prejudicial to the Temporal and Civil Rights and Emoluments and Priviledges of the Prince and of his Subjects that the Mitre might not encroach upon the Crown both which have their certain limits of Jurisdiction and may do wrong one to the other Such authority as this then in Church-matters you may find exercised by former Princes of England or perhaps some other power used by them against the Church and defended by the common Lawyers of those days more than is justifiable But on the other side I think you will not find either assumed by the Prince or allowed to him by any Statutes before the times of Henry the Eighth such Powers in Ecclesiastical matters as some of these following Namely A Power to correct and reform all Errors and Heresies in Religion by such persons as the Prince shall appoint to judge thereof half of them being Laicks repealing also the former course of tryal of them by the ordinary Church-Magistrates as you may see below § 39. A Power to make and reverse Ecclesiastical Laws alter the Church Liturgies publick Forms of administring the Sacraments Ordinals c without the consent of the major part of the Clergy or any lawful Church Authority A Power to hinder and prohibits the Clergy that they may correct or reform any such Heresies or may make or publish any such Ecclesiastical Decrees or Laws within the Kings Dominions without his consent thereto first obtained Without his Consent not to examine whether such their Constitutions might be any way prejudicial to the State Temporal for this were but meet and just but whether such be agreeable or repugnant to Gods Word and dangerous to the Peoples Salvation and Spiritual State A Power thus in all Causes Ecclesiastical Licences Faculties Dispensations to be the final Judge by himself or by his Court of Chancery or by some other Deputies whom he pleaseth to choose to whom Appeal may be made concerning what is agreeable or what repugnant to the Holy Scripture A Power to restrain all Forreign Appeals and Censures from thence not only in all Cases mixt with the Interests of the Temporal Government but also in all matters meerly Spiritual and of Ecclesiastical Cognizance A Power to prohibit or reverse any Ecclesiastical Constitutions of Councils Patriarchal or General tho in things wherein Temporal Regalities or Prerogatives or the Temporal safety and peace of the people is not concerned but as I said upon pretence of their being conceived to contain something repugnant to Gods Law A Power to hinder that no Ecclesiastical Governors may call any Synod or Assembly within his Dominions nor exercise in foro externo any Ecclesiastical Censures without his consent A Power to command such persons to be induced and instituted in Ecclesiastical Benefices and Dignities whom the lawful Ecclesiastical Power refuseth as Unorthodox or Uncanonical See Schism Guardâ—d p. 61.161 Vindic. p. 268. Lastly A Coactive Power in foro externo so far extended as that it leaves for the Clergy as independently belonging to them only an Internal Power or Jurisdiction in the Court of Conscience or an Habitual Power of Preaching Administring the Sacraments exercising the power of the Keys in foro conscientiae ordaining and degrading Ecclesiasticks but without any Liberty actually or lawfully to exercise the same in any Princes Dominions if he denyeth it without any Power allowed to the Clergy to summon Offenders in foro externo and to punish them with the Spiritual Sword either for their convicted crimes or for non-appearance and this whether Secular Princes either favour or oppose without any Power to call or keep any publick Assemblies for publick Worship for decision of Controversies in Religion for making Church Laws i. e such as prejudice no Temporal Rights and publishing and imposing the same Determinations and Canons upon Ecclesiastical Censures upon the Church's Subjects in the several Dominions of Princes whether they consent or resist Without any Power of their electing and ordaining future Clergy in the several Dominions of Princes Christian as well as others whenever these Princes shall propose or assent to the admission of no such persons as they I mean the lawful Church Authority shall judge Orthodox and capable Such Powers are not mentioned at least clearly by Bishop Bramhal to belong to the Clergy but seem to be swallowed in the Coactive Power of the Prince Such Powers were in the possession of the Church independently on Princes for the first Three Hundred Years Such Powers being translated to the Secular Governors when Christian do arm them when Christians Heretical to change and overturn the Church in their Dominions as they please whilst the Clergy ought not to contradict Such Powers are said to belong to the Prince since the Reformation and indeed without these the Reformation could not well have been effected and I think are given to them in the fore-quoted Statutes If these Powers are said not to belong to these Princes let them name which of these are not But Lastly such Powers cannot be shewed to have been given or been due to our Kings by the former Laws unless we will believe that the Laws of the Land then contradicted that Obedience which those Princes yielded to the Church or that those Princes even when most fallen out with the Church would voluntarily forego so many of their rights Thus much to the first Defence used by Bishop Bramh. §. 35. n. 3. That Henry the Eighth's Statutes were only declarative of the former Laws For the second thing said by him That King Henry the Eighth by these Statutes claimed only an External Coactive Power in Causes Ecclesiastical in foro contentioso if by External Coactive Power he meaneth the exercising of all those Powers which I have but now named with Coaction and the Material Sword then the Secular Prince seems to assume and exercise several of those Powers which are only the Churches rights But if by Coactive Power he meaneth only the Kings calling of the Clergy together to consult of Church Affairs and his assisting with the Secular Sword their Constitutions and Decrees and making their Laws his own by Temporal Mulcts and Penalties and compelling particular Clergy as well as Laity to do that which the Church declares to be their duty compelling I say with outward force for herein the Bishop seemeth to place the Kings Power in Spiritual matters See Schism Guarded p. 93. How can the Pope saith he pretend to any Coactive power in England where the Power of the Militia and all Coactive force is legally invested in the King And p. 92. The Primitive Fathers did assemble Synods and make Canons c But they had no Coactive Power to compel any man against his Will the uttermost they could do was to separate him from their Communion And p. 166 Who can summon another mans Subjects to appear where they please and imprison and punish them for not appearing without his leave Likewise p. 168. and compare them with his former
Quod in Missâ offertur verum Christi Corpus verus ejusdem Sanguis Sacrificium propitiatorium pro vivis defunctis 4. Item Quod Petro Apostolo ejus legitimis Successoribus in Sede Apostolicâ tanquam Christi vicario data est suprema potestas pascendi regendi ecclesiam Christi militantem fratres suos confirmandi 5. Item Quod authoritas tractandi definiendi de iis quae spectant ad fidem Sacramenta disciplinam ecclesiasticam hactenus semper spectavit spectare debet tantum ad Pastores ecclesiae quos Spiritus Sanctus in hoc in ecclesiâ Dei posuit non ad Laicos In which Article penned with some tender sense of the invasion which formerly in King Henry and King Edward's days had been made upon the Clergy-rights both the Regal and Parliamentary power being excluded totally by a tantum ad Pastores not only a definiendo but a tractando not only quae ad fidem but quae ad disciplinam ecclesiasticam spectant I suppose made the University so cautious to subscribe thereto Quam nostram assertionem affirmationem fidem nos inferior Clerus praedistus vestris Paternitatibus tenore praesentium exhibemus humiliter supplicantes ut quia nobis non est copia hanc nostram sententiam intentionem aliter illis quorum in hac parte interest notificandi Vos qui Patres estis ista superioribus ordinibus significare velitis Quâ in re officium charitatis ac pietatis ut arbitramur praestabitis saluti gregis vestri ut par est prospicietis vestras ipsi animas liberabitis § 176 These were the last words and testament as it were of the ancient Clergy now expiring seeing their definitive authority assumed by the Laity and upon this a flood of innovations coming upon them Which Protestation of theirs remaineth upon record to all generations to shew that in the Reformation the Laity deserted their former Guides and Spiritual Fathers the Clergy in Henry the Eighth's and Queen Mary's days all constant to the ancient Church-doctrines saving only Supremacy for King Henry's time and also in King Edward's days the major part of this Clergy tho externally guilty of some dissimulation yet inwardly retaining the same judgment as may be seen by what is acknowledged above § 122. c. and 127. § 177 This Declaration of the Clergy and Universities was ended in the Queens proposal of a Disputation in Westminster Church A Disputation between the Bishops and the reformed Divines between some of the Bishops and others of Queen Mary's Clergy and some of the reformed Divines lately returned home from beyond Sea Of which Disputation the Lord Keeper Bacon one of the Protestant Religion was appointed the Moderator The three Questions which were proposed by the reforming party to the Bishops to be the subject of the Conference were these 1. It is against the word of God and the Custome of the ancient Church to use a tongue unknown to the people in Common-Prayer Fox p. 1924. and the administration of the Sacraments 2. Every Church hath authority to appoint take away and change Ceremonies and Ecclesiastical Rites so the same be to edification 3. It cannot be proved by the word of God that there is in the Mass offered up a Sacrifice propitiatory for the quick and dead Of which questions to pass by the first there being nothing either in the former Convocation-Articles or in any decree of former Church against the lawfulness of having the Divine Service in a known tongue which is all that the Reformation desires in this matter and which could be no occasion of difference among Christians were all other Controversies of Doctrine well composed In the second Question it seems to me somewhat strange that whereas the Convocation speaks chiefly of the authority of defining points de fide and contends that the authority of defining such points belongs not to the Laity or to any Civil Power but only ad Pastores and whereas also the main of the Reformation consists in altering such Doctrines belonging to Faith and not in altering some Rites and Ceremonies yet the question here stretcheth no further than to Rites and Ceremonies and then speaks of these as alterable not by the Laity or a Civil Power but by a particular Church i. e. as I suppose by the Clergy thereof And then leaves us in the dark also whether this particular Church be put here as contradistinct only to other particular Churches on which it is independent and hath this power granted to it by all or be put as contradistinct to the Church Vniversal or to Superior Councils on which surely it hath some dependance Again in the last question it seems as strange that whereas the Convocation in their Preface founds this Article together with the rest on Primitive and Apostolical Tradition as well as on Scripture Publico christianarum gentium consensu c. atque ab Apostolis ad not usque c. And whereas the reformed in the first question where seemed some advantage add the custome of ancient Church to the testimony of the Scriptures and in their Preface promise adherence to the Doctrines and Practice of the Catholick Church unless there be some evasion in the limitation there used Fox p. 1930. where they say by Catholick Church they mean that Church which ought to be sought in the holy Scriptures and which is governed and led by the Spirit of Christ Yet here they use that restraining Clause it cannot by the word of God be proved the judgment of the ancient Church the authoritative expounder of the word of God being indeed in this matter very clear against them See Discourse of Eucharist § 92.111 c. § 178 If you would know what end this Disputation had it is thus set down in Cambden Hist. Eliz. An. Dom. 1559. That all came to nothing for that after a few words passed to and fro in writing they could not agree about the manner of disputing The Protestants triumphing as if they had gotten the victory and the Papists complaining that they were hardly dealt withal in that they were not forewarned of the questions above a day or two before and that Lord Keeper Bacon a man little versed in matters of Divinity and a bitter enemy of the Papists sate as Judge whereas he was only appointed as Moderator or keeper of Order But the very truth is that they weighing the matter more seriously durst not without consulting the Bishop of Rome call in question so great matters and not controverted in the Church of Rome exclaiming every where When shall there be any certainry touching Faith Disputations concerning Religion do always bend that way as the Scepters incline and such like And so hot were the Bishops of Lincolne and Winchester that they thought meet that the Queen and the Authors of this falling away from the Church of Rome should be stricken with the censure of Excommunication But
the wiser sort resolved that this censure was rather to be left to the Bishop of Rome lest they being Subjects should seem to shake off their obedience to their Prince and take up the banner of Rebellion Thus Cambden Now the contention about the manner of disputing which Cambden omits was what side should speak last which the Bishops because of their dignity desired to do after having observed Fox p. 1924 that their cause suffered by the other side speaking last cum applausu populi the verity on their sides being thus not so well marked But this the Queens Council would not yield to them the first agreement being pretended contrary and so that conference ceased After this Disputation followed the suppressing sect 179. n. 1. The Regâ—l Suâ—remancy and all that K. Edw. hâ—d done in the Refâ—rmâ—tioâ— now re-established by the Queen and Paâ—liament of the Mass of the Popes Supremacy of the Six famous Articles restored to their vigor by the Clergy in Queen Mary's days the re-establishing of the Regal Supremacy in all those spiritual Jurisdictions which had formerly by any spiritual power been lawfully used over the Ecclesiastical State in these Dominions To which Supremacy also were restored the tenths and first fruits given back by Queen Mary and upon pretence that the Crown could not be supported with such honor as it ought to be if restitution were not made of such Rents and Profits as were of late dismembred from it all those Lands again were resumed by this Queen which were returned to the Church or Religious Orders by Queen Mary Besides which because there were many Impropriations and Tithes by dissolution of Religious Houses invested in the Crown the Queen kept several Bishopricks void till she had taken into her hands what Castles Mannors and Tenements she thought good returning unto the Bishops as much annual rent of Impropriations and Tithes but this an extended instead of the other old rent Bishopricks being thus kept void also in following times one after another upon several occasions saith Dr. Heylin till the best flowers in the whole Garden of the Church had been culled out of it See his History of Queen Elizabeth p. 120 121. 156. and before in Edw. 6. p. 18. c. sect 179. n. 2. Again Now also followed the re-establishing of King Edward's later Form of Common-Prayer but altered first in some things by eight Learned men all of the reformed party and non-Bishops to whom the reviewing thereof was committed by the Queen In which review saith Dr. Heylin Hist of Reform Qu. Elizabeth p. 111. there was great care taken for expunging all such passages as might give any scandal or offence to the Popish party or be urged by them in excuse for their not coming to Church Therefore out of the Litany was expunged the Petition to be delivered from the tyranny and all the detestable enormities of the Bishop of Rome And whereas in King Edward's second Liturgy the Sacrament was given only under this Form Take and eat this in remembrance c. see before § 160. The Form also of King Edward's first Liturgy was joined to it The Body of our Lord c. Take and eat lest saith that Author under colour of rejecting a Carnal they might be thought also to deny such a Real Presence as was defended in the writings of the ancient Fathers Likewise the Rubrick about Adoration mentioned before ibid. was also expunged upon the same ground And to come up closer saith he to those of the Church of Rome it was ordered by the Queens Injunctions that the Sacramental Bread should be made round in the fashion of the wafers used in the time of Queen Mary that the Lords Table should be placed where the Altar stood as also the Altar in the Queens own Chappel was furnished with rich Plate two fair gilt Candlesticks with Tapers in them and a massy Crucifix of Silver in the midst thereof Ibid. p. 124. that the accustomed reverence should be made at the name of Josus Musick retained in the Church Festivals observed c. Thus Dr. Heylin And some such thing likewise was observed if you will give me leave to digress a little by the Synod afterward in her days 1562 in their reviewing King Edward's Articles of Religion both concerning Real Presence For whereas in King Edward's Article of the Lords Supper we find these words Since as the Holy Scriptures testify Christ hath been taken up into Heaven and there is to abide till the end of the world It becometh not any of the faithful to believe or profess that there is a Real or Corporal Presence as they phrase it of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Holy Eucharist the alteration under Queen Elizabeth casts these words out and concerning Church Authority and Church Ceremonies For whereas many of the English Protestant Clergy that were dispersed in Queen Mary's days being taken with the Geneva-way were when they returned great Opposers of the Rites and Ceremonies used in the Church of Eâ—â—land and of church-Church-authority in general therefore to King Edward's twenty first Article was this new Clause now added ' The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and authority in Controversies of Faith For Queen Elizabeth is said to have been a zealous Patroness of Real Presence Insomuch as when one of her Divines see Heylin's Hist of Queen Eliz. p. 124. had preached a Sermon in defence of the Real Presence on Good-Fryday 1565. she openly gave him thanks for his pains and piety And in Queen Mary's days she at some time complyed so far as to resort to the Mass see ibid. p. 98. And her Verses of the Eucharist in answer to a Priest desiring her judgment therein are well known 'T was God the Word that spake it He took the Bread and brake it And what the Word did make it That I believe and take it She was also a rigid Vindicator of the Church-Ceremonies and great Opposer of the Puritans see before § 162. and Dr. Heylin's Hist p. 144. c. several of whom tho in such a scarcity of Divines she preferred in the beginning of her Reign as Sampson to be Dean of Christ Church Whittington to be Dean of Durham Cartwright Lady Margaret's Professor in Cambridge c Yet were they afterward no way countenanced by her And when Alexander Nowel Dean of Pauls had spoken less reverently in a Sermon preached before her of the sign of the Cross she called aloud unto him from her Closet Window commanding him to retire from that ungodly digression and to return unto his Text. Heyl. Hist. p. 124. But notwithstanding a certain moderation used in this Queens days in comparison of those last violent times of King Edward agitated and spurred on still further by Calvin from abroad and by Peter Martyr and others here at home and that tho some reforming Acts passed by King Edward and repealed by Queen Mary were not thought fit now to be revived
other general words whereby her Highness by her Supreme power and authority had dispensed with all causes or doubts of any imperfections or disability that could be objected against the same So that to all those that will well consider of the supreme and absolute authority of the Queens Highness i. e. in Ecclesiasticals which she had used and put in ure in the making and consecrating of the said Arch-Bishops and Bishops See it before §. 70 it is evident that no cause of scruple ambiguity or doubt can be justly objected against the said Consecrations c. Thus the Act. And this is proposed for the satisfaction of those whose chief solicitude was concerning the transgressing the Laws of the Church in these Church matters And the Answer seems in effect this That tho these Bishops were ordained contrary to the Laws of the Church yet they were ordained according to the Laws of the Land and that this was sufficient to warrant the Ordination because these Laws of the Land had given authority to the Queen to dispense with any repugnant Laws of the Church § 195 Thus much of Queen Elizabeth's change of her Clergy And here I think meet to prosecute no further this Subject this reformed Clergy being such persons as would act according to the pleasure of a reformed Prince and therefore it is not strange if the Prince acted no more against but by them and began now a-new to use the Synod more than the Senate in the transaction of Spiritual Affairs CHAP. XIII The Opinion of several Protestant Divines concerning a Reformation in Religion made against a Major Part of the Clergy § 196 ONly before I conclude this Discourse let me shew you The opinion of several Protestant Divines touching the lawfulness of the Prince's reforming of Religion in matters of doctrine against the major part of his Clergy when to him seemeth a necessity that requireth it after all the rest that as it hath been affirmed here that the Reformation was not effected by the Clergy of this Nation but by the Princes and their Council against the inclinations of the much major part thereof So some of the ablest of the reformed Divines tho they contend that our Princes did not so Yet as if they doubted much whether they should be able to make this good do reserve this as a secure retreat for themselves that a Prince when there is a necessity that requires it of which necessity the Prince is to judge or in cases extraordinary of which cases the Prince is to judge may lawfully reform Religion both in matters of Doctrine and Discipline contrary to the major part of the Clergy these Learned Men defending the Secular powers herein by the example of the good Kings of Israel Upon which also they make no scruple to joyn Communion with those Transmarine Protestants whom all grant to have reformed against all their Spiritual Superiors Nay also in the beginning of this work such Reformers were sent for from abroad to assist them here against the contrary current of the Clergy of this Land And indeed it seemeth but necessary that they should patronize this Tenent because if they should once maintain That no Reformation is valid which is done against the major part of the National Clergy by the same reason they must assert that the Reformation of no National Clergy is valid which is done against a major part of the Patriarchy or of the Church or Council to which this National Clergy will be found to owe obedience § 197 The first testimony of those I shall produce for this assertion is that of Dr. Field He The Opinion of Dr. Field after these specious Concessions We do not make our Princes with their Civil States supreme in the power of commanding in matters concerning God and his Faith and Religion without seeking the direction of their Clergy Of the Chur. 5. l. 53. c. Again We do not attribute to our Princes with their Civil Estates power newly to adjudge any thing to be Heresy without the concurrence of the State of their Clergy but only to judge in those matters of Faith that are resolved on according to former resolutions Where the Dr. seems to leave the Prince no liberty to judge or establish any thing in matters of Faith according to his own opinion but in matters formerly determined confineth him to the judgment of former Councils in matters not formerly determined to the judgment of his Clergy i. e. the major part thereof Yet after such specious Concessions I say he proceedeth as it were to protect the Reformation on this manner Touching errors of Faith or aberrations in the performance of God's Worship and Service there is no question but that Bishops and Pastors of the Church to whom it appertaineth to teach the truth are the ordinary and fittest Judges and that ordinarily and regularly Princes are to leave the judgment thereof unto them But because they may fail they i e. the Bishops and Pastors of the Church and not onely single persons but Synods of them else single persons failing may easily be reduced by Synods and a minor by the major part and so long the Prince judges with his Clergy not against them and the Judgment of such things being made by this major part is still ordinary and regular Neither needs the Prince to remove the matter from these to other Judges either thro negligence ignorance or malice Princes having charge over Gods people and being to see that they serve and worship him aright are to judge and condemn them the foresaid Clergy that fall into gross errors contrary to the common sense of Christians or into any other Heresies formerly condemned I conceive he meaneth condemned by former Councils And tho there be no general failing in the Clergy yet if they see violent and partial courses taken they may interpose themselves to stay them and cause a due proceeding or remove the matter from one sort of Judges to another I suppose he meaneth either from the whole Clergy to Secular Judges or from that part of the Clergy tho more which he dislikes to some others of the Clergy tho fewer whom he approves for to remove the matter from fewer to more is regular and ordinary But here he speaks what the Prince may do extraordinarily Thus Dr. Field § 198 Who not to urge Bishop Andrews his observation against him Tort. Tort. p. 372. Ad extraordinariam potestatem confugere non solet quis nisi cui deplorata res est here seems to six the Prince as one that cannot fail thro negligence ignorance or malice to others or at least cannot fail so soon as the whole body of the Clergy may what not fail in ignorance of Divine matters sooner than they As one that hath a charge over Gods people and is to see that they worship God aright as if the Clergy had not such charge much more than he or as if he could judge what was
power in things of which We our selves doubt not but they are purely Spiritual That there are some Powers merely Spiritual appropriated to the Clergy and incommunicable to the Prince no true Son of the Church of England will deny but now altho' the substance of those Powers be immediately from God and not from the King as those of Preaching Ordaining Absolving c. Yet whether these are not subject to be limited inhibited or otherwise regulated in the outward Exercise of them by the Laws of the Land and the Autority Regal is the thing quaestion'd This cannot perhaps be better exprest then in the words of the Reverend Bp. Sanderson The King doth not challenge to himself as belonging to him by Virtue of his Supremacy Ecclesiastical the power of Ordaining Ministers excommunicating scandalous Offenders or doing any other act of Episcopal Office in his own Person nor the power of Preaching Administring the Sacraments or doing any other act of Ministerial Office in his own person but leaves the performance of all such acts of either sort unto such persons as the said several respective powers do of divine right belong to viz. of the one sort to the Bishops and of the other to the Priests Yet doth the King by Virtue of that Supremacy challenge a power as belonging to him in the right of his * Episcopacy not prejud to Reg power p 22 Crown to make Laws as well concerning Preaching Administring the Sacraments and other acts belonging to the Function of a Priest as concerning Ordination of Ministers proceeding in matters of Ecclesiastical Cognisance in the Spiritual Courts and other acts belonging to the Function of a Bishop to which Laws as well the Priests as the Bishops are subject and ought to submit to be limited and regulated thereby in the Exercise of those their several respective Powers their claim to a Jus Divinum and that their said several powers are of God notwithstanding Now to apply this That the deciding Controversies of Faith and Excommunicating Offenders c. are the proper Province of the Clergy we deny not but that the indicting Synods in order to such Matters or making Laws to regulate the Exercise of them are purely Spiritual is not so undoubted as He would perswade us Again that the Spiritual Autority which is to be exercised in the Episcopal or Sacerdotal Functions can be derived from none but those spiritual persons who were invested with that Autority and power of delegating it to others is willingly allow'd but that collation to Benefices can be the act of none but the Clergy will not be hence infer'd For the Spiritual Autority it self and the application of it to such an Object are very different things The power by which a Clergy man is capacitated for his Function is derived from the Bishop which ordains him but the applying this Power to such a Place the ordering that the Ecclesiastical Person shall execute that Autority which he deriv'd from the Church in such a peculiar part of the Kingdom is not without the reach of the Civil Jurisdiction and therefore Collation to Benefices in the sence this Author understands it should not have been reckon'd by him amongst those things of which it is not doubted but they are purely Spirituall Another power of which he abridges the Prince and by consequence would have to be esteem'd purely Spiritual is the deposing from the Exercise of their Office in his Dominions any of the Clergy for transgressing of the Ecclesiastical Canons Now that the Secular Prince should have an Obligation from God over all Persons in all Spiritual matters to bind them by Temporal Punishments to the Obedience of the Churches or Clergy's determinations and decrees as he words it and yet that the Exercising this power their performing what they are obliged to by God should be without the reach of their Autority seems to me a paradox That the Christian Emperors in the Primitive times challeng'd such a power is plain from the undoubted testimony of the Learned Petrus de Marca * Cura principum Christianorum olim non solum Haereticorum furoros compressi contumacia Episcoporum aut Clericorum adversus Synodorum sententias rebellium ab externa potentia repressa sed etiam Principum studio prohibiti Episcopi ne legibus secularibus vel Canonibus violatis injuriam subditis inferrent De concord l. 4. cap. 1. par 2. Who tells us that by the care of Christian Princes Hereticks were represt the contumacy of Bishops and Clergy-men against the Decrees of Synods punish'd and Bishops restrain'd from oppressing their subjects by the violation of the Canons If we inquire how the Princes secur'd the Keeping of the Canons * Canonum custodiae duobus modis prospiciebant Principes tum delegatione Magistratuum qui vetarent ne quid contra Canones tentaretur tum exactis poenis à contumacibus si quid perperam gestum esset lb par 4. He tells us they did it by these 2 Methods 1st By delegating Magistrates to see they were observ'd 2ly By punishing those who were guilty of the breach of them And he particularly mentions Deprivation inflicted by the Secular power for violation of the Canons * In manifestissima violatione canonibus factam injuriam iis poenis Principes ulsciscebantur quae legibus irrogatae erant nempe expulsione à sede Deturbationem enim illam quae vacantem Ecclesiam redderet sui arbitrii esse putabant non autem regradationem vel dejectionem ab Episcopali dignitate quae erat poena mere Ecclesiastica Ib. par 6. For that they thought removal from the See within the reach of their Jurisdiction tho' not Degradation which is a punishment merely Ecclesiastical Which neither did the Reforming Princes ever think in their power to inflict And he * Ibid. there gives instances of Bishops so depriv'd And indeed this seems to be a Necessary branch of power which naturally flows from his being Custos Canonum which he is prov'd by this Author at large to be How far the Prince may abridge himself of this power by the laws of the Land I meddle not it suffices to shew that it is not originally a power merely Spirituall And from this and the former Instances the Reader will be able to judge the truth of that assertion That there is nothing touch'd in this Discourse concerning such Matters as it is dubious whether they be Spiritual or Temporal Come we now to that other assertion of his That he knows not of any Ecclesiastical powers in this Discourse denied to the Prince but which or at least the chiefest of which all other Christian Princes except those of the Reformed States do forego to exercise Now if by the chiefest which he excepts he means preaching the word and administring the Sacraments Excommunicating and absolving neither do the Reformed States challenge the Exercise of these and as for others it will appear that the Princes of the Roman-Catholick
Clergy tho' had it wanted it it would have been justifiable from the Law of God The prohibition of the Scriptures to the Vulgar which follow'd afterwards was no Act of the Reformation but of the Anti-reformers It was pretended that some erroneous Opinions were propagated by a free Use of the Scripture and therefore that Use was restrain'd Now least it be objected by Us that the Opinions the King call'd erroneous were the Protestant doctrines discover'd by the Vulgar from the New light of Sciptures this Author bids us see the very Opinions a the Bishops collected them in Fox unownable by any sober Christian It is my fate to deal with One who glory 's in his Shame and Who is seldom content to be mistaken but he refers his Reader to the very Page which confutes him Fox in the very place by him cited has shew'd how unfaithful the Bishops were in that Collection He has with great Industry compar'd the Bishop's Catalogue of Errors with the Books whence they are cited and from the Comparison has prov'd the Bishops guilty of a fault which this Author inherits from them that they perverted the sayings of the Protestants otherwise then they meant fasly belied them or untruly mistook them either in mangling the places or adding to their words as might serve for their most advantage to bring them out of credit By Virtue of such a Supremacy these things that King did some of them against the Canons not of Popes but of the Catholic Church § 102 and Superior Councils The truth of this depends upon the four first parts of Church-Government When we know what he means by Church-Catholic what by Superior Councils and what those Acts of the Reformation are which are thus opposite to such Obligatory Canons for we do not desire to justifie all King Henry's proceedings it will then be seasonable to give in our Plea to this at present indefinite charge That the King should derive his Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction on Cromwel a secular person § 103 and unlearned concerns not Us since the placing such Jurisdiction on a Person so unqualifi'd is no part of the establish'd Discipline of this Church But that this is not a thing unparallel'd the Animadverter has given an Instance in the King of Spain's exercising by Lay-Delegates greater Autority in Spirituals then can be pretended to have been lodg'd in Cromwel If now we look back to the a Bur. Hist Pref. preparations which were made towards a Reformation in this King's Reign and consider that the Papal Usurpation was by him abolished the Rites and Constitutions which depended merely on that Autority faln together with it the Superstition of Images Reliques and redemption of Souls out of Purgatory supprest with the Monasteries the extravagant Addresses to Saints reduc'd to a mere ora pro Nobis and that left at Liberty to be us'd or omitted the Scriptures translated publish'd and made the Rule of Faith and the power of a National Church to reform her self vindicated We shall not be scrupulous to sdbscribe Mr. Fox's Epiphonema which so much grieves this Author That King Henry did by his Autority more good for the redressing and advancing Christ's Church here in England in three Years then the Pope the great Vicar of Christ with all his Bishops and Prelates had done in the Space of three hundred Years before A Reply to Chapter the 8th § 104 THis Chapter is usher'd in with a reflection on the breach made by King Henry upon the Church's Doctrines I confess my self very curious to know how a breach here is reconcil'd with a Non-discession from the Church's Doctrines above § 80 but will by no means engage this Author upon so immoderate a task as that of salving all his Contradictions I rather choose to own it as an extraordinary piece of modesty that he has plac'd the two Contradictory Propositions in different Chapters He challenges the Duke of Northumberland to be of the Roman Church §. 105. n. 1. We confess it nor do we envy him such a member His striking in for ambitious ends with the Reformers who went upon honest princeples casts a blot upon his memory but no blemish on the Reformation Whether Cromwel died a Roman Catholic as this Author intimates or not the term Catholic faith us'd in his last Speech made doubtful This Writer bids us compare Fox with Lord Herbert Fox supposes him a Protestant and in the Margin calls his Speech a Fox p. 1190. A true Christian profession of the Lord Cromwel at his death Lord Herbert in his History saith no more then that b Lord Herbert Hist p 524. he made profession of the Catholic faith the Index c Under the Letter C. indeed saith he died a Roman-Catholic Th e d Antiq. Brit. p. 334. Author of the Antiquities gives him an High Character and supposes him of the Reformed Religion I do not find that Heylin or Godwin mention any thing of this e Ful. Hist 1. 5. p. 233. Fuller after his way descants upon it and inclines to think him a Protestant Dr. Burnet f Bur. V. 1. p. 285. makes it appear that the term Catholic faith was then us'd in it's true Sense in Opposition to the Novelties of the See of Rome He argues from his praying in English and that to God only through Christ without those tricks which the Roman Church use when they die that he was none of theirs After all this Controversie is not perhaps worth the deciding but this Author is over peremptory in affirming that he died a Catholic in his Sense King Edward had but one Parliament all his days § 105. n. 2. continu'd by Prorogation from Session to Session till at last it ended in the death of the King It betrays gross Ignorance in one who sets up for an Historian thus blindly to mistake in a matter so notorious g Bur. V. 2. p. 195.214 The first Parliament was dissolv'd Apr. 15. 1552. and a second call'd the 1st of March after As for the complexion of King Edward's Parliament which he has given us from Dr. Heylin It arises to no more then that in so great a Body All did not act upon pure principles of Conscience but some were sway'd by their Interest An imputation from which None can pretend to vindicate their Infallible Councils not this Author himself Cranmer is accus'd of unorthodox Opinions concerning the power of the Church § 105. n. 3. Cranmer pretended not to be Infallible and all that is here said is that he was not He a Bur. V. 1. p. 172. had some singular Opinions concerning Ecclesiastical Functions which yet he enjoyed by himself and never studied to make them part of the doctrine of this Church These b Bur. V. 1. inter Addenda p. 357. afterwards he corrected and we find him subscribing a Declaration in which it is affirm'd that the Power of the Keys is formally distinct from that of the
Church-Government PART V. A RELATION OF THE English Reformation AND The lawfulness thereof examined by the THESES deliver'd in the Four former Parts Printed at OXFORD 1687. The CONTENTS CHAP. I. EIGHT Theses pre-posed whereby to try the lawfulness of this Reformation § 1. CHAP. II. Three Heads of this Discourse I. 1. Head How the English Clergy were first induced to acknowledge a new Regal Supremacy in Spirituals § 17. And how far only at the first they seem to have allowed it § 23. CHAP. III. II. 2. Head Concerning what Supremacy was afterward by degrees conferred on or also claimed by the Prince § 26. n. 2. 1. In the times of Henry the Eighth CHAP. IV. 2. In the times of Edward the Sixth § 38. CHAP. V. The former Supremacy disclaimed by Queen Mary and by the Bishops in her days and the Pope's Supremacy re-acknowledged § 48. And the final judgment of Ecclesiastical matters restored to the Church And the Church-doctrine under King Edward condemned § 51. That Queen Maries Clergy was a lawful Clergy That the Bishops in King Edward's days were not lawfully ejected § 54. Neither as to the Authority ejecting them Nor as to the Cause That the Bishops deprived in Queen Mary's days were lawfully ejected Both as to the Cause And as to the Judge § 64. Where Concerning the burning of those who in Queen Mary's days were by the Church condemned of Heresy § 65. And therefore others lawfully introduced in their places CHAP. VI. 3. In the times of Queen Elizabeth That as ample a Supremacy was claimed and by Parliament conferred on her as on King Henry or Edward § 70. Where Concerning certain qualifications of her Supremacy urged by the Reformed § 72. And the Replyes to them But such Supremacy not acknowledged or consented to by the Clergy § 77. CHAP. VII III. 3. Head How according to such Supremacy assumed these three Princes acted in Ecclesiastical Affairs § 78. 1. The Actings of Henry the Eighth in Ecclesiastical Affairs In the abrogating of former Ecclesiastical Laws and compiling a new body of them In putting forth a model of the Doctrine of the Christian Faith and the Six Articles § 81. Where Concerning the complaints made by Protestants of his abuse of the Supremacy In the consecrating and confirming of Bishops and Metropolitans § 86. In the putting down of Monasteries c. § 87. The pretences thereof § 89. Reflections upon these pretences § 93. In the dispensing with the former Church Canons concerning Marriages Fasts Holy days c. § 99. In the publishing and afterward prohibiting of the Scriptures in a vulgar tongue § 101. CHAP. VIII 2. The Actings of King Edward in Ecclesiastical Affairs § 104. 1. Set down first more generally In putting forth certain Injunctions and Doctrinal Homilies sending Commissions thro the Realm and ejecting the refractory Clergy c. In the prohibition of Preaching till he had setled Religion The Defence made by the Protestant Divines concerning King Edward's proceedings in matters of Religion The Reply thereto § 111. Where Concerning the Clergy's concurrence and consent to the Kings Reformations § 119. CHAP. IX 2. More particularly In sending certain Doctrinal Articles to be subscribed by the Bishop of Winchester In repealing the Six Articles passed by Synod in Henry the Eighth's time § 137. In seizing on Religious Houses and some Bishops Lands and denying the lawfulness of Monastick Vows In defacing Images In enjoyning Administration of the Communion in both kinds § 142. In suppressing the former Church-Liturgies Ordinals and other Rituals § 143. In setting up new Forms Of celebrating the Communion § 144. Of Ordination § 145. Of Common-Prayer § 146. Out of which was ejected the Sacrifice of the Mass § 147. Where 1. Concerning the alterations of the first Common-Prayer-Book of King Edward's in relation to the Sacrifice of the Eucharist 148. 2. Concerning the further alterations in the second Common-Prayer-Book in relation to the same Sacrifice § 149. 3. Concerning the reduction of some things touching this matter in the new Common-Prayer-Book prepared for Scotland to the first Form of King Edward § 150. Much complained of in Laudensium Autocatacrisis § 151. And the celebration of the Eucharist prohibited when none other to communicate with the Priest § 152. And Invocation of Saints expunged out of the Litanies § 154. And the necessity of Sacerdotal Confession relaxed § 155. CHAP. X. In setting forth a second Form of Common-Prayer than which the first was in many things much more moderate § 157. In which second Book are rectified and removed many things which gave offence in the former § 158. Among the rest Prayer for the Dead and several expressions that seemed to inferr the Real or Corporal Presence in the Eucharist § 160. Where Concerning the reduction of some things touching this Presence made in the new Liturgy for Scotland to King Edward's first Form § 161. Much complained of in Laudensium Autocatacrisis In the abrogation of several Ecclesiastical Laws concerning Fasts Celibacy of the Clergy c Lastly In the Edition of 42 Articles of Religion different from the former doctrines of the Church § 165. Where Whether these Articles were passed by any Synod CHAP. XI 3. The Actings of Queen Elizabeth in Ecclesiastical matters § 170. All the former decrees of the Clergy in King Henry and King Edward's days being reversed by the Clergy in Queen Mary's days Her calling of a Synod which declareth against the Reformation A Disputation between the Bishops and the Râ—â—â—â—med Divines § 177. The Regal Supremacy and all that King Edward had done in the Reformation now re-established by the Qu. and Parliament § 179. But not by the Clergy The ejecting of the Bishops for refusing the Oath of her Supremacy § 180. The unlawfulness of this Ejection Concerning Regal Supremacy How far it seemeth to extend § 181. How far not § 183. That Submission to the Regal Supremacy in this later kind was required from those Bishops § 184. Concerning Forreign Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs how far it is to be acknowledged § 185. That the renouncing such Supremacy was required of those Bishops § 186. That so many of Queen Mary's Bishops could not be lawfully ejected on any other ground as would render the Protestant Bishops a major part § 187. CHAP. XII Concerning the defects of the Queen's Protestant Bishops remaining since King Edward's days § 190. n. 1. Concerning the defects of the new Bishops ordained in Qu. Elizabeth's days § 191. Whether their Ordination unlawful according to the Church Canons § 193. Where Concerning the Queen as Supreme in Ecclesiasticals her dispensing with the former Ecclesiastical Laws for their Ordination § 194. CHAP. XIII Digression concerning The Opinion of several Protestant Divines touching the lawfulness of the Prince's reforming of Religion in matters of Doctrine against the major part of the Clergy when to him seemeth a necessity that requireth it 196. Opinion Of Dr. Field § 197. Of Mr. Mason § 199.
