty Arm of Sacred Majesty which in a Royal Visitation can abolish Old Statutes and make us New Ones Statutes suitable to our Religion by Law established Statutes not repugnant to the King's Honour and Prerogative Statutes agreeable with themselves and to be sworn to the safety of all mens Consciences and Souls Lastly Statutes not expiring with the Breath of them that make them like those Royal Statutes which were made heretofore for the Church of Sarum For those of Edw. 6. and Q. Elizab. were never yet so much as entred into the Statute Book insomuch that the former and present Dean could never get a sight of them And those of King Hen. 8. by one of his Masters of Requests Sir Iohn Tregonwell Commissioned under the Great Seal of England were only enter'd like an Old Almanack and stand as a Monument of Contempt which for many years past have been put upon them no more regarded than the Great Charter both of the Sovereign and Subordinate Founders Notwithstanding our Monarchs are declared by Acts of Parliament to have all such Iurisdictions Privileges Superiorities and Preeminences Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power or Authority hath heretofore been c. And have full Power by Law to Commission whom they please and for so long time as they please to Visit Reform Redress Order Correct and Amend whatsoever is amiss in any Ecclesiastical State or Persons and over All to exercise all manner of Iurisdictions Privileges and Preeminences which by any manner of Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power Authority or Iurisdiction can or may lawfully be Reformed Redressed Corrected Restrained or Amended Which Right and Power being united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and that for ever may be extended unto the Visiting even the Visitors themselves and that with an endless Visitation and by any mean Subject commission'd under the Great Seal of England especially such as take upon them to Visit the Ordinaries themselves and that within the Iurisdictions which are exempt and peculiar to them which none can Visit by Law in a Protestant Kingdom who is not a King or a Metropolitan N. X. Now because the Dean of Sarum's Ecclesiastical Court and Jurisdiction over the Close of New Sarum and the Liberties thereof and elsewhere in four Counties is for ever united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm even as firmly and as fully as the Courts and Jurisdictions of any Bishops those of Sarum Exeter and Bristol in particular it concerns the Bishop of Sarum as much as all he hath in the World is worth not to usurp the King's Authority nor to invade the Metropolitan's Right by invading the Dean's nor to attempt a New Dominion from Pope Boniface the Ninth without a new Act of Parliament which none were ever yet able in almost 600 years to prevail with any King or any Parliament to endure N. XI upon the whole matter All the Premisses being consider'd there can be nothing more desirable if 't is not absolutely necessary than that His MAJESTY now in being will be graciously pleased with the Assistance and Advice of the Archbishop of the Province if His Majesty thinks fit to make and Authenticate such a Body of Statutes for His Majesties Free Chappel and Cathedral Church of Sarum as King CHARLES the First of Glorious Memory did make and constitute for the Cathedral Church of Canterbury with the Assistance and Advice of Archbishop Laud. The Church of Sarum having as much if not a much greater need For The Statutes there at present are partly Popish partly Injurious to the King's Prerogative and Supremacy partly inconsistent with the Laws of the Land and common Honesty partly Repugnant to one another and so a snare to their Souls who are Sworn to keep them partly impertinent and impracticable as the state of the Church now stands partly impossible to be observed without a very great detriment to the Service of God and the credit of the Choir or else without a most grievous and most scandalous Violation of the Kings Ecclesiastical Laws to wit the Canons of the Church Besides that
A VINDICATION OF THE KING' 's Sovereign Rights Together with A Justification of His ROYAL Exercises thereof in all Causes and over All Persons Ecclesiastical as well as by consequence over All Ecclesiastical Bodies Corporate and Cathedrals More particularly applyed to the KING 's Free Chappel and Church of SARUM Upon Occasion of The Dean of SARUM's Narrative and Collections made by the Order and Command of the most Noble and most Honourable The LORDS Commissioners Appointed by the KING's Majesty for Ecclesiastical Promotions By way of Reply unto the Answer of the Lord Bishop of Sarum Presented to the aforesaid most Honourable LORDS Printed only to save the Labour of Transcribing several Copies and to prevent the Mistakes thereby apt to be incurr'd and meerly for the Satisfaction of private Friends who either Want or Desire a most Impartial Information of that Affair A GENERAL TABLE OF THE CONTENTS THE Dean of Sarum superstructs the Ecclesiastical Rights in Thesi to things of humane Establishment upon the Foundation of the Regal as upon a Rock which cannot fail them And also the Rights of the Bishop of Sarum in Hypothesi upon the only sure Foot which it can possibly stand upon The Moral Necessity of distinguishing with the Judicious Bishop Sanderson between an Original and Derivative Right As also with the famous Chief Justice Coke between a Subordinate and the Supreme The KING in Law is The Founder Proprietor in Chief and Advower Paramount of All Arch-Bishopricks and Bishopricks Cathedrals Prebends and of All contained in them The Despotical Exercise of the Regality as in all Other Churches so Above All in the Church of Sarum The Church is never so much Betray'd as by Them who assert a Church-man's Right with an Exclusion of the King 's and strive to