of the other Two But tho' this therefore be the General Method which I shall Observe yet I am sensible that in order to the better clearing of the former of these Questions I must take a much larger Compass than our Author's Design led him to do And to the end I may not barely answer his Allegations but may also give some tolerable Account of the true Nature and Rights of our Convocation which for all this Gentleman has yet done may still continue to be as little understood as those of a Jewish Sanhedrim I shall endeavour to examine this Matter to the bottom as far as my Skill will enable and my Leisure permit me to do it For as our Author has rightly observed that an exact and full Account of this Matter cannot be given but by one who has great Skill in our English Laws and Antiquities I may add and in the Laws and Antiquities of the Church too which Dyet must be competently understood oâ— this Subject can never be throughly handled so must I freely profess that neither will my other Affairs allow me to be very exact nor does my Profession as a Divine intitle me to so much Skill as I am sensible is requisite to the perfecting of such an Undertaking But however I will candidly offer what I have met with and where I chance to be mistaken especially in Matters of Law which lie out of my Way I hope those who are more learned will make a reasonable Allowance for my Errors CHAP. II. The first General Point proposed and the Method laid down for the handling of it In pursuance whereof a General Enquiry is first made into that Power which Christian Princes have always been allow'd to exercise over their Ecclesiastical Synods or Convocations with respect both to the Calling of them to the Managing of them when Sitting and to the Confirming or Annulling their Acts after wards TO come then without any more ado to the Business in hand the first and main Thing to be consider'd is this Whether there is any Law that commands or permits the Sitting and Acting of the Convocation besides the absolute free Pleasure of the Prince And if there be What that Law is And How far the Prince is obliged by it This I take to be the true state of the Question and I shall treat of it in this following Method I. I will enquire What Power Christian Princes in general have claim'd over such Convocations with respect both to their Assembling and Acting and to the giving Force and Authority to what is done by them II. I will consider Whether our Kings have not the same Authority over our Convocation that all other Christian Princes have claim'd over their Synods And III. Upon this Foundation I will Examine what this Author has alledged to the contrary and offer what I conceive may fairly be replied to it And I. Let us enquire What Power Christian Princes in general have claim'd over their Synods with respect both to their Meeting and Acting first and to the giving Force and Authority to what is done by them That Christian Princes have a Right not only to exercise Authority over Ecclesiastical Persons but to interpose in the ordering of Ecclesiastical Affairs too neither our own Articles and Canons nor the Consent of the Universal Church ever since the Empire became Christian will suffer us to doubt There is no one so great a Stranger to the History of the Holy Scriptures as not to know what Authority the Jewish Princes under the Law pretended to as to this matter And how far the first Christian Emperors follow'd their Examples were other Authors silent yet that one Assertion of Socrates would not suffer us to be ignorant where he affirms That ever since they became Christians the Affairs of the Church have depended upon them and the greatest Synods been assembled by their Order and still says he continue to be assembled It was a famous Saying of Constantine the first Christian Emperor to his Bishops That They indeed were Bishops in things within the Church but that He was appointed by God to be Bishop as to Those without And how far the succeeding Emperors continued to look upon the well ordering and Governing of the Church to be one great part of that Duty which God expected from them The Epistle of Theodosius and Valentinian to to St. Cyril and the rest of the Metropolitans whom they summoned to meet in the General Council of Ephesus abundantly shews Let us look into the several Collections of the Roman Laws The Code of Theodosius The Code and Novels of Justinian The yet later Collection of Basilius Leo and Constantine that followed after How many Constitutions shall we find in every one of these relating to Ecclesiastical Affairs to the Order and Government of the Church to the Election and Consecration of Bishops and Priests to the Lives Offices and Privileges of the Clergy to the Erection and Liberties of Churches to the Service of them nay and even to the very Faith which was to be taught and profess'd in Them And when the Empire began to be parcell'd out into several lesser States and Kingdoms We find their several