Of Bishop Andrews § 201. Of Mr. Thorndike § 203. Of Dr. Heylin § 205. Of Dr. Fern. § 208. Conclusion of the Fifth Part. Wherein The Ecclesiastical Supremacy of these Princes transcendeth that challenged by the Patriarch § 214. That several Protestants deny such a Supremacy due to Princes § 215. CHAP. XIV Conclusion of this whole Discourse of Church Government § 218. Where Concerning the benefit that may be hoped for from a future free General Council for the setling of present Controversies § 219. OF Church Government PART V. Concerning the English REFORMATION CHAP. I. Eight Propositions whereby the lawfulness of this Reformation is to be tryed § 1 TO finish these Discourses of Church Government Eight Theses pre-posed whereby to try the lawfulness of this Reformation there remain yet behind some Considerations concerning the lawfulness and regularity of the Reformations made here in England in the days of Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth according to the Principles already established Of which Reformations that you may make the more exact judgment 't is fit to remind you first of these few Propositions which have been cleared or do necessarily follow from what hath been cleared in the former Discourses And they are these The First §. 2. Thes 1. That amongst other offices and authorities which the Clergy Christ's substitutes by Clergy I mean the lawful Church-Authority have received from him as God's High-Priest and Prophet these are two principal ones First The power to determine Controversies in pure matters of Religion and to judge and decide where doubts arise what is Gods Word and divine Truth what are errors in the Faith or in the practice and performance of Gods Worship and Service which errors in Practice always pre-suppose some error in matter of Faith And Secondly The power to promulgate teach preach and make-known such matters when decided by them to Gods people who are for doctrine in Spiritual things committed to their charge and to require their obedience and submission thereto with power to execute the Ecclesiastical Censures which have reference to things not of this but of the next world upon all such as disobey their Authority else what profits the Church a silent determination of a Controversy more than letting it alone a concealed more than a non-decision thereof And these things from our Saviours Commission they are obliged to perform and consequently to use such Assemblies and Meetings together Consults Summons Examinations c. Without which such things cannot be performed tho' any Civil or Secular power Heathen or Christian who perhaps may be an Heretick or Schismatick as some Christian Princes have been Arians doth oppose them So a Christian Emperor Constantius being an Arian and prohibiting in his Empire the promulgation of the Orthodox Doctrine of the Trinity yet the Western Catholick Bishops nevertheless did promulgate their definition of the Consubstantiation of the Son with the Father And indeed of these two Secular Powers the Christian if either seems to have the less capacity to hinder or resist them because he professeth himself with the rest of the Christians as to the knowing of Spiritual Truths a Subject and a Scholar of the Church and because he so earnestly claimeth a Supreme Power and professeth an Obligation from God over all persons in all Spiritual matters to bind them upon Temporal punishments to the obedience of the Church's or Clergy's Determinations and Decrees But if he meaneth here only where himself first judgeth such their Decrees orthodox and right this power is in effect claimed to bind all persons in all Spiritual matters only to his own Decrees whilst he pretends an Obligation both of himself and of his Subjects to the Churches Yet so it is indeed that all Princes whatever even the Heathen have such an Obligation from God Nor doth any Text of the New Testament give Christian Princes more Authority over the Church to restrain any Liberties thereof than it giveth to the Heathen Princes For all the Texts which are urged thence ordain obedience of Church men to the Pagan Princes that then Reigned no less than to others And all Princes are obliged with the Sword which God hath given them not only not to persecute but to protect and defend his true Religion and Service in their Dominions whensoever it offereth it self to them and claimeth their Subjection and Protection See Psal 2.1 2 10 11 12. Tho the Obligation of some Princes to this may be more than that of others as he hath had more divine Truth revealed and hath received more favors from God and his Church See these things more largely handled before in Succession of Clergy c. And in Church Government 1. Part. § 38. § 2 Neither doth that which is ordinarily urged viz. That the Acts and Laws of the ancient Councills of the Church de Facto had always the Christian Emperors consent tho indeed they always had not not the Anti-arian Councills in Constantius his time and yet they were obliging in the establishing the Nicene Decrees prove that they were not of force without such consent nor doth the Councills intreating the Emperors consent when Christian prove they did this to legitimate the making or enjoyning of such laws for such laws they had formerly both made and imposed when Emperors were their enemies but to strengthen the observance of them Indeed the Prince who beareth the Secular Sword his giving to the Ministers of Christ his licence to exercise their office and their ecclesiastical censures in his dominions or in any part or province thereof as it implies the prohibiting of his officers or subjects any way to disturb them is to great purpose and therefore much to be desired But it sheweth not that it is in his just power to deny them such licence I mean in general for I meddle not here with the Princes denying some of them to do these things whilst he admits others or that his officers or subjects without it may lawfully disturb them in any part of their Spiritual Function Touching these things this is the concession of Bishop Andrews Tort. Tort. p. 366 potestatis merè Sacerdotalis sunt Liturgiae Conciones i. e docendi munus dubia legis explicandi as he saith ibid. p. 380 claves to which he adds Censurae p. 380 Sacramenta omnia quae potestatem ordinis consequuntur p. 380 and somewhat more plainly of Bishop Carleton in his Treatise of Jurisdiction Regal and Episcopal 1. c. p. 9. As far Spiritual Jurisdiction saith he standing in examination of controversies of Faith judging of Heresies deposing of Hereticks excommunications of notorious and stubborn offenders ordination of Priests and Deacons institution and collation of Benefices and Spiritual Cures this we reserve entire to the Church which Princes cannot give to nor take from the Church So he saith p. 42. That external jurisdiction is either definitive or mulctative Authority definitive in matters of Faith and Religion
belonged to the Church Mulctative power is understood either as it is with coaction or as it is referred to Spiritual censures As it standeth in Spiritual censures it is the right of the Church and was practiced by the Church when without Christian Magistrate and since But coactive Jurisdiction was always ways understood to belong to the Civil Magistrate whether Christian or Heathen And by this power saith he c. 4 p. 39. without coaction the Church was called Faith was planted Devils were subdued the Nations were taken out of the power of darkness the World reduced to the obedience of Christ by this power without coactive Jurisdiction the Church was governed for Three Hundred years together But if it be inquired what was done when the Emperors were Christian and when their coactive power came in The Emperors saith he p. 178. never took upon them by their authority to define matters of Faith and Religion that they left to the Church But when the Church had defined such truths against Hereticks and had deposed such Hereticks then the Emperors concurring with the Church by their Imperial Constitutions did by their coactive power give strength to the Canons of the Church But then what if the Emperors being Christian should take upon them by their authority to define matters of Faith or should use their coactive power against the Canons of the Church Take the answer of another reformed Writer Mr. Thorndike Right of Church 4. c. p. 234. The power of the Church is so absolute saith he and depending on God alone that if a Sovereign professing Christianity should forbid the Profession of that Faith or the exercise of those Ordinances which God hath required to be served with or even the exercise of that Ecclesiastical power which shall be necessary to preserve the Unity of the Church it must needs be necessary for those that are trusted with the power of the Church not only to disobey the Commands of the Sovereign but to use that power which their quality in the Society of the Church gives them to provide for the subsistence thereof without the assistance of Secular powers A thing manifestly supposed by all the Bishops of the ancient Church in all those actions wherein they refused to obey their Emperors seduced by Hereticks and to suffer their Churches to be regulated by them to the prejudice of Christianity Which actions whosoever justifies not he will lay the Church open to ruine whensoever the Sovereign power is seduced by Hereticks And such a difference falling out i. e between Prince and Clergy in Church matters as that to particular persons it cannot be clear who is in the right It will be requisite saith he for Christians in a doubtful case at their utmost perils to adhere to the Guides of the Church against their lawful Sovereigns tho to no other effect than to suffer if the Prince impose it for the exercise of their Christianity and the maintenance of the Society of the Church in Unity tho contrary to the Sovereigns commmands Thus Mr. Thorndike in Right of the Church 4. chap. And like things he saith in his Epilog of the Church of Engl. See there 1. l. 9. c. the Contents whereof touching this Subject he hath briefly expressed thus That that power which was in Churches under the Apostles can never be in any Christian Sovereign That the Interest of Secular power in determining matters of Faith presupposeth the Society of the Church and the Act of it That the Church is the chief Teacher of Christianity thro Christendome as the Sovereign is of civil Peace thro his Dominions And there he giveth reasons why the Church is to decide matters of Faith rather than the State supposing neither to be infallible And see 1. l. 20. c. p. 158. Where he saith That He who disturbs the Communion of the Church remains punishable by the Secular power to inflict Temporal Penalties not absolutely because it is Christian but upon supposition that this Temporal power maintaineth the true Church And afterward That the Secular power is not able of it self to do any of those Acts which the Church i. e those who are qualified by and for the Church are qualified by vertue of their Commission from Christ to do without committing the Sin of Sacriledge in seizing into its own hands the powers which by Gods Act are constituted and therefore consecrated and dedicated to his own Service not supposing the free Act of the Church without fraud and violence to the doing of it i. e. joyned to the Secular power doing such Act. Now amongst the Acts and Powers belonging to the Church which he calls a Corporation by divine right and appointment he names these l. 1. c. 16. p. 116. The power of making Laws within themselves of Electing Church Governors of which see 3. l. 32. c. p. 398 and of excommunicating and 3. l. 32. c. p 385 the power to determine all matters the determination whereof is requisite to maintain the communion of Christians in the Service of God and the power to oblige Christians to stand to that determination under pain of forfeiting that Communion the power of holding Assemblies of which he speaketh thus 1. l. 8. c. p. 54. I that pretend the Church to be a Corporation Founded by God upon a Priviledge of holding visible Assemblies for the common Service of God notwithstanding any Secular force prohibiting the same must needs maintain by consequence that the Church hath power in it self to hold all such Assemblies as shall be requisite to maintain the common Service of God and the Unity in it and the order of all Assemblies that exercise it Thus Mr. Thorndike Discourse of Episcopacy and Presbytery p. 19. And thus Dr Fern of the power of Judicature belonging to the Clergy It is confessed saith he on both sides that the power of Ordination and of Judicature so far as the Keys left by Christ in his Church do extend is of divine Institution and that this power must be exercised or administred in the Church by some either Bishops or Presbyters is also confessed to be of divine right Therefore surely no Secular Prince can justly prohibit within his dominions the exercise of such Judicature nor prohibiting is to be obeyed and Christ's substitutes herein being denyed the assistance of the Civil power are to proceed without it To these I will add what Dr. Taylor hath delivered on the same Subject in Episcopacy asserted and this the rather because this Treatise was published by the Command of so understanding a Prince He after that p. 263. he hath laid this ground for the security of Secular Princes That since that Christ hath professed that his Kingdom is not of this world that Government which he hath constituted de novo doth no way make any intrenchment on the Royalty hath these passages P. 237. he saith That those things which Christianity as it prescinds from the interest of the Republick hath introduced all
is the assisting of the Church in her business not the abridging of her in her power The Second Thesis That the Clergy cannot alienate or make over and give away to the Secular Governor §. 4 Thes 2. or to his Ministers and Delegates any authority or office which they have received and been charged with by Christ with a Command to execute the same to the end of the world and with a threat to become answerable to God for any miscarriage of the people by their default therein From which it follows that the Clergy's doing of either of these Two things First The binding themselves for ever to any Secular Governor never to make or never to teach abroad and publish to the people his Subjects any judgment or decision of theirs made in matters of Faith and Gods Worship or made for reforming some Error or Heresy or other abuse in Gods Service without the consent of such Governor first obtained thereto which Governor as I said tho Christian and a Believer yet may be a Sectarist an Heretick c. 2. Or Secondly which is yet worse the authorizing of the Secular Governor or of those whom he shall please to choose and nominate who will be sure to name those rather of his own Sect to determine and decide and promulge such Spiritual matters for the Clergy and in their stead So that now not only the Clergy cannot do such things without such Secular Governor but also such Governor may do those things without the Clergy I say these two are unlawful as being contrary to the duties of the Clergy said above Thesis the First to be committed to them by Christ The Third Thesis §. 5. Thes 3. That the Secular Prince cannot depose or eject front the exercise of their office in his Dominions any of the Clergy neither absolutely without any cause pretended as he may remove those Officers and Ministers under him who hold their places only durante beneplacite Nor for a cause alledged if it be such as this namely for their not obeying the decisions which he or his civil Council shall make in Spiritual matters or for their transgressing of the Ecclesiastical Canons 2 nor can introduce others into the places of the ejected without the consent of the major part of the Clergy or of their Ecclesiastical Superiors which consent if he obtain I reckon not this deposition c. to be his Act but theirs And here note that what is said of other Clergy may be said likewise of the Patriarch for any authority in such Princes Dominions which he stands possessed of by such Ecclesiastical Canons as cannot justly be pretended to do any wrong to the civil Government Touching which matter see Church Gov. 1. Par. § 38. c. § 6 First The Prince cannot eject them 1. 1. Neither without giving any cause thereof because they hold not these their Offices from the Prince much less from him only during pleasure but they receive them by Solemn Ordination from their Predecessors in this Ministery the Substitutes of the Lord Christ even this Office among the rest to oversee instruct and use Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in making or publishing Ecclesiastical Laws and imposing censures over the flock of Christ in what Princes Dominions soever or in whatsoever Province or Diocess thereof as every one by his Ecclesiastical Superiors is appointed as appears by their equally exercising such Office in the three first Centuries in all Dominions distributed into several Provincial and Parochial Governments the Twelve Apostles being said at the first to have allotted to themselves several Circuits after the same manner even when the Supreme Power-civil not only licenced not but opposed and prohibited them to do it on pain of death Of which matter see Mr. Thorndike Right of the Church 1 chap. Seeing the Church saith he subsisted Three Hundred years before any State professed Christianity whatsoever right it used during that time manifestly therefore it ought still to use and enjoy this being the most pertinent evidence to shew the bounds of it i. e. of such rights independent on any Temporal Governor See him 4. c. p. 169. And the Apostles themselves were they who first set up this Church Government in Civil States And St. Paul made Titus Superintendent of Creet and Timothy of Ephesus for Spiritual Affairs without the Secular Governors leave * who were in these places to ordain others to preserve for ever the Doctrines and Discipline delivered to them For this cause saith Paul to Titus 1. chap. 5. ver left I thee in Creet that thou shouldest set in order the things that are left undone and ordain Presbyters in every City as I had appointed thee Which ordaining of others signifieth also Institution in the charge or cure whereto they ministred as Bishop Carleton confesseth Jurisdict Regal Episcopal 4. chap. pag. 40. Again * Who were in these places to receive Accusations hear Witnesses which cannot be without appointed Assemblies and Meetings silence false Teachers excommunicate Offenders See Tit. 1.11 Rev. 2.20 1. Tim. 1.3.5.19 Against an Elder receive not an Accusation but before two or three Witnesses Now he saith the same Author pag. 42. that is appointed to hear Accusations and to receive the testimonies of witnesses is seated in a place of judgment with Jurisdiction See more of this in Succes Clergy § 4. and this they did when the Temporal Governors of those places licenced them not yea persecuted them So Athanasius ejected by Constantius his Emperor from the charge which the Church had committed to him of Alexandria and Paulus from Constantinople were nevertheless accounted still the true Bishops of those Sees Princes indeed may deprive the Clergy at pleasure or according as Covenants made of what they bestow on them Houses Lands Priviledges Jurisdictions Lordships Temporal but the Offices abovenamed they bestow not 2. Again as Princes may not depose them at pleasure so neither for any cause which concerns things Spiritual without the Clergy's consent For it is necessary that a Judge to be a competent one have as well potestatem in causam as in personam and the Prince as hath been mentioned in the first Thesis hath no authority to judge such causes meerly Spiritual To this may be added that neither Heathen nor Heretical Prince can justly prohibit totally all that Clergy whom the Church declares Orthodox from entring into or from preaching and otherwise officiating in Divine matters within his Dominions And if he put such to death for disobeying this his Command when as it is contrary to Gods and Christs who sendeth them to all Nations in effect he puts them to death for obeying Gods Command and they dye Martyrs As also the Primitive Martyrs were put to death for not obeying the Emperors Laws concerning matters of their Religion § 7 Second 2. As the Prince cannot thus eject or depose Clergy so neither can he introduce any into the place of those who are ejected or deceased without
Protestant Religion passed as an Act of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons assembled in Parliament when all the Bishops therein present opposed it See Camden's An. 1. Eliz. And 1. Eliz. 1. c.. § 13 The Seventh Thesis That Thesis 7th tho Secular Princes were allowed to have a decisive power in some matters of Faith such as are no way formerly determined which is contrary to the First and Second Thesis yet for such points as have been formerly determined on any side here since a National Synod may not define any such thing contrary to former superior Councils much less may any Secular person define any such things contrary to those Councils or also contrary to a National Synod § 14 The Eighth Thesis That Thesis 8th as touching Divine truths and matters of Faith spoken of hitherto so now for things of meer Ecclesiastical Constitution and not Divine Command Neither National Synod nor Secular power may make any new Canons concerning the Government and Discipline of the Church contrary to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of former superior Councils nor reverse those formerly made by them at least so many of these as neither the Prince can shew some way prejudicial to his civil Government nor the National Synod can shew some way more prejudicial to their particular Church than the same Constitutions are to the rest of Christian Churches See this Thesis proved in Chur. Gov. 2. Part. § 63. And 3. Part. § 13. n. 3. And § 27. n. 2. § 15 These Theses being set down whereby to judge of the Regularity of a Reformation let us now view the carriage thereof here in England in the time of Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth and how far it hath deviated from them Touching which Reformation I would desire you to read together with these â—ay Observations what is related in defence thereof by Dr. Hammond Schism 7. c. Dr. Fern in Considerations touching the Reformed Church 2. and 9. Chap. And Dr. Heylin's Treatise called the Reformation of the Church of England Justified lest I may have related some things partially or omitted some things considerable in this matter And here §. 16. 1. Three Heads of this Discourse confining my Discourse to Three Heads I will first give you an account how the Clergy in Henry the Eighth's days were at the beginning induced to acknowledge the Kings Supremacy in Spiritual matters after another manner than his Predecessors had exercised it formerly and how far only at first they seem to have allowed it I say after another manner than his Predecessors had exercised it formerly Because some Supremacy namely this of assembling a Synod of the Clergy upon Temporal punishments in case of Disobedience by their Writs the ancient form of which see in Dr. Heylin p. 4 when any urgent occasions required as likewise of enjoyning to all their Subjects as well Clergy as others upon Temporal Penalties the observance of the Decrees and Constitutions of such Synods or of any other former lawful Councils such as the Clergy shall acknowledge to have been the Decrees thereof these Supremacies I say the Princes of this Land before Henry the Eighth had and exercised neither was any such Supremacy usurped or interrupted by the Pope Neither do the Roman Doctors deny such an external coactive Jurisdiction of Princes in Spiritual Affairs 1. as to bind their Clergy upon Temporal Mulcts to meet together in Council when the same Princes shall think it necessary the Ecclesiasticks being their Subjects as well as Christs Clergy and on this account bound to obey them as well as their Spiritual Governors on the other and there being often good cause of their assembling in order to the peace and welfare of the civil State committed to the Princes care because this dependeth much on the right Government of the Church committed to theirs Provided only that these Assemblies be so timed and disposed by the Prince as that the authority which our Saviour hath committed to the Church concerning the assembling of the same persons be no way disturbed thereby For doubtless when both at the same time cannot be done their Service to the Church is to be preferred before that to the State 2. as to bind their Subjects upon External and Temporal Mulcts and Punishments to observe the Laws and Determinations of the Church But First that the Governors of the Church have also power upon Ecclesiastical Censures to assemble a Synod of Clergy when there seems need tho the Prince oppose it this indeed those Doctors affirm And secondly whether in case that a Prince use his coactive Jurisdiction in Spiritual matters against the Definitions of the Church then the Pope hath not also virtually some Temporal coactive power against the Prince namely to dissolve the Prince's coactive power or to authorize others to use a coactive power against such a Prince in order to the good of he Church this they bring in question But then as his last is affirmed by some of the Roman Doctors so it is opposed by others of them 2. We will consider what manner of Supremacy was afterward by little and little either challenged by the Prince or by the Clergy or Parliament given unto him as his right 3. And Thirdly how according to this their conceived right those Three Princes acted CHAP. II. The Inducement of the English Clergy to acknowledge a Regal Supremacy in Spirituals I. Head § 17 FOR the First Henry the Eighth whether because scrupulous in Conscience How the Engl. Clergy were first induced to acknowledge a new Regal Supremacy in Spirituals occasioned by his Daughter Mary's being offered in Marriage first to the Emperor Charles the Fifth and then to Francis King of France and by both refused as is said upon this account because they doubted of the lawfulness of Henry ' s Marriage with her Mother or whether because much enamoured on another Lady Anne Bullen Daughter to the Treasurer of his Houshold and an Attendant on the Queen yet between whom and him it is said that the King was conscious of some Impediments why he could not lawfully marry her for which an Act of Parliament 28. Hen. 8.7 c. never after repealed plainly declared her Daughter Elizabeth uncapable of the Crown and of which those words in the Dispensation procured from Clement the Seventh Etiamsi illa tibi alià s secundo aut remotiori consanguinitatis aut primo affinitatis gradu etiam ex quocunque licito vel illicito coitu proveniente invicem conjuncta sit do give some suspicion Had a great desire after Twenty years cohabitation to be divorced from Queen Katherine because having been formerly his Brother's Wife Cardinal Wolsey being made the Bishops Legate together with Cardinal Campegius for the hearing and determining this matter tho at first he much corresponded with the King's Inclinations having designed his Matching with the King of France his Sister as is thought from some Self-interests yet when
upon the Universities abroad was demanded by the Parliament from the Clergy at home because it was said that the Cardinal and some other chief amongst them were thro their falshood and dissimulation the cause of this Forreign Expence Which Summe they resolutely refusing to contribute the whole Clergy are sued by the King and condemned by the Kings Bench in a Premunire also for receiving and acknowledging the Cardinals Power Legantine exercised by him ignorantly or presumptuously without the Kings consent and allowance first obtained The Clergy thus become liable at the Kings pleasure to the Imprisonment of their Persons and confiscation of their Estates assemble themselves in the House of Convocation offer to pay for their Ransome the demanded 100000 l. § 20 But the King having now no hopes of obtaining a Licence for his Divorce from the Pope who at this time stood much in awe of the Emperor victorious in Italy and a near Kinsman and Favourer of Queen Katherine that the Popes Decrees might be of no force against him negociates also by his Agents with the Clergy whilst in these fears to give him the Title of Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters within his Dominions making account that this obtained he had the assent of his own Clergy at his beck for the nulling of his former Marriage Therefore in the drawing up of the Clergy's Petition to the King for release of the Premunire it was signified from the Court cujus consilii Cranmerus Cromwellus clam authores fuisse existimabantur saith the Author Antiq. Brittanic p. 325. that a Title should be prefixed wherein they should stile the King ecclesiae cleri Anglicani Protector supremum Caput or else the Petition would not be accepted To which with some difficulty they agreed so as qualifying it with this Clause Quantum per legem Christi licet But the King again excepting at this limitation as unworthy the Clergy who either did or ought to know and definitively instruct others what Christs Law did or did not allow at last upon renewed threats this Clause also was procured to be omitted See Antiquit. Brittannic p. 326. Sed Regi saith that Author displicuit ancipitem dubiamque mitigationem moderationem verborum a cleri sui Synodo quae de Christi lege aut certa fuit aut certa esse debuit tam frigide proferri Itaque Cromwellum ad Synodum iterum mandans eam aut tolli voluit aut clerum incursas Sanctionum paenas pati Omnium igitur ex sententiis Rex sine ambiguitate ullâ ecclesiae Angliae supremum caput declaratus est But yet this was not done till after the Clergy who much alledged that the King or some of his Successors might upon this Title ruine the Church of England in their ordering Spiritual matters without or against the Clergy thereof had obtained a voluntary promise from him to this effect That he would never by vertue of that Grant assume to himself any more power over the Clergy than all others the Kings of England had assumed nor that he would do any thing without them in altering ordering or judging in any Spiritual matters See Bishop Fisher's Life published by Dr. Bayly And this was the first Act of the Clergy which being so understood as excluding all authority of the Western Patriarch over the Church of England and transferring such authority for the future to the King is contrary to the Fourth Thesis because some such authority was conferred on this Patriarch by Superior Councils And which Act was so passed by them that as Dr. Hammond acknowledged of Schism 7. c. it is easy to believe See Church Gov. 1. Part §. 4. and §. 20. that nothing but the apprehensions of dangers which hung over them by a Premunire incurred by them could probably have inclined them to it § 22 After the conceding of this Title of Supremacy to the King and exclusion of the Pope's Authority out of his Dominions and the voiding of all appeals made hence unto him and after the Kings Marriage to Anne Bullen also but before the publication thereof Cranmer being now chosen Arch-Bishop of Canterbury upon the death of Warham a Favourer of the Queen Katherine's Cause Summons her to appear before him and some other Bishops and Commissioners and upon her neglect solemnly dissolveth the Kings former Marriage with her and divorceth him from her § 23 But the Kings ends thus obtained yet things rested not here And how far only at the first they seem to have allowed it But whereas formerly till the Twenty fifth year of Henry the Eighth the Synods of the Clergy saith Dr. Heylin § 1. p 7. after called by the Kings Writ acted absolutely in their Convocations of their own authority the Kings or Parliaments assent or ratification neither concurring nor required and whereas by this sole authority which they had in themselves they made Canons declared Heresies convicted and censured persons suspected of Heresy c Now they having declared the King supream Head of the Church instead of the Pope the Western Patriarch it seemed reasonable therefore that no Acts of the Church should stand good without the concurrence of the Head And conducing much to this end as I learn from the forenamed Dr was a Petition or Remonstrance exhibited to the King by the House of Commons after the Ice was broken A. 1532. See Fullâ—rs Appeal of Injur'd Innocence Pa. 2. p. 65. In which saith he they desiring that the Convocation should be brought down to the same level with the Houses of Parliament and that their Acts and Constitutions should not bind their Subjects as before in their Goods and Possessions until they were confirmed and ratified by the Regal power they shewed themselves aggrieved that the Clergy of this Realm should act authoritatively and supreamly in the Convocation and they in Parliament do nothing but as it was confirmed and ratified by Royal assent An Answer unto which Remonstrance saith he was drawn up by Dr. Gardiner then newly made Bishop of Winchester and being allowed of by both Houses of Convocation was by them presented to the King But the King not satisfied with this Answer resolved to bring them to his bent and therefore on the Tenth of May sent a Paper to them by Dr. Foxe after Bishop of Hereford in which it was peremptorily required that no Constitution or Ordinance shall be hereafter by the Clergy Enacted promulged or put in execution unless the Kings Highness do approve the same and his advice and favour be also interponed for the execution c. Whereupon on the Fifteenth of the same Month they made their absolute submission So He. And thus the next step therefore of this Reformation was that the King so requiring it they bound themselves by a Synodical Act for the time to come not to assemble themselves at all without the Kings Writ and when assembled not to enact promulge or execute any Canons Constitutions Ordinances Provincial or
usurped Papal Supremacy Examin Champ. 2. c p. 69. than these Bishops did retracting their acknowledging of such a Regal Supremacy and that upon deprivation of their Bishopricks and Imprisonment of their persons some in King Edward's and some in Qu. Elizabeth's days retracting c I suppose for this reason because by sad experience they saw it much enlarged beyond those bounds within which only they formerly had maintained it just And Fourthly By the early Act of Parliament 24. Henry 8.12 c. where in the Preface it is said That when any Cause of the Law Divine cometh in question that part of the Body Politick called the Spirituality now being usually called the English Church is sufficient and meet of it self without the intermeddling of any exteriour person or persons to declare and determine all such doubts and where in the Act it is ordered that such Causes shall have their appeals from the Arch-Deacon to the Bishop and from the Bishop to the Arch-Bishop of the Province and there to be definitively and finally adjudged Finally i. e without any further appeal to the King Neither can it be shewed that expresly this authority or jurisdiction To repress reform correct and amend all such Errors Heresies Abuses Enormities whatsoever they be which by any manner of Spiritual Authority or Jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be repressed reformed c any Forreign Laws Forreign Authority Prescription or any thing or things to the contrary thereof notwithstanding tho it was allowed to the King as a Branch of his Supremacy by the Parliament was conceded or voted by the Clergy or pretended to be so but was built only by consequence upon the Clergy's recognizing him the supream Head of the Church of England as appears in the Preface of that Act 26. Hen. 8.1 c. By these things therefore it seems that as yet all the Jurisdiction for determining Spiritual Controversies that was taken from the Pope was committed to the Community of the English Clergy or finally placed in the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury But you will find by what follows that it long rested not here but was shortly after removed from hence into the hands of the King And as it was thus with the Clergy so in the Laity also in the Parliament its self in the new power given of altering and dispensing with former Church Laws 25. Hen. 8.21 c. there seemeth at first to have been a kind of jealousy upon the new introduced Supremacy left it might afterward proceed to some exorbitancy as to changing something in the substance of Religion Therefore in the forenamed Act they insert this Proviso Provided always this Act nor any thing therein contained shall be hereafter interpreted that your Grace your Nobles and Subjects intend by the same to decline and vary from the Congregation of Christs Church in any things declared by the Scriptures and the word of God necessary concerning the very Articles of the Catholick Faith of Christendome or any other things declared by the Scripture necessary for your and their Salvation but only to make an Ordinance by Polities necessary and convenient to repress vice and for good conservation of this Realm in peace unity and tranquility from rapine and spoyl insuing much the old ancient Customs of this Realm on that behalf Not minding to seek for any reliefs succors or remedies for any wordly things and humane laws in any case of necessity but within this Realm at the hands of your Highness which ought to have an Imperial power and authority in the same and not obliged in any worldly Causes to any Superior Upon which Proviso Bishop Bramhal hath this note Schism Guarded p. 63. That if any thing is contained in this Law for the abolishing or translation i. e from the Clergy of power meerly and purely Spiritual it is retracted by this Proviso at the same time it is Enacted CHAP. III. The Supremacy in Spirituals claimed by King Henry the Eighth II. Head § 26 II. VVE have seen how far the Clergy and Laity also at first seem to have proceeded in the advancing of the Kings Supremacy Concerning what Supremacy was afterward by degrees conferred on or also claimed by the Prince Now to come to the Second thing I proposed to you Concerning what Supremacy was afterward by degrees conferred on or also claimed by the Prince After the Title then of Supream was thus yielded by the Clergy as likewise that they would thence-forward enact or publish no Synodal Decrees or Constitutions without the consent first obtained of this their declared Supream It was thus Enacted by the Authority of Parliament 26. Hen. 8.1 c. 1. In the times of H. the 8th That the King shall have and enjoy united to the Imperial Crown of this Realm all Jurisdictions to the said Dignity of Supream Head of the same Church belonging which Jurisdiction how far it is understood to be extended see 1. Eliz. 1. c. where it is Enacted that such Jurisdictions Priviledges and Preheminencies Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power hath heretofore been or may lawfully be exercised or used for the Visitation of Ecclesiastical State and Persons and for Reformation of all manner of Errors Heresies Schisms c shall for ever by authority of this present Parliament be united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And further see the Act 37. Hen. 8.17 which runs thus Whereas your most Royal Majesty is justly Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England and hath full authority to correct and punish all mannner of Heresies Errors Vices and to exercise all other manner of Jurisdictions commonly called Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Nevertheless the Bishop of Rome and his Adherents have in their Councils and Synods Provincial established divers Ordinances that no Lay-man might exercise any Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical or be any Judge in any Ecclesiastical Court which Ordinances or Constitutions standing in their effect did sound to be directly repugnant to your Majesties being Supream Head of the Church and Prerogative Royal your Grace being a Lay-man And whereas albeit the said Decrees by a Statute 25. Hen. 8. be utterly abolished yet because the contrary thereunto is not used by the Arch-Bishops Bishops c who have no manner of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical but by under and from your Royal Majesty it giveth occasion to evil disposed persons little to regard and to think the proceedings and censures Ecclesiastical made by your Highness and your Vice-gerent Commissaries c to be of little or none effect whereby the people have not such Reverence to your most Godly Injunctions as becometh them In consideration that your Majesty is the only and undoubted Supream Head c to whom by Holy Scripture all power and authority is wholly given to hear and determine all manner of Causes Ecclesiastical and to correct vice c May it therefore be Enacted that all persons as well Lay as those that are Married being Doctors of the Civil Law
Saying p. 92. If thus the Bishop will have Secular Princes to have nothing to do in the making or hindring any Decrees or Laws of the Church-men in matters meerly Spiritual but only to have such a sole dominion over the Secular Sword as that none can use it but he or by his leave in the execution of such Laws all is well but then the former-quoted Statutes of Henry the Eighth shew much more Power challenged than the Bishop alloweth This in Answer to the Bishop Secondly If it be further said here touching that particular Statute of much concernment 26. Hen. 8.1 c. quoted before § 26 and § 25. Namely §. 35. n. 4. 1 That the King shall have full power from time to time to visit repress reform all such Errors and Heresies as by any manner of Spritual Authority c lawfully may be reformed c. See §. 25. If it be said here that the King hath only this power therein ascribed to him to redress and reform the Errors and Heresies which are declared such by the Church by former Councils or by the Synods of his Clergy but that he hath no power given him to judge or declare what is Error or Heresy 1. First thus then he hath not all the power given him which by any manner of Spiritual Authority or Jurisdiction may be exercised as it follows in that Act because there is a Spiritual Authority also that may declare new Errors and Heresies or that may reform such Errors as have not been by Synods formerly declared such and it seems this He hath not Secondly Thus the Clause ending the Act any Custome Forreign Laws Prescription c notwithstanding is utterly useless because no Forreign Laws or Prescriptions deny this Authority to Kings to reform Errors c in their Dominions so that they still confine themselves to the precedent Judgments of the Church Thirdly In the Act fore-quoted 25. Hen. 8.19 c. 'T is granted to his Highness and Thirty Two Commissioners elected by him to annul and make invalid what former Synodal Canons they think not to stand with the Laws of God therefore they have power to judge which Canons are such and to reform them i. e to teach and declare the contrary truths to them when thought by them Errors against the judgment of former Synods and without the judgment of a new Synod and what is this but to judge and pronounce de novo what is Error and Heresy Enormity Abuse c Fourthly Lastly how comes the King or his Commissioners to be made the ultimate judge See before § 31.25 Hen. 8.19 c. in all Appeals touching Divine matters if he or they cannot judge in these what is Error Since some Causes and Controversies may haply come before him not determined by former Councils And for the Errors he reforms if he is still to follow the judgment of his Clergy what are such Errors how are there in these things Appeals admitted to him from the judgments of his Clergy § 36 This said to remove the mis-interpretation of that Act I will add to these Acts of Parliament which I have been reciting to you from § 26. those words in the Kings last Speech which he made in Parliament not long before his death reprehending his Subjects for their great dissension in Opinion and Doctrine If you know surely saith he that a Bishop or Preacher erreth or teacheth perverse Doctrine Lord. Herb. Hist p. 536. come and declare it to some of our Council or to us to whom is committed by God the high authority to reform and order such causes and behaviours and be not Judges your selves of your fantastical Opinions and vain Expositions Here making his Council or himself Judge of the Bishops Doctrines And those words in King Henry the Eighth's Proclamation 1543. made for the eating of White-Meats Milk Butter Eggs heese in Lent where he saith That the meer positive Laws of the Church may be upon considerations and grounds altered and dispensed with by the publick authority of Kings and Princes In Fox pag. 1104. whensoever they shall perceive the same to tend to the hurt and damage of their people Vnless perhaps he restrain damage here to Civil Affairs Contrary to the Eighth Thesis And those words in Cromwell's Speech when he presided as the Kings Vicar-General over the Clergy assembled to state something in Controversies of Faith then agitated betwixt the Roman Church and Lutherans who told them That His Majesty would not suffer the Scripture to be wrested and defaced by any Glosses Fox p. 1078. any Papistical Laws or by any Authority of Doctors or Councils By which if this be meant that we are not obliged to embrace the Doctrine of Scriptures according to those Determinations and Expositions which lawful Councils have made of them it is contrary to the Fourth and Seventh Thesis and overthrows the Government of the Church See the same thing said on the Kings behalf by the Bishop of Hereford against other Bishops urging the Doctors of the Church Fox p. 1079. I will conclude with what Bishop Carleton in Jurisdict Regal and Episcopal Epist dedicat § 37 And Calvin upon those Words in Amos 7.13 Prophecy not any more at Bethel for it is the Kings Court say of these times Bishop Carleton relateth out of Calvin That Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester being at Ratisbon in Germany upon the Kings Affairs and there taking occasion to declare the meaning of that Title Supreme Head of the Church given to Henry the Eighth taught that the King had such a power that he might appoint and prescribe new Ordinances of the Church even matters concerning Faith and Doctrine and abolish old As Namely ' That the King might forbid the Marriage of Priests and might take away the use of the Cup in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and in such things might appoint what he list And there likewise Bishop Carleton confesseth That when Henry the Eighth took this Title of Supreme Head c tho the sounder and more judicious part of the Church then understood the words of that Title so as that no offence might justly rise by it I suppose he means in that sense as himself takes it which is For the King to have a Jurisdiction Coactive in External Courts binding and compelling men by force of Law and other External Mulcts and Punishments to what the â—hurch in Spiritual matters defines For this Bishop saith that the Church is the only Judge of such matters See before p. 4. and in his whole Book written purposely on this Subject I do not find that he gives the King any Coactive Authority in Spiritual matters against any definition of the Church Yet saith he they that were suddenly brought from their old Opinions of Popery not to the love of the Truth but to the observance of the Kings Religion received a gross and impure sense of these words But this gross sense is such as Bishop Gardiner