take down the Stairs to which they owe their own Advancement The Dean of Sarum does not ascribe an higher Prerogative to the KING than Iudge Coke himself and Bishop Sanderson the Common and Statute and Civil Laws yea no more than Pope Nicolas to Edward the Confessor and his Successors Kings of England And does but distinguish with the most excellent Paolo Sarpi That Oracle Life and Soul of the most famous Venetian Senate between Dominion and Dispensation Where any Bishop is Dispensator the KING is Dominus The Second Chapter THE King's Castle at Old Sarum and the King's Free-Chappel in it and the Dean of it Before a Cathedral Church was built Before a Chapter was created Before the Indowments of the Sovereign and Subordinate Founders and during all Bishop Herman's Time are made Apparent and Undeniable by the Best and First Authors printed by which the Written Registers can be confirmed And That Register of Registers which was cited by the Dean but cheaply slighted by the Bishop is shewed to be as Authentick as any his Lordship can produce and for All the same Reasons which any Ordinary can urge for another Register Florentius of Worcester Eadmerus Will. of Malmsbury Roger Hoveden Simeon Dunelmensis All elder than Mat. Paris and M. Paris Himself with several others do all conspire in antecessum to prove the Authority of the Deans Register maugre Those who disesteem it for appearing too much in the Royal Cause Truth justified by its Opposers before they are aware and against their Wills in the very Act of their Opposition Two or three Bishops and many Earls had the King's Castle only as Keepers and during pleasure Thence 't was an Ambulatory Trust as is demonstrated by an Induction The Castle stood on the King's Soil The Lord Bishops Margin does only serve to Confute his Text. The Third Chapter THE Dean of Sarum's Jurisdiction in his Peculiars and particularly in That of Salisbury-Close which must be distinguished from the City which is the Bishops under the KING whereof the Dean is the Sole Immediate Ordinary was ever Exempted from the Bishop by the Charter of the Supreme and Subordinate Founder of the Cathedral the King and Osmund In comparison with which The most unlawful Composition was but a Novelty Almost Three Hundred years Younger than the Great Fundamental Statute That Composition was a Conspiracy of Pope Boniface the Ninth with the Then Bishop Dean and Chapter against whatsoever is Great or Sacred Against the Good Word of GOD. Against the Supremacy and Prerogative of the KING Against both the Common and Statute Law of the Land Against the very Foundation whereupon the whole Colledge and Church are laid and together with which they must Stand or Fall Against the Souls of Them that Made it and have Acted according to it both in regard of their own Oaths and the Founder's Curse And by reason of All the Nullities and Inconsistences that are in it against Common Sense and against It Self The Dean of Sarum's Jurisdiction exclusively of the Bishop's within the Close is strongly proved by the Confessions of the present Lord Bishop to the Dean Before his Lordship had been Incensed by the Dean's Services for the King and by his dutiful Obedience to the Lords Commissioners Command 'T is farther proved by All Decisions of Authority For the Dean's evident Right against the Bishop's Invasion of it An instance of it in the Sentence of the Lord Chancellor of England and the Arch-Bishop of the whole Province The Mischeivous Effects of the Composition Of no use to its Observers unless to make them in danger of incurring a Praemunire The Absolute Necessity of a Royal Visitation to set all Right The Appendix MR. Yeates in several Letters to persons of Honour and lesser Quality doth strongly assert unto himself his whole design of the Four Heads He irrefragably proves the Dean of Sarum not to have had an Hand in or Assent to or Connivance at or Knowledge of his Design Antecedently to the Command of the Lords Commissioners or to the First Notice sent him by the Lord Bishop and the Chapter His Two Inducements to it from his Right Reverend Diocesan and his None at all from the Dean of Sarum A VINDICATION OF THE King 's Sovereign Rights As in all Cathedral Churches so especially in the Church both of Old and New Sarum as asserted in the Dean of Sarum's Narrative drawn up and presented to the most Noble Lords Commissioners HAving laboured of Late under the Obloquy of Some and the Ill-will of Others and the impotent Revengefulness at least of One for having delivered what I had found of the King 's Sovereign Rights and his Royal Exercises thereof as well in All Causes as over all Persons Ecclesiastical All Bodys Corporate and Cathedrals more particularly applied unto His Majesty's Free Chappel and Church of Sarum tho' I did nothing of my self as a Voluntier but by Commission and Command from the most Noble and the most Honourable the Lords Commissioners appointed by his Gracious Majesty for Ecclesiastical Promotions whom God knows I did believe it my bounden Duty to obey I am induced to give the Reasons of my having