Princes still maintaining the same Authority as to all these things that the Emperors had done before As from the Capitularies of the French and German Princes the Collections of the Spanish Councils our Own Antient Laws and the Histories which remain of the several Other Countries does evidently appear But of the Authority of Princes in Ecclesiastical Matters and over Ecclesiastical Persons in general there is no doubt Nor should there one would think be any more whether One great part of their Authority as to these Matters has not always been accounted to consist in the Power to convenâ— Synods and to order whatsoever relates both to the assembling and acting of them And for the better Proof of which I shall now distinctly consider what their Power is with respect 1 To the calling of such Synods or Convocations 2 To the directing of their Proceedings when they are Assembled And 3 To the approving and confirming their Constitutions afterwards And 1 Let us consider What the Power of the Civil Magistrate is as to the Convening of Ecclesiastical Synods and Convocations It has ever been look'd upon as one great part of the Prince's Prerogative that no Societies should be incorporated nor any Companies be allow'd to meet together without his Knowledge and Permission The Roman Law was especially very severe as to this Particular And tho' after the Conversion of the Emperors to the Faith of Christ a provision was made for the Publick Assemblies of the Church for Divine Service yet before that Tertullian who understood these matters as well as any one of his time tho' he excused their Meetings upon all Other Accounts could not deny but that they fell under the Censure of
their Meeting and was greatly satisfied at their Behaviour in it It was not long after this that as Baronius himself confesses Theodorick summon'd another Synod at Rome to judge of the Crimes alledged against Symmachus Bishop of that See and submitted the Determination of that Affair to their Resolution And when Caesarius Bishop of Arles desired to convene a Provincial Synod in France according to the direction of the Antient Canons and the Allowance of the Laws to that purpose Yet he did not think it sitting so to do till he had obtained the Consent of Alaric the Goth for it And it is expresly noted that it was held by his Allowance What Caesarius here did with respect to Alaric an Arrian Prince the same did Avitus Bishop of Vienne with regard to Sigismond the Son of Gundebald King of the Burgundians whom he had not long before converted to the Catholick Faith He call'd even his Provincial Synod with the King's Consent And tho' himself Metropolitan of that District yet presided in it by the Prince's Order Such was the Authority by which these lesser Synods were wont to be held immediately upon the breaking of the Empire And that thus it continued till the Prevalence of the Papal Power began to overthrow the Prince's Right will appear from a short View of this matter in some of the principal States which arose out of the Ruins of it And 1. That this was so in the Kingdom of Spain the Councils of Toledo the most eminent of Any in that Country both for Number and Authority sufficiently demonstrate That the Second of these was call'd by the Permission of Amalaric the Synod it self owns But the Third and I think the most considerable of them all is yet more full to our present purpose It was a General Council of that whole Nation In it the Goths adjured their Heresie and embraced the Catholick Faith This Faith was first establish'd in Spain by the Authority of this Council and several very useful Canons were framed by it for the Government of the Church for the Time to come And all this was done by the Command of Reccaredus their King Who with Badda his Queen subscribed to the Orthodox Faith in it and made not only his Bishops but the chief of his Nobility and others subscribe to it It would be needless for me after so clear an Evidence as this Synod has given us of the Authority by which Councils were antiently Convened in Spain to spend any long time in the particular Examination of the several Councils that follow'd after It shall therefore suffice barely to say thus much that the Fourth of Toledo Another National Council and of great Authority in those parts met by the Order of Sisenandus as the Third had done by that of Reccaredus The Fifth by the Command of Cinthila who also confirm'd the Acts of it The Sixth of Cinthilan The Seventh of Chindaswind The Eighth of Recceswinthus The rest by the Order of the several Princes which follow'd after As from the Acts of the Fifteenth and Sixteenth the last of these Synods it does evidently appear As for their Provincial Synods they were not indeed always summon'd by the express particular Order of those Princes But yet even these were held by Vertue of that Authority which the Third Great Council of Toledo under Reccaredus before mention'd had given to them It was by vertue of this