expressed and as I think some of these Instances in the Parliaments Acts c made above do confirm tho some Writers in our latter times seem to be somewhat unwilling to acknowledge it And it is plain that Calvin in Amos 7. understood those times in which he writ to have given Supremacy to Kings and particularly to Henry the Eighth in this gross sense Whilst he complains thus Et hodiè quam multi sunt in Papatu qui Regibus accumulant quicquid possunt juris potestatis ita ut ne qua fiat disceptatio de religione sed potestas haec sit penes Regem unum ut Statuat pro suo arbitrio quicquid voluerit sine controversiâ hoe firmum maneat Qui initio tantoperè extulerunt Henricum Regem Angliae certè fucrunt inconsiderati homines Dederunt illi summam rerum omnium potestatem hoc me semper graviter vulneravit erant enim blasphemi cùm vocarent ipsum summum caput Ecclesiae sub Christo Hoc certè fuit nimium Sed tamen sepultum hoc maneat quia peccarunt inconsiderato zelo Sed impostor ille Stephen Gardiner qui postea fuit Cancellarius hujus Proserpinae quae hodiè illic superat omnes diabolos he means Queen Mary Ille cum esset Ratisponae non pugnabat rationibus loquor de hoc postremo Cancellario qui Episcopus fuit Vintoniensis sed quemadmodum jam caepi dicere non multum curabat Scripturae testimonia sed dicebat fnisse in arbitrio Regum Statuta abrogare ritus novos instituere Si de jejunio agitur illud regem posse populo indicere jubere ut hoc vel illo die vescatur populus carnibus licere etiam prohibene Sacerdotes a conjugio licere etiam regi interdicere populo usum calicis in caenâ licere regi statuere hoc vel illud in regno suo Quare Potestas enim summa est penes Regem He goes on complaining Certum quidem est Reges si fungantur suo officio esse Patronos Religionis nutricios Ecclesiae Hoc ergo summoperè requiritur a Regibus ut gladio quo praediti sunt utantur ad cultum Dei asserendum but of whom shall they learn the right cultus Dei Of the Body of Church-men Then what will become of Galvinisme Sed interea sunt homines inconsiderati such as Arch-Bishop Granmer and others qui faciunt illos nimis Spirituales Et hoc vitium passim regnat in Germaniâ In his etiam regionibus nimium grassatur amongst the Genevois and the Swisses nunc sentimus quales fructus nascantur ex illâ radice quod sic Principes quicunque potiuntur imperio putant se ita Spirituales esse ut nullum sit amplius Ecclesiasticium regimen Non putant se posse regnare nisi aboleant omnem Ecclesiae authoritatem sint summi Judices tam in doctrinâ quam in toto Spirituali regimine Tenendum est igitur temperamentum quia hic morbus semper in Principibus regnavit ut vellent inflectere religionem pro suo arbitrio libidine interea etiam pro suis commodis Hodiè dolendae sunt nobis nostrae vices deplorandae Thus he goes on complaining of the reforming Princes in those times making themselves the summi Judices both in Ecclesiastical Doctrines and Government Himself mean-while thus being destitute of any Judge at all in these matters the judgment of Seculars being by his sentence invalid of the Church opposing him To this of Calvin may be added what Dr. Fern saith in his Consid concerning Reform 2. c. 6. § That the Bishops and Clergy under Henry the Eighth may seem at least in words and expression to have over-done their work not in that part which they denied to the Pope but in that part which they attributed to the King I add which part wrongly attributed to the King by consequence they faultily denied if not to the Pope yet to some other whose right it was And then I ask what person or persons this should be CHAP. IV. The Supremacy claimed by King Edward the Sixth § 38 NExt to come to the Times of Edward the Sixth Here we find the Power and Priviledges of the Kings Supremacy nothing diminished 2. In the times of Edward the Sixth but all those by Act of Parliament confirmed to Edward the Sixth which were formerly conceded to Henry the Eighth § 39 1. First Whereas there had been in former Ages several Parliament Statutes made in Confirmation of the Determinations of the Church and concerning the Tryal of Hereticks by the Bishops their Ordinaries As that Act 2. Hen. 4.15 That none shall preach hold teach or instruct contrary to the Catholick Faith or Determination of Holy Church and if any person shall offend in this kind that the Diocesan shall judicially proceed against him and that Act 2. Hen. 5.7 That for so much as the Cognizance of Heresy belongeth to the Judges of Holy Church and not to the Secular Judges such persons indited shall be delivered to the Ordinary of the Places to be acquitted or convicted by the Laws of Holy Church we find these Statutes repealed by King and Parliament 1. Edw. 6.12 c. And when-as they were again revived by Queen Mary 1 and 2. Mariae 6. c. with this Preface for the eschewing and avoiding of Heresies which of late have much increased within this Realm for that the Ordinaries have wanted authority to proceed against those that were infected therewith we find them again repealed as soon as Queen Elizabeth came to the Crown 1. Eliz. 1. c. the Tryal of Heresies and Hereticks by the Clergy according to the Determinations and Laws of Holy Church being admitted or excluded here according as the Prince was Catholick or Reformed § 40 Further we find it affirmed in the Act 1. Edw. 6.2 c. That all authority of Jurisdiction Spiritual and Temporal is derived and deduced from the Kings Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church and Realm of England Consequently in 1. Edw. 6.2 c. we find ordered That no Election be made of any Bishop by the Dean and Chapter but that the King by his Letters-Patents shall confer the same to any person whom he shall think meet and a Collation so made stand to the same effect as tho a Conge-d'-eslire had been given c. That all Processes Ecclesiastical shall be made in the name and with the stile of the King as in Writs at Common-Law and the Teste thereof shall be in the name of the Bishop These likewise to be sealed with no other Seal but the Kings or such as should be authorized by him Concerning which Act thus Dr. Heylin candidly Hist of Reform p. 51. By the last Branch thereof it is plain that the intent of the Contrivers was by degrees to weaken the Authority of the Episcopal Order by forcing them from their hold of Divine Institution and making them no other than the Kings
agree that the Bishop shall practice exercise or have any manner of Authority Jurisdiction or Power within this Realm but shall resist the same at all times to the uttermost of my power And I from henceforth will accept repute and take the Kings Majesty to be the only Supreme Head on Earth of the Church of England And to my Wit and uttermost of my Power I will observe and defend the whole Effects and Contents of all and singular Acts and Statutes made and to be made within this Realm in derogation extirpation and extinguishing of the Bishop of Rome and his Authority and all other Acts and Statutes made or to be made in Confirmation and Corroboration of the Kings Power of the Supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England c. Here is the Clergy tied to swear as to all Acts of the Civil Power already past so indefinitely and beforehand to all also that are to come which may derogate any thing from the Popes power or add to the Kings in Spiritual matters as if no bounds or limits at all were due thereto § 43 Again in the Sixth Year of King Edward the whole Synod of the Clergy if we may credit the relation of Mr. Philpot See Fox p. 1282. in the Convocation 1. Mariae did grant Authority to certain persons to be appointed not by them but by the Kings Majesty to make Ecclesiastical Laws where it seems to me somewhat strange that the Synod should now de novo give to the King what was before assumed as his Right And accordingly a Catechisme bearing the name of the Synod was set forth by those persons nominated by the King without the Synods revising or knowing what was in it tho a Catechisme said Dr. Weston the Prolocutor 1. Mariae full of Heresies This Book being then produced in Convocation and denied by the Synod to be any Act of theirs Philpot urged it was because the Synodal Authority saith he was committed to certain persons to be appointed by the Kings Majesty to make such Spiritual Laws as they thought convenient and necessary Which Argumentation of Philpots seems to be approved by Dr. Fern in Consid upon the Reform 2. chap. 9. sect Here then the Synod grants Authority in Spiritual matters that they know not who shall in their name establish that which they please without the Synods knowing either what Laws shall be made or who shall make them which is against the First and Second Thesis and is far from adding any just authority to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of those times or to any Acts which are thus only called Synodal because the Synod hath in general given away their Power to those who make them afterward as themselves think fit Whereas to make an Act lawfully Synodical the Consent of the Clergy must be had not to nominate in a Trust which Christ hath only committed to themselves in general another Law-giver viz. the King or his Commissioners for thus King Edward will choose Cranmer and Ridley and Queen Mary will choose Gardiner and Bonner to prescribe Laws for the Church but to know approve and ratify in particular every such Law before it can be valid § 44 Besides these Acts of Parliament and Synod the manner of Supremacy then ascribed to the Prince yet further appears in the Imprisonment of Bishop Bonner in the First year of King Edward for making such an hypothetical Submission as this to the Kings Injunctions and Homilies then by certain Commissioners sent unto him I do receive these Injunctions and Homilies See Fox p. 1192. with this Protestation that I will observe them if they be not contrary and repugnant to Gods Law and the Statute and Ordinance of the Church the fault imputed here to him I suppose being that he refused to obey any Injunctions of the King when repugnant to the Statute and Ordinance of the Church for which Fox calls this Protestation Popish But the manner of this Supremacy appears yet more specially in the several Articles proposed to be subscribed by Bishop Gardiner § 45. n 1. upon his refusing to execute or submit to divers particular Injunctions of King Edward in Spiritual matters imposed upon the Clergy the Subscription required of him was To the Book of Homilies affirmed to contain only godly and wholsome Doctrine and such as ought by all to be embraced To new Forms of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments and to the denyal of Real Presence or of Transubstantiation if any thing in that Form may may be said to oppose either of these To the new Form of Consecration of Bishops and Priests To the disannulling and abolition of the former Church Liturgy and Canon of the Mass and of the Litanies to Saints and Rituals of the Church To the abolition of Sacred Images and Sacred Relicks To the permission of Marriage to the Clergy To the acknowledging that the Statute of the Six Articles was by Authority of Parliament justly repealed and dis-annulled To the acknowledging that the appointment of Holy-days and Fasting-days as Lent and Ember-days and the dispensing therewith is in the Kings Majesty's Authority and Power as Supreme Head of the Church of England To the acknowledging that Monastick Vows were Superstitious and the Religious upon the dissolution of their Monasteries lawfully freed from them as likewise that the suppressing and dissolution of Monasteries and Convents by the King was done justly and out of good reason and ground For all which see the Copy of the Second and of the Last Articles sent to Bishop Gardiner in Fox p. 1234 and 1235. In which Articles the Kings Supremacy is thus expressed in the Second of the First Articles sent to him That his Majesty as Supreme Head of the Church of England hath full Power and Authority to make and set forth Laws Injunctions and Ordinances concerning Religion and Orders in the said Church for repressing of all Errors and Heresies and other enormities and abuses so that the same alteration be not contrary or repugnant to the Scripture and Law of God as is said in the Sixth of the Second Articles sent to this Bishop Now how far this repressing and reforming of Errors c. claimed by the King did extend we may see in those points but now named In the Fifth That all Subjects who disobey any his said Majesties Laws Injunctions Ordinances in such matters already set forth and published or hereafter to be set forth and published ought worthily to be punished according to his Ecclesiastical Law used within this his Realm Again in the 7.11 12.14.16 of the Third Articles sent to the same Bishop That the former Liturgies of the Church Mass-Books c that the Canons forbidding Priests Marriage c are justly taken away and abolish'd and the new Forms of Common-Prayer and of Consecration of Bishops and Priests are justly established by Authority of Parliament and by the Statutes and Laws of this Realm and therefore ought to be received
a Lay Vicar-General and p. 20 That the Power and Reputation of the Clergy was under foot and therefore the Authority of Parliament of more use than afterward in times well ballanced and established meaning those following times wherein the Clergy were now changed and fashioned to the inclinations of the Prince And as for these days of King Edward what Authority concerning Spiritual matters not only the people but the new Divines of Edward acknowledged and enstated in the King and Parliament may appear from that Letter of Bishop Hooper when in Prison sent to the Synod called in the beginning of Queen Mary Episcopis Decanis wherein he cites them before the High Court of Parliament â—ox p. 1933. as the competent Judge in those Controversies i. e for so far as any man can be Judge In this Letter after having urged Deut. 17.8 because of the mention made there of a Judge besides the Priest Voâ— omnes saith he obtestor ut causam hanc vel aliam quamcunqne ob religionem ortam inter nos vos deferre dignemini ad supremam Curiam Parliamenti ut ibi utraque pars coram sacro excelso senatu sese religiosè animo submisso judicio authoritati Verbi Dei subjiciat Vestra ipsorum causa certè postulat ut palam e. c lites inter nos componantur idque coram competenti judice Quid hoc est igitur Quo jure contenditis Vultis nostri causae nostrae testes accusatores judices esse Nos tantùm legem evangelium Dei in causà religionis judicem competentem agnoscimus Illius judicio stet vel cadat nostra causa Tantum iterum atque iterum petimus ut coram competenti judice detur nobis amicum Christianumque auditorium Non vos fugit quomodo publicè palam in facie ac in presentiâ omnium statuum hujus regni in summâ curià Parliamenti veritas verbi Dei per fidos doctos pios ministros de vestrâ impiâ Missâ gloriosè victoriam reportavit Quae quocunque titulo tempore universalitate splenduit ubi per Sanctissimum Regem Edvardum 6. ad vivum lapidem Lydium verbi Dei examinari per proceres heroas ac doctos hujus regni erat mandatum statim evanuit c. Here that Bishop professeth when any do oppose a Synod in a Cause of Religion not the Synod but the Parliament the competent Judge therein and urgeth if I rightly understand him the just Authority thereof in King Edward's time for putting down the Mass Will he then stand to the Parliaments judgment which as it was then affected would have cast him It seemeth Not by that he faith Tantum legem Dei in causâ religionis judicem competentem agnoscimus Illius judicio stet vel cadat causa nostra By whose mouth then shall the Scripture decide it that Sentence may be executed accordingly on him a Prisoner for this Controversy By the Clergy's No. By the Parliament's No for he makes sure to wave that in his Letter By the Scripture then its self But this is urged by both sides to speak for them and saith not one word more after the Cause heard by the Parliament than it did before So that in nominating no other final Judge the Bishops Request here in summe is that his Cause may never be tryed by any Judge CHAP. V. King Edward's Supremacy disclaimed by Qu. Mary § 48 AFter King Edward's Death in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign a Princess otherwise principled The former Supremacy Disclaimed by Q. Mary and by the Bishops in her days and the Popes Supremacy re-acknowledged all that had been done in the Two former Kings Reigns by Prince by State or by Clergy in setting up a new Lay-Supremacy in Spirituals in restraining the former Power and Supremacy of the Church in innovating the Forms of Divine Service and Administration of the Sacraments of Ordination of Church Rites and Discipline and Jurisdiction in disannulling several former Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions and composing new ones All was now by an equal Authority of Prince Clergy and State reversed repealed ejected and Religion only rendred much poorer as for Temporals put into the same course which it had in the twentieth Year of Henry the Eighth before a new Wife or a new Title was by him thought on So that any new Reformation to come afterward must begin to build clearly upon a new Foundation not able to make any use of the Authority of the former Structure being now by the like Authority defaced and thrown down § 49 This Restitution of things made in Queen Mary's days will chiefly appear to you in the Statute 1. Mar. 2. chap where the ancient Form of Divine Service c used in Henry the Eighths days is restored as being the Service saith the Act which we and our Fore-fathers found in this Church of England left unto us by the Authority of the Catholick Church And the final judgment of Ecclesiastical matters restored to the Church and several Acts of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth that abrogated some former Ecclesiastical Laws c or introduced new Forms of Divine Service of Election and Ordination of Bishops and Priests are repealed And in 1 and 2. Mar. 6. chap. where the ancient way of judging Heresies and Hereticks first at the Tribunals of the Church is set on foot again and the Statutes to this purpose which were repealed upon the coming in of a new Supremacy are revived § 50 And in 1 and 2. Mar. 8. c where the Pope's Supremacy is re-acknowledged when also as Fox observes p. 1296. the Queen's Stile concerning Supremacy was changed and in it Ecclesiae Anglicanae Supremum Caput omitted as also Bonner Bishop of London being Chief of the Province of Canterbury in the Restraint of the Arch-Bishop did omit in his Writs to the Clergy Authoritate Illustrissimae c legitime suffulttus In which Statute also the whole Nation by their Representative in Parliament ask pardon and absolution from their former Schism repealing the Oath of the Kings Supremacy and all the Acts made formerly in Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth's time against the Popes Supremacy and amongst them particularly this Act of the Submission of the Clergy set down before § 22. and § 23 whereby the Clergy had engaged themselves to make nor promulge no Ecclesiastical Canons without the Kings consent and bad also besought the King to delegate some persons whom he pleased to reform Errors Heresies c i e. to do the Offices of the Clergy In which Statute also the Clergy in a distinct Supplication beginning Nos Episcopi Clerus Cantuariensis Provinciae in hac Synodo congregati c calling the former Reformation perniciosum Schisma do petition to have the Church restored to her former Rights Jurisdictions Liberties taken from her by the injustice of former times The words are Insuper Majestatibus vestris supplicamus
just Authority of Queen Mary's Clergy Reply to α notwithstanding what hath been objected you must First 1. take notice That the Ejection of Bishops in Queen Mary's days was not the First but Second Ejection the first being made in King Edward's time when Gardiner Bonner Tonstal Day Heath Vesy That the Bishops in K Edward's days were not lawfully ejected and probably some other Bishops were removed from their Sees for I find not the Ecclesiastical History of those times accurately written by any nor Mr. Fox to use the same diligence in numbring the Change of Clergy under King Edward as he doth that under Queen Mary yet something may be conjectured from those general words of his p. 1180 For the most part the Bishops were changed and the dumb Prelate compelled to give place to others that would Preach Secondly That if the Ejection of Bishops in King Edward's time was not lawful so many of the Bishops as were then ejected were by Queen Mary justly restored and those who were introduced into their places justly excluded Thirdly That to prove the Ejection of those Bishops under King Edward lawful it must be done both by a lawful Authority and for a lawful Cause Fourthly But that in both these respects their Ejection if the Principles formerly laid in this Discourse stand good appears not just § 55 For 1. First these Bishops being questioned about matters Ecclesiastical and Spiritual 1. Neither for the Judge their Judges were the Kings Privy Council or his Commissioners part Clergy part Laity as the King pleased to nominate them contrary to Third Thesis Amongst whom tho the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was one yet he was so not for his Canonical Superiority in the Church but from the Authority he jointly with the rest received from the King when the former Statutes concerning the Tryal of Hereticks by the Clergy See Fox p. 1237 and p 1202. had been first abrogated See before § 39 whereas the Clergy only are the lawful Judges of these matters namely to declare what is done contrary to the Laws of God and of the Church and to depose from the exercise of their Office the persons found faulty therein See Thesis Third § 56 Secondly The Causes Ecclesiastical urged against them for which they were removed from their Bishopricks were these 2. Nor for the Cause their non-acknowledgment of such a large extended Power of the Kings Supremacy as he then claimed and exercised in Ecclesiastical matters their non-conformity to the Kings Injunctions confirmed if you will with the consent of the National Synod of the Clergy in Spiritual matters And amongst these especially their not relinquishing the usage of the former Church Liturgies and Forms of Divine Service and particularly the Canon of the Mass which had been a Service approved by the general Practice of the Church Catholick for near a 1000 Years in which were now said to be many Errors See Church Gâ—v 4. 〈◊〉 §. 39. for which it might not be lawfully used their not using and conforming to the new Form of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments the new Form of Consecration and Ordination of Priests and many other clear Innovations against the former not only Ecclesiastical Constitutions or External Rites and Ceremonies which it was affirmed in one of the Questions disputed on in the first Year of Queen Elizabeth that every particular Church hath Authority to take away and change but also Ecclesiastical Doctrines established by Synods superiour to that of this Nation as hath been shewed in the Fourth Part of Church Govern A Catalogue of which Doctrines and Canons I have set down before § 45 having taken them out of the Three Copies of Articles proposed to the then Bishop of Winchester See Fox p. 1234 1235. to be subscribed Now such Canons whether concerning matters of Doctrine or of Ecclesiastical Constitution cannot be lawfully abrogated neither by the King See Thesis 1 2.7 8 nor by the National Synods of this Church See Thesis 4.8 and therefore the Ejection of those Bishops in Edward the Sixth's days for not obeying the King I add or the National Synod had there been any such before their Ejection in breaking such Canons was unjust and therefore they justly by Queen Mary restored and the others that were found in their places justly dispossessed Fifthly As for the rest of King Edward's Bishops who besides those Bishops that possessed these non-vacant Sees were ejected in Queen Mary's days § 57 5. That the Bishops deprived in Qu. Mary's days were lawfully ejected their Ejection contrary to the other will be justifiable if done for a lawful Cause and by a lawful Judge 1. First then the Causes of their Ejection were these chiefly § 58 First For their being Married which many if not all the Ejected were Cranmer 1. Bâ—th as to the Cause Holgate the Arch-Bishop of York Coverdale Scory Barlow Hooper Farrar Harley Bird Bush and some of them after having taken Monastick Vows as Holgate Coverdale Barlow as appears in Fox and Godwin contrary to the Canons of the Church both Western and Eastern as to those that marry after having received Holy Orders both Modern and Ancient even before the Council of Nice as is shewed at large in the Discourse of Celibacy § 18 and contrary to the Provincial Canons of the Church of England See Fox p. 1051 and 177 granting Celibacy of the Clergy to have been established here for a Law by a National Synod in the time of Anselme Arch-Bishop of Canterbury about An. Dom. 1080 The Penalty of transgressing which Canons was Deposition from their Office See Conc. Constant in Trullo less strict in this matter than the Western Church Can. 6 Si quis post sui ordinationem conjugium contrahere ausus fuerit deponatur See the same in Concil Neocaesar before that of Nice Can. 1. Conc Elibert 33. c. Affrican Can. 37. And see the same in the Canon of Anselme that all Priests that keep Women shall be deprived of their Churches and all Ecclesiastical Benefices § 59 Secondly For their not acknowledging any Supremacy at all of the Roman Patriarch 2 more than of any other Forreign Bishop over the Clergy of England contrary to the former Canons of many lawful Superior Councils as is shewed in Church Gov. 1. Part. § 53. and also contrary to the former Provincial ones of the English Church And for their placing such an Ecclesiastical Supremacy in the Prince as to use all Jurisdiction to reform Heresy constitute or reverse Ecclesiastical Laws in the manner before expressed Which Supremacy in the Church since some body in each Prince's Dominion where Christians are ever had here on Earth under Christ I say ever not only after that Princes became Christian but before Arch-Bishop Cranmer rather than that he would acknowledge it at any time to have lain in the Church said that before the first Christian Emperors time it resided in the Heathen Princes
and namely in Nero for one affirming also the Grand Seignior now to be the Head of the Church in Turky as you may see in the Conference between Dr. Martin and him at his Tryal in Fox p. 1704. Which Relation if any think false let them say what other answer upon the former Suppositions there can rationally be returned § 60 3. For their refusing to officiate or celebrate Divine Service 3. and administer the Sacraments according to the former established Church Liturgies received and used by the whole Catholick Church for near a 1000 Years or so much as to be present at it which Divine Service they accused not only of many superstitious Ceremonies but of many Errors also and of flat Idolatry in the Adoration of Bread in the Eucharist See Fox his Preface to the Reign of Queen Mary p 1270 and Bishop Ridley's Conferences with Latimer Fox p. 1560 and 1562 1563. § 61 For their maintaining several Tenents 4. especially about the Holy Eucharist such as had been formerly declared Heresies by the Definitions of lawful Superior Councils As 1. First the denying of any corporal Presence of Christ either with the consecrated Elements or with the worthy Receiver whether by way of Transubstantiation or Consubstantiation urging that because this Body was in Heaven ergo it could not be in the Sacrament and affirming only a Real Presence I give you the very words of Bishop Ridley if taken generally and so as it may singnify any manner of thing which belongeth to the Body of Christ Hence Bishop Ridley's expressing of the manner of Christ's Presence in the Eucharist are such as these That the Consecrated Bread is the Body of Christ in remembrance of him and of his death That besides a signification of Christ's Body set forth by the Sacrament the Grace also of Christ's Body i e. the Food of Life and Immortality is given to the faithful That we recieve the vertue of the very Flesh of Christ the Life and Grace of his Body The Grace and the Vertue of his very Nature Spiritual Flesh but not that which was Crucified That Christ's Body is in the Sacrament because there is in it the Spirit of Christ i e. the Power of the word of God which seedeth and cleanseth the Soul That the Natural Body and Blood even that which was born of the Virgin Mary c is in the Sacrament verâ— realiter and that the difference from the Roman Church is only in modo in the way and manner of Being how is that for we saith he confess it to be there Spiritually by Grace and Efficacy because that whosoever receiveth worthily that Bread and Wine receiveth effectuously Christ's Body and Blood i e. he is made effectually Partaker of his Passion But otherwise Christ's Body is in the Sacrament really no more than the Holy Ghost is in the Element of Water in Baptisme therefore the Question proposed thus An Corpus Christi realiter adsit in Encharistiâ In King Edward's time was held Negatively See Disput. Oxon. 1549 and King Edw. 28. Article Thus Ridley who spake most clearly Fox p. 1703 and whose Schollar in this Opinion Cranmer was he being formerly a Lutheran and holding a Corporal Presence See these words of Ridley Fox p. 1598. in his last Examination and p. 1311 1312. in his stating of the first Question disputed on at Oxford which was not about Transubstantiation but about the Corporal Presence of Christ or the Real Presence of Christ's Body in the Eucharist which those Bishops denied as well as Transubstantiation The very same with whose Doctrine was that of Peter Martyr published in King Edward's days Disput Oxon 1â—49 Fol. 88. Illud idem corpus nos habere in coenâ Domini quod Christus obtulit in Cruce quoad substantiam veritatem naturae fateor sed non eodem modo quia spiritualiter i e. per fidem ipsi percipimus id vero substantiali corporali praesentiâ pependit in cruce Cum Chrysostomo id ipsum nos in Eucharistiâ habere corpus quod in Cruce fuit oblatum fatemur Sed non est modus recipiendi per praesentiam corpralem sed per praesentiam fidei quae potest res absentes spiritualiter praesentes facere Secondly The denying that the Eucharist might be offered as a Sacrifice propitiatory and asserting that there was in the Eucharist no other Oblation of Christ's Body than the Oblation of our Thanksgiving for Christ's Body offered on the Cross To use Peter Martyrs words Substantia hostiae nostrae est gratiarum actio de Corpore Christi tradito in Crucem Disput Oxon 1549. hac gratiarum actione fide atque confessione dixerunt Patres in Caenâ offerri corpus Christi Which matters are contrary to the Doctrines and Definitions of former lawful Superior Councils if those Positions stand good which have been said at large in the Discourse of the Eucharist §. 251 and Conc. Sacrif § _____ and which have been laid down concerning Councils in Ch. Gov. 4. Part which former Positions it must not be expected that I prove again wherever I make use of them § 62 To justify which Tenents not to be Heresies those Bishops were fain to appeal from Councils to Scripture and not to deny such Councils to be General or Superior but to deny the Authority of General or Superior Councils to be obliging when contrary to the Holy Scriptures i e. to that sense wherein themselves contrary to the Exposition of the Church interpreted the Holy Scriptures as was soberly urged to Bishop Ridley at his Tryal by the Bishop of Glocester Fox p. 1602. You saith he refusing the Determination of the Catholick Church bring Scripture for the Probation of your Assertions and we also bring Scriptures You understand them in one sense we in another How will you know the truth herein If you stand to your own Interpretation you are wise in your own conceit and Vae qui sapientes c. Isa 5.21 But if you say you will follow the minds of the Doctors and Ancient Fathers semblably you understand them in one meaning and we take them in another How will you know the truth herein If you stand to your own judgment then are you singular in your own conceit and cannot avoid the Vae It remaineth therefore that you submit your self to the determination and arbitrement of the Church with whom God promised to remain to the world's end Thus the other side argued with them But meanwhile what aversion they had of submitting to the judgment of the Church or Councils see in the forecited Conference of Bishop Ridley with Latimer Where having objected the Authority of General Councils for the Mass he answereth thus That whensoever they who rule and govern the Church are the lively Members of Christ and walk after the guiding and rule of his Word Councils gathered together of such Guides do indeed represent the Universal Church and have a
promise of the guiding of his Spirit into all truth But that any such Council hath at any time allowed the Mass c I affirm saith he to be impossible for Superstition i e. the Masy and the sincere Religion of Christ can never agree together For Determination of all Controversies in Christ's Religion Christ hath left unto the Church not only Moses and the Prophets to ask counsel at but also the Gospels Christ would have the Church his Spouse in all doubts to ask counsel at the word of his Father written Neither do we read that Christ in any place hath laid so great a Burthen upon the Members of his Spouse that he hath commanded them to go to the Universal Church It is true that Christ gave unto his Church some Apostles some Prophets c. But that all men should meet together out of all parts of the world to define of the Articles of our Faith I neither find it commanded of Christ nor written in the Word of God To which Bishop Latimer nexeth these words In things pertaining to God and Faith we must stand only to the Scriptures which are able to make us all perfect and instructed to Salvation if they be well understood And they offer themselves to be well understood only to those who have good wills and give themselves to study and Prayer neither are there any men less apt to understand them than the prudent and wise men of the world Thus Latimer in application of his Discourse to General Councils See likewise Bishop Ridley's Disputation at Oxford where being pressed with the Authority of the great Lateran Council Fox â— 1321. after having replyed that there were Abbots Priors and Friers in it to the Number of 800 he saith that he denyeth the Authority of this Council not so much for that cause as for this especially because the Doctrine of that Council agreed not with the word of God i e. as he understood this word Thus he who was counted the most Learned of those Bishops concerning the Authority of Councils See like matter in the Discourse between Lord Rich and Mr. Philpot Fox p. 1641. § 63 To proceed These Canons and Definitions I say not of Popes and Pontificians as they were ordinarily then Nick-named but of supposed former lawful Superior Councils were then in just force in Queen Mary's days notwithstanding any abrogation of them made by a National i e. an Inferior Synod See Thesis the Fourth and the Eighth as also was frequently urged against those questioned Bishops See the Examination of Arch Bishop Cranmer Fox p. 1702. where Dr. Story the Queens Commissioner thus objecteth but receives no answer there to it The Canons which be received of all Christendome compel you to answer For altho this Realm of late time thro such Schismaticks as you have exiled and banished the Canons yet that cannot make for you for you know that par in parem nec pars in totum aliquid statuere potest Wherefore this Isle being indeed but a Member of tire whole could not determine against the whole Thus Dr. Story Yet neither in Queen Mary's time could the Authority of a National Synod or an Act of Parliament be pleaded for such an abrogation of the old Canons or Liturgies or Supremacies and the establishment of new because both the Synod and Parliament of this Nation in the beginning of her Reign had pulled down again what those under King Edward and Henry had builded so that those Bishops could not hereupon ground their non-conformity which Argument Dr. Story there also prosecuteth against the Arch-Bishop § 64 Such as these then being the Causes of the Ejection of those Bishops I think it is evidenced And 2â—◠〈◊〉 to the Jâ—â—â— that they were Regularly and Canonically ejected as to the Cause And 2. Next so were they as to the Judge They being condemned as guilty of Heresy 2. or other Irregularities which are mulcted with Deposition and so ejected or also degraded and excommunicated with the greater Excommunication further than which the Ecclesiastical Power did not proceed not by any Secular Court or by the Queen's Commissioners but by those whom the Church hath appointed in the Intervals of Councils the ordinary Judges of Heresy or other Breaches of her Canons Amongst whom the highest Judges are the Patriarchs and above them the first Patriarch of Rome By whose Delegates the more Eminent Persons that were accused of Heresy the Arch-Bishop and the Bishops were here tryed according to the Authority shewed to be due to and to be anciently used by him in Chur. Gov. 1. Part. § 9.20 c and 2. Part § 77 and other Inferior Persons were tryed by the Bishop who was their Ordinary Queen Mary having revived the Statutes repealed by King Henry and Edward concerning the Tryal of Hereticks by the Church's Authority as hath been noted before § 49. The issue of which Tryal by the Church if they found guilty was either Deposition only from their Benefice and Office for Breach of her Canons or also Excommunication excommnnicatione majori and Degradation for Heresy and Opposition of her Definitions hi matters of Faith and so the yielding them up as now by degradation rendred Secular Persons to have inflicted on them by the Secular Power the punishments appointed for such crimes by the Secular Laws as you may see in the Forms of the Condemnation of Cranmer Ridley c Fox p. 1603 and elsewhere and in the Profession of the Bishop of Lincoln to Bishop Ridley Fox p. 1597. All saith he that we may do is to cut you off from the Church for we cannot condemn you to dy as most untruly hath been reported of us c. § 65 As for the burning of such afterward whom the Church first condemns of Heresy To β. it is to be considered Where Concern the buâ—â—ing of those whâ— in Q. Mary days were by the Câ—u condemned of Heresy That the Secular Laws not Ecclesiastical appoint it and the Secular Magistrates not Ecclesiastical execute it Again That Protestant Princes as well as Catholick King Edward King James Queen Elizabeth as well as Queen Mary have thought fit to execute this Law upon Hereticks So in Edward the Sixth's days Joan of Kent Anne Askews Maid who was burnt in Henry the Eighth's days for denying the Real Presence and George Paris were burnt for Hereticks Fox p. 1180 And some other Anabaptists condemned and recanting were enjoined to bear their Faggots See Stow p. 596. And in Henry the Eighth's time Arch-Bishop Cranmer in the Kings presence disputed against Jo. Lambert for denying the Real Presence and the Lord Cromwel pronounced Sentence upon him to be burnt for it Fox p. 1024 1026. And the same Arch-Bishop being as yet only a Lutheran saith Fox p. 1115 prosecuted others upon the same grounds and also in the beginning of King Edward's Reign before that the Protector and his Party appeared much for Zuinglianisme committed to the Counter
Thomas Dobb a Master of Art upon the same Account who also dyed in Prison Fox p. 1180. In Queen Elizabeth's days one Jo. Lewes and Matthew Hammond were burnt for Hereticks after they were first condemned by the Bishop and so delivered over to the Secular Power as those were in Queen Mary's Reign So also was Hacket executed then partly for Heresy and Blasphemy See Hollin Qu. Eliz. A. Reg. 21. 25. and Two Brownists Coppin and Thocker hanged at St. Edmunds-bury An. Dom. 1583 for Publishing Brown's Book written against the Common-Prayer-Book Likewise several others in her time condemned and recanting bare their Faggots See Stow p. 679 680. Stow p. 1174 Cambden 's Hist Eliz. p. 257. In King James's time Bartholomew Legat was burnt for an Heretick And in his time An. 3. Jac. 4. c. a Law was Enacted concerning Hanging Drawing and Quartering any who should turn Papist and be reconciled to the Pope and See of Rome tho a meer Laick tho one taking the Oath of Allegiance as several reconciled do The Words are If any shall be willingly reconciled to the Pope or See of Rome or shall promise Obedience to any such pretended Authority that every such Person or Persons shall be to all intents adjudged Traytors Is not this putting to death for pretended Heresy And to a Death worse than Burning So in Protestant States abroad Servetus by that of Geneva Valentinus Gentilis by that of Berne were burnt for Hereticks Calvin approving § 66 This to shew the Protestant's judgment concerning the justness and equity of the Law of burning Hereticks But whether this Law in it self be just and again if just whether it may justly be extended to all those simple People put to death in Queen Mary's days such as St. Austine calls Haereticis credentes because they had so much Obstinacy as not to recant those Errors for which they saw their former Teachers Sacrifice their Life especially when they were prejudiced by the most common contrary Doctrine and Practice in the precedent times of Edward the Sixth and had lived in such a condition of life as neither had means nor leisure nor capacity to examine the Church's Authority Councils or Fathers ordinarily such persons being only to be reduced as they were perverted by the contrary fashion and course of the times and by Example not by Argument either from reason or from authority and the same as I say of these Laity may perhaps also be said of some illiterate Clergy whether I say this Law may justly be extended to such and the highest suffering death be inflicted especially where the Delinquents so numerous rather than some lower Censures of Pecuniary Mulcts or Imprisonment these things I meddle not with nor would be thought at all in this place to justify Tho some amongst those unlearned Lay-people I confess to have been extreamly Arrogant and obstinate and zealous beyond knowledge and tho they had suffered for a good Cause yet suffering for it on no good or reasonable ground as neither themselves being any way Learned nor pretending the Authority of any Church nor relying on any present Teachers but on the certainty of their own private judgment interpreting Scripture as you may see if you have a mind in the Disputations of Anne Askew Fox p. 1125. Woodman the Iron-maker Fox p. 1800. Fortune the Smith Fox p. 1741. Allen the Miller Fox p. 1796. and other Mechanicks with Bishops and other Learned Men concerning the lawfulness of the Mass the Authority of the Church the Number of the Sacraments the manner or possibility of Christ's Presence in the Eucharist c themselves afterward penning or causing to be penned you may judge with what Integrity the Relations which we have of the said Disputations See more concerning the erroneous zeal of such like Persons in Fox Monuments later Edition Vol. 3. Fol. 242. 286. 396. 886. § 67 This concerning the lawful Ejection of those Protestant Bishops in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign And therefore others lawfully introduced in their places To. γ. 1. which if lawful so also will be the introduction of those who were chosen in their rooms tho this Introduction was * 1. whilst they Living or * 2. without their or the Metropolitan's Consent 1. Tho whilst they Living if such Election of them be after that the other are justly ejected Of this none can doubt Now most of the Protestant Bishops were ejected at the very beginning of Queen Mary's days for being married tho some of them not so speedily sentenced for Heresy But suppose the Introduction of the other was whilst they living and before their lawful Ejection yet these Bishops that are so unjustly I grant introduced if after that the others are ejected then their Superiors having the power to elect into such place do acknowledge and approve them from thence forward begin to be legitimate and enjoy a good Title § 68 2. To δ. 2. Tho without their or the Metropolitan's Consent For if the Arch-Bishop without whose consent the Canon permitteth not any Bishop to be consecrated in his Province be upon just cause and especially upon suspicion of Heresy in any restraint so as he cannot safely be suffered either in respect of the Church or State any longer to execute his office till cleared of such guilt here his Office is rightly administred as in Sede vacante by some other whether it be by some Bishop of the Province his Ordinary Vice-gerent or Substitute in such Cases or by the Delegates of that Authority which in the Church is Superior to the Arch-Bishops or by the consent of the major part of the Bishops of such Province And so Arch-Bishop Cranmer being at Queen Mary's first Entrance accused 1. of being Married an Irregularity incurring Deposition and also confessed and 2. of Treason and 3. of Heresy and for the Second of these being by the Queen's Council immediately imprisoned and shortly after condemned to dye before the Consecration of any new Bishop his Office was now lawfully supplyed by another either by Cardinal Pool the Popes Legat or by the Bishop the next dignified Person after the Arch-Bishop in the Province or by whomsoever the Queen should depute as for any exceptions that the Arch-Bishop could make against it since he acknowledged her for the Supreme Head of the English Church Or if notwithstanding such his restraint or condemnation according to the Canon no new Bishop could be made without the Arch-Bishop's consent yet could Arch-Bishop Cranmer justly claim no such Authority from the Canon as indeed he never did 1. Because he held the abrogation of such Canons to be in the Power of the Prince as the Supreme Head of this Church at least when assisted with the Parliament and major part of the Clergy And so then was this arguing ad homines abrogated by Queen Mary appointing allowing these new Elections 2. Because he had consented to the Statutes made formerly 25. Hen. 8.20 c. and 1