their conceiving themselves forced to run so great a Risque as that of Crimen Falsarii Rather than set up such a Citation without my Name or in Any man's Name but Mine and for their false using the Common Seal of Dean and Chapter for want of the Decanal Peculiar Seal which Alone had been Authentick Therefore under my Seal of Office belonging to me and me only as an Ordinary and Judge of the King 's Ecclesiastical Court within my Peculiar the Close of Sarum and elsewhere I made my Protestation against That usurpation of my name declaring it unlawful Null and Void as shall be set forth at Large in the Second part of my Defence if Occasion shall serve or Need require § 6. Having shew'd the Inconsistencies of the Conspiracy with it self and the monstrous Absurdity of a Bishop's taking upon him a Regal Power or at least an Archiepiscopal whereby to visit the Dean of Sarum within that Close which is the Peculiar of the Dean not of the Bishop and whereof not the Bishop but the Dean is the Sole Immediate Ordinary and wherein the Dean has the whole Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction the Bishop none and where the Dean's Jurisdiction which was derived from the Crown is united thereunto by Acts of Parliament which the said Composition does grosly violate I come to shew in the last place that 't is against the Well-being if not against the very Being of the whole College within the Close and the Church of Sarum by reason of its most scandalous and most mischievous Effects N. I. First The Statutes which have been made by Deans and Chapters without the Bishops and others made by several Bishops with the Permission or Consent of Deans and Chapters being no way obliging beyond the Time of the Contrivers nor even Then but by our Monarchs having no notice of them succeding Setts of Legislators as good as Those who went before them and as destitute of Authority to take upon them a Legislation made other Statutes at their Pleasure as inconsistent with the former as Light with Darkness Insomuch that they who swear to keep the Statutes as they are now without any distinction of Good or Evil Valid or Invalid Loyal or Disloyal Protestant or Popish made by Sovereigns or by Subjects without Commission Obsolete or in use do take an Oath they will be perjured so far forth as they are not saved by a Quatenus conveniunt cum verbo Dei cum Statutis hujus Regni which is a necessary help but not sufficient because there is not added to it another Quatenus or Qousque conveniunt Statut◠inter se sibi invicem non repugnant For standing All as they do partly lawful but laid aside partly unlawful but yet observed and in use and flatly repugnant to one another as shall be demonstrated by and by it plainly follow 's that for a man of the Church of Sarum to keep one Statute is ipso facto to break and violate another N. II. Before I come to prove This by descending to some Particulars I think it useful to premise this General Observation to wit that the Statutes which are Authentick both by Law and in themselves as having been made by our Founders the King and Osmund and by our Later Monarchs of England Hen. 8. Ed. 6. and Q. Eliz. which alone are obliging both to the Bishop Dean and Chapter are of All other Statutes the most neglected and out of Use to say no more at this time whilst the Statutes of several Popes and of several Popish Bishops and Deans and Chapters of Sarum however selfish and presumptuous against the Law of the Land and the Canons of the Church and very oppressive to Posterity and therefore fit to have perished with Those that made them have been hitherto observed to the hazarding of Souls with too much strictness N. III. Now to demonstrate the Contradictions and other Mischievous effects which have been principally caused by the Infamous Composition of the said Boniface the Ninth with the then Bishop Dean and Chapter Birds of a Feather every one at that Time during the loose and weak Reign of the most careless Rich. 2. of whom Historians give This Character That of All Counsellors and Councils he did constantly take the Worst I cannot better begin than with the Words of Bishop Henchman once the Chantor and a Residentiary and after Bishop of Sarum and at last Bishop of London when being consulted by Dean Brideoak about the compelling of certain Prebendaries at large to confirm their Leases by the Common Seal of Dean and Chapter and also to pay the Fifth part of their Prebends for their Non-residence Thirteen Weeks in the Year according to Osmund's Constitution and the Statute of Bishop Iewel with the concurrence and combination of the then Dean and Chapter sent his Answer in these Words following You must also understand that the great Vicissitudes and Changes which Those Princes applied themselves unto did require Rules and Statutes fitted to the disturbed Condition of Church Affairs Then And you may observe in your Books that Continual Controversies did arise partly because they did injoyn Things Contrary to each other and partly because they were adapted to Those Times only and were not practicable in after times I will give an Instance Do you think that now a Prebendary not admitted into Residence may be mulcted at Quinta parte Praebendae because he doth not Reside in the Close of Salisbury Thirteen Weeks in every Year Yet this is the Statute of Bishop Iewel Rogatu Fratrum nostrorum cum consensu Capituli the Dean was absent statuimus veterem Antecessoris nostri Osmundi Constitutionem quam de ea retulit in integrum esse restituendam hoc est Canonicos hujus Ecclesiae nostrae Omnes Singulos nisi juxta formam Veterum Statutorum adsint resideant Quinta parte Praebendae suae mulctandos esse Pecuniam autem omnem ita collectam ad Fabricam Ecclesiae nostrae Cathedralis conferri volumus What think you Can a Prebendary not Residentiary be compelled now so to Reside Indeed he that lives upon his own Land or Farm and not in his Parsonage with Cure nor where his Residence is by Law allowed is a great Offender But if an Archdeacon or Prebendary take upon him to Reside in Sarum being no Residentiary he is liable to a Sore Mulct upon an Information in the Exchequer Will you admit every one into Residence that shall offer himself and protest de Residendo You will soon be weary of that Or will you tax a man at Quinta parte Prebendae because he doth not Reside and yet you will not admit him to Reside Thus far Bishop Henchman exposed those Statutes to ridicule by which All the Canons in number 52 are obliged to Residence yet not allowed to Reside Have a Right to be Residents yet no permission to enjoy it 'T is their Duty and their Crime to