Allowance that the Synods of Narbonne and Saragosa were assembled and in Both which for that Reason it is said that they met according to the Order of that Prince and to the Appointment of that Council 2. And the same Authority which these Kings used in Spain did their next Neighbours the Suâ—vian Princes exercise in Galaecia during the time of their Empire there The Second Council of Braga the Metropolis of that Country is expresly declared to have met at the Command of Ariamirus or as some have rather thought of Theodimirus their King It was by the same Authority that the Synod of Lugo not long after was assembled to divide the Country into several Provinces and to erect a greater number of Bishopricks in it And when by Vertue of this Division the Clergy of that Country were come together in two Provincial Synods under their respective Metropolitans according to the ancient Canons in that behalf Miro his Successor order'd them to meet both together in a General Council at Braga and there agree upon such Constitutions as they should find the Necessities of the Church to require 3. If from hence we cross over to the Kingdom of Burgundy we shall find those Princes in possession of the same Rights over their Synods that the other Kings have been shewn to have exercised The Inscription of the Second Council of Lyons assembled about the Year 567 shews that it was call'd by the Command of Guntramn their King who also not long after assembled another Synod at Challon as Gregory of Tours informs us It was by the Order of the same Guntramn that the Great Council of Mascon was held And when that had not sufficiently restored the Discipline of the Church he not only assembled another at Lyons but more in several other places at Valence Poitiers Mascon c. all whose Acts expresly avow the Authority by which they met 4. In Germany Carloman first and then Charles the Emperor as they were the great Restorers of Religion and Assertors of the Discipline of the Church so will they afford us a sufficient proof of the Prince's Authority in this particular It was the former of these who with the Advice of his Clergy and Nobles called the Council of Ratisbon which is accounted among the First of Germany An. 742. And how the Other continued by the same Authority to summon the like Assemblies the several Synods of Wormes Valenciennes Aix la Chappelle but especially the two Great Councils of Mentz and Frankford in the latter of which not only the Bishops of Germany but of France and Aquitain were assembled together and over all Whom Charles the Emperor presided abundantly shew No sooner was this great Prince dead but Ludovicus Pius his Successor after his Example call'd together his Clergy to Aix-la-Chappelle for the correction of the Negligence and Ignorance of the Bishops and for the better regulating of the Lives of the Clergy And having fully determined whatsoever was thought expedient in Order thereunto he commanded a strict Obedience to be paid to the Constitutions which had been made by them And when this did not yet sufficiently correct the Abuses of those times He not only summon'd a Second Council to meet at the same place but being met he proposed to them such Heads as he conceived to be farther necessary with respect both to the Lives and Doctrine of the Bishops and Clergy and order'd the
Synod to frame their Debates upon them When this Emperor was dead and the Difference between his Sons appeased Lewis to whom the Government of Germany fell after his Father's Example call'd the Great Council of Mayence to regulate those Disorders which the late Distractions had brought into the Church And because many things remain'd which could not then be sufficiently provided for He the next Year after assembled another Synod for the Determination of them It was about twenty Years after this that the same Lewis convened a General Council at Wormes and there in like manner order'd many things relating both to the Faith and Discipline of the Church It was not long after that Arnulph his Nephew having obtain'd the Empire call'd together in like manner his Bishops to a Great Council at Trebur presided and assisted in it and caused what was done not only to be subscribed by the Bishops whom he had Assembled but to be confirm'd by a great number both of the Inferior Clergy and of the Laity of the Empire And lastly not to metion any more Henry the First after the Example of his Predecessors by his Princely Command assembled the great Synod at Erpsford with the Advice of his great Men and particularly of Archbishop Hildibert who was chiefly consider'd by him 5. And now having thus fully shewn what was the Practice of these Princes in Germany I might spare my self and Reader the trouble of enquiring into the Methods used in France which was generally either in the same Hands or Govern'd by Those of the same Family that the Empire in those days was Yet because I think the Ecclesiastical Discipline was no where better kept