Edw. 6.2 where the Arch-Bishop is necessitated to consecrate such person as the King from whom all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction is derived shall present or he refusing the King may appoint any other two Bishops for him to do it in his stead ergo so might Queen Mary according to these Statutes § 69 Thus much That Queen Mary's Clergy were a lawful Clergy which indeed except for a few and those not yet chosen or acting in the beginning of her Reign cannot be called in question and That their reversing the former Constitutions of Henry the Eighth or Edward the Sixth's Clergy as to the Authority that did it was a lawful Synodical Act. But in the next place suppose that the Queen had acted singly without or against her Clergy but with the Approbation of those Governors in the Church Catholick as are the lawful Superiors to this Clergy in re-establishing the former Profession of Religion used in Henry the Eighth's time before the Reformation yet so far as this Profession is evident to have been according to the Constitutions of the Church and of former Synods Superior to the Synods of this Nation which Constitutions do therefore stand still in their just force this Act of hers would still be justifiable because Sovereigns have such a Supremacy acknowledged by all due unto them as to use a Coactive Power in causing the Execution within their Dominions of such Church Canons as are granted to be in force without any inferiour further Licence or consent thereto Nor is this doing any more than if the King of England now re-established in his Throne should without or against the Vote of the present Ministery heâ—e restore the Bishops and the Ecclesiastical Laws again to their former office and vigour which these men never had any just or superior Authority to displace or abrogate CHAP. VI. The former Supremacy re-assumed by Qu. Elizabeth § 70 IN the last place we come to the times of Queen Elizabeth where we find by the Authority of the Queen and her Parliament 3. What Supremacy claimed c in the times of Q. Eliz. all the repeals of the Statutes of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth in order to the Regal Supremacy and Reformation which Repeals were made in Queen Mary's days now again repealed except in Two 26. Hen. 8.1 c. and 35. Hen. 8.3 c. which give to Henry the Eighth the Title of Head of the Church of England which was changed by the Queen into that of Governor as better befitting a Woman As for Bishop Bramha's Observation of Two other Statutes of Henry the Eighth unrestored by Queen Eliz. 28. Hen. 8.10 c. An Act saith he of extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome out of this Realm and 35. Hen. 8.5 c. An Act made for Corroboration of the former if you please to view them and compare with them 1 Eliz. 1. c. you will find the cause to be not the Queens preserving and retaining here any Authority of the Pope which Henry renounced but the Six Articles in the one and the old Forms of Oaths in the other thought fit by her to be laid aside and all the Power and Priviledges whatsoever of Supremacy in Ecclesiasticals that were conceded to Henry the Eighth or Edward the Sixth That as ample a Supreacy was claimed by Parliament conferred oâ— her as on K. Hen. or Ed. as fully transferred to Queen Elizabeth For which see the Act 1. Eliz. 1. c. see the same 8. Eliz. 1. c. running thus That all Jurisdictions Priviledges Superiorities Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power hath heretofore been exercised for the Visitation of Ecclesiastical State and Persons and for Reformation Orders and Correction of the same and of all manner of Errors Heresies Schisms c shall for ever by Authority of this Parliament be united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And that your Highness your Heirs c shall have full Power and Authority by vertue of this Act to name and authorize such persons as your Majesty shall think meet without any being obliged as Henry the Eighth was that half the number should be of the Clergy to exercise and execute under your Highness all manner of Jurisdictions Priviledges and to visit reform and amend all such Errors Heresies Schisms c which by any manner Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power may lawfully be reformed and that such persons shall have full power by vertue of this Act to execute all the Premises any matter or cause to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding Provided always that no manner of Order Act or Determination for any matter of Religion or cause Ecclesiastical made by the Authority of this present Parliament shall be adjudged i. e by those persons at any time to be any Error Heresy Schism c any Decree Constitution or Law whatsoever the same be to the contrary notwithstanding this Proviso perhaps was put in because all the Bishops that were in the Parliament opposed this Statute See Cambden 1. Eliz. Provided again that such persons authorized to reform c shall not in any wise have Authority to determine or adjudge any matter or cause to be Heresy I suppose by Heresy is meant here any Error contrary to what ought to be believed and practised in Divine matters but only Such as heretofore have been determined to be Heresy by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first Four General Councils or by any other General Councils wherein the same is declared Heresy by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures or Such as hereafter shall be judged and determined to be Heresy by the High Court of Parliament of this Realm with the assent of the Clergy in their Convocation here therefore nothing whether by the Clergy or other could be de novo declared or adjudged Heresy unless the High Court of Parliament also adjudged it to be so § 71 In the same Statute concerning the Extent of the Queen's Supremacy it is expresly ordained That the Branches Sentences and words of the said several Acts i. c. made in Henry the Eighth's time touching Supremacy and every one of them shall be deemed and taken to extend to your Highness as fully and largely as ever the same Acts did extend to the said late King Henry the Eighth your Highnesses Father The same thing also appears in the Queen's Admonition annexed to her Injunctions to prevent any sinister Interpretations of the Oath of Supremacy then imposed which saith That the Queen's Majesty informed that some of her Subjects found some scruple in the Form of this Oath c would that all her loving Subjects should understand that nothing was is or shall be meant or intended by the same Oath to have any other Duty or Allegiance required by that Oath than was acknowledged to be due to King Henry the Eighth her Majesty's Father or King Edward the Sixth her Majesty's Brother It proceeds shewing
those scruples that were made by some against the Oath And further her Majesty forbiddeth her Subjects to give credit to such persons See Canâ—od Hâ—st Elâ—z p. 20. who notify to her Subjects how by the words of the said Oath it may be collected that the Kings or Queens of this Realm may challenge authority of Ministery of Divine Offices in the Church Wherein her Subjects be much abused For her Majesty neither doth nor ever will challenge any other Authority than that was challenged and lately used by King Henry and King Edward which is and was of ancient time due to the Imperial Grown of this Realm that is under God to have the Sovereignty and Rule over all manner of persons born within these her Realms whether Ecclesiastical or Temporal so as no other Sovereign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them but this Sovereignty and Rule I suppose must be understood to extend to all the Particulars which Queen Elizabeth 's Statute but now recited alloweth to belong to it and wherein Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth used or were allowed it And if any Person who hath conceived any other sense of the Form of the said Oath i. e. that in it the Queen challenged Authority of Ministery of Divine Offices in the Church shall accept the same Oath with this interpretation sense or meaning i. e. that she had such Sovereignty as was challenged and lately used by her Father and Brother Her Majesty is well pleased to accept every such Person in that behalf as her Obedient Subject Thus the Admonition and the same is said in the Statute 5. Eliz. 1. c referring to the Admonition That none other Authority was by that Oath acknowledged in her Majesty than that which was challenged and used by those Two Kings See likewise 1 Eliz. 1. c the Repeal of the former way of the Tryal of Hereticks that was revived according to the former Statutes by Queen Mary leaving the Supremacy in Spirituals to Church-men § 72 Neither do the several things Where Concerning certain qâ—alifications of her Supremacy urged by the Reformed that are noted by Dr. Fern in his Examen of Champny 9. c. § 16.20 and others as qualifications and bounds of the Supremacy of Queen Elizabeth seem to come home to their purpose so far as to render it justifiable There are urged by them 1. The Stile she used in calling her self not Supream Head but only Supream Governor 2. The Words in the Admonition viz. Her Majesty doth not challenge any other Authority than under God to have the Sovereignty and Rule over all manner of Persons c as the words are recited but now 3. The words of the 37. Article of the Church of England relating to these of the Admonition We give not to our Princes the ministring either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testify but that only Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil Doers 4. The Qualification of the Authority of the Queen's Commissioners to judge or determine Heresies Provided always that such persons authorized c. See the Words quoted before § 70. § 73 But to these it is rationally replyed And the Replies to them Reply to the First To the First That if the same and as much power be still signified by the Queen's Title now as was before by the other which hath been shewed but now in the Statute in the Admonition c what matters the varying of words that alters nothing in the sense Neither is the Title of Head of the Church so it be understood subordinate to Christ incompetent to some person or other here on earth § 74 To the Second To the 2d That the words quoted out of the Admonition may indeed be taken in such a general sense that all sides will willingly subscribe to For the Queen hath a Sovereignty and Rule over all manner persons born within her Realms so i. e. in such manner as no other Forreign Sovereign Power hath namely in this manner to punish her Subjects whatsoever with the Temporal Sword either for the Breach of the Church's Canons and Decrees or for the Breach of her own Laws Again That the words may be taken in such a sense as that tho they signified no more of which presently yet none can justly subscribe them supposing those things true concerning the Western Patriarch and concerning Superior Councils and concerning Church Constitutions which are laid down in the First and Second Part of Church Government and in the Fourth and Eighth Thesis namely if they be taken in this sense That no Forreign Power hath any Ecclesiastical Superiority or Jurisdiction in any manner whatsoever over the Church of England without reflecting on this Controversy at all namely Whether the Sovereign Power here at home for the judging and reforming of what is Error Heresy Superstition c and for the abrogating or establishing the former Liturgies of the Church Canons of Superior or also National Synods doth lye in the Prince or in some others viz the Clergy of this Nation or also in the Parliament or in all these jointly so that the Clergy can do none of these things without the Prince or Parliament nor Prince without the major part of Clergy But these Two Senses of these words of which the later is not justifiable are both of them too much restrained in respect of the intent of this Admonition as may be gathered from the Precedents in the same Admonition where the Queen's Sovereignty is extended to all the Particulars wherein Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth used or were allowed it And from the Statute 1. Eliz. 1. but now recited which surely this Admonition was not written to contradict or repeal And from the ordinary practice of these Princes which shall be more shewed anon without which Practice such Reformation could not have been effected and therefore this Practice must be justified And from the Testimony of the Protestant Writers who vindicate and maintain a Supremacy of a much larger extent and answerable to the Expressions in the Acts of Parliament even to the Prince's not only ruling over all Persons Ecclesiastical but judging and determining in matters Ecclesiastical what therein is Dissonant from or Consonant to Gods Word and then establishing it in their Dominions tho contrary to former Church Canons tho without or against the Vote of the major part of their own Clergy as shall be shewed below § 203 c which thing also is maintained to have been done by the Holy Kings of Israel § 75 To the Third the same may be repeated which is said to the
displease Mr. Fox After the taking away of which Cromwel the State of Religion more and more decayed during all the residue of the Reign of King Henry And amongst these Adversaries was Stephen Gardiner who brought the King at length clean out of credit with the Reformed Religion c. Thus Fox describes the Steerers of the King in his Determinations concerning Church matters And had Mr. Fox been of another perswasion you would have found in his Stile the Lord stirring up the zealous Bishop of Winchester Gardiner and Satan raising Cromwel the Pestilent Adversary of True Religion § 35 And somewhat like to Mr. Fox's is that Saying of Old Latimer to Ridley p. 1562 to shew the miserable fluctuating of this Nation after its having left the rest of the Body of the Church and set up a new Head for its self I refer you saith he to your own Experience to think of our Country-Parliaments and Convocations how and what you have seen and heard The more part in my time did bring forth Six Articles for then the King would so have it being seduced of certain Afterward the more part did expel the same Articles our good Josias King Edward willing to have it so The same Articles now again alas when the Lay Supreme Head was removed another great but worse part hath restored O what an Uncertainty is this Now to proceed in our Story § 86 By vertue of such Supremacy King Henry took away the just Authority of the Patriarch established by Councils In the consecrating and confirming of Bâ—shops and Metropolitan for Confirmation of Metropolitans in this Church subject to his Patriarchy and necessitated also his own Clergy under the Penalty of incurring a Premunire to consecrate and invest into Bishopricks and Arch-Bishopricks void any Person whatever whom he should nominate and present Sec. before §. 29. He also took away the Patriarchs Authority for the receiving of Appeals and exercising final Judicature in Spiritual Controversies contrary to what is shewed in Chur. Gov. 1. Part And also took away the final judging and decision of such Controversies not only from the Patriarch in particular but also from all the Clergy in general not making the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury or Convocation but himself or his Substitutes the ultimate Judges thereof See Statute 25. Hen. 8 19. c. § 31. contrary to the First and Second Theses § 87 By vertue of such a Supremacy and Headship over this Church It the putting down of Monasteries c. he took Possession of all the Monasteries and Religious Houses of this Land which were very numerous small and great and likewise of all Chaunteries Free-Chappels Hospitals Colledges except those of the Two Universities which upon their humble Addresses made to the King were reprieved Herb. Hist Hen. 8. p. 537 of their Lands and Goods Places dedicated to Pious and Sacred uses and put into the hands of the Church as by the gift of the Doners so not without the consent of the Prince Their Buildings he caused to be defaced their Churches demolished Their Lands he enjoyed himself setting up a Court of Augmentation of the Revenues of the Crown or sold or gave to particular Families of the Laity Cromwel telling him that the more had interest in them the more they would be irrevocable to them and their Heirs without any condition advantageous to Religion Learning or Charity save only one that Hospitality and Husbandry should be preserved by them which he cautioned upon the Penalty of paying every Month 6. l. 13. s. 4. d for which reason the King is said to have passed them away at such easy Rates Lord Herbert p. 376. Which Forfeitures upon the Hospitality and Husbandry neglected being very great were abolished by King James at the Supplication of the Parliament 21. Jac. 28. c. And all this he did without any benefit returned to Gods Service or to the Church in lieu thereof save only that having possessed himself of 645 Monasteries 90 Colledges in several Shires 110 Hospitals 2374 Chaunteries and Free-Chappels the yearly value of all which is cast up to have been 161100 l. Besides the Plate Church-Ornaments and Treasure given in Honor of some Saints Besides the Money made of Timber Lead Bells Besides the Stock also of Cattle and Corn the Goods and Chattles of the 376 smaller Monasteries being valued at a low rate at 100000 l. I say Herâ—â—377 having possessed himself of all this he is said to have returned to Pious Uses some 8000 l. per annum perhaps about a Thirtieth part of what he took away in erecting some new Bishopricks of Oxford Peterborough Chester Bristol and Gloucester and in changing of the former Monks of many of the Ancient Cathedral Churches into a Dean and Canons See for what is said Cambd. Brit. and Lord Herb. p. 377. 443 444. Neither doth the Parliament in giving their consent to such alienation caution any further concerning Pious Uses save only that the King should do and use therewith his own Will to the pleasure of Almighty God and to the honor and profit of the Realm See Statute 27. Hen. 8. 28. He freed and dismissed the Religious therein from observing those Rules of Poverty and Obedience in a Monastick Life which they had before solemnly vowed I suppose by vertue of that dispensative Power which he finding annexed to the Pope's conceived that he inherited by his Supremacy See Fox p. 1235. where 't is said That the Persons therein bound and professed to Obedience to a person place habit c upon the dissolution appointed by the Kings Majesty's Authority as Supream Head of the Church are clearly released c. All which things are done by him contrary to the Definitions and Canons of the Church in former Councils concerning their Interpretation of Sacriledge and concerning the unlawful alienation of things and non-violation of persons once dedicated and consecrated to God And all which things were done by him without any Concession or Approbation that I can find even of the particular Clergy of this Nation and with the great grief of the People saith Lord Herb p. 377. those who got nothing by this Plunder to see the Monks and Nuns wandring abroad and the Churches and Chappels perverted to secular and profane Vses § 88 For these things see the Relation of zealous Mr. Fox p. 976. Shortly after the overthrow of the Pope saith he consequently began by litle and litle to follow the ruine of Abbies and other Religious Houses in England in a right Order and Method by Gods Divine Providence For neither could the fall of Monasteries have followed after unless that the Suppression of the Pope had gone before neither could any true Reformation of the Church have been attempted unless the Subversion of these Superstitious Houses had been joyned therewith with Whereupon the same Year the King having Tho. Cromwel of his Council sent Dr. Lee to visit the Abbies Priories and Nunneries in all England and
to set at liberty all such Religious Persons as desired to be free and all other that were under the Age of 24 Years providing withal that such Monks Canons and Fryars as were dismissed should have given them by the Abbot or Prior instead of their habit a Secular Priests Gown and Forty Shillings of Money and likewise the Nunns to have such Apparel as Secular Women did then commonly use and be suffered to go where they would Cromwel saying Lord Herb. pag. 462. That this Expulsion of the Monks c was no more than a restoring them to their first Institution of being Lay and labouring Persons and that they might keep the austerity of life in their several Orders enjoyned them in any condition At which time also from the said Abbies and Monasteries were taken their chief Jewels and Relicks And see the words of the Statute 31. Hen. 8.13 c where all and singular Religious Persons of what Order Rule or Habit soever are said to be put at their liberties from the danger servitude and condition of their Religion and Profession whereunto they were professed and have free liberty given them to purchase to them and their Heirs in Fee-Simple Fee-Taile c Mannors Lands c. in like manner as tho they or any of them had never been professed nor entred into any such Religion And for the ground of all this viz. The Kings conceived lawful Church Supremacy to act such things see some of the Forms of the Monks Resignations transcribed by Mr. Fuller Chur. Hist 6. l. p. 321. which runs thus Whereas your Highness being Supream Head immediately after Christ of his Church in this your Realm of England and so consequently general and only Reformator of all Religious Persons there have full Authority to correct or dissolve at your Grace's Pleasure and Liberty all Convents and Religious Companies abusing the Rules of their Profession c therefore c. § 89 Now the whole carriage and pretence of the dissolution of these Religious Places The Pretences thereof if you desire to know the Particulars was this The King tho having left to him a very great Treasure by his Father Henry the Seventh yet by his high Expences and frequent-Engagements in Forreign Wars and the Interests of Neighbor Princes became very necessitous and for the continuance of the like Expences stood in need of an extraordinary recruit Whereupon as some think he was first invited to this Act by those 40 smaller Monasteries which he saw Wolsey who likewise had much used in this Affair his diligent Servant Cromwel had obtained by grant from the Pope Clement the Seventh to translate this Means of some of those Houses of Devotion which in this Nation abounded to the maintenance of two Colledges built by him for the advancement of Learning of which Houses there was more scarcity And he is said to have been excited also thereto by Cromwel who was now after Wolsey's fall the Kings Servant one already experienced in this matter and who could best inform concerning the Treasure attainable thereby especially when the King being now invested with the Supremacy could confer on himself the same Dispensation for taking more which the Pope had done on Wolsey for a few The King knew also that he had the Laity and the Parliament ready to second him who were willing by any means to remove the burthen of furnishing the Kings necessities from themselves and to give up the Church's Patrimony to save their own and besides who in those days looked with no good Eye on the Authority of the Clergy against whom the Commons had formerly put up a Supplication to the King and the Wealth of the Monasticks Iord Herb. p. 329. Fox p. 960. and who also might expect no small share in this Booty And some reason he had also to hope for the connivance of the Clergy from the ancient difference that is between Regulars and Seculars and from these Religious Houses being exempted from the Jurisdiction and Visitation of Bishops and from the access of Benefit which they might hope from the others mine to some places of cure that were meanly provided for Add to this that the number of them in this Nation was conceived to be excessive in proportion to a well composed State so the multiplying of them accidentally being their destruction and Lastly that these Religious Houses were looked on as the chief Supporters of the Papal Supremacy and Opposers of the Regal Authority in matters Ecclesiastical and in Innovations in Religion their Vow of Obedience to their Superiors leaving them less flexible to change and their Vow of Poverty and Single Life less obnoxious to those fears in declaring of their minds which others are subject to in respect of their Estates and Posterity or their expectation of Preferments § 90 Swayed by these Motives yet the King invaded not all the Religious Houses in the Land at once but first began to take Possession of the smaller Ones such as were under 200 l. annual Revenue and this upon these Three Pretences see Statute 27. Hen. 8.28 c. 1. That the Persons living therein were very vicious whereas saith that Statute made for the alienation of these before the Attachment of the rest thought on in the great Solemn Monasteries of the Realm Thanks be to God Religion is right well kept and observed 2. That these small Societies were not so capable of Reformation as the greater 3. That the greater were not sufficiently replenished Whereupon saith that Statute the Lords and Commons by a great deliberation finally be resolved That it is and shall be much more to the Pleasure of Almighty God and for the Honor of this Realm that the Possessions of those small Religious Houses not being spent spoiled and wasted for the increase of maintenance of Sin mould be used and converted to better uses and the unthrifty Religious Persons so spending the same should be compelled to reform their lives § 91 But afterward the Revenue of these by the King sold spent or disposed-of the sweetness of such a considerable wealth already tasted the Kings great Expences very craving and his Courtiers and Favourites not yet satisfied from smaller beginnings he ascends higher and the great Monasteries also begin now to be looked after And now within three or four years they of the great Monasteries are so overgrown with vice that were so right before that complaints are made of them and Visitors Cromwel being made Visitor-General are sent both to discover their crimes and to restrain by certain Injunctions from the King their former liberty Amongst whom many hainous faults especially as for Incontinency are found out whilst the more notorious Offenders somewhat to excuse themselves impeached others and the Religious mutually recriminated one another Upon these Delinquencies now discovered in the great Houses as before in the lesser together with many impostures and falsifications of Miracles to procure greater resort and gain to such Houses Next the
last Speech in Parliament 1545 Lord Herb. p. 536. I am very sorry to know and hear how irreverently that most precious Jewel the Word of God is disputed and jangled in every Ale-house and Tavern contrary to the true meaning and doctrine of the same I am sure that vertuous and godly living was never less used nor God never less reverenced or honoured Thus King Henry And this to shew you how and when this vulgar Theology first began and how much then so early it was relented by the Magistrate § 108 By vertue of such a Supremacy these things that King did some of them against the Canons not of Popes but of the Church Catholick and of Superior Councils and as some of them with for he used the consent of his Convocation more than his Successor so others of them without the consent of his Clergy whom saith Lord Herb. p. 439. he every day more and more devested of their former Authority And for the beginnings of his Reformation Arch-Bishop Parker in his Antiquit. Brittan p. 325. saith that Cromwellus cum Cranmero Archiepiscopo tanquam in puppi sedit clavumque Ecclesiae Anglicanae tenuit Nam Praelatorum fides eo magis dubia incerta Regi visa est quod long â morâ difficultate tanquam taedio abducti sint a Papa sibique Supremi Capitis titulum detulissent But whether these things done with or without his Clergy yet the stile of his Injunctions sufficiently sheweth in what person the legislative power in Spiritual matters was then conceived to reside these Injunctions running authoritatively and for the submission of all mens judgments to them either in his own name single as the Church's Supreme Head or in the name of his Vicegerent in Ecclesiastical Affairs Cromwel who therefore is ordered 31. Hen. 8.10 c. in regard of this Office and all those who should succeed him therein to sit in the Parliament-house above the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury or in the name of the King and Parliament The usual Phrase of the King and Parliament in such Decrees you have seen in former instances where they do not ground these Decrees any further on the Authority of the Clergy save only on their recognizing of the Kings Supremacy upon which Supremacy all the rest are Super-structions § 103 Now hear the Stile of his Vicegerent Cromwel upon whom a Secular Person too and unlearned that the King should derive his whole Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and Authority you may read in Lord Herb. Hist p. 402 what a wonderment it caused amongst many as a thing in no other time or person to be parallelled neither in the much pleaded Patterns of the Kings of Israel nor in the former practice of Popes This Vicegerent thus prefaceth to the Injunctions that were published 1536. I Tho. Cromwel c Vicegerent to our Sovereign Lord the King for and concerning all his Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical within this Realm to the Glory of Almighty God to the Kings Highness's Honor the publick Weale of this Realm and increase of Vertue in the same have appointed and assigned these Injunctions ensuing to be kept and observed of the Dean Parsons Vicars c under the pains hereafter limited and appointed And the like Expressions much what are observed in the Injunctions set forth in 1538 〈◊〉 p. 1000 By the Authority and Commission of the most excellent Prince Henry in Earth Supreme Head under Christ of the Church of England I Tho. Cromwel Vicegerent c do for the discharge of the King's Majesty give and exhibit these Injunctions following to be kept and fulfilled c. First that ye shall truly observe all and singular the Kings Highness's Injunctions given unto you heretofore in my name by his Grace's Authority c. This is enough to shew where the legislative Power for Spiritual matters rested in Henry the Eighth's days After which Injunctions this is Mr. Fox's Epiphonema By these Articles and Injunctions saith he thus coming forth one after another for the necessary Instruction of the People but surely Mr. Fox had here forgot the Contents of the Kings first Articles which I mentioned before § 80. much contrary to the Reformed Doctrines conformable to the Romish it may appear how well the King deserved then the Title of his Supreme Government given unto him over the Church of England but to moderate Mr. Fox his Acclamations here let me put him in mind at another time in his esteem how ill he deserved it remembring his words set down before § 84. By the which Title and Authority he did more good for the redressing and advancing of Christ's Church and Religion here in England in those three years than the Pope the great Vicar of Christ with all his Bishops and Prelates had done in the space of three hundred years before CHAP. VIII The Actings of Edward the Sixth in Ecclesiastical Affairs THE Breach upon the Church's former Authority Doctrines § 104 and Practices being thus made by Henry the Eighth 2. The Actings of K. Edward in Ecclesiastical Affairs No marvel if by his Successors it was much enlarged Next then to look into the actions of Edward the Sixth with relation to Church affairs This Prince being not yet ten years old when he came to the Crown was chiefly directed and steered by Arch-Bishop Cranmer and by his Uncle the Duke of Somerset who was made Protector of his Person and Realm not by the will of Henry the Eighth who dreaded to trust any one person with this Charge but by the major part of those sixteen persons to whom in common he committed the government of his Son and Kingdome Of which Duke Mr. Fox saith p. 1180 and 1248 That he bare great favour to Gods word and that he brought with him to the State of that his Dignity his ancient love and zeal Of the Gospel and of Religion he means reformed The proof whereof saith he p. 1183.1184 was sufficiently seen in his constant standing to Gods truth and zealous defence thereof against the Bishops of Chichester Norwich Lincolne London and others moe in the consultation about composing a new form of administring the Sacrament had at Windsor in the first year of the King's Reign So inclined was the Protector and so inclined were many of the Council § 105. n. 1 and some of those who were otherwise yet openly complyed with the prevailing party for secular ends and amongst these even Dudley the great Duke of Northumberland the chief Agent in the later times of Edward who confessed so much at his death he then exhorting the people See Stow An. 1553. Fox p. 1280. and Goodwin p. 278. That they should embrace the Religion of their Forefathers rejecting that of later date which had occasioned all the miseries of the forepast thirty years i. e. from the beginning of Henry the Eighth's Supremacy and that for prevention for the future they should expel those Trumpets of Sedition the Preachers of the reformed Religion and declaring
compulsion See Fox p. 1212. I have offended no law saith she unless it be a late law of your own making for the altering matters of Religion which is not worthy to have the name of a Law both for c and for the partiality used in the same But I am well assured that the King his Fathers Laws were all allowed and consented to without compulsion by the whole Realm both Spiritual and Temporal c. Thus the Lady Mary An. Dom. 1549. which calls to my remembrance what Mr. Fox saith in commendation of the Protector Sec before §. â—04 That in the first consultation about Religion had at Windsor he in the zealous defence of Gods truth opposed the Bishops I have here on purpose thrown together thus many testimonies to give you a fuller view of the Clergy's temper in the time of those innovations and to manifest the more how neither the Prelates except those new ones whom King Edward advanced nor the inferiour Clergy neither at first nor at last were so conforming to the Kings proceedings as is pretended out of the charge against Winchester That the Injunctions were by all of all sorts obediently received c. § 126 To θ. 1. To θ. First That whereas there was many Acts of Reformation from time to time set forth by King Edward we do not find that the major part of the Clergy in any Convocation or Synod before the fifth year of the Kings Reign is pretended to have consented to any of them save one namely the new Form of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments in the second year of the King and that consent was also had after this Book was first passed and made a Law by Act of Parliament as may be gathered 1. Both by the Act which mentions only the composing of this Book by Bishops and other Learned men which were in all fourteen whereof seven Bishops two of which were Cranmer and Ridley but not any concurrence or authority of a Synod See Heylin Sect 5.7 3â— But had the decree of Synod preceded the Act of Parliament this which was more would rather have been mentioned than the other which was less and which Act also by vertue of it self see before § 40. not of arty Synodical Act confers authority on the Clergy to excommunicate the Opposers of this Common-Prayer-Book 2. And by the manner of sending to the Clergy the second reformed Common-Prayer-Book in the fifth year of King Edward which was authoritate Regis Parliamenti as you may see in the 36 of the 42 Articles Liber qui nuperrime authoritate Regis Parliamenti Ecclesiae Anglicanae traditus est similiter libellus eâdem authoritate editus de Ordinatione Ministrorum quoad doctrinae veritatem pii sunt c. Which stile differs much from either of these A Rege Farliamento Ecclesiae Anglicanae traditus i. e that it might be established by the Church's authority or Ab Ecclesiâ Anglicanâ Regi Parliamento propositus i. e that being established by the Church it might be enjoyned also under temporal punishments by the State Laws Neither do the words following in that Article see them recited before § 110. Express any authoritative ratification but only a single testimony of their judgment concerning those Forms or say any thing which any other person void of authority may not use Now of this consent of the Convocations An. 1549. to the Act of Parliament and to the draught of the fourteen Composers of the first Common-Prayer-Book a chief motive besides fear of punishment in disobeying the King and Parliaments Injunctions or Laws was as I conceive this because this new Form contained in it only the omission of some former practices of the Church as likewise the later Common-Prayer-Book more omissions but no declaration against any former Church-practice or Doctrine of which I shall say more by and by And had King Edward's Reformation been content to have staid here See §. 157. it had been much more tolerable tho these omissions I excuse not as faultless or not offending against former Church-Canons But his Reformation proceeded much further to the condemning also of the Church's tenents and practice which cannot be shewed to have been ratified by the first Clergy of King Edward till the fifth year of his Government of which I shall speak hereafter But as for any other consent of the major part of the Bishops or Clergy proved to be yielded to the Kings other Injunctions from the paucity of the number of those who were imprisoned or ejected in comparison of the rest the argument is not good First Because many more might dissent and refuse obedience thereto then were ejected or imprisoned or questioned for it Might Nay did dissent for the Parliament beggeth their pardon see before § 120 and it is accounted a prudent policy of State where very many are guilty only to punish some of the chief for Example sake Secondly And again many more might be ejected or questioned for this than are by name mentioned in Fox or others and were so if you consider the testimonies before cited Thirdly But suppose only a few of the Clergy imprisoned or ejected yet as where all the rest unanimously accord this restraint of a few changeth not the Church-affairs so when such a body is divided and all the rest are not of one mind this withdrawing of a few especially if these be the prime Leaders and the introducing of so many new voters who are of a contrary perswasion into their rooms suppose taking away six old Bishops and putting six new ones in their places may render that which was before a major and the more prevalent now a lesser and a weaker part and consequently if they be unjustly withdrawn will render the Act of this major part invalid § 127 Secondly 2. That submittance of Convocation to the new Form of Common-Prayer c. may not be reckoned for a lawful Synodical Act because of the violence used formerly upon the Clergy inforcing as other Ecclesiastical Injunctions of the King so also the new Form of Communion before it was proposed to any Parliament or Convocation for proof of which I refer you to the former testimonies that I may spare the taedium of repeating them But what the inclinations of the old Clergy were for I speak not of the new induced by little and little into their places by King Edward if the hand of violence and threats of a new law-giving civil-power had been removed from them touching which see their sad complaint before § 47 may be gathered 1. both From what they did immediately before King Edward's days in their establishing by Convocation the Six Articles and the the Necessary Doctrine 31. Hen. 8.14 c. And 2. From what they did in King Edward's days in the very beginning of which Arch-Bishop Cranmer called a Synod of them wherein he endeavoured to have effected a Reformation but could not See
Antiquit-Brittan p. 339. And you see by the Testimonies forecited how many suffered for opposing the Kings Injunctions and particularly this new Form of Common-Prayer and how many more of the old Clergy are said to have opposed them in every place where they might hope for impunity insomuch as that this Book in many places was not so much as heard of and how a major part even of the Bishops are by Protestants confessed in their conformity only to have used an ontward compliance and dissimulation Lastly 3. From what they so many as remained of them did immediately after King Edward s time so soon as this Yoke of fear was removed in the entrance of Queen Mary at which time they threw-off their former vizards and plainly renounced not only the rest of the Reformation the fruit but also the Regal Supremacy i. e quoad talia the root Nor could fear when the Sovereign power rechanged ever make them taught by long experience to take up again their former disguise amongst whom the major part of those seven Bishops chosen to compose the new Common-Prayer-Book who survived to Queen Mary's days namely Day Thirlby and Goodrich Skyp Bishop of Hereford and Holbeck Bishop of Lincolne being dead before deserted this new Form and returned again to the Mass And it is probable that some of those Bishops who by Queen Mary were ejected for Marriage some of them even after a Monastick profession conformed themselves likewise to the old Religion because tho they lived here at home in so inquisitive and severe times we find not that they were restrained or proceeded against as Hereticks Such were Holgate Bird Bush c. § 128 Now since such were the inclinations of all or most of King Edward's first Clergy and to be swayed only from the profession thereof by fear no marvel if his Council went about reforming at the first by vertue of the new Supremacy before the calling of any Synod save that wherein Arch-Bishop Cranmer was frustrated of his intentions And Dr. Fern Exam. Champ. 2. c. § 8. makes this Apology for such proceeding That Reformation of Gods worship may be warrantably done without a foregoing Synodical vote where there is just and apparent cause of fearing more danger from the persons which are to be convocated and the times wherein they are to assemble To which purpose saith he sounds that known complaint of Nazianzen That he saw no good end of Councils spoken by reason of the prevailing faction of the Arrians in his time We cannot say the Sovereign Prince is bound in the way of prudence always to receive his directions from a vote in a Synod especially where there is just cause of fear I suppose that he means Fear that the Synod will go contrary to what the Prince thinks to be right but he may have greater reason to ask advice from persons free from the exceptions of factious interests to which the most of them that should meet are apparently obnoxious And saith he how far this was considerable in the beginning of King Edward's Reign i. e till the King had otherwise moulded the Members of the Synod or whether such fear made them forbear to put it at first to a Synodical Vote I cannot say Thus Dr. Fern. § 129 And much-what in the same manner doth Dr. Heylin Eccles Vindic. 2. Par. 5. § p. 82. discourse of King Edward's Reformation to shew you that our modern Writers are not without some apprehension of the neglect of the Church authority in it Which reviving saith he of the ancient Forms of Gods worship rather than the introduction of a new as the King Edward did here in England by his own authority the body of the Clergy not consulted in it so possibly there might be good reason why those who had the conduct of the Kings Affairs thought it not safe to put the managing of the business to a Convocation and then having shewed that such change of Religion would be both against the reputation and profit of the Clergy he goes on So that as well in point of reputation as of profit besides the love which many of them had to their former Mumpsimus it was most probable that such an hard piece of Reformation would not easily down had it been put into the power of a Convocation especially under a Prince in nonage and a State unsettled Thus he As for that which afterward he saith That this was passed by the Bishops when it passed in Parliament the Bishops making the most considerable van of the House of Peers It is answered by what hath been said before § 11. n. 2. And what he saith That all was confirmed by the Clergy on the Post-fact in the Convocation of 1552 sall be answered by and by See likewise what the same Dr. saith on the same subject in 1. Par. 6. § p. 36 where after doubting whether several particulars of King Edward's Reformation were done of the Kings meer motion or by advice of his Council or by Consultation With his Bishops For saith he there is little left upon record of the Convocation of that time more than the Articles of the year 1552 He speaks also of Queen Elizabeth's Reformation done after the same sort Thus also saith he in Queen Elizabeth's time before the new Bishops were well setled and the Queen assured of the affection of her Clergy she went that way to work in the Reformation which her two Predecessors Henry and Edward had done before her in the well ordering of the Church she published her Injunctions c. But when the times were better setled and the first difficulties of her Reign passed over she left Church-work to the disposing of Church-men who by their place and calling were most proper for it and they being met in Convocation did make Canons c. And thus if a Prince according to the Sect which himself and his Council favours may take the liberty with coactive power to reform at the first against his Clergy he within a short time no doubt may securely leave the Church-work to Church-men as the Dr. saith and justify his Reformation by his Clergy that is either changed first or terrified § 130 To χ. To χ. These two I grant differ little 1 The Clergy's first motioning to the King 2. or The King 's first motioning to the Clergy a Reformation of something in Doctrine or Manners so that the Clergy uncompelled or forced by the King establish it before it be enjoyned or imposed on any to be observed But this following differs from the former toto coelo viz. When the King directed by some particular Bishops whom he thinks good to advise with proposeth to the Clergy a Reformation in Doctrine not to be consulted on by them and their judgment to be exhibited to him upon the assent or denyal of a major part of whom as having in these things the legislative power such Reformation may be established or laid aside but to be obeyed and
repugning as they might well against the late spoyl of the Church-goods taken away only by commandment of the higher powers without any law or order of Justice and without request or consent of them to whom they did belong And Calvin in a Letter to Arch-Bishop Cranmer written about An. Dom. 1551. giving a reason why the English Church was so ill stored with good Pastors hath these words Vnum apertum obstaculnm esse intelligo quod praedae expositi sunt Ecclesiae reditus So early you see even together with the first dawning of the Reformation began that Sacriledge to be committed on some Bishopricks which our days have seen accomplished on the rest Lay menders of Religion ordinarily terminating in these two things the advancing of their carnal Liberty and temporal Estates § 140 In defacing of Images By vertue of such Supremacy He caused to be removed out of Churches and to be defaced and destroyed all Images of Saints Concerning which Reformation his Council writes to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury in this stile We have thought good to signify unto you that his Highnesse's pleasure with the advice and consent of us the Lord Protector and the rest of the Council is that immediately upon the sight hereof you shall give order that all the Images remaining in any Church within your Diocess be taken away and also by your Letters shall signify unto the rest of the Bishops within your Province this his Highnesse's pleasure c. Fox p. 1183. See likewise Stat. 3. and 4. Edw. 6.10 c. This he did when as the second Nicene Council not only had allowed but recommended the use of them But he proceeded also further than this and declared the worshiping and veneration of any such Images or Relicks to be repugnant to Gods word and unlawful superstitious idolatrous See the 22 of the 42 Articles and Article to Winchester 11 and the Doctrine of his Homilies § 141 By vertue of such Supremacy He imposed An. Dom. 1547 a Book of Homilies not approved by any Synod before nor after till 1552 if then in which Book were stated several Controversies of Divinity See Article 11 of the 42 referring to these Homilies for the stating of Justification ex solâ fide the King forbidding the Clergy to preach any Doctrine repugnant to the same Homilies under pain of being silenced or otherwise punished § 142 â—â—injoyning administration of the Communion in both â—inds See before § 108. Winchester Articles 15. Fox p. 1255. By vertue of such Supremacy He laid a command upon the Clergy to administer the Communion to the people in both kinds Stat. 1. Ed. 6.1 c. Coâ—cil Constant 13. sess See before §. 118. contrary to the Injunction of the Council of Constance and without any preceding confutation of a National Synod and notwithstanding the former late decree concerning the non-necessity thereof by the same National Synod in Henry the Eighth's days in the second of the Six Articles § 143 In suppressieg the former Church Liungies Ordiaals and other Rituals By vertue of such Supremacy He caused to be removed and suppressed the former Church Liturgies and Rituals for the publick Prayers for the celebration of the Communion and other Sacraments for the Ordinations of the Clergy See Fox p. 1211. The King saith he with the body and state of the Privy Council then being directed out his Letters of request and strait commandment to the Bishops in their Diocess to cause and warn all Parsons Curates c. to bring in and deliver up all Antiphoners Missals Grailes Processionals Manuals Legends Pies Ordinals and all other Books of Service the having whereof might be any let to the Service now set forth in English charging also and commanding all such as should be found disobedient in this behalf to be committed unto ward Saying in the Articles sent to Winchester That the Mass was full of abuses Fox p. 1235. and had very few things of Christ's institution besides the Epistle Gospel and the Lord's Prayer and the words of the Lord's Supper that the rest for the more part were invented and devised by Bishops of Rome and by other men of the same sort i. e. by Ecclesiastical Constitution and therefore were justly taken away by the Statutes and Laws of this Realm this being the perswasion of those times That the King as Supreme might change as to him seemed good any thing established only by humane tho it were Church authority And see Stat. 3 4. Edw. 6.10 c. Whereas the King hath of late set forth and established an uniform Order of Common-Prayer and whereas in the former Service-Books are things corrupt untrue vain and superstitious Be it enacted by the King the Lords Spiritual and Temporal and the Commons in this present Parliament assembled that all Missals Ordinals c. heretofore used for Service of the Church shall be utterly abolished extinguished c. § 144 And injetting uâ— new Forms of celebrating the Communion But you must observe that all was not done at once or at the first but by certain steps and degrees For Example The Form of administring the Communion suffered three Alterations or Reformations one after another the later still departing further from the ancient Form used in the Church than the former First the King assembled certain Bishops and others at Windsor in the first year of his Reign such as he pleased to appoint to compile a new Form of celebrating the Communion according to the Rule saith Fox p. 1184 of the Scriptures of God and first usage of the Primitive Church Yet the Bishops at this time so ordered and moderated the matter which perhaps may be the reason of those words in Fox see before § 125. See Heylin Hist. of K. Edw. p. 57. That the Protector at Windsor in the zealous defence of Gods truth opposed the Bishops that the whole office of the Mass should proceed as formerly in the Latine even to the very end of the Canon and the receiving of the Sacrament by the Priest himself Which done the Priest is appointed to begin the exhortation in English We be come together at this time Dearly Beloved c. as it is in the present English Liturgy After which follows also the disswasion of great offenders impenitent from receiving the General Confession and Absolution the Prayer We presume not c. and so the administration of the Eucharist to the people in both kinds The words of the Rubrick in that first Order of the Communion reprinted at London 61 are these The time of the Communion of the people shall be immediately after that the Priest shall have received the Sacrament without the varying of any other Rite or Ceremony in the Mass until other order shall be provided But as heretofore usually the Priest hath done with the Sacrament of the Body to prepare bless and consecrate so much as will serve the people so it shall yet continue still after the same manner
before § 65. and caused Arch-Bishop Whitgift to exact of all those that entred into the Clergy a Subscription that they would use it and no other Form Cambd Eliz. An. Dom. 1583. Ecclesiastical Can. 36. Which Subscription the party that opposed this Book at last prevailing was remitted by the Parliament 1640 and since that I need not tell you what it hath suffered The old Form supplanted the Mass the pew Form the old and then the old one being raised again out of its ashes in the new Scotch Liturgy which began all the troubles had almost brought in the late tumults a fatal overthrow both upon the new one and upon it self Thus much from § 143. concerning this Kings new Liturgies § 164 By vertue of such a Supremacy the King conceiving he had power to alter and reform the Ecclesiastical Laws In the abrogatio of several Ecclesiastical law coâ—â—eâ—ning Fastâ— Câ—lâ—bacy of the Cleâ—gy c. tho established by former superior Councils appointed the Parliament assenting thereto eight persons amongst whom were two Bishops Crannier and Thirlby and Peter Martyr to prepare this work Who drew up a body of them which was then made publick and since reprinted 1640. But indeed it appeareth not that this Reformation of them was ever ratified by King Parliament or Convocation See the Preface to Reform Leg. Eccl. By such Supremacy he abrogated all former Church-laws concerning days of fasting or abstinence and appointed those he thought fit by his own and the Parliaments authority and dispensed with whom he thought fit for not observing them See Stat. 2 3. Edw. 19. chap. Wherein after a Preface declaring That the Kings Subjects now had a more perfect and clear light of the Gospel and true word of God shewed declared and opened thro the mercy of God by the hands of the Kings Majesty and his most noble Father and thereby perceived that one day or meat of it self is not more holy more pure or more clean than another c. as if the former Church which they left had taught them otherwise after this Preface I say the King with the consent of Parliament first ordains That all manner of Statutes Laws and Constitutions concerning any manner of fasting or abstinence from any kinds of meats shall from the first of May next ensuing loose their force and strength and be void and of none effect Then sets down the days upon which he will have abstinence from flesh observed upon the Penalty of paying Ten Shillings and suffering ten days Imprisonment except those who being not enfeebled with age or sickness shall receive a licence to eat flesh from the King or his Successors For you must know that the maker of a Law hath power to dispense with it But here note that only abstinence from flesh is enjoyned on those days by this Statute not Fasting nor is Fasting enjoyned by any other Statute that I can find save only on Holy-day-Eves by a Statute made two or three years after Stat. 5 6. Edw. 6.3 â— Neither is there any obligation for the observation of either fasting or abstinence on these days by any express Canon of this Church reformed when as now the former Church-Laws concerning this were by the Kings Supremacy nulled in this Act but only by Act of Parliament and the end of such abstinence in the Parliament Act 5. Eliz. 5. c. professed to be only upon a Politick consideration the increase of Fishermen and Mariners c. And not for any Superstition saith that Act to be maintained in the choice of meats or as if such forbearing of flesh were of any necessity for the saving of the Soul of man or that it is the Service of God otherwise than as other Politick Laws are and be Tho King Edward in the fore-cited Statute I confess mentions partly another end viz. because that due and godly abstinence is a means to vertue and to subdue mens bodies to their Soul and Spirit And I doubt not that many devout persons in this Church holding themselves bounden to the former Ecclesiastical Constitutions notwithstanding the Kings abrogation have still observed this duty in obedience thereto See likewise 5 6. Edw. 6. 3. c. the same Regal authority appointing the Holy-days And these things are done in Parliament without the least mentioning or referring to any Synod § 165 Likewise by vertue of such Supremacy the King with consent of Parliament ordained Staâ— 2 3. Edw 6.21 c. That all Laws positive Canons Constitutions heretofore made by man only which prohibit Marriage to any Spiritual Person who by Gods Law may lawfully marry shall be utterly void and of none effect and this upon consideration as it is in the Preface of the same Act of such uncleanness of living and other great inconveniences which have followed of compelled chastity as if the Church compelled any person to such chastity except hypothetically if he will take on him such a profession Or as if in this the Church enjoyned any thing which she first stated not to be in every ones power to observe if using a just endeavour Now whereas it is said in 5.6 Edw. 6.12 That the slanderous reproach of holy Matrimony i. e. of Priests doth redound to the dishonour of the Clergy of this Realm who have determined the same Marriage of Clergy to be most lawful by the Law of God in their Convocation as well by their common assent as by the subscription of their hands Such assent as likewise that which they say to the same purpose in the 42 Articles Art 31. no way opposeth the Law of the Church For things most lawful by Gods Law as Marriage of the Clergy is by the Church allowed to be yet may be lawfully prohibited by the Church Whose Law in this matter the Clergy of this land justified in the third and fourth of the Six Articles Neither if they had here opposed it as they do not would their sentence be of any force because contrary to the Constitution of former superiour Councils § 166 By vertue of such Supremacy the King in the Sixth year of his Reign published by his authority 42 Articles of Religion containing several matters of Faith Lastly In the Edition of 42 Articles of Religion dâ—fferent from the foâ—mer dectâ—â—â—eâ— of the Church which are there stated contrary to the definitions of former superiour Councils Which Articles are said indeed to have been first decreed and agreed on by a Synod of the Clergy held at London the Title presixed to them being this Articuli de quibus in Synodo London An. Dom. 1552. ad tollendam opinionum dissensionem consensum verae religionis firmandum inter Episcopos alios eruditos viros convenerat regiâ authoritate in lucem editi But this I cannot thus easily concede Where whether these Articles were passed by any Synod notwithstanding this Title Thus far indeed I grant that they seem to be compiled or consented to by some members of
Power within his Dominions may upon any pretence of Religion or other whatsoever either take up himself or licence any others to take up the Civil Sword against the King or make any resistance to him therewith in order to any person or cause whatsoever Which thing sufficiently secures his government and the peace of his Kingdome § 182 2. Again as to the second part of the Oath thus much shall be freely conceded That there is some Supremacy in or dine ad Spiritualia to which no Forreign State or Prelate may lay claim As besides that which is named already to belong only to the Civil Magistrate it shall here be granted as being the opinion of several Catholicks That no General Council hath any authority to make any Ecclesiastical Law which any way entrencheth upon any Civil Right Nor any forreign Prelate hath authority to use a Temporal power over Princes when judged heretical to kill or depose them or absolve their Subjects from their Allegiance Were therefore these words of the Oath understood only of such a Forreign power which opposeth the security of the Queens Civil Government as Dr. Hammond urgeth Schism 7. c. § 17. Or which layeth intolerable burthens and exactions upon the Subjects of the Land i. e. as to temporal matters and which draws after it Positions and Doctrines to the unsufferable prejudice of the Prince's Crown and Dignity to the exemption of all Ecclesiastical persons such as makes them but half-Subjects to the deposing of Kings and disposing of their Kingdomes as Dr. Fern urgeth Examin Champ. 9. c. p. 279 it shall be granted here without disputing any such controversy that the Oath for such thing as this could not be justly refused But after these Concessions now to review the two parts of the Oath again §. 183. n. 1. How far not to see what more might lye in them 1. For the First There is a Supremacy in Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Affairs which the Civil Magistrate cannot justly claim viz. Such Supremacies as these that a Prince may when a Superior Council abroad or the major part of his Clergy at home hath or doth determine against something which he with some few or a lesser part of his Clergy is perswaded to be consonant to the word of God may I say suppress and forbid the Doctrine of those and establish and promulgate the Doctrine of these may thus make and publish new Ecclesiastical Articles or Canons and correct suspend or dispense with former and that where no just pretence of their violating any way his Civil Government That he without any Synodal consent of his Clergy or He with it against the decrees of Superior Councils may change the publick Church Liturgies her Service or Discipline and that when these no way hurtful to the Civil State That the Clergy may not assemble about Spiritual concernments which none deny that they may do even under Heathen Princes but when he pleaseth to call them may teach or promulgate no Ecclesiastical Decisions in matter of Doctrine or Constitutions in matter of Discipline to their flocks being his Subjects unless he first give his consent unto them tho these concern no civil right That he may introduce into Bishopricks whom he approves without the consent of a major part of the present Episcopacy or may displace any or prohibite the function of their office within his Dominions without any concurrence of the Clergy and where is no just pretence of danger to his Secular Government Briefly to use Bishops Carleton's words cited before That he may use any such Spiritual Jurisdiction § 3 as stands in examination of Controversies of Faith judging of Heresies deposing of Hereticks excommunication of notorious offenders Institution and Collation of Benefices and Spiritual Cures All or most of which Supremacies are not Supremacies belonging to the Prince but to the Clergy to Prelates to Councils and Synods Provincial National or higher As hath been laid down in the first and second These See before sect 2.4 and as will appear to any one at the first sight if he will but empty his fancy a little of the prime Patriarch of the Catholick Church his being Anti-Christ and of an erroneous and Superstitious Hierarchy and on the other side of an orthodox and godly Jesias-Prince and seriously consider what a mischief it will bring upon a National Church when the supreme Secular Magistrate thereof is an Heretick or Schismatick and invested with the above-named Supremacies in Spiritual Affairs Nay I may further add to these that there is some Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs which the Protestants themselves or the most Learned of them do not allow to the Prince as this That the Prince alone without the consent of some of his Clergy may make or impose upon his Subjects Ecclesiastical Laws or decide such Controversies And secondly there is another Supremacy which all the Presbyterian Protestants do not allow to the Prince namely that he may prohibite the Church Ministery and Officers from making or imposing any Ecclesiastical Law without his licence and consent first obtained thereto as you may see below § 211. Meanwhile how both these do safely take this Oath there being neither of these limitations by the Oath-imposer mentioned either in it or elsewhere with reference to it nay the contrary being declared concerning the later of these two Supremacies I see not unless the Oath-taker may qualify his Oath according to his own sense To require therefore submission by Oath to such Supremacies of the Civil Magistrate as these now named is not lawful § 184 And that such submission was required from these Bishops is evident I think That submission to the Royal Supremacy in this later kind was required from those Bishops 1. Both from that Supremacy which the Queen at that very time in these very things exercised without any Synodal consent against former Synods a Specimen of which you may see below § 201. in Her Majesties Commission to the Uncanonical Ordainers of Arch-bishop Parker and to the same purpose in Stat. 8. Eliz. 1. and which the Kings Henry and Edward had formerly exercised 2. And from that Supremacy which the Parliaments granted and acknowledged due in these things to the Prince as hath been shewed I think sufficiently in this former discourse they granting to the King all that authority and jurisdiction which any Spiritual person or persons had formerly excepting only the authority of ministery of divine offices in the Church See before § 71. All which authority formerly thus granted by the laws and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm the taker of this Oath is bound to assist and defend The like to which see also in the 1. and 2. Canon Ecclesiast 1603. Altho the former Clergy under Henry the Eighth had never annexed these Supremacies to the Crown See before § 25 or if they had had again under Queen Mary reversed it Neither is it enough for our men for the setling of
such Supremacies upon the Crown Ham. Schis c. 7. p. 150. to prove that they belong not to the Pope as long as they may belong to the National Clergy and to Councils The qualification of such Regal Supremacy which Dr. Fern Examin Champ. p. c. § 16.20 hath produced as mitigating it see replyed to before § 72. And see himself if I mistake him not also defending such Regal Supremacy as is here affirmed to be claimed in the places quoted below § 205 and not only him but many other learned Protestant Divines And therefore well might those Bishops understand the regal Supremacy in the Oath in the same latitude as these still do allow and maintain it But see Mr. Thorndike Just Weights 20. c freely acknowledging what we have said here and desiring therefore the abrogating of this and the enacting of a new Oath It is manifest saith he that not only the unlimited power of the Pope but all authority of a General Council of the Western Churches whereof the Pope is and ought to be the chief Member may justly seem to be disclaimed by other words of the same Oath and that whereas the Pope usurped not only upon the Crown but upon the Clergy of this Kingdome all those Usurpations as welt upon Clergy as King are by the Act of resumption under Hen. 8. invested in the Crown So that when the Oath declares to maintain all Rights and Preeminences annexed to the Crown you may understand that maintenance which a Subject owes his Sovereign against those that pretend to force his just claim from Him But you may also understand that maintenance which a Divine owes the Truth in asserting the Title of the Crown to all Rights whatever now vested in it Which maintenance he that believes that some Rights of the Church are invested in the Crown ought not to undertake And again below There is an appearance saith he that the mis-understanding of this Oath hath produced an opinion destructive to one Article of the Creed viz. to the being of any Visible Church as Founded by God And besides it is not possible that all they who are called to this Oath by Law can ever be able to distinguish that sense in which they ought from that wherein they ought not to take it And therefore of necessity the Law gives great offence and that offence is the sin of the Kingdome and calls for Gods Vengeance upon it Therefore there is great reason why the Kingdome should enact a new Oath c. Thus He. § 185 2. For the second part of the Oath 2. Concerning Forreign Supremacy in Ecclesiastical affairs how far it is to be acknowledged And therefore I do utterly renounce all Forreign Jurisdictions c You are first to note That from what is said before in the Oath that the Queens Highness is the only Supreme Governor in all Ecclesiastical things it followeth That so far as the Oath binds any to renounce all Forreign Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction or Authority save the Queens that is for any such Jurisdiction in Spirituals as the Queen claimeth whether such Jurisdiction be challenged by the Pope or by a General Council for here none is excepted so far the Oath bindeth him also to renounce all Domestick Jurisdiction and Authority whether it be of the Arch-Bishops or Bishops or of a National Synod in respect of such Jurisdiction as is claimed by the Prince So that none who holdeth any such Jurisdiction in the Clergy at home as others put in the Clergy or some Prelate abroad may think that he escapeth the reach and power of the Oath because of the word Forreign inserted therein Having given you this pre-caution then that you swear as well against any Jurisdiction of the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury or the National Synod of this Church as of the Pope or of a General Council concerning the Jurisdiction that is challenged by the Prince Now to consider the thing it self There may be such a Forreign or also Domestick Ecclesiastical Supremacy and Authority as no way opposeth the good of the Civil State nor any just priviledge of a Secular Prince but rather much corroborated and fortifieth it and again as mainly tendeth to the unity and peace of the Church which thro all the world is only one Corporation and Body And such Supremacy may be instituted and established either by our Saviour or by his Apostles or later Ecclesiastical Constitution as the varying State of the Church may stem to require Neither can an Authority thus established and relating only to Spiritual Affairs be justly disturbed or annulled by any Secular Governor neither Heathen as is granted by all nor Christian as there is more reason that he who is a Son and Subject of the Church should never do it as hath been she wed in Chur. Govern 1. Par. § 38. and Succes Cler. § â—â— Again there actually is such a Supremacy for some Spiritual matters by some of the former ways given to the Representative of the whole Church Catholick General Councils which have been hitherto Forreign and perhaps will always be so which Councils have a Jurisdiction and Authority over and whose Canons and Decrees do oblige particular Churches tho the Secular Magistrate dissent or oppose as the Emperor Constantius opposed the Nicene condemnation of Arianisme Secondly There is also given at least in the intervals of these Councils a Supremacy to the Bishop of the Apostolick See of Rome to whom also is committed the care of seeing to the execution of the Canons and Decrees of these General Councils in all particular Churches as hath been shewed in Chur. Gov. 1. Par. And such Supremacy was ratified by the Clergy of this Nation as formerly so in their late Synods under Qu. Mary and also under Qu. Elizabeth See before § 175. Art 4. which Synods stood in force at the imposition of this Oath Of these Supremacies thus Mr. Thorndike Due way of composing differences p. 7. It were a contradiction for the Church of England to pray for the Catholick Church and the unity thereof and yet renounce the Jurisdiction of the whole Church and the General Councils thereof over it self King James acknowledgeth the Pope to be Patriarch of the West that is Head of the General Council of the Western Churches And Thomas Lord Bishop of Winchester under Queen Elizabeth being demanded why we own him not so in effect Answereth bluntly but truly because he is not content with the Right of a Patriarch For should he disclaim the pretence of dissolving the bond of Allegiance should he retire to the Priviledges of a Patriarch in seeing the Canons executed the Schism would lye at our door if we should refuse it deny such his Patriarchship Thus He. Now whether upon ones demanding more than his right we may afterward lawfully deny him his right or for ever after swear that he hath no right judge you as likewise whether the General Councils have lost their right together with their
he saith Authoritate Rex propriâ resecare potest superstitiones quas sacerdotes ipsi tolerant but he saith not quas sacerdotes ipsi docent nen esse superstitiones Again p. 364. he speaks thus of a thing done In Israele praecipuae in re religionis partes penes Regem extiterunt vel uno hoc argumento quod per sacrae historiae seriem totam mutato novi regis animo mutata semper est facies religionis Nec Pontifices unquam vel praestare poterant ut fieret mutatio in melius vel ne fieret in pejus impedire And p. 368. Passim per fastos sacros quod in religione fit a rege fieri diserte dicitur Regis factum esse Pontificis haud unquam nisi ex Regis mandato But I hope he will not hence infer that summa religionis is not penes Pontifices if the Prince apostatizeth from the true Religion or that the Church Governors may do nothing contra Regis mandatum nor may oppose him and teach the people contrary to his Reformations where they judge that he reformeth not aright what did the Church-Governors for the first 300 years Especially since p. 377. which I desire you much to mark he alloweth such Ecclesiastical Primacy as the good Kings of Israel used not to all but only to Christian Princes and to Christian Princes not all but only those not heretical and I suppose he would say also not schismatical for if the Prince were heretical or schismatical he well saw the mischief of such a power so he saith there Interim autem sit vel infidelis Princeps sit vel haereticus Oretur pro eo non minus quam pro Nebuchadonozar nemo vitae ejus insidietur non magis quam Ahasueri Fidem penes semet habeant Christiani subditi coram Deo caeteris in rebus pietatem colant Non ergo id agitur ut ecclesiae persecutores ecclesiae gubernatores habeantur c. And something toward this saith Mr. Mason de Minist 3. l. 5. c. if I rightly understand him Regibus qui vel non sunt christiani vel si christiani non tamen orthodoxi vel si orthodoxi non tamen sancti primatus competit quidem sed secundum quid i. e. quoad authoritatem non quoad rectum plenum usum authoritatis quoad officium non quoad illustrem executionem officii none such therefore may execute any Ecclesiastical Primateship unless the Author seek for some refuge in the Epithets rectus plenus illustris And the same saith Bishop Bicson When the Magistrate doth not regard but rather afflict the Church as in times of infidelity and heresy who shall then assemble the Pastors of any Province to determine matters of doubt or danger To which question he answers The Metropolitan Now if no Prince heretical tho Christian hath any Primacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs before we yield such Primacy to a Prince we must know whether he be not heretical and who can so rightly judge of this as the Church or Clergy And then will not the Church and is it not right to judge him such when he opposeth her present or former definitions in matters of Faith See Church Govern 3. Part § 42. And what just Supremacy then for matter of Doctrine is left here to the Prince but an authorizing by his coactive power the Church's decrees Which Regal Supremacy all sides allow But as I said this is contrary to what Bishop Andrews saith elsewhere that the Princes Supremacy may oppose the Clergy when they do i. e. when he thinks they do recedere de viâ non docere juxta legem Dei c. § 203 The fourth Author I shall produce is Mr. Thorndike who writing very rationally and resolutely in vindication of the Church's authority Of Mr. Thorndike as using his Pen against modern Sectarists yet takes care also to save the Phaenomena of the Reformation He therefore in his Right of the Church 5. c. p. 248. after he had with much freedome shewed That the Succession of the Clergy in such a Government as that the visible Communion of the whole Church might be perpetually kept in unity See before §. 188. was a Law ordained by the Apostles and That the Reformation made in England had plainly violated this Law in that the new Bishops that were introduced were made without and against the consent of the former some of his words are cited before § 200. taketh this course to solve this difficulty and to preserve the English Reformation notwithstanding this from being unlawful or schismatical To come then saith he to the great difficulty proposed it is to be acknowledged that the power of the Church in the persons of them to whom it is derived by continual Succession is a Law ordained by the Apostles for the unity of the Church c. But withal it is to be acknowledged that there are abundance of other Laws given the Church by our Lord and his Apostles whether they concern matters of Faith or matter of Works c. which proceeding from the same if not a greater power than the Succession of the Church are to be retained all and every one of them with the same religion and conscience as the succession of the Church Again I have shewed indeed that the secular power is bound to protect the Ecclesiastical in their determining all things which are not otherwise determined by our Lord and his Apostles and to give force and effect to the acts of the same But in matters already determined by our Lord and his Apostles as Laws given to the Church if by injury of time the practice become contrary to the Law the Sovereign power being bound to protect Christianity is bound to employ it self in giving strength first to that which is ordained by our Lord and his Apostles By consequence if those with whom the power of the Church is trusted shall hinder the restoring of such Laws the Sovereign power may and ought by way of penalty to such persons to suppress their power that so it may be committed to such as are willing to submit to the superior Ordinance of our Lord and his Apostles Here Mr. Thorndike holds that the Secular power may restore any law which Christ or his Apostles have ordained not only against a major part but all the Clergy and Governors of the Church and may for a penalty of their opposing it suppress their power and commit it to others tho they also be established by another Law Apostolical Which was the thing I undertook to shew you § 204 But to say something to this discourse of his What reasonable man is there hearing this that will not presently ask Who shall judge whether that be indeed a Law ordained by our Lord or his Apostles which the Prince would introduce or restore and the succession of the Clergy doth oppose Which Clergy sure will never confess such to be a law of our Lord but always will
profess the contrary nay will say that the succession of the Clergy shall keep teach and maintain our Lord's laws to the end of the world This question he asketh not he solveth not as writing against the Presbyterians who will not ask it him But what can he say Shall the Clergy judge They deny it to be the Lord's law what he against their consent would restore Shall the Prince judge But this is most unreasonable that the judgment of a Laick shall be preferred before the whole succession of the Clergy in Spiritual manters And what mischief will come hereupon if he judge amiss And here let me set before him his own rules Right of Chur. 4. c. p. 235. Such a difference falling out saith he i. e. between the secular power and the Bishops so that to particular persons it cannot be clear who is in the right as how can it be clear to particular persons which is not to their guides in those matters and which is not to other particular persons who also think the contrary clear it will be requisite for Christians in a doubtful case at their utmost perils to adhere to the guides of the Church against their lawful Sovereigns But if this his answer that the Prince may suppress the Apostolical power of the Clergy when this goeth against other our Lords or the Apostles Laws be unsatisfying to the great difficulty he proposeth I know not what other can possibly be returned to that his objection And I wonder that this considerative man who holds not the Pope to be Anti-Christ or the Hierarchy of the Church to be the followers of Anti-Christ should make such a supposition as this that the Apostolical Succession of the Clergy should oppose our Lords or the Apostles laws so far as that we shall depend on the Laity to restore them and to protect Christianity against their Guides § 205 The fifth is Dr. Heylin Whose testimonies justifying King Edward and Queen Elizabeth's reforming by their own sole authority Of Doctor Heylin or only with the advice of some few of their Clergy where they perceived that the rest would not comply See before § 129. Yet this their reforming I have shewed to have been for some part of it in matters of Doctrine and Faith To which former testimonies I will add here Reform Jâ—stisted p. 86. 1. First what he saith concerning the Clergy's not having any lawful power to conclude any thing in Spiritual matters that may bind King or Subject till the Royal authority confirmeth it contrary to the first Thesis It is true saith he the Clergy in their Convocation can do nothing now but as their doings are confirmed by the Kings authority And I conclude it stands with reason that it should be so For since the two Houses of Parliament can conclude nothing which may bind either King or Subject in their civil rights until they be made good by the royal assent so neither is it fit nor safe that the Clergy should be able by their Constitutions and Synodical Acts to conclude both Prince and People in Spiritual matters what not in such as Prince and People grant to intrench upon no civil Right until the stamp of Royal Authority be imprinted on them What if such supreme Governor be an Heretick an Arrian an Anabaptist c Ib. p. 84.2 2. What he saith concerning the King of England's having lawful power to act without his Clergy as the Clergy having conferred on him all their power which they formerly enjoyed in their own capacity Which was Philpot's Plea recited before § 168. contrary to the Second Thesis The Kings of England saith he had a further right as to this particular which is a power conferred upon them by the Clergy whether by way of recognition or concession I regard not here by which the Clergy did invest the King with a supreme authority not only of confirming their Synodal Acts not to be put in execution without his consent but in effect to devolve on him all that power which firmly they enjoyed in their own capacity amongst which Powers p. 85. he nameth this To reform such Errors and Corruptions as are expresly contrary to the word of God And to this we have a parallel case in the Roman Empire in which the supreme Majesty of the State was vested in the Senate and People of Rome till by the Law which they called Lex Regia they transferred all their power on Caesar and the following Emperors Which Law being passed the Edicts of the Emperor were as binding as the Senatus-consulta had been before Whence came that memorable Maxime in Justinians Institutes Quod Principi placuerit legis habet vigorem The like may be affirmed of the Church of England The Clergy had self authority in all matters which concerned Religion and by their Canons and Determinations did bind all the Subjects till by acknowledging King Henry the Eighth for the Supreme Head and by the Act of Submission not long after following they transferred that power upon the King and his Successors After which time whatsoever the King or his Successors did in the Reformation as it had virtually the power of the Convocation so was it as good in law as if the Clergy in their Convocation particularly and in terminis had agreed upon it And tho in most of their proceedings toward Reformation the Kings advised with such Bishops as they had about them or could assemble without trouble yet was there no necessity that all or the greatest part of the Bishops should be drawn together for that purpose no more than it was anciently for the godly Emperors to call together the most part of the Bishops in the Roman Empire for the establishing of the matters which concerned the Church or for the godly Kings of Judah to call together the greatest part of the Priests and Levites before they acted any thing in the Reformation of those corruptions and abuses which were crept in amongst them Thus Dr. Heylin p. 84. § 206 Indeed elsewhere he seemeth to put some limitations to the Prince's acting in such matters without or against their Clergy but then these limitations are such as that the reforming Prince's acts have transgressed his Rules To this purpose he saith p. 80 81. That whereas Reformation may be first in corruption of manners or abuses in Government secondly in matters practical thirdly in points of Doctrine 1. First That if the things to be reformed be either corruptions in manners or neglect of publick duties to Almighty God be abuses either in Government or in the parties governing the King may reform this himself by his sole authority tho the whole body of the Clergy or the greatest part thereof should oppose him in it 2. That if the practice prove to have been both ancient and universally received over all the Church the King consulting with so many of his Bishops and others of his most able Clergy as he thinks fit to call
unto him and having their consent and direction in it may in case of intermission or corruption restore such practice to its primitive lustre tho he do it against the major part of his Clergy or Synod as you may see p. 83. 3. He intimates That if the Reformation be in such point of Doctrine as hath been before defined in a General Council or in particular Councils universally received and countenanced the King consulting with some of his learned Bishops may enjoyn it without or against a Synod 4. But he saith That if the Reformation be in such points of Doctrine as have not been before defined in such manner the King only with a few of his Bishops and Learned Clergy tho never so well studied in the point disputed can do nothing in it That belongs only to the whole body of the Clergy in their Convocation rightly called and constituted So he saith p. 85. That the King cannot determine Heresies From this by necessary consequence it follows That if any point of doctrine hath been determined by a former General Council I add or lawful superior Council the King neither against nor without I add nor with the major part of his Clergy can reform or establish the contrary of such doctrine § 207 Now to reflect op the Drs. Limitations Concerning the two last I leave it to your judgment whether in the instances made above the contrary to several doctrines determined by former lawful General or other superior Councils have not been established by our reforming Princes without or also against the major part of their Clergy And again whether other doctrines not determined by any former lawful Council yet have not thus also without any such consent been established by them Both which Dr. Heylin condemneth Again concerning all these limitations I ask when all or the major part of Clergy affirmeth that such things are not corruptions in manners nor abuses in Government that such practices are not primitive nor universal that such doctrines are not formerly so determined and none or a smaller part of the said Clergy saith the contrary How will Dr. Heylin here direct the Kings Supremacy Will he here allow him after hearing all to follow his own judgment Or that of the fewer against his Synod or the major part thereof It seems in some things he will not allow it See Limitation the fourth and it seemeth unreasonable to be allowed in any of the rest For why should not a Synod discern corruption in manners as well as he or some few Or why may not he mistake and miscall their reason passion or partiality But if the Prince follow the major part of his Clergy in their judgment of what are corruptions what are formerly defined c. then cannot the Prince be said or supposed to reform such corruptions c. against this major part whose judgment in this Reformation of them he followeth § 208 The last I shall propose to your considering is Dr. Fern Of Doctor Pern Exam. Cha. 9. c. 19. §. p. 290. who speaketh somewhat more particularly in this matter He first affirmeth indeed in behalf of the Clergy that the Bishops and chief Pastors of the Church are the immediate proper and ordinary Judges in defining and declaring what the Laws of Christ be for Doctrine and Discipline And That they have a coercive power in a Spiritual restraint of those that obstinately gain-say as far as the power of the Keys put into their hands by Christ for Spiritual binding and loosing will reach And that this power is coercive or binding upon all such as are willing to be Christian and continue in the Society of the Church I suppose therefore upon Christian Princes also if obstinately gain-saying And 20. § He quoteth 1. Eliz. 1. That the judging of Heresy is restrained for Heresies past to the Declaration of the first General Councils and for such as shall arise to the assent of the Clergy in their Convocation And § 15. he saith It is a mistake to think that the Prince by his supreme power in Spiritual things is made supreme Judge of Faith and decider of all Controversies thereunto belonging and may ordain what he thinks fit in matters of Religion Again Ibid. he affirmeth that the Prince's giving publick establishment to the doctrine defined by the Clergy and evidenced to him is not in order to our believing as the Romanists use fondly to reproach us in saying our belief follows the State but to our secure ind free profession and exercise of Religion For Kings and Princes are not Ministers by whom we believe as Pastors of the Church are 1. Cor. 3.9 And § 21. That we must attend to the evidence of truth given in or propounded by the Pastors of the Church who have commission to do it in order to our believing and must yield obedience to the establishment of the Sovereign either by doing and conforming thereunto or by suffering for not doing according thereunto And § 25. That it is the office of the Pastors of the Church to evidence what is truth and conformable to Scripture and that in order both to our and to the Prince's believing Again § 21. he affirmeth that the immediate and ordinary judgment of matters of Religion belongs to Bishops and Pastors of the Church in order to our believing but that a secondary judgment is necessary in the Sovereign for his establishing by Laws that which is evidenced to him upon the judgment and advice of the Pastors of the Church or as § 23. for his being satisfied that what is propounded as Faith and Worship is according to the law of Christ before he use or apply his authority to the publick establishment of it and this upon a double reason the first of which is In respect of his duty to God whose Laws and Worship he is bound to establish by his own Laws within his dominions and is accountable for it if he do it amiss as the Kings of Israel and Judah were § 209 But then he saith these things further in behalf of the Supremacy of the Prince which seem to reduce the Clergy's power into a very narrow compass and to render it uneffective toward the Subjects of the Church unless thro the coacting of the Prince He saith then 1. That Princes are not bound to follow the directions of the Clergy any further than they are evidenced to them See 9. c. § 21. Princes are not meer Executioners of the determinations and decrees of the Church Pastors nor bound blindly or peremptorily to receive and establish as matter of Faith and Religion whatsoever they define and propound for such But they are to do their work so as it may by the demonstration of truth be evidenced to the Sovereign Power That Princes are not bound to take the directions of the whole Clergy or of a Synod where they fear the Synod will not go aright 2. c. 8. § Reformation of Gods Worship saith he may be