up or more exactly follow'd than in that Country and that I conceive our own Synods were very much framed by the pattern of Theirs I will take a short View of their Conventions also and so conclude these first general Remarks To begin then with the first of their Christian Kings Clouis the Great And here we find that he not only Called the first Council of Orleans and which has ever been look'd upon as the Model and Pattern to all their succeeding Synods but moreover Prescribed to it the Points on which it was to debate And all this at the Desire and with the Advice of St. Remigius as Hincmarus in the History of his Life informs Us. It was by the like Command of Childebert and his Brethren that the Second Council of the same Place was held The Synod of Clermont the next of any Consequence that met in France assembled with the Consent of King Theodebert And so did that of Tours afterwards with the like Consent and Allowance of Charibert The Fifth Council of Paris not only declares that it was Assembled by the Authority of Clotharius but tells us that their Assembling by his Authority was as indeed it was agreeable to the Constitutions of the Antient Fathers who had gone before Them And the Synod of Chalons Owns in like manner that it met together in Obedience to the Call and Command of Clouis the Second their King It was by the Royal Authority of Pepin that a General Council was held in his Palace at Vernis Anno 755. Of Charles the Great that the Second Council of Rhemes and the Third of Tours â—ere convened Of Louis the Emperor and his Son Lotharius that the Sixth Council of Paris was called And lastly not to instance in any more of Charles the Bald that the Synod of Quierzy was assembled for Reforming Mens Manners and to put a Stop to that Corruption in point of Faith too which was about that time supposed to be breaking out in those Parts Whaâ— the Practice of our own Country has been as to this matter I shall particularly consider when I come to Enquire into the Rights of our Own Kings in this Respect In the mean time from the Account which has hitherto been given of that Authority by which the Bishops and Clergy have been wont to be called together into Synods it Appears that as in Fact no Councils have met without the Permission of the Civil Magistrate ever since the Empire became Christian So neither does it appear that the Clergy have ever made any Complaints against Them as usurping herein upon the Rights of the Church or pleaded any Privilege as of Divine Authority for their Meeting and Acting against their Consent But to the End it may the more Evidently Appear how far the Power of Christian Princes has been accounted to Extend as to this Particular I shall to that General Deduction I have now made of the Authority by which the Church has been accustomed from the Beginning to meet together in Councils subjoin a few more particular Remarks for the better clearing of this whole matter And 1st It may be observed that tho' the Civil Magistrate has generally Advised with his Bishops and Clergy upon these Occasions and ask'd their Opinion whether it were fitting or not to call a Synod before he has given Orders for the meeting of it Yet was this never look'd upon as any matter of Right but on the contrary Princes have oftentimes assembled such Councils without ever consulting Them at All and at others when their Bishops have not only Advised but Desired them so to do have yet upon their Own Judgment or by the Advice of their Council utterly refused to comply with their Requests If we look into the Acts of the several Synods I have before mention'd we shall find indeed sometimes that the Advice of the Bishops was taken for their Meeting but we shall oftner find them call'd by the Prince with the Advice of his Great Men and yet oftner no notice at all taken of the Advice of Either How often did Liberius and the Catholick Bishops in vain petition Constantius that a Free and Orthodox Council might be Call'd to judge in the Case of Athanasius but could never Obtain it And tho' the method taken by that Emperor to manage that Affair in Favour of the Arians and the Refusal of such a Council as was desired was the Effect of that Enmity he had conceived against Them and their Doctrine yet we do not find the Catholick Bishops any where complain that in this the Emperor did any more than what he had Authority to do or pretend to any Original Ecclesiastical Power left them by Christ to call such a Synod whether He would or no. But on the contrary notwithstanding the Urgency of that Affair and the eager Desire they had to end it neither Liberius nor Any others attempted to meet against the Emperor's Command but quietly submitted to the Prohibition he had laid upon Them not to do so So little did the greatest Bishops of the Church in those Days think it lawful to hold a Council against the Prince's Will that being forbidden by an Heretical Emperor and that against