by the Patriarchs Thus much concerning the English Reformations under the three Princes Henry the Eighth Edward the Sixth and Queen Elizabeth what manner of Ecclesiastical Supremacy was conceded to or recognized in them what exercised by them Where it is evident that tho these Princes pretended only to translate upon themselves the Supremacy formerly used by the Patriarch not forgetting to seize on most of the profits thereof yet theirs was far from being restrained within the same bounds as the Patriarch's was For whether we review the pretended innovations introduced into the Church Catholick before or those introduced since the Council of Trent by the Patriarch's concurrence We cannot say of them that He without out or assisted only with some few of the Clergy imposed them upon the world by his single authority without or contrary to the votes of the major part of the Clergy as King Edward and Queen Elizabeth did Who had they called a Synod of their Clergy and then behaved themselves in it as Constantine in the Council of Nice i. e. left all in pure Spiritual matters to their disposal judge what would have been the issue But it seems by the proceedings forementioned in this Discourse that the Secular Supremacy took it to be the Prince's right to establish in their dominions with or without the major part of the Clergy which they were instructed might fall away from the truth a tenent the Patriarch owns not what they apprehended to be the Law of Christ upon evidence of Scripture i. e. to them so seeming by whomsoever manifested unto them From which apprehensions in single and unstudied persons very mutable and having no such fixedness as the body of the Church hath being tyed by so many subordinations to several degrees of Superiors newer and newer Reformations for ever do flow and multiply without end as we see at this day And so it is also that these Acts of Supremacy coming from the hands of the Temporal power whatever way they incline have much more strength and validity in case of opposition than those coming from the Spiritual this Sword not wounding to sense so deep as the other and therefore is such a Supremacy where Prince's judgments are liable to mistakes much the more dangerous § 215 All which ill-consequences the Protestant Princes of Germany who Several Protestants denying such a Supremacy du◠to Princes being in some respects subordinate to another could not so well settle this Supremacy on themselves in the dawning of the Reformation did well foresee and were as loth to acknowledge the Emperor Supreme as the Pope Nor would they ever allow of this Title assumed by Henry the Eighth out of a jealousy that Charles the Fifth should claim the same And for this reason it is thought that no Accord was made tho much attempted between them and this King See Lord Herbert's Hist p 378 and 448. The Protestants of Germany saith he would not allow the King's Supremacy lest they should infer an investing of the same authority in the Emperor whose absolute power they seemed to fear more than that of the Pope himself And this suspicion alienated secretly the mind of our King who saw that if he embraced their Reformation they would abridge his power i. e. regulate or alter the point of his Supremacy § 216 The same reluctance against such Regal Supremacy was in Calvin and other Reformers as I have shewed before See before §. 37. and hath remained still in the reformed Presbyterian Clergy of Scotland and in those Sects called Puritanical in England and elsewhere which is said to have rendred both Queen Elizabeth and King James much more averse from the Presbyterian Government and Discipline who discharging the authority of the Pope of Councils such as the Church hath had of Bishops yet have endeavoured to reserve the Supremacy as touching all Ecclesiastical Affairs to the Officers of their particular Churches as the power of calling and constituting their Assemblies at time and place as they think fit the making of Ecclesiastical Constitutions and Ceremonies the correcting and ordering all things pertaining to the Congregation tho without the Kings consent and against his will unless he be pleased to be included in the number of the Church Officers there to enjoy a single vote requiring the Civil Magistrate to be subject to this their power To which purpose are those Positions of theirs Seatch Discipline 2. l. 1. c. As the Ministers and others of the Ecclesiastical State are subject to the judgment and punishment of the Magistrate in external things if they offend so ought the Magistrates to be subject to the Kirk Spiritually and in Ecclesiastical Government And to submit themselves to the Discipline of the Kirk if they transgress in matter of Conscience and Religion All men as well Magistrates as Inferiors ought to be subject to the judgment of the National Assemblies of this Country in Ecclesiastical causes Scot. Disc 2. l. 12. c. without any re or appellation to any Judge Civil or Ecclesiastical within the Realm See Dr. Heylin's Reform Just p. 88 and Rogers on Art 37. p. 216. and 218. and the two Books of the Scottish Discipline To which may be added those passages of the English Presbyterian in their Confession of Faith An. Dom. 1647. cap. 30 and 31. which say That the Lord Jesus as King and Head of his Church hath therein appointed a Government in the hand of Church-officers distinct from the Civil Magistrate And that if the Magistrates be open enemies to the Church the Ministers of Christ of themselves by vertue of their office may meet together in such Assemblies And there may Ministesrially determine Controversies of Faith set down rules for the better ordering of the publick worship of God and Government of his Church receive complaints and authoritatively determine the same Which decrees and determinations if consonant to the word are to be received and therefore may be divulged with reverence and submission for the power whereby they are made as this power being an Ordinance of God All this they affirm the Church-officers may do of themselves by vertue of their office if the Magistrate be an open enemy to the Church And all this they did King Charles's Supremacy giving no consent thereto but opposing it And then for the meaning of open enemy I have reason to suppose they will pronounce a Popish an Arrian any heretical Prince such as well tho perhaps not every way so much as an Heathen § 217 Lastly The same reluctance also was in those Bishops who first conceded such Supremacy to Henry the Eighth Who as at the fiest they swallowed the Oath of it not without some straining so afterward when by long experience they had seen such Church-laws issuing from it as they thought very grievous and dammageable to the Church and found uncontrollable by their power they very stoutly to the loss of their Bishopricks made resistance to the same Oath
in Queen Elizabeth's days and also in Qeeen Mary's days upon some respiring took care to reverse as well the Supremacy of Henry the Eighth as the Injunctions of Edward the Sixth And those Bishops only who came to their Bishopricks and Church-Government by the high-hand of such Supremacy have since maintained it CHAP. XIV The CONCLVSION § 218 HAving thus brought this whose Discourse of Church Government to an end Conclusion of this whole Discourse of Chur. Gov. I pray you consider a lit with me how matters stand with the Reformation generally in application thereto § 219 Where Concerning the benefit that may be hoped for from a future free General Council for the setling of present Controversies 1. First it seemeth clear That in Controversies of Religion which Christ hath foretold shall arise and in contests concerning the true sense of his word he hath not left his people under the Gospel without some visible Judge thereof beside the words of the Gospel since he did not leave his people under the Law without such Judge beside the words of the Law See what hath been said of this in Success of Clergy § 6. c. And in such Controversies concerning the meaning of the Scriptures for any party to fly only to the same Scriptures to judge this matter between them and their adversaries is as if Titius and Sempronius suing one another at the Law would have no other judge in the matter but Justinian's Code or Pandects about the meaning of which they are already in the debate 2. But if it seem reasonable that in such Controversy concerning the understanding of Scripture there should be some other Judge besides Scripture secondly it is out of question that the Church Catholick which hath such ample promises from our Saviour should be this Judge sooner than any particular person or Church therein and if the Church Catholick then a legal General Council thereof since this is the highest and ultimate way whereby the Church Catholick is capable of declaring her judgment as hath been shewed in the 2. Part § 22. c. 3. Hence therefore 3ly are the Reformed forced as it were in their debates of Religion to refer their matters to and not to decline the decisive judgment of a future legal and free General Council 4. But this seemeth by consequence to oblige them somewhat further and that in this their appeal to and acquiescence in a future General Council they cannot reasonably refuse the judgment of such Councils fore-past as have been legally General 5. And again 5ly that to denominate any former Councils to have been such they cannot rationally require any fuller conditions than have been set down in 2. Part § 4. unless they will make either no Councils at all or not all those which themselves allow to have been General And 6ly if they will thus stand to the judgment of former legal General Councils then it seems they ought also to stand to the doctrines which are cleared to them to be held and taught by the Church Catholick of that age wherein they reformed since we may presume that had a Council thereof been collected in the same times they would in it have testified the same doctrines which the Catholick Church then held But thus the Reformation will be cast since I think it is sufficiently cleared in 2. Part § 30. c. that the doctrines they opposed at least for the most of them were not only the Tenents of the Roman or other Churches adhering to it but of the whole Church Catholick of that time a thing which is of great weight and ought diligently to be examined And 7ly if they will submit to a General Council I do not see how in the absenee of a General their duty doth not bind them to submit also to a Patriarchal Council as being tho inferior to General yet superior to any Provincial or National one within the same Patriarchy And if submit to such I see not why they should reject the judgment of the Council of Trent as to the Protestant Controversies free and unforced there needing to be used no illegal or indirect proceedings herein because the Fathers in condemning these did unanimously agree as hath been shewed at large in Par. 4. § 70. by Soave's testimony in particular to these points § 220 But notwithstanding the fair inclinations the Reformed I mean some of their writers desiring that nothing here may be charged on any further than proved by some testimonies in the other places of this discourse which are here referred to may seem to have to a final decision of differences and the happy issue to their cause they seem to hope-for from the sentence of such a future Council general and free could it once be procured Yet there are not a few things which well considered do discover their diffidence in any such tryal and no such submission in them to such Council could it be assembled as is necessary to the ending of contentions As namely these following 1. That for the Councils which have been held already in the Church they have so limited the obligation to their authority and clogged it with such conditions which you may be pleased to review in 2. Par. § 36 37. c that in respect of these they have reserved to themselves liberty to yield or withdraw their obedience as they see fit From which we may gather that if they see need thereof they will in like manner limit the future and so render it as unobliging to them as former have been 2. That they have been so scrupulous about the Universality legal actings c. of past Councils beyond what seems requisite See 2. Par. § 4. that of eighteen or not much fewer General Councils which the other side accepts they acknowledge only four or very few more and not these four for all those decrees wherein the rest of the Church admits them See 4. Par. § 92.95 3. That they maintain that tho all the Church-guides never shall yet the major part of the Church guides and of such Councils may dangerously err to the imposing of false belief and false worship and pars melior a majore vinci See 2. Part § 29. Which tenent will overthrow the authority of such future Council also because it can hardly happen in so great n Body but that there will be some dissenters and then they will not be tyed to a major part 4. That for a future Council they demand such a one for the universality of it as probably can never be had and such voters therein as is contrary to the former customes of the Church and such other conditions as are several ways unreasonable and destructive of having Church-matters governed by the Church See concerning these the 4. Part § 65 66. c. Tho were all such their conditions observed excepting only one that nothing done in such Council should oblige till their consent first obtained I see not but that things
will thus also go against them because as the major part of the Clergy of Christianity so of the Laity and Princes were they made the Judges in that Council are opposite to the Reformation 5. That they do set up the authority of Provincial or National Synods in some cases See 2. Part § 29.44 against General the ill consequences of which introducing such an Aristocratical or rather so many several Monarchical Governments into the Church as there are several Metropolitans or Primates see in 2. Part § 78. n. 2. and do hold this a sufficient foundation of Reformation tho indeed so much if the things said in this 5th Part stand good cannot be pleaded for it Now all these guards and fences of the Reformed seem to me to render a future Council were it never so universal and free of none effect as to ending Controversies unless it pass on their side and again seem to argue an Autocatacrisis in them as to the judgment of the Church Catholick and of Councils viz. that they apprehend they should be cast by those whom yet they shew a willingness to be tryed by Especially when as after now an 140 years divulging of their doctrines their reasons and their demonstrations they see that tho at the first perhaps out of novelty their opinions made a wonderful progress and growth yet for above half of this age the Reformation hath stood at a stay and of late hath rather lost ground and is grown decrepit and much abated of its former bulk and stature § 221 To conclude In such a rejection of or aversion from the Church's judgment let none think himself secure in relying on the testimony of his conscience or judgment 1. either that he doth nothing against it which security many of all sects not only living but dying have for sickness ordinarily hath no new revelations of truth in it and what sect is there that hath not had Martyrs The Roman party many at Tiburn and the Protestant in Smithfield and even Atheism it self hath had those that have dyed for it Vaninus and others 2. Or that he hath taken sufficient care to inform it which thing also all sects shew themselves confident-in I say let none think himself secure in any of these things so long as his conscience witnesseth still to him this one thing namely his disobedience and inconformity to the Church Catholick I mean to the major part of the Guides thereof as formerly explained in Chur. Gov. 2. Part § 8. c. 24. c. a disobedience which Luther and the first Reformers could not but acknowledge Epistle to Melancthon 145. Nos discessionem a toto mundo saith facere coacti sumus And let him know that his condition is very dangerous when he maketh the Church-guides of his own time or the major part thereof uncommunicable-with in their external profession of Religion when for the maintaining of his opinions he begins to distinguish and divide between the doctrine of Scripture and the doctrine of the Church between the doctrines of the Catholick Church of the former ages and of the Catholick Church of the present between the Church's orthodoxness in necessaries and in non-necessaries to salvation when he begins to maintain the authority of an inferior ecclesiastical judge against a superior or of a minor part of the Church-guides against a major Which whosoever doth tho perchance he wanteth not many companions had need to be sure and sure again that he is in the right because this thing in the day of judgment will hinder all those that err from pleading invincible or inculpable ignorance when as they do grant both that God hath given them beside the Scriptures guides of their Faith and that they have in their judgment departed from these guides i. e from a major part of them which in a Court consisting of many is the legal Judge I say In the Name of God let every Religious Soul take heed of such Autocatacrises FINIS SIR WEll knowing your Fidelity and Loyalty to your Prince lest you should be offended with some expressions in this discourse concerning the limited authority of the supreme Civil Power in Spiritual matters I must pre-acquaint you with these three things 1. That there is nothing touched herein concerning the Temporal Prince his supreme power in all Civil or Temporal matters whatever nor in such as it is dubious whether they be Spiritual or Temporal but only concerning the Supremacy in things that are purely Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Namely such as Christianity hath de novo by our Saviours authority and commission introduced into the world and into the several Civil States thereof which do voluntarily subject themselves unto its laws and such as the Church Governors our Saviours Substitutes from the beginning have lawfully exercised in several Princes dominions when the same Princes have prohibited them the exercise of such things under pain of death Which things you may see numbred by Bishop Carleton below § 3. or by Dr. Taylor or by the Kings Paper Ibid. 2. That there is nothing asserted here concerning the lawfulness of any Spiritual power 's using or authorizing any others to use the material or temporal Sword in any case or necessity whatsoever tho it were in ordine ad Spiritualia 3. That I know not of any Ecclesiastical powers in this Discourse denyed to the Prince but which or at least the chiefest of which all other Christian Princes except those of the reformed States do forego to exercise and do leave to the management of the Clergy and yet their Crowns notwithstanding the relinquishing this power in Spirituals subsist prosper flourish And not any but which the Kings of England have also foregone before Henry the Eighth Now no more Supremacy in such Ecclesiastical matters as are delegated by Christ to the Clergy and are unalienable by them to any Secular power can belong to the Princes of one Time or of one Nation than do to any other Prince of a former Time or a diverse Nation Because what are thus the Church's Rights no Civil or Municipal law of any Kingdome in any time can lawfully prejudice diminish or alter Nor may any such Secular laws made be urged as authentical for shewing what are or are not the Church's Rights And therefore in respect of the foresaid Clergy-Rights the Kings of England can have no more priviledge or exemption than the King of France nor in England Henry the Eighth than Henry the Seventh Nor can any person in maintaining the Church's foresaid Rights be any more now a disloyal Subject to his Prince in these than he would have been in those days CORRIGENDA PAg. 2. line 38. of Christians p. 3 l. 16. to Heathen p. 6. l. 15. l. 19. c. p. 8. l. 1. pag. 236. p. 35. l. 37. pag. 53. p. 38. l. 10. § 24. p. 41. ult from denying p. 53. l. 16. pag. 34. p. 56. l. 17. Mariae p. 106. l. 7. § 340. p. 180. l.
of Catholic Unity but instead of these we are told of a Western Patriarch one who pleads the Prescription of some Years for his Autority and thinks himself hardly dealt with pag. 214. that because He claims more then his due that which is his due should be denyed him Hence it seems to be that He is so wary in giving us his own Opinions that He disputes so much and affirms so little that he bounds all his Positions with so many limitations that they seem contriv'd on purpose for subterfuges and that He very cautiously ventures not any farther then He thinks tho' falsly the Autority of our Writers will bear him out Hence those Concessions which will perhaps by that Party be judg'd over-liberall § 117 That Images and so the veneration or worship of them were very seldom if at all us'd in the Primitive Church That the publick Communion was then most commonly if not allways administred in both kinds unto the People That the Divine Service which then as now was celebrated usually in the Latin or Greek Tongue was much better in those days then now understood of the Common people That the having the Liturgy or Divine Service or the Holy Scriptures in a known tongue is not prohibited nor the using of Images enjoyn'd nor the Priest's administring and the people's receiving the Communion in both kinds if the Supreme Church-Governours so think fit and we say they ill discharge the Office of Church-Governours who do not think fit our Saviours Institution should be observ'd declar'd unlawful by any Canon of any Council Ancient Council he means for latter Councils have declar'd these unlawful These are large grants from a Romanist and which give a great shock to their so much magnified pretence of Universal Tradition Had this Author liv'd in those Ages when the Secular Prince countenanc'd the beginnings of Reformation He would have scarce lost any thing for his too rigorous adhaesion to the C. of Rome For he thinks it probable that had the Reformation only translated the former Church Liturgies and Scriptures into a known tongue § 118 administred Communion in both kinds thought fit not to use Images changed something of practise only without any decession from the Churches Doctrines the Church-Governours would have been facile to license these Where by the way it seems something unintelligible how they should change practice without decession from Doctrines if Doctrines enjoyn'd such Practices pag. 2. §. 2. and if according to him Errours in practice allways presuppose some Errour in matter of Faith But at least we may expect He would have outwardly complied since he notes That some outward compliance at the first pag. 140. §. 123. of those Bishops who made an open Opposition afterward might be upon a fair Pretence because the first Acts of the Reformation might not be so insupportable as the latter Where it is worth our Observing that the very first Act which gave life to the Reformation was shaking off all manner of Obedience to the See of Rome then which I believe his Holiness contrary to this Author's Sentiments thinks no Act more unsupportable These things consider'd We could not have had a more easie Adversary then this Gentleman and the Church has less reason to fear his open Opposition then had he still continued in her bosom For it seems not to be his Province to publish what is Material against us but to publish Much. But God be thanked our Religion is not establish'd upon so weak a basis as to be overthrown by a few Theses unprov'd and falsly applied Nor is it any wonder if that arguer doth not convince who uses for Principles Conclusions drawn from Praemisses which the world never saw and then assumes such things as every one acquainted with History is able to contradict Certainly his University-Readers will not be very fond of the Conclusion of that Syllogism whose Major is a petitio principii Minor a down-right fals-hood in matter of fact They no doubt are surpriz'd to find Consequents come before their Antecedents and Church-Government part the 5th to have stept into the World somewhat immaturely methinks before the other four But the Lawfulness of the English Reformation was to be examin'd and it would have took up too much time to shew why he impos'd upon us such a Test It might therefore be thought seasonable enough to examin the Truth of his Theses when he shall be pleas'd to communicate to us whence they are inferr'd In the meanwhile it may not be unuseful to consider what disservice he had done to our Cause had his success aequal'd the boldness of his attempt After all his Theses and their Applications his Correspondent Alpha's and Beta's his perplex'd Paragraphs his intricate Paratheses and his taedious Citations what Doctrine of the Church of Rome has he establish'd or what principle of Ours has he disprov'd Should we grant that the Clergy only have power in Controversies of Religion that the Secular Prince has no Autority to reform Errours in the Church that our Princes did wrongfully usurp such an Autority and that our Reformation was not the act of the Clergy will it hence follow which yet is to be prov'd by this Author e're he can perswade us to entertain any favourable Opinion of Popery That the second Commandment ought to be expung'd out of the Decalogue that Idolatry is no Sin or worshipping of Images no Idolatry that Transubstantiation is to be believ'd in despight of Sense Reason Scripture and Antiquity the Service of God to be administred in an unknown tongue as it were in mere contradiction to Saint Paul and the Communion to be celebrated in one kind notwithstanding our Saviours Drink ye all of this It is indeed our happiness that the Reformation was carried on by the joynt concurrence of the Civil and Ecclesiastical power that We are united together by common Rules for Government and Worship agree'd on by the Bishops and Presbyters in Convocation and made Laws to us by the Autority of the Sovereign We are allways ready to prove that the Church of England being a National Church and not Subject to any forreign Jurisdiction ow'd no Obedience to the Bishop or Church of Rome therefore might without their leave reform her self and that accordingly our Religion is establish'd by such Laws as want no autority either Civil or Ecclesiastical which they ought to have This is a Plea which we shall be allways prepar'd to justifie and a Blessing for which we thank God and for the continuance of which we shall never cease to pray But now had those which we esteem corruptions of the Roman Church never been cast out or were they reestablish'd which God in his mercy forbid by as good autority as that by which they are now abolish'd Yet even then we could not submit to such Determinations and being concluded by an antecedent Obligation to God durst not obey even lawful autority commanding unlawful things He
Communion extend their Supremacy as far as the Reformed And here it may not be improper to instance in that right which the Kings of Spain enjoy in Sicily which seems to extend even to those Spiritual powers which our Author calls the chiefest And this I find usher'd in by a Roman-Catholick Writer with an assertion quite * Hist of Eccl. Rev by a Learned Priest in France p. 116. opposite to that which is laid down in this Epistle It even surpasses saith he that which Henry the Eighth of England boldly took when he separated from the Church of Rome The King of Spain as King of Sicily pretends to be Legate à latere and born Legate of the H. See so that he and his Viceroys in his absence have the same power over the Sicilians as to the Spiritual that a Legate à latere could have And therefore they who execute that Jurisdiction of Sicily for the King of Spain have power to absolve punish and excommunicate all sorts of persons whether Laicks or Ecclesiasticks Monks Priests Abbots Bishops and even Cardinals themselves that reside in the Kingdom They acknowledge not the Popes Autority being Sovereign Monarchs as to the Spiritual They confess that the Pope hath heretofore given them that priviledge So that his Holiness it seemes thought even those chiefest Powers of the Church alienable but at the same time they pretend that it is not in his power to recall it and so they acknowledge not the Pope for head to whose Tribunal no Appeal can be made because their King has no Superiour as to the Spiritual Moreover this right of superiority is not consider'd as delegate but proper and the King of Sicily or they who hold Jurisdiction in his place and who are Lay-men take the title of Beatissimo Santissimo Padre attributing to themselves in effect in respect of Sicily what the Pope takes to himself in regard of the whole Church and they preside in Provincial Councils As for the title of Head of the Church which taken by the Reformers so much offends our Discourser this Critical Historian farther observes It was matter of great astonishment that in our age Queen Elizabeth took the title of Head of the Church of England But seeing in the Kingdom of Sicily the Female succeeds as well as in England a Princess may take the title of Head of the Church of Sicily and of Beatissimo Santissimo Padre Nay it hath happen'd so already in the time of Jean of Arragon Castile the mother of Charles the 5th So that this Critick concludes that it may be said there are two Popes and two sacred Colledges in the Church to wit the Pope of Rome and the Pope of Sicily to whom also may be added the Pope of England What Jurisdiction Spiritual the King of France challenges will best be learnt from the Liberties of the Gallican Church publish'd by the learned Pitthaeus and to be found in his Works Two of them which seem to come home to our purpose are these * Le Rois tres Chrestiens ont de tout temps selon les occurrences necessitez de leur pays assemblè ou fait assembler Synodes ou Conciles Provinciaux Nationaux esquels entre autres choses importantes à conservation de leur estat se sont aussi traitez les affaires concernans l'ordre discipline Ecclesiastique de leurs pays dont ils ont faict faire Reigles Chapitres Loix Ordonnances Pragmatiques Sanctions sous leur Nom autoritè s' en lisent encor aujourd huy phisieurs ès recueils des Decrets receus par l'Eglise Universelle aucunes approuvees par Conciciles generaux The most Christian King hath had power at all times according to the occurrences and necessity's of his own affairs to assemble or cause to be assembled Synods or Councils Provincial and National and therein to treat not only of such things as tend to the preservation of his State but also of affairs which concern the Order and Discipline of the Church in his own Dominions and therein to make Rules Chapters Laws Ordinances and Pragmatick sanctions in his own Name and by his own Autority Many of which have been received among the Decrees of the Catholique Church and some of them approv'd by General Councils * Le Pape n'envoy point en France Legates à latere avec faculte ' de reformer juger conferer dispenser telles autres qui ont accoustumè d'estre specifiees par les Bulles de leur pouvoir si non a la ' postulation du Roy tres-Christien ou de son consentement le Legat n' use de ses facultez qu' apres avoir baillè promesse au Roy par escrit sous son sein jurè par ses Sainctes Ordres de n' user desdites facultez e's Royaume pays terres Seigneuries de sa sujettion si non tant si longuement qu'il plaira au Roy que si tost que le dit Legat sera adverty de sa volonte ' au contraire il s' en desistera cessera Aussi qu' il n' usera des dites facultez si non pour le regard de celles dont il aura le consentement du Roy conformement à iceluy sans entreprendre ny faire chose au Saincts decrets Conciles generaux Franchises Libertez Privileges de L'Eglise Gallicane des Universitez estatez publiques de ce Royaume Et à cette fin se presentent les facultez de tels Legats a la Cour de Parlement ou elles sont veus examinees verifiees publiees registrees sous telles modifications que la Cour voit estre à fair pour le bien du Royaume suivant lesqnelles modifications se jugent tous les process differents qui surviennent pour raison de ce non autrement The Pope cannot send a Legat à latere into France with power to reform judge collate or dispence or do such other things which use to be specified in the Bull of his Legation except it be upon the desire or with the approbation of the most Christian King Neither can the said Legate execute his Office untill he hath promised the King in writing under his seal and sworn by his holy Orders that he will not use the said Legantine power in his Kingdom Countreys Lands and Dominions any longer then it shall please the King and that so soon as he is admonish'd of the Kings pleasure to the contrary he will cease and forbear and that whilst he doth use it it shall be no otherwise exercis'd then according to the consent of and in conformity to the King without attemping any thing to the prejudice of the Decrees of General Councils the Franchises Liberties and Priviledges of the Gallican Church and the Universities and publique Estates of the Realm And to this end they shall present the Letters of their Legation to
the Court of Parliament where they shall be view'd verified publish'd and registred with such Modifications as that Court shall think fit for the good of the Realm and all processes shall proceed according to such restrictions and no otherwise In these two Liberties we find the Autority of the French King farther extended and the Papal power more limited then our Author can be contented the Regal Jurisdiction should be enlarg'd and the Patriarchal confined by the Reformed What power the most Christian King claims in confirming Canons we may learn from Petrus de Marca * De Conc. l 6. c. 34. par 2. Nunquam discedere oportet ab hac certissima Regula deliberationes Ecclesiae Gallicanae considerari non posse aliter quam velut consilium Regi datum easque executioni non posse mandari absque consensu confirmatione ejus who lays it down for a Rule which never fails That the deliberations of the Gallican Church can be look'd upon no otherwise then as Counsel given to the King and that they cannot be put in execution without his consent and confirmation And he there saith that the King may praeside in Councils as * Tanquam caput comme Chef Ibid. Head * An ex co quod Suprema Canonum protectio ad Regem pertinet sequatur eum jubere posse ut observentur non expectata etiam sententia Ecclesiae Gallicanae And in another place proposing to himself this Quaestion * Certum quidem est earum constitutionum obseruationum fore sanctiorem si conderentur cum generali Cleri consensu quoniam unusquisque eam rem obtinere modis omnibus cupit quam ipse suo judicio comprobaverit Nihilominus aeque certum est Regem ex sententia Concilii sui quod auget aut minuit prout ei lubet posse latis edictis decernere ut Canones observentur ac circum stantias modos necessarios addere ad faciliorem eorum executionem sive etiam ad veram eorum mentem explicandam eosque accommodare ad utilitatem Regni lib. 6. c. 36. par 1. Whether since the supreme protection of the Canons doth belong to the King it thence follows that He can command that they be observ'd without expecting the sentence of the Gallican Church He answers * that it is indeed certain that the Observation of them will be the more sacred if they be made with the Universal consent of the Clergy because every one desires that that should take place which he himself approves of But then that it is aequally certain that the King with the advice of his Council may by his Edicts decree that the Canons be observ'd and may add such Modes and Circumstances as are necessary for the better Execution of them and accommodate them to the Interest of the State This Autority he confirms from the Examples of the first Christian Emperors and the former French Kings and adds expresly * Utuntur adhuc eo jure Reges Christianissimi Ib par 3. That the most Christian Kings still use that right And now methinks the revising of the Canons by the Kings of England especially when humbly besought to do it by the Clergy should not be an Invasion of the Churches rights when the French Kings even without such Interposition of the Church exercise the same Right and yet do according to our Author leave to the management of the Clergy all power in Spirituals I might here insist upon Collation of Benefices which the French Kings challenge by right of the Regale but I shall choose rather to mention the assembling of Councils because a French King in the last Century seems to have doubted whether his Clergy might convene without his consent as appears from that bold Speech of his Embassadour in the Council of Trent which because it gives us some insight into the freeness of that Synod I shall beg leave to transcribe the latter part of it from Goldastus * Collect. Constitut Imperial T. 3. p. 373 Pii quarti imperium detractamus quaecunque sint ejus judicia sententiae rejicimus respuimus contemnimus Et quanquam Patres Sanctissimi vestra omnium Religio Vita eruditio magnae apud Nos semper fuerit erit Autoritatis cum tamen nihil à vobis sed omnia magis Romae quam Tridenti agantur quae hic publicantur magis Pii Quarti placita quam Concilii Tridentini decreta jure aestimentur denunciamus protestamur quaecunque in hoc conventu hoc est solo Pii nutu voluntate decernuntur publicantur ea neque Regem Christianissimum probaturum neque Ecclesiam Gallicanam pro decreto Oecumenici Concilii habituram Interea quotquot estis Galliae Archiepiscopi Episcopi Abbates Doctores Theologi Vos omnes hinc abire Rex Christianissimus jubet redituros ut primum Deus Optimus Maximus Ecclesiae Catholicae in Generalibus Conciliis antiquam formam libertatem restituerit Regi autem Christianissimo suam dignitatem Majestatem We refuse to be subject to the Command of Pius the 4th All his judgments and decrees we refuse reject and contemn and although most Holy Fathers Your Religion Life and Learning was ever and ever shall be of great Autority with Us Yet seeing You do nothing but all things are manag'd rather at Rome then at Trent and the things that are here publish'd are rather the Placita of Pius the 4th then the Decrees of the Council of Trent We denounce and protest here before You all that whatsoever things are decree'd in this Assembly by the will and pleasure of Pius neither the Most Christian King will ever approve nor the French Church ever acknowledge for the Decrees of an Oecumenical Council In the mean time the Most Christian King commands all you his Arch-Bishops Bishops Abbots Doctors and Divines to depart hence then to return when it shall please God to restore to his Catholick Church the ancient methods and liberty of General Councils and to the Most Christian King his Honour and Dignity Now I leave it to the Reader to judge whether any Reformed States ever assumed to themselves greater Autority over the Ecclesiasticks then this R. Catholick Prince or Whether ever any Protestant exprest himself with greater warmth concerning this Council then that Protesting Embassador It might be easie to shew how much power the Venetian Republick exercises in Spirituals had not this been done so lately by another Pen. But what hath been said may suffice to evince that this Epistolographer impos'd upon the credulity of his Sir when he told him that he knew of no Ecclesiastical powers denied to the Prince but which or at least the chiefest of which all other Christian Princes except those of the Reformed State do forego to exercise But our Discourser perhaps presum'd his Friend a Stranger to sorreign affairs and therefore thought he might the more securely use a Latitude in his treating of those
two Gommissioners who were of the Clergy * Ibid. 5thly As for Collation of Benefices Our learned Lawyers assure us that all the Bishopricks are of the King's Foundation and that they were Originally Donative not Elective and that the full right of Investitures was in the Sovereign who signified his pleasure therein per traditionem baculi annuli by the delivery of a Ring and Crosier Staff to the Person by him elected and Nominated for that Office * Cokes Instit l. 3. S. 648. Accordingly we find in the Statute of Provisors Ed. 3. A. 28. the King call'd Advower Parantount of all Benefices which be of the Advowrie of people of Holy Church And it is there said That Elections were first granted by the King's Progenitors upon a certain form and Eondition as to demand License of the King to choose and after Election to have his Royal Assent and not in other manner That if such Conditions were not kept the thing ought in reason to resort to its first Nature Lastly as for Hindring Excommunications in fore externo It is one of the Articles of Clarendom That None that hold of the King in capite nor any of his Houshold Servants may be Excommunicated nor their Land interdicted unless our Lord the King if he be in the Kingdom be first treated with or his Justice if he be abroad so that he may do what is Right concerning him And amongst the Articuli Cleri c. 7. It is complain'd that the King's Letters us'd to be directed to Ordinaries that have wrapt their Subjects in Sentence of Excommunication that they should assoil them by a certain day or else that they do appear and answer wherefore they excommunicated them This short account however imperfect may suffice to shew that the Regal power in Spirituals challeng'd by King Henry the 8th was not quitted by his Predecessors And if the Reader desires a more full account of these things I shall refer him to Dr. Hammond's Dispatcher Dispatch'd c. 2. Sect. 5. Bishop Bramhal's just Vindication c. 4. Repl. to the Bishop of Chalcedon c. 4. Sch. guarded c. 12. Sect. 3. as also to Sr. Roger Twisden in his Historical vindication of the C. of England in point of Schism Which Learned Author has by a through insight into History Law-books Registers and other Monuments of Antiquity enabled himself to give full and ample satisfaction to every unpraejudic'd Reader concerning this Subject and to convince him that this Author knew very little either of the English History or of his own Book if He knew not of any Ecclesiastical powers in this Discourse denied to the Prince but which were foregone by the Kings of England before Henry the Eighth As for what he adds that no more Supremacy in such Ecclesiastical matters Ep. as are delegated by Christ to the Clergy and are unalienable by them to any Secular power can belong to the Princes of one time or of one Nation then do to any other Prince of a former Time or a diverse Nation We willingly acknowledge it since no such powers belong to any Prince at any time or of any Nation But then there is a Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters delegated by God to the Prince which may be invaded by a Forreigner under a forg'd pretence of his being Head of the Church and here Secular Laws may be made for the protection of such Rights and for the punishment of those who shall either invade them or vindicate such Invasion And that person who under praetext of maintaining the Churches rights shall impugn the just Autority of his Sovereign may be more a disloyal Subject in these days when this Autority is by the Laws vindicated from Forreign Usurpation then he would have been in those days when such Usurpation was tolerated and conniv'd at Having dwelt hitherto on the Epistle and discover'd so much Insincerity in that which yet was to bespeak the Reader 's good Opinion of the ensuing Discourse We have no great reason to expect any fairer dealing in the prosecution of his design And here I shall be excus'd if I be the shorter in the Examination of his Theses both because they are such as being propos'd only and not prov'd it lies in our power to accept or reject them at pleasure as also because they have already undergone the Censure of a Noble Pen and have not been able to abide a fair Tryall Some of them are so ambiguously exprest that they may be either true or false according to the different construction they are capable of The fals-hood of others is self-evident But then for the better vending of these some truths are intermix'd according to the policy of Luther's Antagonist observ'd by his Biographer * Consid concerning Luther § 48. p. 90. Who to make his bad wares saleable diligently mixeth some small stock of good with evil so to make this more current and all easily swallow'd down together by the imprudent and credulous Another Artifice much practis'd by our Author is that he lays down his Propositions in general terms but afterwards restrains them by such limitations which if adher'd to would make them utterly disserviceable to his Cause but then when they come to be applied the Theses are refer'd to at large without any regard to such limitations Thus when in his first Thesis he has propos'd That it is not in the just power of the Prince to deny giving the Ministers of Christ license to exercise their Office §. 3. p 4. and their Ecclesiastical Censures in his Dominions He means he saith in general for he meddles not with the Prince his denying some of them to do these things whilst he admits others Now if this Restraint be observ'd then all which he would establish from this Thesis will come to Nothing For he will not I believe presume to say that the Reforming Princes ever laid a general Interdict upon all the Clergy to prohibit them the exercise of their Ecclesiastical Functions This is an Act which the Reformation detests and which we leave to the charitableness of the Universal Pastor who by Virtue of our Saviour's Command of Pasce oves challenges to himself a power of depriving the flock of all Spiritual food Thus again When in his third Thesis he has asserted that the Secular Prince cannot eject from the exercise of their Office in his Dominions any of the Clergy §. 5. p. 12. nor consequently the Patriarch from any Autority which he stands possest of by Ecclesiastical Canons He restrains such Canons to those only that cannot justly be pretended to do any wrong to the Civil Government Now he knows that all Canons which would obtrude upon us a forreign usurp'd Autority are by us pretended whether justly or not they will best judge who impartially weigh our Reasons injurious to the Civil Government Another Limitation of this Thesis is that the Civil power may judge and eject §. 8. p. 16. and disauthorize
Act which is by this Author judg'd contrary to his first Thesis is that Statute of King Henry the eighth which orders that no speaking holding or doing against any Laws call'd Spiritual Laws made by Autority of the See of Rome which be repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm § 34. p. 39. or the King's Praerogative shall be deem'd to be Haeresie from which he infers that the King and Parliament undertake to be Judges of Haeresie Now the King and Parliament do not here in my Opinion take upon them to decide matters of Faith but only to Enact that in such a case the Subject shall not suffer the Punishment usually inflicted on Haereticks Whether such speaking or doing be Haeresie or not they have power to ordain that it shall not be deem'd so i. e. the Speaker shall not suffer as an Haeretick Something parallel to this we have in that Statute of much concernment to use our Author's expression of another Act made 23. Eliz. c. 1. Wherein it is enacted that The Persons who shall withdraw any of the Queens Majesties Subjects from the Religion established by Law to the Romish Religtion shall be to all intents adjudg'd as Traytors and shall suffer as in cases of High Treason and the like of Persons willingly reconcil'd Where without disputing whether every such Reconciler or Reconciled is necessarily for that Act ipso facto a Traytor all that is here enacted is that he shall suffer as such For it is undoubtedly within the reach of the Civil Power to ordain where they will inflict or not inflict their Secular Punishments without being accountable for this to any Autority under God's And it seems very hard that if a Subject expresses himself or acts against such Laws of a Forreigner as are repugnant to the Laws of his own Country there the Prince cannot exempt him from a Writ de Haeretico comburendo without invading the Churches right Another Act condemn'd by Virtue of his 1st and 2d Theses is The Convocation's granting to certain persons to be appointed by the King's Autority to make Ecclesiastical laws §. 43. p. 56. and pursuant to this 42 Articles of Religion publish'd by the Autority of King Edward in the 6th Year of his Reign Now not to engage my self in a dispute Whether these Articles were not really what in the Title praefix'd they are said to be Articuli de quibus in Synodo London A. D. 1552. ad tollendam opinionum dissentionem consensum verae Religionis firmandum inter Episcopos alios eruditos Viros convenerat Regia autoritate in lucem editi I shall only accept of what is by him granted that de illis convenerat inter Episcopos alios eruditos Viros qui erant pars aliqua de Synodo London §. 166. p. 187. So that here is only a part of the Synod employ'd in drawing up these Articles and not any Jurisdiction Spiritual transfer'd from Ecclesiastial persons to Secular which was by him to have been prov'd Another Inference which he deduces from these Theses is the Unlawfulness of the Oath of Supremacy §. 185. p. 214. Now how far the Regal Supremacy is by us extended will best be learnt from our Articles * Art 37. The King's Majesty has the chief power in this Realm of England and other his Dominions Unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all causes doth appertain and is not or ought not to be subject to any forreign Jurisdiction So far for the extent of this power but now for the restraint Where we attribute to the King's Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended We give not to our Prince the ministring either of God's word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Q. Elizabeth do most plainly testify but that only Prerogative which We see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the Stubborn evil doers It is therefore by our Author to be prov'd that they who give no more to their Prince then hath been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scripture by God himself do alienate to the Secular Governour any Autority or Office which they the Clergy have receiv'd and been charg'd with by Christ with a command to execute the same to the end of the World which being a Contradiction I leave it to him to reconcile That by this Oath or any other Act of Queen Elizabeth a greater Power was either assum'd by her self or given to her by Others then is consistent with that Autority that is given by our Saviour to the Church will be very difficult for any Reasonable man to conceive who shall have recourse to the Injunction of this Queen to which this very Article refers us * Sparrow's Collection pag. 83. Lond. 1684. Where she declares that she neither doth nor ever will challenge any Autority but what was challeng'd and lately us'd by the Noble Kings of famous memory King Henry the 8th and King Edward the 6th which is and was of Ancient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have Sovereignty and Rule over all manner of Persons born within these her Realms Dominions and Countreys of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other forreign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them And if any Person that hath conceited any other sense of the form of the said Oath shall accept the same Oath with this Interpretation sense or meaning Her Majesty is well pleas'd to accept every such in that behalf as her good and Obedient Subjects and shall acquit them of all manner of penalties contain'd in the act therein mention'd against such as shall peremptorily and obstinately refuse to take the same Oath So that it 's evident from this Injunction that it 's no way here stated what Autority belongs to the Church and what to the Civil Magistrate farther then that the Queen as justly she might challenged what was due of Ancient time to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and neither did nor would challenge more but what that was is not here determin'd and she is content without such Determination if any Person would take this Oath in such a sense as only to exclude all forreign Jurisdiction whether Ecclesiastical or Civil Another Act which He finds repugnant to his his 1st pag. 36. Thesis is King Henry the Eth's claiming a right that no Clergy-man being a Member of the Church of England should exercise the power of the Keys in his Dominions in any Cause or on any Person without his leave
the Christians as to the knowing of Spiritual Truths a Subject and Scholar of the Church and he earnestly claims a Supreme power and confesseth an Obligation from God over all Persons in all Spiritual Matters to bind them upon Temporal Punishments to Obedience of the Churches or Clergy's Determinations and Decrees But here he either willingly misrepresents or ignorantly mistakes our Principles For the Prince claims a supreme power over all persons to bind them by temporal Punishments to the Obedience not of the Churches but of Christs Laws or of the former no farther then they are agreeable with the latter But saith He if the Prince meaneth here only where himself first judgeth such their Decrees Orthodox and right this power is in effect claim'd to bind all persons in all Spiritual matters only to his own Decrees whilst he praetends an Obligation both of himself and His Subjects to the Churches But what if the Prince judge such Decrees neither Orthodox nor right Must he here give them the Autority of Civil Sanctions This is to establish Iniquity by a Law and a power is claim'd in effect to bind all persons to the Decrees of the Clergy whilst as has been said He praetends an Obligation of Himself Subjects to the Laws of Christ But he goes on and tells us That all Texts of the New-Testament do ordain Obedience of Church-men to the Pagan Princes that then Reigned no less then to others From which I suppose he would infer an exemption from Obeying the Prince in Spiritualibus But supposing that all Texts do aequally ordain Obedience to Princes Pagan and Christian yet the Obedience to a Christian Prince will be of greater latitude since because he professes the true Religion his Commands in Spirituals not contradicting our Saviours will exact our Compliance Obedience in licitis is all the Subject ow's to a Prince either Christian on Infidel but the Christian Prince will oftner challenge my Obedience because he more rarely transgresseth the bounds of licita If as he adds all Princes are oblig'd with the Sword which God hath given them to protect and defend his true Religion and Service in their Dominions whensoever it offers it self to them Since many Religions offer themselves it becomes the Prince to take Care which is the true and not to take whatever is offer'd which would be utterly destructive of our Authors Principles As for the Acts of Ancient Councils obliging even without the Emperours consent We own their Obligation over their proper Subjects so far as they were agreeable with the Laws of Christ and his Apostles and urge the Autority of Emperours no farther then as adding their Civil power to the Spiritual Power of the Church And here we challenge no other Power to our Princes then was exercis'd by Christian Emperours that is to call Synods and to have a liberty of confirming or not confirming their Decrees by Civil Sanctions As for what he cites out of our Writers all amounts to no more then this that there are some Offices peculiar to the Church Which neither do we deny nor did our Princes ever invade these Functions But because from hence He would insinuate that the Prince has no power at all in Causes Ecclesiastical c in his Citations from these Writers comes up to that Character which the * Book of Educ Ox. 1677 p 86. Book of Education gives us of the SLY the CLOSE and the RESERV'D who take notice of so much at serves to their own designs and misinterpret and detort what You say even contrary to Your intention I shall as briefly as may be shew that their Concessions are far from giving any Countenance to his Cause Bishop Andrews doth indeed say as all other of our Church Potestatis mere Sacerdotalis sunt Liturgiae Conciones i. e. dubia legis explicandi munus claves Sacramenta omnia quae potestatem ordinis consequuntur But then there are other Ecclesiastical powers which he challenges to the Prince viz. a In iis quae Exterioris politiae sunt ut praecipiat suo sibi jure vindicat Tort. p. 380. To have Supreme Command in the exteriour Polity of the Church b Custos est non modo secunadae Tabulae sed primae p. 381. To be keeper of both Tables c Quodcunque in rebus Religionis Reges Israel fecerunt id ut Ei faciendi jus sit ac potestas Ib. To exercise all that Power which the good Kings of Israel did d Leges Autoritate Regia ferendi ne blasphemetur Deus ut jejunio placetur Deus ut festo honoretur Ib. To make Ecclesiastical Laws To e Delegandi qui de lege sic lata judicent Ib. delegate Persons to judge in causes Ecclesiastical To f Siqui in Leges ita latas committant etsi Religionis causa sit in eos Autoritate Regia animadvertendi Ib. punish the breach of those Spiritual Laws To g Non ut totus ab lieno ore pendeat ipse à se nihil dijudicer Ib. learn the will of God not only from the Mouth of the Clergy but also from the Scripture To h Omnibus omnium ordinum jus dicendi Ib. have autority over all Persons To i Abiathar ipsum si ita meruit Pontificatu abdicandi 382. eject even the High Priest if he deserve it To k Excelsa diruendi i. e. peregrinum cultum abolendi Ib. pull down High-places l Sive in Idololatriam abeat Vitulus aureus sive in Superstitionem Serpens aeneus utrumque comminuendi Ib. and to Reform the Church from Idolatry and Superstition These He claims to appertain to the Prince m Haec Primatus a pud nos jura sunt ex jure divino Ib. Jure Divino The next Author is Dr. Carlion He amongst other rights of the Church reckons Institution and Collation of Benefices which this Writer marks with Italian Characters and makes much Use of But this Apostolical Institution and Collation by the Bishop alluded to doth also involve in it Ordination even as the Ordination which is observ'd by himself n Pag. 13. from the Bishop signified also Institution in the charge and cure But the Collation challeng'd by our Princes is of another Nature and signifies no more then the Nominating a Person to be Ordain'd to such an Office or presenting a Person already Ordained to such a Benefice And the right of Investitures which is the same with such a Collation is by this Bishop o Jurisd â—eg Ep. p. 137. asserted to Emperours This being clear'd which was by him on purpose perplex'd If we take the extent of the Regal power from this Bishop He tells p Id. p. 10. us That Sovereign's as Nursing Fathers of the Church are to see that Bishops and all Inferiour Ministers perform their faithfull duties in their several places and if they be found faulty to punish them His next Author is Mr. Thorndike Who is as large
as any one in the Vindication of the Churches rights and Yet He tells us q Epilog Pag. 391. that No-Man will refuse Christian Princes the Interest of protecting the Church against all such Acts as may prove praejudicial to the common Faith He holds as this Writer with great concern r Church Government pag. 390. observes that the Secular power may restore any law which Christ or his Apostles have ordained not only against a Major part but all the Clergy and Governours of the Church and may for a Paenalty of their opposing it suppress their power and commit it to others tho' they also be establish'd by another Law Apostolical Thus that considerative man who held not the Pope to be Antichrist or the Hierarchy of the Church to be followers of Antichrist ſ Church Government pag. 391. Bishop Taylour his next Author doth with the rest assert that the Episcopal Office has some powers annex'd to it independent on the Regal But then he farther lays down these Rules t Ductor Dub. l. 3. c. 3. r. 4. That the Supreme Civil-power is also Supreme Governour over all Persons and in all Causes u Ibid. r. 5. Hath a Legislative power in Affairs of Religion and the Church x Ibid. r. 7. Hath Jurisdiction in causes not only Ecclesiastical but also Internal and Spiritual y Ibid. r. 7. n. 9. Hath autority to convene and dissolve all Synods Ecclesiastical z Ibid. r. 8. Is indeed to govern in Causes Ecclesiastical by the means and measure of Christ's Institutions i. e. by the Assistance and Ministry of Ecclesiastical Persons a Ibid. r. 8. n. 6. but that there may happen a case in which Princes may and must refuse to confirm the Synodical decrees Sentences and Judgments of Ecclesiastics b Ibid. l. 3. c. 4. r. 8. That Censures Ecclesiastical are to be inflicted by the consent and concurrence of the Supreme Civil power The next Author cited is the Learned Primate Bramhal and We have here reason to wonder that one Who praetends to have been conversant in his Writings dares appear in the Vindication of a Cause which the Learned Author has so longe since so shamefully defeated As for the right of Sovereign Princes This Arch-Bishop will tell c Bp. Br. Works Tom. 1. p. 88. him That to affirm that Sovereign Princes cannot make Ecclesiastical Constitutions under a Civil pain or that they cannot especially with the advice and concurrence of their Clergy assembled in a National Synod reform errors and abuses and remedy Incroachments and Usurpations in Faith or Discipline is contrary to the sense and practise of all Antiquity and as for matter of Fact He will instruct him d Ibid. p. 76. that our Kings from time to time call'd Councils made Ecclesiastical Laws punish'd Ecclesiastical Persons saw that they did their duties in their calling c. From this Bishop's acknowledgment that the Bishops are the proper Judges of the Canon this Author that He may according to the Language of a * Educ p. 98. modern Pen as well waken the Taciturn with Quaestions as silence the Loquacious with baffling fallacies takes Occasion briskly to ask whether this Bishop doth not mean here that the Bishops may both compose and execute Canons in the King's Dominions and use Ecclesiastical Censures by their own Autority But see saith He the Bishops depriv'd of the former power in the Reformation To which I answer that the power of which they were depriv'd in the Reformation was only of such an executing the Canons as carried with it pecuniary and corporal Punishments and this power the Bishop has told him they could not Exercise by their own Autority And here it were to be wish'd that our Author in reading this Bishop's Works had made use of his advice e Ibid. p. 156. To cite Authors fully and faithfully not by halves without adding to or new moulding their Autorities according to Fancy or Interest The next Advocate against Regal Supremacy is King Charles the First But if we may take a draught of that Blessed Martyr's Sentiments from his own Portraiture f E I K. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adv. To the Pr. of Wales He did not think his Autority confin'd to Civil Affairs but that the true glory of Princes consists as well in advancing Gods Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good as in the Dispensation of Civil power with Justice and Honour to the publick Peace g Ibid. cap. 17. He thought himself as King intrusted by God and the Laws with the good both of Church and State and saw no reason why he should give up or weaken by any change that power and Influence which in right and reason He ought to have over both He thought himself oblig'd to preserve the Episcopal Government in its right Constitution not because his Bishops told him so but because his Judgment was fully satisfied that it had of all other the best Scripture grounds and also the constant practice of Christian Churches He was no Friend of implicit Obedience but after he has told the Prince h Adv. to the Pr. of Wales that the best Profession of Religion is that of the Church of England adds I would have your own Judgment and reason now seal to that Sacred Bond which Education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other Mens Custom or Tradition which you profess He did not give that glorious Testimony to the Religion established in the Church of England that it was the best in the World not only in the community as Christian but also in the special Notion as Reformed and for this reason requuired and intreated the Prince as his Father and his King that he would never suffer his Heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from it till he had first tried it and after much search and many disputes thus concluded These are the Sentiments of our Authors in which if I have been over-long the Reader will excuse me that I choose rather to intermix something useful from these great Pens then to entertain him altogether with the Paralogisms and prevarications of this Writer There is nothing that remains considerable under this first Thesis but his Sub-sumption that whatever powers belong'd to the Church in times of persecution and before Emperours had embrac'd Christianity are and must still be allowed to belong to her in Christian States Which I conceive not altogether so Necessary that it must be allowed and I am sure by our Authors it is not As for Convening of Councils the power of greatest concern Bishop i Serm. of the right of Assemblies Andrews to this Quaestion What say you to the 300 Years before Constantine How went Assemblies then Who call'd them all that while returns this Answer Truly as the people of the Jews did before in Aegypt under the tyranny of Pharaoh They were
then a Church under persecution until Moses was rais'd up by God a Lawful Magistrate over them The cases are alike for all the world No Magistrate did assemble them in Aegypt and good reason why they had none to do it But this was no barr but when Moses arose authoriz'd by God had the Trumpets by God deliver'd to him He might take them keep them use them for that end for which God gave them to assemble the Congregation Shall Moses have no more to do then Pharaoh or Constantine then Nero See also a Field of the Church l. 5. c. 52. Dr Field His Third Thesis is That the Secular Prince cannot b Soave Hist of Conc. Tr. Pag. 77. depose or eject from the exercise of their Office in his Dominions any of the Clergy nor introduce others into the place of the ejected But the Quaestion here is not Whether the Prince can eject any of the Clergy from the Exercise of their Office but Whether he can depose any for not Exercising it While the Clergy faithfully discharge their Office the Prince ought to protect them and if for this they suffer no doubt but they are Martyrs But it is possible they may abuse their power and then it is to be enquir'd Whether Civil Laws may not inhibit them the Vse of it This Author holds the Negative and tells us 1st They cannot eject them at pleasure without giving any cause thereof But he doth not pretend that the Reforming Princes ever ejected any without a Cause given And therefore he adds 2ly Neither may Princes depose them for any Cause which concerns things Spiritual but with this Limitation without the consent of the Clergy I could wish he had here told us what he ment by things Spiritual For things as well as Persons Spiritual are of great Extent d Pope Paul the 3d told the Duke of Mantua that it is the Opinion of the Doctors that Priest's Concubines are of Ecclsiastical Jurisdiction But he gives us his reason for his assertion Because it is necessary that a Judge to be a competent one have as well potestatem in causam as in Personam and the Prince as has been mention'd in the 1st Thesis has no Autority to judge such Causes purely Spiritual Now the power denied to the Prince in the 1st Thesis is to determine matters of Faith But may not the Prince judge whether an Ecclesiastick deserves Deprivation without determining a Matter of Faith May not he judge according to what has been already determin'd by the Church Or may not he appoint such Delegates as can determine matters of Faith Or are all the Causes for which a Clergy-man may be depriv'd merely Spiritual By Virtue of this Thesis he proves the Ejection of the Western Patriarch unlawful pag. 37. Now was not this Matter of Faith already determine by the Clergy Had they not unanimously decreed That he had no more Autority here then any other forreign Bishop And can the King be said here to have acted without the consent of the Clergy And yet that matter of fact is applied to this Thesis As for the Ejection of the Bishops in King Edward's time is not that confest to have been for not acknowledging the Regal Supremacy pag. 70. But this was a matter which wanted no new Determination for the Church-Autority had decided it in their Synod in King Henry's Reign But it is said the Judges were not Canonical as being the King's Commissioners part Clergy part Laity But neither was the cause purely Canonical for denying the Supremacy was not only an infringment of the Canon but also a Violation of an Act of Parliament As for the Bishops Bonner and Gardiner they were accus'd for not asserting the Civil power of the King in his Nonage Nor do they plead Conscience for not doing it but deny the Matter of Fact * Burn. His Ref. part 2. l. 1. p. 127. 165. The same Objections were then made against their Deprivation as are reassum'd by this Author now and therefore it may suffice to return the same answers That the Sentence being only of Deprivation from their Sees it was not so entirely of Ecclesiastical Censure but was of a mix'd nature so that Lay-men might joyn in it since they had taken Commissions from the King for their Bishopricks by which they held them only during the Kings pleasure they could not complain of their Deprivation which was done by the King's Autority Others who look'd farther back remembred that Constantine the Emp. had appointed Secular Men to enquire into some things objected to Bishops who were call'd Cognitores or Triers and such had examin'd the business of Coecilian Bishop of Carthage even upon an Appeal after it had been tried by several Synods and given Judgment against Donatus and his party The same Constantine had also by his Autority put Eustathius out of Antioch Athanasius out of Alexandria and Paul out of Constantinople and though the Orthodox Bishops complain'd of their particulars as done unjustly at the false suggestion of the Arrians yet they did not deny the Autority of the Emperors in such cases Ibid. p. 127. But neither is the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury by this Author allow'd to be a proper Judge that because He did not Act by his Canonical Superiority in the Church but by the Autority he joyntly with the rest receiv'd from the King As if he had ever the less the power of a Metropolitan because He was also the King's Commissioner By this way of arguing the Decrees of Oecumenical Councils will be invalid because they were call'd to determine Controversies by the command of Emperors But how Uncanonical soever King Edward's Bishops are said to have been He does not except against Queen Mary's Bishops tho' they in depriving the Reformed acted by Commission from the Queen As for the Bishops ejected in Q. Elizabeth's time it has been already said it was for a Civil cause i. e. refusing the Oath of Supremacy which why it should be lawful in her Father's time and unlawful in her's why it should be contriv'd by Roman Catholics in that Reign and scrupled by the same Roman Catholics in this Why it should be inoffensive when exprest in larger terms and scandalous when mitigated whence on a sudden the Refusers espied so much Obliquity in that Oath which they had all took before probably either as Bishops or Priests in the reigns of King Henry the 8th and Edward the 6th whence this change of things proceeded unless from secret intimations from Rome or their own Obstinacy will not easily be conjectur'd As for his Note that what is sayd of the other Clergy may be said likewise of the Patriarch for any Autority which he stands posses'd of by such Ecclesiastical Canons as cannot justly be pretended to do any wrong to the Civil Government He has been often told by our Authors that Patriarchs are an Humane Institution That as they were erected so they
may be dissolv'd by the Prudence of Men that as they were erected by leave and confirmation of Princes so they may be dissolv'd by the same that the Bishop of Romes Patriarchate doth not extend beyond the sub-urbicary Churches that we are without the reach of his Jurisdiction and therefore that the power claim'd over us is an Invasion that did not Popes think fit to dispence with themselves for Perjury having sworn to keep inviolably the Decrees of the Eight first General Councils they would not in plain opposition to the a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 6. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Can. 7. Here the Council decrees that Ancient Customs should prevail that the Priviledges of all Churches in their distinct Provinces should be kept inviolable We desire the Bishop of Rome's Patriarchate over the Britannic Churches should be prov'd to be an Antient Custom and if not that the Priviledges of these Churches may be preserv'd Nicene and b The Fathers of the Ephesine Council having decree'd that the Cyprian Prelates should hold their rights untouchâ—d and unviolated according to the Canons of the Holy Fathers and the Ancient Customs Ordaining their own Bishop and that the Bishop of Antioch who then pretended Jurisdiction over them as the Bishop of Rome now doth overs us should be excluded add farther 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 c. Conc. Eph. Can. 8. Let the same be observ'd in other Diocesses and all Provinces every where That no Bishop occupy and other Province which formerly and from the beginning was not under the power of him or his Predecessors If any do occupy any Province or subject it by force let him restore it Now we plead the Cyprian Priviledges and desire we may be exempted from the Jurisdiction of the Bishop of Rome till it is prov'd that He or His Predecessors did from the Beginning exercise any power in these Churches Ephesine Canons pretend to any Jurisdiction over us That they so invading ought to be judg'd by a free Oecumenical Synod if such an one could be had but that this Remedy being praecluded us Each National Church has liberty to free her self from such Usurpation that the Church of England pleads the benefit of this Right and her Sovereigns having power to transfer Bishopricks might remove the Patriarchate from Rome to Canterbury and justly exclude any forreign Prelate from Jurisdiction within their Territories But that the power claim'd by the Pope however mollified by the Novices of that Church is more then Patriarchal and that it is not our Rule which this Author so much dislikes but Pope Leo's the c Ep. 54. 1st that propria perdit qui indebita concupiscit This plea of a Western Patriarchate is fatally confounded by that one plain Period of Bishop d True Dif part 2. Bilson As for his Patriarchate by God's law he hath none in this Realm for Six Hundred years after Christ he had none for the last 6 Hundred years looking after greater matters he would have none Above or against the Princes Sword he can have none to the subversion of the Faith and Oppression of his Brethren he ought to have none He must seek farther for Subjection to his Tribunal this land oweth him none So much for the first branch of this Thesis the 2d is that as the Prince cannot eject or depose the Clergy so neither can he introduce any into the place of those who are ejected or deceas'd without the concurrence of the Clergy If by the concurrence of the Clergy he means that the Person assign'd by the Prince to any sacred office cannot execute it till he be ordain'd by the Clergy No one will deny it Or if he think that the Ordainer ought to lay hands on none but whom he esteems fit for the discharge of so sacred an Office here also we agree with him But how doth it follow that because Ordination which is consecrating Men to the work of the Holy Ministry is the proper Office of the Clergy the Prince may not recommend to the Church a fit Person so to be consecrated or assign to the Person already consecrated the place where he shall perform that Holy Work As for the Canons by him alledg'd they being Humane Institutions are not of Aeternal Obligation but changeable according to the different State of the Church If the 31st Apostolick Canon which excommunicates all who gain Benefices by the Interest of Secular Princes and forbids the People to communicate with them still oblige then we are exempted from Communion with the Bishop of Rome How comes the latter part of the 6th Canon of the Nicene Council which concerns the Election of Bishops still to be valid and the former part which limits the Jurisdiction of Patriarchs so long since to be null Why must the C. of England accept the 2d Nicene Council in matters of Discipline which the * Petr. De Marc. l. 6. c. 25. §. 8. Gallican Church rejected in matters of Faith Were the Canon of the Laodicean Council here cited pertinent to the purpose as it is not it being directed only against popular Elections yet why must that be indispensable when another Canon which enumerates the Canonical books of Scripture has so little Autority It is plain the manners of Elections have varied much in the divers States of the Church The Apostles and Apostolical Persons nominated their Successors afterwards Bishops were chose by the Clergy and the people after by the Bishops of the Province the Metropolitan ratifying the choice In process of time Emperors when become Christian interpos'd and constituted and confirm'd even Popes themselves * Marca de Conc. Imp. Sac cap. 8. Nor is this Power of Princes repugnant to Holy Scripture in which we find that * 1 King c. 2. v. 35. King Solomon put Zadok the Priest in the Room of Abiathar That * 2 Chr. 19.11 Jehosaphat set Amariah the Chief-Priest over the People in all matters of the Lord That He * v. 8. set of the Levites and of the Priests and of the Chief Fathers of Israel for the Judgment of the Lord and for Controversies As for his alledg'd Inconvenience that if temporal Governors can place and displace the Clergy they will make the Churches Synods to state divine matters according to their own minds and so the Church will not be praeserv'd incorrupt in her Doctrine and Discipline They who maintain the just rights of the Prince are not obliged to defend the abuse of them there is perhaps no power ordain'd for our good which may not be perverted to mischief were this right of placing and displacing left to a Patriarch or a Synod yet either of these might so manage their trust that a corrupted majority of Clergy might state divine matters according to their own mind and so the Doctrines of Christ be chang'd for the Traditions of men But to these objected Injuries which the Church may suffer from a bad Prince
in this Matter As for this Objection of the Clergy's being aw'd by fear in this Act he himself has unluckily cited a passage from the then Lady Mary which shews the vanity of it p. 142. I am well assur'd saith She speaking of Edward VI. in her Letter to the Council that the King his Father's Laws were consented to without compulsion by the whole Realm both Spiritual and Temporal I shall say nothing more to this Thesis but oppose another to it That could an Oecumenical Synod make definitions contrary to the word of God yet that a Synod wanting the greatest part of Christian Bishops unjustly excluded and consisting partly of Persons unjustly introduc'd partly of those who have been first bribed with Mony and promises of Church-praeferment or praeengag'd by Oaths to comply with the Vsurpations of a praetended Spiritual Monarch is not to be accounted a lawful Oecumenical Synod nor the Acts thereof free and valid especially as to their establishing such usurpations This is a Thesis which needs no Application I proceed to his Sixth Thesis That the Judgment and consent of some Clergy-men of a Province when they are the lesser part cannot be call'd the judgment and consent of the Whole Clergy of the Province This Assertion that a lesser part is not aequall to the Whole is the only thing which looks like Mathematics in the whole Discourse and the Reader may hence be convinc'd that our Author doth sometimes travel in the * Educ p. 119. High road of Demonstration But here we desire it may be prov'd either that the Reformation was not effected by the major part of the Clergy or that a minor part judging according to truth are not to be obey'd rather then the Major part judging contrary to it In the mean time it is easily reply'd that the judgment and consent of some few Bishops * Soave Hist Conc. Tr. p. 153. suppose 48. Bishops and 5. Cardinals giving Canonical Autority to books Apocryphal and making Authentical a translation differing from the Original cannot be esteem'd the judgment and consent of the Catholic Church 7th Thesis That since a National Synod may not define matters of Faith contrary to former Superior Councils much less may any Secular Person define contrary to those Councils or also to a National Synod The defining matters of Faith we allow to be the proper office of the Clergy but because every one must give an account of his own Faith every one is oblig'd to take care that what he submits to the belief of be consistent with his Christianity I am oblig'd to pay all submission to the Church-Autority but the Church having bounds within which she ought to be restrain'd in her Determinations if she transgresses these Limits and acts against that Christianity which she professes to maintain I may rather refuse obedience then forfeit my Christianity If in a cause of this moment I make a wrong Judgment I am answerable for it at Gods Tribunal not because I usurped a right which was never granted me but because I misus'd a Liberty which was indulg'd me This we take to be the case of each private Christian and farther that the Prince having an Obligation not only to believe a-right and Worship God as is praescrib'd himself but also to protect the true Faith and Worship in his Dominions ought to use all those means of discovering the Truth which God has afforded viz. consulting the Pastours of the Church reading the word of God c. And that having discover'd it He may promulgate it to His Subjects by them also to be embrac'd but not without the use of that Judgment and Discretion which to them also is allowed If here it happens that the Civil and Ecclesiastical power command things contrary there is nothing to be done by the Subject but to enquire on which side God is and if God be on the King's side by a direct Law in the matter He is not on the Churches side for her Spiritual Autority Thus a good King of Israel might * 2 King 38.22 take away the High places and Altars and say unto Judah and Jerusalem Ye shall Worship before the Altar at Jerusalem because such a Command was justifiable by the Law of Moses Nor is it any Praejudice against it * 2 King 23.9 That the Priests of the High places refus'd to come up to the Altar at Jerusalem Thus might King Alfred restore to the Decalogue and to its Obligation the Non tibi facies Deos aureos tho' Veneration of Images was commanded by the second Nicene Synod And tho' the Councils of Constance and Trent had thought fit to repeal Our Saviour's Institution yet King Edward might revive the Ancient Statute * Mat. 26.27 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 As for his Eighth Thesis it has already been prov'd to be Felo de se and that the limitation destroys whatever the Proposition would have establish'd When the Gallican Church shall have receiv'd all the Decrees of the Council of Trent and the Roman Church observed the Canons of the first General Councils When the Western Patriach shall have rechang'd his Regalia Petri into the old regulas Patrum it may then be seasonable to examine How far National Churches are oblig'd by things of meer Ecclesiastical Constitution I should now proceed to examine the Historical part of his Discourse but that I understand is already under the Consideration of another Hand from which the Reader may shortly expect a satisfactory account But I may not omit for the Reader 's diversion a Grammatical Criticism which our Author hath made upon the little particle as pag. 38. It is enacted the 32d Hen. 8.26 c. That all such Determinations Decrees Definitions and Ordinances as according to God's word and Christ's Gospel shall at any time be set forth by the Arch-Bishops Bishops and Doctors in Divinity appointed by his Majesty or else by the whole Clergy of England in and upon the matters of Christ's Religion c. shall be by all his Grace's Subjects fully Believ'd Obey'd c. Vpon which he makes this learned Note Whereas under the Reformation private Men are tied only to obey and believe the Definitions of Councils when they are set forth according to God's word i. e. when private Men think them to be so yet here this Liberty was thought fit to be restrain'd and private men tyed to believe these Definitions when set forth as according to God's word i. e. when the setters forth believe them to be so To obey a thing defin'd according to God's word and to obey a thing defin'd as being according to God's word are Injunctions very different Now a little skill in Honest Walker's particles would have clear'd this point and a School-boy that was to turn this passage into Latin would have known that as is put for which Accordingly Keble abridging this Statute makes it run thus All Decrees and Ordinances which according to Gods word
of several times justified and condemn'd the same thing I am very well convinc'd tho' not from our Author's proof that the Pope stood not alone in his judgment For certainly He that holds both sides of a Contradiction cannot be singular in his Opinion The Pope judg'd for the Divorce in the 17th Paragraph when the Dispensation was procur'd from him but here in the 19th he judges against it But our Author mistakes that Pope's Character when he represents him as passing Sentence according to the merits of the Cause it being certain that in this whole procedure He acted by no other Principles then his Passions or Interest And therefore this Author observes a greater Decorum when telling us in the same Page that the King had now no hopes of obtaining a Divorce from the Pope he does not pretend the Reason to have been because the Pope was convinc'd of the Unlawfulness of it but because at the same time he stood much in aw of the Emperor victorious in Italy and a near Kinsman and Favourer of Queen Katherine He needed not therefore to have instanc'd in the different Opinions of diverse Men since the actings of the Pope alone would sufficiently have convinc'd us that the several Interests of several times justifi'd and condemn'd the same thing Now to return to our Matter in hand So that it seems he has digress'd for 2 Pages to no other purpose then to shew that his Paratheses are of the same Stamp with his Parentheses The aforesaid Summ of 100000 l spent upon the Vniversities abroad c. This is again a transcript from Dr. Bailie and I need say no worse of it § 20 The King he saith excepted at the Limitation of Quantum per legem Christi licet in the Title given him by the Clergy and so at last upon renew'd threats this Clause also was procur'd to be omitted See Antiquit. Britannic The Author knew or might have known that the Author of the Antiquities was in this mistaken For Dr. Burnet a Hist V. 1. p. 112. from the Cabala p. 244. has upon this passage in A. Bp. Parker observ'd that King Henry when the Province of York demurr'd upon granting the King the Title of Head as improper in his Answer to them urges that Words are not always understood in the strictest Sense and mentions the Explanation made in the Province of Canterbury that it was in so far as is agreeable with the Law of Christ Accordingly it is represented as pass'd with this Qualification by our other b Herbert p. 348. Full. Eccl. Hist Book 5. p. 184. Dr. Heylin Ref. Justif § 2. Historians He refers us again to Dr. Bailie But the Reader I presume has had enough of him already The excluding the Patriarch is he saith contrary to his 4th Thesis It is pity these Theses were not written in the last Century for the Use of those Roman-Catholics who excluded the Pope They could find no grounds for the Papal Autority from Scripture Antiquity or Reason but they might perhaps have been convinc'd from our Author's Theses which are an Autority distinct to all those This Paragraph concludes with the mangled Citation from Dr. Hammond which has already been animadverted on and is a sore which if I do not here again touch upon it is because I would not gall him too much Cranmer is said to have divorc'd the King from Q. Katherine after he had excluded the Pope's Autority out of his Dominions § 22 The Divorce c Burn. V. 1. p. 131. compar'd with p. 144. was pronounc'd in May 1533 and the Extinguishing Act did not pass till March following Cranmer in the Sentence is call'd Legate of the Apostolic See By this Instance it is plain how implicitely our Author follows a Sand p. 73. Sanders in his Chronology as well as History Warham a favourer of the Queen's cause b Sand. p. 55. Varamus qui summo studio Reginae partes adjuverat saith Sanders This favourer of the Queen's Cause when the Marriage was first propos'd c Burn. V. 1. p. 35. declar'd it was contrary to the Law of God He induc'd d Ibid. p. 36. the e Hen. the 8th Prince when of Age to enter his Protestation against it f Ibid. p. 38. He subscrib'd and perswaded the other Bishops to subscribe to the unlawfulness of it He earnestly prest Fisher to concurr and upon Refusal made another set that Bishop's Name and Seal to the Resolution of the other Bishops These are some of the favours which Warham shew'd to the Queen's Cause § 23 The Clergy having declar'd the King Supreme Head of the Church it seem'd reasonable that no Acts of the Church should stand good without the concurrence of the Head This is a wild and senseless Calumny the C. of England thinks no Acts which are purely Spiritual want the King's concurrence her Sacraments and her Censures she esteems valid independently on all humane Autority her Charter she derives immediately from Christ The Clergy did indeed bind themselves not to promulge and execute any Canons without the King's leave but the execution of which they abridg themselves is such as hath influence on the Civil Rights of the Subject and therefore necessarily requir'd the concurrence of the Supreme Civil power He cites from Dr. Heylin an Answer made by Gardiner and allow'd by the Convocation to a Parliamentary Remonstrance But either my a Reform Just in the Historical Tracts Edit Lond. 1681. Edition of Heylin or which I am the rather apt to think from the infidelity of his other citations this Author deceives me The next Paragraph descants upon the request of the Clergy that the Laws Ecclesiastical might be review'd by 32 Commissioners § 24 This he complains was never sufficiently weigh'd by Dr. Heylin Dr. Hammond nor Dr. Fern. The business of those Advocates was to defend the Reformation and it is one of our Author 's pertinent remarks that they did not meddle with what was not reform'd The Reformation of the Canons was a design of which Nothing worse can be said than that it did not take effect If it trouble him that Canons contrary to the King's Prerogative Laws of the Land good of the Subject and Laws of God should be reform'd no Honest man can pity him If he quarrels with the competency of the Reviewers that has been spoke to by the b Animadv p. 36. Animadverter If by Canons Synodal he will understand the Constitutions of any other Synods but those of this Nation it is out of his wonted pride to outface the Statutes For the c Forasmuch as such Canons Constitutions and ordinances as heretofore have been made by the Clergy of this Realm cannot now be view'd examin'd and determin'd by the King 's Highness and the 32 Persons according to the Petition of the Clergy 25. Hen. 8.19 c. Act expresly limits the Review to those Canons which had been enacted by English Synods and had no
but I know not of any Henrician Creed incorporated into our Faith The Romanists have a Creed Younger by some Years then King Henry but nothing is a part of our Faith but what sprung up with Infant-Christianity It is therefore a wild Inference that because we own the King to be Supreme Head of the Church therefore We make the Christian Religion mutable Did we make Acts of Parliament the Rule of our Faith there would be ground for such an Objection For then an Article of Faith might be enacted and repeal'd at pleasure and He who was Orthodox in one Session might become an Heretic in the next But Scripture is the Rule of our Faith a Rule like it's Author unchangeable the same yesterday to day and for ever The Christian indeed is obnoxious to the power of the Prince but Christianity is without the reach of his Sword Nor has the King this influence over the external profession of Religion as he is the Ecclesiastical Head but as he is the Civil Supreme God has intrusted him as such with the power of the Sword with a command indeed to use it for the protection of the true Religion but with a natural liberty still of using it for the Protection of a false This Author I confess has a remedy against this namely some Temporal coactive power lodg'd in the Pope in order to dissolve upon Occasion the coactive power of the Prince But we do not envy him this Catholicon against Innovation Passive Obedience is our Principle and if this renders the legal Establishment of our Religion more obnoxious to the pleasure of the Civil Magistrate Yet it better secures our common Christianity Q. Mary therefore may repeal King Edward's Laws but unless she could repeal Christ's Law too Ridley's and Latimer's Religion will still be the same The only difference is that the Faith which before they defended from the Pulpit they now more effectually propagate at the Stake To conclude this point whilst Princes have the power of the Sword and Subjects are oblig'd to Non-resistance the Supreme Governor will have an influence over the outward State of Religion and He that complains of this repines against the Methods of God's providence It is no blemish therefore on the Reform'd Religion which is here dwelt upon by this Author that it went forward or backward under King Henry according as his different passions or Interests inclin'd him Whilst Q. Ann liv'd it had indifferent success saith Fox Here then saith our witty Observer the Supreme Head of the Church was directed by a Woman and manag'd the Affairs of Religion accordingly Now admitting this were a truth which had escap'd him Yet the curious Editor I doubt not amongst his Collections has met with a Medal representing Donna Olympia with the Pope's Mitre on her Head and St. Peter's Keys in her Hands and on the Reverse the Pope with his Head drest like a Lady and a Spindle in his hand Be it also true that Cromwel a Laic had the total management of Ecclesiastical affairs under King Henry Yet any one Who is conversant in History knows that the administration of the Popedom has been in the Hands of more obnoxious Favourites § 86 What is said in the next Paragraph is not of more moment here then when first mention'd in Paragraph the 19th § 87 By Virtue of such Supremacy he took Possession of all the Monasteries and Religious Houses Our prolix Author who never spares his own Labour or his Reader 's Patience has enlarg'd upon this point for 12 Paragraphs and is very copious against Sacrilege But I do not see how our Cause is concern'd in this charge Avarice and Sacrilege are as great Sins in our Homilies as they are in the Popish Canons and Cranmer and Ridley were as severe against robbing the Church as this Declaimer We are no more concern'd to defend King Henry's rapines then the Lusts some have charged him with Were the Suppression of Abbies as great a crime as it is here under false colours represented I do not see why we are more oblig'd to plead in it's favour than this Writer would think himself bound because he asserts the power of the Roman Patriarch to justifie the foul and unparallel'd enormities of those who have sat in St. Peter's chair But were the dissolution of Monasteries represented impartially it would be easie were it necessary to give it a fair appearance and it must be at last confest that the fault of King Henry was not so much in taking away those foundations of Superstition as in not applying all the Revenues as he did some and had done more if the Reformers had had more Influence over him to Uses truly Religious By Virtue of such a Supremacy he made orders and gave Dispensations in matters of Marriage §. 99.100 of Fasts of Holydays of Election and Consecration of Bishops and Challeng'd a power of abrogating several other Ceremonies It ought to have been shewn that any Constitutions concerning these did ever oblige us but such as either were made and ordained within this Realm or such other as were induced into the Realm by sufferance consent and custom for until this Proposition laid down in the Statute a 25. of Hen. 8.27 c. be disprov'd the Assumption there that the State hath power to dispence with it's own Laws will be unshaken Ecclesiastical Canons with this Author is another expression for Papal Decrees the Autority therefore which supported them being justly taken away it is no wonder if they fell with it Amongst the Rites which King Henry commands to be observ'd till he shall be pleas'd to alter them Fox reckons paying of Tithes Where this Annotator observes that Tithes are here conceiv'd to be in the disposal of the Supreme Head of the English Church Now whether King Henry thought Tithes to be jure divino or not doth not concern the Reformation But what is here said of payment of Tithes doth not prove that he thought them alienable from the Clergy For he might by his Laws regulate the payment of them tho' he did not think them disposable in this Author's sense Several Statutes were made in his Reign for the better securing this Right of the Clergy In them a 27. Hen. 8. c. 20. Tithes are said to be due to God and the Church the detainers of them to have no regard of their b 32. Hen. 8. c. 7. duties to Almighty God And the c Ref. Leg. Tit. de Decimis cap. 1. Reformatio legum derives the Clergy's original right to them from the Laws of Christ § 101 By Virtue of such Supremacy he without any consent of the Clergy by his Vice-gerent Cromwel order'd that English Bibles should be provided and put in every Church The translation of the Bible was petition'd by the 2 d Bur. V. 1. p. 195. Houses of Convocation and the publication of it was included in that request This Act therefore had the consent of the