both the Time and Places of their Meeting and after what Manner they should proceed being Met. But 5thly And to conclude all That nothing may be wanting to shew what an entire dependance the Synods of the Christian Church have ever had upon their respective Princes I add That not only the Convening of them and the Time and Place of their Meeting depend upon their pleasure but that they have morever Authority to appoint what Persons shall come to them and to direct the Choice that is to be made of them Thus Constantine the Great did when he call'd the Synods of Arles and Tyre And thus his Successors continued to do in the most General Councils that were held by them When Theodosius had agreed to call the General Council of Ephesus He directed his Precept to the several Metropolitans and commanded them to choose such and so many of their Suffragans as they thought convenient to draw out of their Provinces and to bring them with them to the Council And the same Method was observ'd in the next Synod that met there The Emperror commanded Dioscorus to Summon ten Metropolitans of his District with such other Bishops as he thought convenient and that none else should presume to come to it And in another Letter upon the same Occasion the same Theodosius appointed Barsumas the Priest to come to the same Council and appear in it as Representative of all the Archimandrites of the East It was after the same manner that Marcian the Emperour Assembled the Fourth General Council at Chalcedon He wrote to the Metropolitans to come to it and left it to them to bring such of their Suffragan Bishops as they thought fit along with them And when the Princes who follow'd after summon'd their National Synods they in like manner directed the Choice of those who were to come to them as we see in the Synods of Vernis and Aix la Chappelle assembled by Ring Pepin and Charles the Emperor An. 755. 816. 'T is true the Metropolitans in these Cases did oftentimes call a Provincial Synod and therein agree who among them should attend upon their Primate to the General Council But neither did they always take this Course nor when they did had they any Direction from the Emperors so to do They only sent their Orders to the Metropolitans and commonly left the rest to them to chuse such Bishops out of their Provinces as they thought fit As for the lesser Synods tho' the Princes did not often interpose in them yet neither was there any choice left to the inferiour Clergy to nominate the Members of Them To the Provincial Synods all the Bishops of the Province were obliged if able to come And they brought with them for their Companions such of their own Priests and Deacons as they thought fit At the Diocesan Synod every beneficed Priest of the Diocese was required to appear And they had not so much a Right as an Obligation lying upon them to be present at them And thus have I shewn what the Authority of the Supreme Civil Magistrate is as to the Business of Assembling Ecclesiastical Synods or Convocations And the Sum of what I have proved is in short this * That it is the Right of Christian Princes to call such Assemblies and that they cannot lawfully meet but as they are either commanded or allow'd of by Them * That They and not the Clergy are Judges when it is proper to Convene them * And ought not to be censured for not assembling of them when they are perswaded it is Needless or would be Inexpedient for Them so to do * That even the Ordinary Synods required by the Canons and allow'd of by Themselves may yet upon just Grounds be stop'd by them And when there is a just Reason for them so to do they are to judge And being so prohibited cannot be lawfully Assembled In short * That when-ever they do meet the Prince is not only to appoint or at least to approve of the Time and Place of their Meeting but may give Direction for the Choice of the Persons that are to compose them That so he may be satisfied that they are such whose Piety and Temper have fitted them to serve the Church and in whose Prudence and Conduct himself may safely confide It were an easie matter to argue the Reasonableness of every one of these Conclusions from the Ends of Civil-Government and the Power that is necessary to be placed in the Hands of the Supreme Magistrate in order to those Ends. And I need not say that Christianity came not to Usurp upon the Civil Power but rather to engage Men to be the more ready to render that Duty which they owe to it 'T is true by these means the busie Tempers of some forward Men may be restrain'd and to such these Limitations may seem very Odious and Unreasonable But they are such Men and such Tempers that make these Restrictions necessary And their Unwillingness to submit to them shews but the more clearly how fitting it is that Princes should have all that Power I have now mentioned to prevent them from doing both Themselves and the Church a Mischief That Princes may abuse this Power to the Detriment of the Church is no more an Argument that they ought not