Us who has invited us to his House to a Volume of satisfactions that the Alienation of Church-Lands consists with the principles of that Church But 't is said King Edward went farther and declar'd Monastic Vows to be unlawful superstitious and unobliging The Reformers have always declar'd the same and must continue to do so till some reasons are brought to convince Us of the falshood of such a Declaration Those which are offer'd in the Discourse of Caelibacy are not demonstrative King Edward seiz'd upon Chauntries Free-Chappels c. his pretence being the Unlawfulness of offering the sacrifice of the Eucharist or giving alms for the defunct The unlawfulness of these is not pretended by the Reformation but prov'd The Chauntries were dissolv'd that the provisions for them might be converted to more pious Uses this was the design of the Act of Parliament for which only We can be thought oblig'd to answer how ever it might be defeated For the statute expressly provides that they be converted to good and Godly Uses as in erecting Grammar-Schools for the Education of Youth in Virtue and Godliness the farther augmenting of the Universities and better provision for the poor and needy § 139 In this he went beyond his Father that He began the taking of Bishop's Lands also This must be reckon'd an Act of the Reformation tho' he knows it is as pathetically lamented by our Writers as by his own He cites the complaints of three Protestant Bishops Cranmer Ridley and Godwin and a Protestant Dr. Heylin to prove this charge and yet at the same time has the boldness to charge it on the Reform'd Sure saith he foul things were done in this kind because I find even King Edward's favourite Bishops highly to dislike them If Cranmer and Ridley and other King Edward's favourite-Bishops disliked the spoyl of the Church-goods why is the Odium of this cast upon the Reformers Or why must very foul things be done before these declare their dislike when it will be found upon History that Cranmer and Ridley were more inveterate Enemies to robbing of the Church then Gardiner and Bonner He shuts up this Paragraph with a remark that Laymenders of Religion ordinarily terminate in these two things the advancing of their carnal Liberty and temporal Estates Sure this Author thinks that We know nothing beyond the Alps that we never heard of the rich Nephews of Popes which are flagrant evidences that Carnality and Avarice are not only Lay-vices But perhaps he may object that Popes are no menders of Religion § 140 By Virtue of such Supremacy he remov'd Images out of Churches and this when the Second Nicene Council had recommended the Use of them This Second Nicene Council is often appeal'd to by this Writer there is a Second Divine Commandment or at least there once was such a Commandment which will deserve his Consideration What Reverence we pay to this Council he may have learnt from a late a Reply to the 2 Disc Oxon. Reply where the Reader will find a just Character of this celebrated Assembly § 141 By Virtue of such Supremacy he impos'd a Book of Homilies i. e. He took care that the people should be instructed in things concerning their Salvation who before had been kept in ignorance § 142 He laid a command upon the Clergy to administer the Communion in both kinds to the people Which Command had been laid upon them by our Savior Contrary to the Injunction of the Council of Constance Which Injunction was made with a non-obstante to the Institution of Christ Without any preceding consultation of a National Synod But b Bur. V. 2. p. 50. others tell us it was agreed to by the Convocation which sat with that Parliament and particularly that in the lower House it did not meet with a Contradictory Vote § 143 The succeeding Paragraphs to the 164th treat at large of the Suppression of the former Church-Liturgies Ordinals and other Rituals the setting up of New Forms of Celebrating the Communion Ordination and Common-prayer the alterations of King Edward's first Common-Prayer-Book in his Second and the reduction of some things in the Scotch Liturgy to the first Form of King Edward and the complaints concerning this in Laudensium Autocatacrisis But the Reader will excuse me if I think a defence of our Liturgy at this time of day needless the unlawfulness of the Mass and Invocation of Saints and the non-Necessity of Sacerdotal Confession have been defended in Volumes besides that this which is here said is only a Second Edition of the two Discourses concerning the Adoration c. Where this change of the Services is animadverted on So that this has been already consider'd and any farther Reply is superseded by the two Learned Answers from London and Oxford to those Discourses § 146 By Virtue of such Supremacy the King conceiv'd he had a power to alter and reform the Ecclesiastical Laws This is the 4th time that this Reformation of the Laws has been insisted on it is here confest that this Rerformation of them was never ratified by King Parliament or Convocation i. e. that it was no Act of the Reformation Nothing is urg'd against it but that these Laws were establish'd by former Superior Councils and the Reader e're he can be satisfied of that must be at the charge of four more Volumes of Church-Government By such Supremacy he abrogated all former Church-Laws concerning days of fasting or abstinence and appointed those he thought fit by his own and the Parliament's Autority The Canon-Laws which he call's the Church-Laws for fasting were full of mockery and superstition Religion was plac'd in those Observances and yet Sensuality was consistent with them It was adviseable therefore to take off those Laws and yet to keep up such as might make Fasting and Abstinence agreeable to their true End Which is to be a means to Virtue and to subdue men's Bodies to their Soul and Spirit the End expressly provided for in the Statute There is no Obligation he saith for the Observation of either Fasting or Abstinence by any express Canon of this Church Reformed but only by Act of Parliament The days of Fasting are prescrib'd in the Liturgy which has the Autority of Convocation Fasting is enjoyn'd in the Homilies which have the same Autority It is there recommended from precepts of Scripture from the Example of Christ and from the Constitutions of the Primitive Councils It is defin'd to be a with-holding from all meat and drink and all manner of Natural food in contradiction to this Author who saith that not Fasting is enjoyn'd us but only Abstinence from Flesh He might with as good reason have urg'd that Praying to God and believing in Christ are not enjoyn'd by the Church as that Fasting is not For if by Canons he means those which are properly so call'd neither is there any Canon that I know of which enjoyns such Prayer or such Belief § 165 By Virtue of such Supremacy
be past by them It was not the Doctrine of the Catechism or Articles which was here question'd but the false ascription of the Catechism to the Synod Now the Articles being undeniably genuine they content themselves only to condemn the Doctrine of them but the Catechism being suppos'd illegitimate they subscribe both against it's Doctrine and Autority Nor could Philpot have pleaded as our Author would have had him that the Synod's composing the Articles justified the Act of the Delegates composing the Catechism since this might indeed warrant the Doctrine of the Catechism but not the entitling it to the Synod He saith all the Historians that he hath seen are silent concerning these Articles In this dispute concerning the Articles Dr. Heylin is twice mention'd and two several Books of his refer'd to in those very pages where he mentions these Articles In his a Heylin's Hist p. 121. History He thinks them debated and concluded on by a Grand Committee on whom the Convocation had devolv'd their power and esteems it not improbable that these Articles being debated and agreed upon by the said Committee might also pass the Vote of the whole Convocation though we find nothing to that purpose in the Acts thereof which either have been lost or never were registred I add or being once Registred were expung'd In his Reformation justified a Ref Justif § 4. He positively affirms that the Clergy in Synod 1552. did compose and agree upon a book of Articles Neither therefore is Dr. Heylin silent herein nor is he one of the Historians which this Author never saw Dr. Burnet is another Historian whom either this Editor had seen or ought not to have publish'd this Relation till he had first consulted him He peremptorily affirms b Bur. V 2. p. 195. that in the Year 1552. the Convocation agreed to the Articles of Religion that were prepar'd the year before But our Author has still another Objection in reserve that the Arch-Bishop Cranmer to whom it would have been an excellent Defence to have shew'd these Articles to have been subscrib'd by a full Synod yet pleaded no such thing That Reverend Martyr pleaded that the Opinions which he maintain'd were the Doctrines of the Scripture and Primitive Church that the rejection of the Pope's Supremacy the fundamental Heresie of which he was accus'd was the Unanimous Act of the whole English Clergy and Nation and which his very Judges had solemnly sworn to Now if this Plea could avail nothing in his Defence it must have been a weak Plea to have insisted on Articles past in a Synod call'd by himself and over which he by reason of his Archiepiscopal Autority had great Influence This dispute is concluded with a shrewd Remark which our Author raises from a passage of Dr. Heylin The Dr. observes that this Book of Articles was not confirm'd by any Act of Parliament whence he concludes that the Reform'd Religion cannot be call'd a Parliament Religion Hence this Author gathers that neither was it a Synodal Religion because we see the Parliaments in King Edward's time corroborating the Synods in all other transactions of the Reformation Now tho' there is ground for the Drs. observation because there is never an Act which formally gives Sanction to these Articles yet there is in one of those very Acts cited from the Doctor in this Pamphlet that which quite overthrows our Author's Conclusion For in the Act for Legitimating Marriages of Priests it is said that the untrue Slanderous report of Holy Matrimony did redound to the High dishonour of the Learned Clergy of this Realm who have determin'd the same to be most Lawful by the Law of God in their Convocation as well by common Assent as by the Subscription of their Hands Which words plainly refer to the 31st of these Articles and are an Authoritative Testimony that they are the genuine Act of the Synod and had I doubt not been expung'd had the Commission of rasure extended to the Statute-Book I have insisted the longer on this particular because it is a matter of some moment and because the Author has here us'd more then ordinary Artifice I have not had the benefit of any Registers or Manuscripts nor am I skill'd in these niceties of History What has been said sufficiently overthrows all his Cavils but the Curious and the Learned are able to give a more Authentic and Solid account of this matter A Reply to Chapter the 11th THat the Reformation was restor'd by Q. Elizabeth after the extirpation of it by Q. Mary might have been said in fewer lines than this Author is pleas'd to use Paragraphs That some things were at first reduc'd without Synodal Autority I confess and that the Reformation had it's last settlement by a Synod he cannot deny The Act of the first Popish Convocation I esteem illegal because the Q. had sent and requir'd them under the pain of a Premunire not to make Canons The Canonicalness of Q. Mary's Clergy here acting depends upon his former Proofs which were not altogether Demonstrative But let their Autority be suppos'd just yet these Constitutions were repeal'd by a later Synod whose Autority must be conceded equal and therefore their Act as being the last Autoritative The stress therefore of the Controversy lies in this whether Q. Elizabeth's new Bishops were lawfully introduc'd and this depends upon the legality of the ejection of the Old The Cause of their ejection is confest to be their denial of the Oath of Supremacy and is just or unjust according as that Oath was lawful or unlawful Our Author therefore sets himself to examine that Oath where he first puts his own Exposition upon it and then attacqs it as so expounded Neither Q. Elizabeth's explication of her own Sense nor the Church's Exposition in her Articles favour his Construction Those who take this Oath are not perswaded that they abjure the Autority of a General Council or the Jurisdiction of their own National Clergy But if we accept it in that Sense which he is pleas'd to impose upon it Yet still the Strength of his Arguments depends on such Assertions as are to be supported by his four first part of Church-Government We must therefore wait the Edition of those before We can be satisfied of the Strength of these But if we may make an estimate of future performances from past there is no reason to expect any thing formidable from that Quarter For the only business of our Modern Controvertists is to rally up those scatter'd forces which have long since quitted the field to our Forefathers This Oath of Supremacy has exercis'd the Pens of the greatest Champions of both Churches and there is not a shadow of an Argument here brought against it but what has been baffled when manag'd with better skill and more Learning than this Author is Master of The Regal Supremacy in Opposition to the Papal has been asserted by our Kings James the first and Charles the first
our Universities against them in a point of Controversy agitated between us for an authentic proof how would He make himself merry with Us Yet we might do the one as well as he doth the other b Protest Ordin def against S.N. Tom. 4. Disc 7. p. 1006. Pamphl Bishop Bonner wrote a book wherein he contended that the new devis'd Ordination of Ministers was insufficient and void because no Autority at all was given them to offer in the Mass the body and blood of our Saviour Christ but both the Ordainer and Ordained despis'd and impugn'd not only the Oblation or Sacrifice of the Mass but also the Real Presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Sacrament of the Altar A. Bp. Br. He saith We are not order'd to offer true Substantial Sacrifice Not expresly indeed No more were they themselves for 800 Years after Christ and God knows how much longer No more are the Greek Church or any other Christian Church except the Roman at this day Yet they acknowledg them to be rightly Ordain'd and admit them to exercise all the Offices of Priestly Function in Rome it self We acknowledge an Eucharistical Sacrifice of praise and thanksgiving a Commemorative Sacrifice or a memorial of the Sacrifice of the Cross a Representative Sacrifice or a representation of the Passion of Christ before the Eyes of his Heavenly Father an Imperative Sacrifice or an impetration of the fruit and benefit of his Passion by way of Real prayer and lastly an Applicative Sacrifice or an application of his merits unto our Souls Let him that dare go one step farther then We do and say that it is a Suppletory Sacrifice to supply the defects of the Sacrifice of the Cross Or else let them hold their peace and speak no more against us in this point of Sacrifice for ever a Bp. Bramhal's Works Tom. 1. Disc 3. c. 9. p. 255. Pamp. Those who are truely ordain'd yet if in an Heretical or Schismatical Church their true Orders as to the Exercise of them are unlawful and so unless a Church be first clear'd from Heresy and Schism these Orders are not rightly employed in it A. Bp. Br. First I deny that the Protestant Bishops did revolt from the Catholic Church Nay they are more Catholic than the Roman-Catholics themselves Secondly I deny that the Protestant Bishops are Heretics Thirdly I deny that they are guilty of Schism Fourthly I deny that the Autority of our Protestant Bishops was ever restrain'd by the Catholic Church Fifthly No sentence whatsoever of whomsoever or of what crime soever can obliterate the Episcopal Character which is indeleble nor disable a Bishop from Ordaining so far as to make the Act invalid b Ibid. Disc 7. p. 990. Pam. Tho' I do not here state the Question Whether they had such due Ordination and Ordainers as to be truly and essentially Bishops yet their Ordination and Introduction if valid seems several ways uncanonical and unlawful A. Bp. Br. For the Canons we maintain that our form of Episcopal Ordination hath the same Essentials with the Roman but in other things of inferior allay it differeth from it The Papal Canons were never admitted for binding Laws in England farther then they were receiv'd by our selves and incorporated into our Laws but our Ordination is conformable to the Canons of the Catholic Church And for our Statutes the Parliament hath answer'd that Objection sufficiently shewing clearly that the Ordination of our first Protestant Bishops was legal and for the validity of it we crave no man's favour a Ibid. Tom. 1. Disc 5. cap. 8. p. 471. Pamph. They came many of them into the places of others unjustly expell'd A. Bp. Br. This is saying but we expect proving b Ibid. Pamph. Neither the major part nor any save one of the former incumbent Bishops consented to their Election or Ordination Dr. Bur. If Ordinations or Consecrations upon the King's Mandate be invalid which the Paper drives at then all the Ordinations of the Christian-Church are also annul'd since for many Ages they were all made upon the Mandates of Emperors and Kings By which You may see the great weakness of this Argument c Dr. Burnet's Vindic. of our Ordinations p. 09. Pamph. No Metropolitan can be made without the consent of the Patriarch but Arch-Bishop Parker was ordain'd without and against the consent of the Patriarch A. Bp. Br. The British Islands neither were nor ought to be subject to the Jurisdiction of the Roman Patriarch as I have sufficiently demonstrated a Bramhal's Works Tom. 1. Disc 2. cap. 9. p. 128. Pamph. Neither did be receive any Spiritual Jurisdiction at all from any Ecclesiastical Superior but merely that which the Queen a Lay-Person by her Delegates in this Employment did undertake to conferr upon him Dr. Bur. All Consecrations in this land are made by Bishops by the power that is inherent in them only the King gives orders for the Execution of that their power Therefore all that the Queen did in the case of Matthew Parker and the Kings do since was to command so many Bishops to exercise a power they had from Christ in such or such Instances b Vindic. of Ord. p. 89. Pamph. Which Delegates of hers were none of them at that time possest of any Diocess Barlow and Scory being then only Bishops Elect of Chichester and Hereford and Coverdale never after admitted or elected to any and Hoskins a Suffragan A. Bp. Br. The Office and Benefice of a Bishop are two distinct things Ordination is an act of the Key of Order and a Bishop uninthron'd may ordain as well as a Bishop inthron'd The Ordination of Suffragan Bishops who had no peculiar Bishopricks was always reputed as good in the Catholic Church if the Suffragan had Episcopal Ordination as the Ordination of the greatest Bishops in the world c Bramhal's Works Tom. 1. Disc 5. c. 5. p. 452. Pamph. Nor had they had Dioceses could have had any larger Jurisdiction save within these at least being single Bishops could have no Metropolitical Jurisdiction which yet they confer'd on Parker not on their own sure but on the Queen's Score Dr. Bur. Does he believe himself who says that none can Install a Bishop in a Jurisdiction above himself Pray then who invests the Popes with their Jurisdiction Do not the Cardinals do it and are not they as much the Pope's Suffragans as Hodgskins was Canterburie's so that if inferiors cannot invest one in a Superior Jurisdiction then the Popes can have none legally since they have their's from the Cardinals that are inferior in Jurisdiction There are two things to be consider'd in the Consecration of a Primate the one is giving him the Order of a Bishop the other is inverting him with the Jurisdiction of a Metropolitan For the former all Bishop are equal in Order none has more or less then another so that the Consecrators of Matthew Parker being Bishops by their
Order they had sufficient Autority to Consecrate him As for the Jurisdiction of Metropolitans Primates and Patriarchs it has no Divine Institution it rose upon the division of Provinces and the Kings of Western Churches did first give those Preheminences to some Towns and Sees a Vindic. of Ord. p. 77. c. Pamph. But then might not She at pleasure take away and strip Parker again of all that Jurisdiction which he held only on her gift A. Bp. Br. We hold our Benefices by humane right our Offices of Priests and Bishops both by divine right and humane right But put the case we did hold our Bishopricks only by humane right is it one of Your Cases of Conscience that a Sovereign Prince may justly take away from his Subjects any thing which they hold by humane right If one Man take from another that which he holds justly by the Law of Man he is a thief and a robber by the Law of God a Bramhal's Works Tom. 1. Disc 5. c. 11. p. 489. Pamph. But the Autority of these Ordainers standing good one or two Bishops is not a competent Number for Ordination A. Bp. Br. The Commission for their Consecration limited the Consecrators to four when the Canons of the Catholic Church require but three Three had been enough to make a valid Ordination yea to make a Canonical Ordination b Ibid. Tom. 1. Disc 5. c 5. p. 451. Pamph. The Form of the Ordination of these new Bishops as it was made in Edward the 6th 's time so it was revok'd by Synod in Queen Mary's days and by no Synod afterwards restor'd before their Ordination Dr. Burn. It is a common place and has been handled by many Writers how far the Civil Magistrate may make Laws and give commands about Sacred things The Prelates and the Divines by the Autority they had from Christ and the warrant they had from Scripture and the Primitive Church made the Alterations and Changes in the Ordinal and the King and Parliament who are vested with the Supreme Legislative power added their Autority to them to make them Obligatory on the Subject Let these Men declare upon their Consciences if there be any thing they desire more earnestly than such an Act for Authorizing their own Forms and would they make any Scruple to accept of it if they might have it a Bur. Vindic. of Ordin p. 51. c. Pamph. But this Form was revok'd also by an Act of Parliament in Queen Mary's days and not by any Act restor'd till long after the Ordination of Queen Elizabeth's first Bishops viz in 8. Eliz. 1. upon Bonner's urging hereupon that the Queen 's were no Legal Bishops Pamphlet it self in the next Page The new Ordinal when Arch-Bishop Parker was to be Consecrated by it did not want sufficient Lay-license having the Queen's nor had the Parliament been defective in re-licensing it for which see Bishop Bramhal Pamph. For such Considerations as these it seems it was that the Queen in her Mandate for the Ordination of her new Arch-Bishop Parker was glad out of her Spiritual Supremacy and Universal Jurisdiction of which Jurisdiction one Act is that of Ordaining to dispense and give them leave to dispense to themselves with all former Church-Laws which should be transgrest in the electing and consecrating and investing of this Bishop A. Bp. Br. There is a double power Ecclesiastical of Order and of Jurisdiction Which two are so different the one from the other as themselves both teach and practise that there may be true Orders without Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction and an actual Jurisdiction without Holy Orders He leaves the Orders in the plain field to busy himself about the power of Jurisdiction which is nothing to the Question That which the Statute calls the Autority of Jurisdiction is the coercive and compulsory power of summoning the King's Subjects by Processes which is indeed from the Crown The Kings of England neither have any power of the Keys nor can derive them to others He need not fear our deriving our Orders from them a Tom. 4. Disc 7. p. 1000. As for the Dispensative clause it doth not extend at all to the Institution of Christ or any Essential of Ordination nor to the Canons of the Universal Church but only to the Statutes and Ecclesiastical Laws of England The Commissioners authoriz'd by these Letters Patent to Confirm and Consecrate Arch-Bishop Parker did make use of the Supplentes or Dispensative power in the Confirmation of the Election which is a Political Act as appears by the words of the Confirmation but not in the Consecration which is a purely Spiritual Act and belongeth merely to the Key of Order b Tom. 1. Disc 5. c. 5. p. 453. Pamph. Notwithstanding this Regal Dispensation a Statute was afterwards made 8. Eliz. 1. c. to take away all Scruple Ambiguity or doubt concerning these Consecrations A. Bp. Br. It was only a Declaration of the Parliament that all the Objections which these Men made against our Ordinations were slanders and calumnies and that all the Bishops which had been ordain'd in the Queen's time had been rightly ordain'd according to the Form prescrib'd by the Church of England and the Laws of the Land These Men want no confidence who are not asham'd to cite this Statute in this case c Ibid. p. 439. I have transcrib'd the very words of the Authors to shew the importunity of these Men who are not asham'd to transcribe not only the matter but the very form of those Arguments which have been so often confuted But there is I confess one thing new in this Chapter which seems as if reserv'd for this Writer He would prove that the Queens dispensation relates not to her own Laws but to the Laws of the Catholic Church The words in the Commission are Supplentes c. Siquid desit aut deerit eorum quae per Statuta hujus regni aut per leges Ecclesiasticas requiruntur So that the Clause extends only to the Statutes and Ecclesiastical Laws of this Kingdom as the Learned a A. Bp. Br. W. T. 1. Disc 5. c. 5. p. 453. Primate understands it But this Author with his wonted ingenuity omits the words per Statuta hujus Regni and then construes the Leges Ecclesiasticas to be the Laws not of the English but the Universal Church A Reply to Chapter the 13th A Reply to his former Chapters has made any Consideration of this needless He supposes he has prov'd that the Reformation was not effected by the major part of the Clergy and I may be allow'd to suppose that he has not prov'd it He has indeed affirm'd that it had not Synodical Autority under King Edward and Queen Elizabeth and he had not ventur'd much farther had he affirm'd that there never were such Princes In this Chapter he has found Six Protestant Divines who are of Opinion that Princes may in cases extraordinary Lawfully Reform without or against
and approved of all the faithful Ministers of Gods word Where note That tho in some of these Articles §. 45. n. 2. the Authority of Parliament is mentioned yet in none of these is any thing said of the consent of the Clergy as necessary to make such Regal or Parliamentary Injunctions in Ecclesiastical matters valid From which may be collected That when the Synodal consent of the Clergy is any where else mentioned as sometimes it is See the Letter of the King and Council to Bishop Bonner Fox p. 1186 and the Kings Message to the Rebels of Cornwal Fox p. 1189 it is not to add any Authority to those Injunctions thereby which Injunctions were imposed on the Clergy before any Synodal consent of the Clergy was either given or asked but to propose the judgment and example of the Clergy consenting as a motive to render others that stand out conformable as whose judgment they ought to reverence and whose example they ought to follow not as whose Decree and Constitution they ought to obey And if you wonder why the King and Parliament of those days never pleaded this last as you shall never find it pleaded by them the reason I conjecture was besides that they were conscious of some changes made by them of these Ecclesiastical Judges displacing those who would not conform to their Inclinations which rendred them not so authentical because they saw that the Laws of this National Clergy could stand in no force by vertue of their Office or any Commission from Christ but that so would also the Laws of the Church and her Synods which were Superior to the English Clergy and which were contrary to the Laws of this National Synod and so would void and make them of none effect And if the King by vertue of his Supremacy urged his and his Subjects freedome from the former Laws and Constitutions of the Church Vniversal so must he from the present Laws of his own Church National He and his Subjects being tied in no more Duty to the one than to the other nor in so much § 46 If you would know how Bishop Gardiner behaved himself in this Tryal it was with great perplexity and distraction as neither knowing now how safely to recal and recant that Supremacy of the King in Spirituals which he had formerly acknowledged and sworn to nor how in that Duty which he owed to the Church to obey those particular Injunctions which the King imposed upon him by vertue of this Supremacy acknowledged by him and so he incurred for this latter deprivation and imprisonment And perhaps it may be thought a just judgment from God that he should be thus ensnared and undone by that sense of Supremacy of which he had been in Henry the Eighth's days both at home and abroad See §. 37. as you have heard from Calvin so zealous an Abettor § 47 I will conclude these Evidences under Edward the Sixth with what is said in Antiquit. Brittannic p. 339. which quotes for it the Archives touching the resentment of their lost Synodal Authority which some of the Clergy shewed in a Synod called by Arch-Bishop Cranmer in the First Year of King Edward's Reign for the furthering of a Reformation tho he could effect nothing therein In which Synod the Clergy now too late perceiving that not only the Pope but themselves had lost their former Ecclesiastical Power and that the King and Parliament ordered Spiritual Affairs as they pleased without their consents requested that at least the rest of their Convocation might be joyned with the House of Commons as the Bishops were with the Lords that so they might have a Vote also in passing Church matters but this request would not be granted them The Authors words are these Animadverterunt Praelati omnem vim authoritatemque Synodi non modò diminutam sed penitus fractam eversamque esse postquam Clerus in verbo Sacerdotis Henrico Regi promisisset sine authoritate Regiâ in Synodo se nihil decreturos or indeed that the King might decree what he pleased without the Authority of the Synod for such a Supremacy was either granted to or assumed by the King Quâ Ecclesiasticarum rerum potestate abdicatâ Populus in Parliamento caepit de rebus divinis inconsulto Clero sancire tum absentis cleri privilegia immunitates sensim detrahere juraque duriora quibus Clerus invitus teneretur constituere Haec discrimina pati Clericis iniquum atque grave visum est Proinde petierunt ut in Concilio inferiori Praelati Clerique procuratores cum populo permixti de Republicâ Ecclesiâ unà consulant c. Thus that Author And you may see also the Petition it self lately Printed out of a Manuscript of Arch-Bishop Cranmers by Mr. Stillingfleet Irenicum 2. Part 8. c. Where seeking too late to recover their former Steerage in Ecclesiastical Affairs now transacted in the Court of Parliament the Lower House of Convocation prefers these Requests That Whereas in a Stat. 25. Hen. 8. the Clergy had promised in Verbo Sacerdotii never from thenceforth to Enact c any new Canons Constitutions c unless the Kings Assent and Licence may to them be had c therefore they desire that the Kings Majesties Licence may be for them obtained authorizing them to attempt and commune of such matters and therein freely to give their consent which otherwise they may not do upon pain and peril premised That either the Clergy of the Lower House of the Convocation may be adjoyned and associate with the Lower House of Parliament or else that all such Statutes as shall be made concerning matters of Religion may not pass without the sight and assent of the said Clergy or as it runs in the Second Petition the said Clergy not being made privy thereunto and their Answers and Reasons not heard That since the former were annulled Ecclesiastical Laws may be established in the Realm by Thirty Two persons or so many as shall please the King to appoint c. That all Judges Ecclesiastical proceeding after those Laws may be without danger and peril That whereas they were informed that certain Prelates and other Learned Men were appointed to alter the Service in the Church and did make certain Books c the said Books may be seen and perused by them for a better expedition of Divine Service c. That such matters as concern Religion which be disputable may be reasoned and disputed amongst them in this House whereby the Verity of such matters shall the better appear c. Thus laboured then the poor Clergy to obtain a joint share at least with the Parliament and civil State in transacting the Affairs of the Church And Dr. Heylin in Reform Justified § 4. p. 21. grants thus much That the Censures of the Church were grown weak if not invalid and consequently by degrees became neglected ever after that King Henry the Eighth took the Headship on him and exercised the same by
's of England were always Supreme Nor is this Nomination at all injurious to the Divine Right of Bishops which is not deriv'd from the Persons Electing or Nominating but the Pastors Consecrating But we have him again crying out 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 He finds the King and Parliament authorizing Arch-Bishops Bishops c. By Virtue of their Acts to take Informations concerning the not using of the Common-Prayer c. Therein prescrib'd and to punish the same by Excommunication c. The first and last of these cs are very artificially placed for corrupting the Text. After Bishops should have follow'd Chancellors and Commissaries after Excommunication Sequestration and other Censures and Processes So that the Autority given by this Act doth not necessarily respect the Bishops and that Power of Excommunicating which they have jure divino but may relate to the power given to Chancellors and Commissaries and other Officers who plead no such divine right to their respective Functions or if the Bishops are included yet not so as that they derive the power of Excommunicating from this Act but of inflicting the other punish-ments which by this Act may be inflicted Or let us suppose the Bishops authoriz'd by this Act to Excommunicate and Excommunication taken in the strictest sense for internal Censures yet this will be no injury to their Jus divinum untill it be prov'd that because God has gave the Bishops a power to Excommunicate therefore the King may not command them to put it in Execution where there is a just Cause § 41 He finds 32 Persons commission'd to reform the Laws Ecclesiastical But this he found before in King Henry's Reign where it has already been consider'd and whither I refer the Reader as often as this Author shall be pleas'd to remind us of this Discovery § 42 He finds Six Prelates and Six others commissioned to make a new form of Consecration of Bishop's and Priests He might have found that this Act as well as the former was made at the a See the Petitions of the Clergy Burn. Vol. 2. p. 47. request of the Convocation Nothing is by him excepted against the Form it self and for the Autority the Synod petition'd such a Commission might be granted the b Six Prelates and six Divines Bur. V. 2. p. 141. Persons commission'd were all Clergy Men and c King Edwards Articles Art 35. Bur. V. 2. Coll. p. 218. the Synod confirm'd it when done As for the Oath against the Pope inserted in the new Ordinal it was by birth a Roman-Catholic d Fox p. 1092. King Henry's Bishops took it without scruple That e Compare the Oath in Fox with the Oath of Supremacy as it now stands part of it which this Author thinks most offensive is since put out and he may be as severe as he pleaseth upon a Non-entity The Heretical Catechism in the 43d Paragraph shall be spoken to when it meets us agen in the 166th § 43 The 44th would justifie a Protestation of Bishop Bonner's which that Bishop himself a Bur. V. 2. Coll. p. 112. recanted He is angry at Fox for calling that Protestation Popish But the Prelate himself in his recantation of it calls it unadvised of ill ex-example unreasonable and undutifull If Fox abuses the Bishop it is because Popish signifies something worse then all these § 45 We are next entertain'd with a confus'd Catalogue of Articles propos'd to Bishop Gardiner's Subscription together with our Author's Notes upon them One of the most pertinent Notes would have been that Bishop b Fox p. 1350. 1357. Gardiner subscrib'd most of these Articles but this was not for his Interest to observe His remark is that tho' in some of these Articles the Autority of Parliament is mention'd yet in none of these is any thing said of the Consent of the Clergy as necessary to make such Parliamentary or Regal injunctions valid That the consent of the Clergy was urg'd to this Bishop I hope he does not deny I am sure c §. 110. it is urg'd by r. that in the charge given in against Gardiner it is said that the Injunctions were of all men for all sorts obediently receiv'd And that this charge was given in is not denied in the Reply to r. §. 119. elsewhere He confesses it The meaning must be that this consent was not urg'd under the modality of making the Regal Injunctions valid Nor do I see any Necessity it should for Gardiner had not yet so far refin'd his gross sense of the Supremacy but that he still own'd his Obligation to obey His Majestie 's Godly Injunctions and Ordinances concerning Religion Neither could the Imposers of these Injunctions according to their Principles lay so great a stress on the consent of the Clergy for if the matter of the Injunctions was unlawful no Church-Autority could make them lawful but if it was agreeable to the Law of God then the Civil Autority without the Synodal if that had been wanting was sufficient From this idle remark the Author has rais'd as idle a Consequence From this non-mentioning the consent of the Clergy he collects that when the Synodal consent of the Clergy is any where else mention'd as sometimes it is it is not to add any Autority to these Injunctions thereby Now to me it seemes a wild Inference that because the Synodal consent was once not urg'd as necessary therefore when-ever it was urg'd it was thought to add no Autority I may certainly obey my Prince in a thing lawful tho' my Pastor doth not at the same time exact this Obedience from me But when they both require the same Duty there ariseth a new tie of Obedience and I am now under a double Obligation But least we should wonder why the King and Parliament never pleaded any Necessity of the Synodal consent the Author conjectures the reasons to be 1st Because some of the Voters were displac'd and so their suffrage less Authentical But these places were supplied and then I would know why those who succeeded into their Pastoral charge did not also succeed into their Synodal Autority and if so why the Reformers should think the Act of a Synod less Authentical when Ridley sat there than when Bonner did His second reason is Because they saw that the Laws of this National Clergy could stand in no force but so would also the Laws of the Church and her Synods which were superior to the English Clergy And if the King urg'd his and his Subject's freedom from the Laws of the Church Vniversal so must He also from the Laws of his own Church National Church Superior Synods and the Church-Vniversal are words which sound big but when they come to be construed the Laws of the Church signifie Papal Decrees Superior Synods are put for any Council that is forreign and the Church-Vniversal dwindles into Roman-Catholic In this case I hope we may obey our Lawful Pastors tho' we reject an Usurper
Nor are we quitted from our Obligation to the just Autority of our own Bishops because we do not submit to the Invasions of Forreigner But if by Church-Vniversal and Superior Synods is meant what other People understand by those words it rests to be prov'd that the Reformed plead an Exemption from their Autority § 46 The 46th Paragraph tells us of God's just judgment on Bishop Gardiner for having so zealously abetted the King's Supremacy But the divine Judgments are differently interpreted according to the different Sentiments of the Interpreters Other Writers tell us of severer Judgments inflicted on this Prelate than Deprivation and that for more flagrant crimes then asserting the Regal Supremacy He concludes this Chapter with the resentment of the Clergy for their lost Synodal Autority It is confest that the Extreme of raising the Ecclesiastical power too high in the times of Popery had now produc'd another of depressing it too much But this was the Infelicity of the Clergy not their Crime The same Autority which tells us the Clergy complain'd of this tells us also that those complainers were the Reformers But this is a truth which is industriously conceal'd and the Citation mangled lest it should confess too much Haec discrimina pati Clericis iniquum atque grave visum est saith he from the Antiquitates Britannicae Clericis multo jam acrius atque vigilantius in divina Veritate quam unquam antea laborantibus say the Antiquities This Omission I believe was not for brevity sake for he doth not use to be so frugal in his Citations But the Reader was to understand by Clerici the Popish Clergy exclusively to all others and the decay of Synodal Autority was to be represented not as the grievance but the fault of the Reformers For this reason it is that we find this Author indecently insulting oven that pious Martyr Bishop Hooper All which I shall observe of it is this that what is here said of this Bishop's Appeal from the Ecclesiastical to the Civil power is applicable to St. Paul's a Acts 25.11 Appeal to Caesar The cause then was Ecclesiastical for They b Acts 25.19 had certain questions against him of their own Superstition And the Bishop might have us'd St. Pauls Plea c Acts 24.14 That after the way which they call'd Heresie so worship'd he the God of his Fathers believeing all things which are written in the Law and in the Prophets This Chapter more nearly concerning the Reformation it may not be amiss to give a brief Summary of what is perform'd in it It is said that all the Supremacy was confirm'd to Edward the 6th which was conceded to Henry the 8th But no reason is given why it should have been diminish'd that some Statutes against Heretics were repeal'd but this repeal not shewn to be without good reason or good Autority that all Jurisdiction Spiritual is said to be deriv'd from the Prince but this Expression taken in a due Sense may be justifyed and if it could not the Act being void we are under no Obligation to defend it that the Bishops are authoriz'd by Virtue of an Act of Parliament to excommunicate but this Interpretation is forc'd upon the Statute and the words taken even in this Sence will not bear the Stress which is laid upon them that 32 Commissioners were appointed to reform the Laws Ecclesiastical and 6 Prelates with 6 others to reform the Ordinal but nothing said to shew that these did not want a Reformation or that the Persons commission'd were not qualified for such a trust and these two urg'd as the mere effects of Parliamentary Supremacy which were the Synodical request of the Clergy that an Oath of Supremacy was impos'd on Persons entring into Holy Orders but this Oath invented by Papists and in that part which gives Offence since alter'd that an Hypothetical Submission of Bonner was not accepted but this such a Submission as that Bishop recanted That the consent of the Clergy was once not urg'd as necessary to make the Regal Injunctions valid But no reason assign'd why it should have been That the Clergy complain'd of their lost Synodal Autority But these the Reformers who yet are accus'd of being no Friends to it That Bishop Hooper appeal'd to the Civil power But so also did St. Paul The title of this Chapter least the Contents may have made the Reader forget it was The Supremacy claim'd by King Edward the 6th A Reply to Chapter the 5th WE are come now to Q. Mary's Reign the fatal Revolutions of which We would willingly forget did not the unseasonable importunity of these Men refresh our memories Our Author had acted the part of a skilful Painter had he cast a veil over this piece of his History for the Calamities of this Reign tend little to the Honour of that Religion and are never properly insisted on but by those who write Invectives against Popery But those Reflections which create horror in other men's breasts seem to have a different Effect on this Writer for in his entrance upon this Reign it is easie to discover such a new Warmth and Vigor in his Expressions as betray him to be in a more then ordinary rapture All that had been done in the two former Reigns by Prince by State or by Clergy were now by an equal Autority of Prince Clergy and State revers'd repeal'd ejected His Discourse here has put on a new air and like the Orator in his triumphs over exil'd Cataline he prosecutes declining Heresie with an abiit excessit evasit But here to moderate his Acclamations let me tell him that this Prince who thus reverses repeals and ejects was the same a Burn. V. 2. p 237. that gave the Suffolk men full assurance that she would never make any Innovations or changes in Religion The same that made an open Declaration in Council b Bur. V. 2. p. 245. that though her own Conscience was staid in matters of Religion yet she was resolv'd not to compel or restrain others So that this after repealing reflects severely on those Guides who had the Government of her Conscience and those Principles by which She acted Lay-Supremacy was indeed at last ejected by her but not till the other parts of the Reformation were reverst by it's Influence If sending out Injunctions in matters Ecclesiastical using the Title of Head of the Church convoking Synods ejecting Bishops by Commission prohibiting some Preachers licensing others inhibiting the Pope's Legate to come into the Kingdom if these I say are admitted to be signs of a Lay-Supremacy it must be confest that Q. Mary was such a Supreme It is not therefore Regal Supremacy as such but as countenancing the Reformation which these men condemn Those Powers which in the former Chapter were Invasions of the Church's right do in this easily escape our Author's Censure We are told now of the power of the Prince when Protestantism is to be defac'd who in the establishment