to enjoy it than it would be that they ought not to be entrusted with a Civil Power because they may abuse that too to the ruine of the State But I am apt to believe that were the Dangers to be weigh'd it would be much more fatal both to the Church and State to have some Men intrusted with an Immoderate Liberty than others with a Soveraign Power to restrain them And 't is enough to answer all Pretences of this nature to say that whenever the Civil Magistrate shall so far abuse his Authority as to render it necessary for the Clergy by some extraordinary Methods to provide for the Churches Welfare that Necessity will warrant their taking of them In the mean time such an Authority as I have now shewn the Prince has in these Matters and till things come to such an Extremity we must leave him as of Right he ought to enjoy it And this may suffice for the First thing proposed in this Enquiry viz. To shew What Power the Christian Prince has in the calling of Ecclesiastical Synods or Convocations I go on 2dly To consider What Authority He has over Them when They are Assembled Now that may I conceive be reduced to these 2 Particulars 1st Of his Authority to Direct and Govern Them in their Proceedings And 2dly To sit with and to preside over them in Order thereunto 1st Then I affirm That the Civil Magistrate has a Right to Direct and Govern Them in their Proceedings And that with Respect both to the Matters on which they are to Debate and to the Method which they areto take in Debating upon Them 1st The Civil
the Truth of them and not Expect that he should not only believe Himself but should oblige Others to Believe what neither He nor They see any Reason to Receive For whatever in some Mens Opinion a General Council may be yet I hope no One will pretend that we must believe every particular Convocation to be infallible in its Definitions Let this then be the Result of our second Enquiry viz. * That the Christian Prince has a Right to prescribe to his Synods the Work they are to go upon and to Restrain them from meddling with such things as do not belong to Them * That he may Direct not only the Subject but the Order and Method of their Debates * That He may if He please Sit and Deliberate with his Clergy in them And interpose his Judgment not only in Matters of Discipline but in Matters of Faith too * That it is not only his Right but his Duty to Examine what they have concluded upon and either to Confirm or Rescind their Decisions according as He shall remain satisfied or not of the Truth the Justice and the Expediency of Them And this brings me to the Third and last Question proposed to be Consider'd viz. 3dly What the Authority of the Prince is with Relation to these Conventions after They have Ended what was to be done by Them Now that may be Consider'd in a double Respect 1st With Reference to their Persons And 2dly To their Acts. 1st With Reference to their Persons I have before shewn that no Synod can Regularly be assembled without the Consent of the Civil Magistrate I now add That neither being assembled can They dissolve Themselves and depart from any such Council till Licensed by him so to do This is a Right that has ever been Acknowledged by the Clergy to belong to the Christian Prince And therefore I shall need to insist the less upon the Proof of it When the Fathers who were call'd by Constantius to Ariminum had done the Business for which they were Convened and sent their Delegates to attend the Emperor with an account of their Proceedings They finally besought Him that He would give them leave to return to their Churches lest they should seem by their Longer Stay to have been forsaken by their Bishops 'T is true we are told by Sozomen that the Emperor being displeased at their firm Adherence to the Catholick Faith Refused to give any Answer to them Whereupon Growing weary of staying any longer at a Place where they had nothing to do they Return'd of their Own Accord to their several Churches But then he tells us withal that this the Emperor Resented as a very Great Affront which they put upon him and when he had an Opportunity he express'd his Resentments accordingly against Them But Theodosius and Valentinian took more Care of the General Council assembled by them at Ephesus For having appointed Candidian to look after it one part of that Instruction which they gave to him was this that he should by all means take Care that none of the Bishops left the City till all things were finish'd for which they came together And particularly till they had with all Exactness settled the Catholick Faith in Opposition to the Heretical doctrine of Nestorius upon whose account that Synod was Assembled Such was the Right which the Emperors claim'd over their Bishops in this particular And for the Exercise of it we shall need look no farther than to the next General Council Where when Marcian the Emperor came into the Synod and approv'd what the Fathers had done after their other Acclamations they all unanimously requested We beseech thee dismiss or dissolve us To this the Emperor return'd that they should tarry yet Three or Four days and move whatever they would and they should receive all due Encouragement from him And then concluded the Session with these Words see that none of you depart from the Holy Synod before all things be fully completed It is therefore the duty of all Synods as they are Conven'd by the Princes Authority so to tarry till they have the same Authority for their Dissolution As for the last particular wherein we are to consider the Power of the Christian Magistrate viz. 2dly With Relation to the Acts of their Synods It is I conceive allow'd on all hands that their definitions are no farther obligatory than as they are Ratified and Confirm'd by the Civil Authority For though the Faith of Christ neither depends upon the Authority of Man nor is subject to the Power either of Synods or Princes as to what concerns the Truth of it Yet what that Faith is which shall be allow'd to be profess'd in every Community by the Laws of it and receive not only Protection but Encouragement from the Civil Power must be left to the Prince to determine And the definitions of Synods in favour of it will signifie very little till what they have determin'd to be the right Faith be also allow'd by the Civil Magistrate to be publickly profess'd and taught and be receiv'd into his favour and under his Patronage as such But much more reasonable as well as necessary is the Confirmation of the Prince to give Authority to those Canons which regard the discipline and politie of the Church Because in these the interest of the State is Concern'd And an Authority usurp'd and Mens civil Interests either directly or by consequence affected And to all which as the Consent of the Prince is requir'd so the nature and ends of Government will not permit that any thing of this kind should be done within the State without his Consent first obtain'd for the doing of it Hence it is that from the Beginning Christian Princes have not only taken upon them to confirm the Acts of their Synods if they have thought fit but have been petition'd to by their Synods that they would do so Thus Constantine the Great was desired by the first General Council to ratifie by his Authority what the Fathers had Determin'd The same was Demanded of Theodosius by the Second General Council of Constantinople In the Third General Council of Ephesus the Fathers in like manner address'd to the younger Theodosius and Valentinian for the Ratification of what had been done by Them And so did Those of the Council of Chalcedon to Marcian the Emperor for the same purpose And all these Emperors answer'd their Desires and Confirm'd their Acts accordingly It were an Easie Matter to shew that the same Method still continued in all other Countries and Kingdoms after so that no Princes ever suffer'd any Canons to be put in Execution till they had first been View'd and Approv'd of by them as no way prejudicial to their Royal Power and Dignity But because this is a Point that is not I conceive at all deny'd among us and that I look upon the Power of the Christian Prince to extend much farther than to
the bare Confirmation of what the Synod has determined I will proceed more particularly to shew what his Authority in this Respect is and how the final Determinations of such Assemblies fall at last under the Power of the Prince's Judgment And 1st As it would be absurd to suppose that he should so it is certain that the Prince is not obliged at all Adventures to confirm whatsoever the Clergy shall think â—it to determine This were not only to give an immoderate Power to the one but unreasonably to confine and limit the other It were in truth to hood-wink the Prince and not allow him the common Privilege of a Rational Creature to know and examine his Actions and proceed with Reason and Discretion in Them And it were as well plainly to say that Synods have a Supreme Authority and are no way accountable to any Civil Power in what they do As to pretend that the Prince shall be obliged at all Adventures to Ratifie and the People by consequence to submit to whatsoever it shall please them to determine It were indeed to be wish'd that such Venerable Assemblies might always be composed of Men so Wise and Prudent and that they would proceed in all things so calmly and impartially that the Prince might evermore find it to be both Just and Honourable for Him to take upon him the Protection and Guardian-ship of their Definitions But because such is the Condition of Humane Nature that Passion and Prejudice Ignorance and Interest Noise and Clamour oftentimes break in and confound the Proceedings of these as well as of all Other Assemblies and many things are debated hastily carried on with Faction and concluded Unreasonably 't is very fit and just that the Prince should give Direction to have their Actions carefully Review'd and Consider'd before He assents to Them That so he may not be imposed upon nor do either the Church or Himself a Prejudice by a blind complyance with the Dictates of his Clergy And for the same Reason that He ought to have a Power of Examining the Councils Acts it follows 2dly That he must also be allow'd to have a Power of Annulling and Rejecting what they have done if it shall appear to be Hurtful or Unjust as well as a Power to Ratifie and Confirm it if they shall be found to have proceeded canonically and to have acted for the Good and Benefit of the Church It being in vain to allow the Prince a Liberty of Examination if there be not left him a Liberty of Choice and Resolution And an Authority indifferently either to confirm or reject their Definitions according to the Judgment which He shall finally pass upon Them But because where many things are Done and several Constitutions made it is possible a different Judgment may finally Remain in the Mind of the Prince concerning Them so that He may Approve of some part of what the Synod has determined and dislike the Rest It will from hence farther follow 3dly That he ought to have a Power not only to confirm or reject the whole of what the Synod has done but to confirm that part of their Acts which he is perswaded will be for the Churches Benefit and to annul that which he thinks would be otherwise Whether it will be thought to be as Reasonable 4thly That the Prince should be allow'd a farther Power to alter or improve what the Synod has defined to add to or to take from it so as to render it in his Opinion more useful to the End for which it was design'd I cannot tell But sure I am that this Princes have done and so I think they have Authority to do For since the Legis-lative Power is lodged in their hands so that they may make what Laws or Constitutions they think fit for the Church as well as for the State Since a Synod in matters relating to Discipline is but a kind of Council to them in Ecclesiastical Affairs whose Advice having taken they may still act as they think fit Seeing lastly a Canon drawn up by a Synod is but as it were Matter prepared for the Royal Stamp the last forming of which as well enforcing whereof must be left to the Prince's Judgment I cannot see why the Supreme Magistrate who confessedly has a Power to confirm or reject their Decrees may not also make such other Use of them as he pleases and correct improve or otherwise alter their Resolutions according to his own liking before he gives Authority to them 'T is true in this Case the Prince will not so much confirm what the Synod has done as take Occasion from that which the Synod has done to make another Ecclesiastical Law of his Own But still this Power the Supreme Civil Magistrate has And if this be all the Use he shall think fit to make of his Synod viz. to suggest to him fit matter for the making of some seasonable and good Laws I do not see wherein he can be accounted to abuse his Authority And sure I am 't is no small Service done the Church to suggest such Thoughts to the Prince as otherwise perhaps might never have entred into his Mind And as the Prince has this Authority over the Canonical Resolutions of his Synods so has he no less over their Judicial Determinations Which 5thly He may either confirm suspend or totally annul as he thinks they have proceeded either fairly and impartially and with good Judgment or else hastily and partially and with Prejudice in them For the Prince as He is the supreme Fountain of Justice in the State so does it appertain to him to rectify the undue Proceedings of inferiour Judges And to his Conscience there will always lie an Appeal let the Synod determine how it will These are the Rights of Christian Princes with respect to the Actions of Synods after they have done their Business and that these have All been confirm'd and allow'd of to them by such Assemblies I shall now proceed from a brief History of this Matter to shew When Nestorius had infected the Church with his Heresie he was by two of the Greatest Patriarchs of the World Celestine Bishop of Rome and Cyril Bishop of Alexandria in their several Provincial Synods justly condemn'd unless he should repent of his Error within ten days Being inform'd of these Sentences thus pass'd against him he applied himself to Theodosius the Emperor complain'd of their Proceedings and desired that a General Council might be call'd to judge of this Matter Theodosius who at the same time was moved by Others to the same purpose Resolves upon a General Council to meet at Ephesus and in the mean time suspends the Decrees of the two Provincial Synods and orders that nothing should be innovated till that Council should meet And when the Council was met the Fathers were so far from complaining of this Suspension as a hard thing that they appointed the Emperor's Order to be inserted into their Acts and thereby gave
himself On the 11th of July in the same Convocation the Bp of Hereford produced a certain Book containing the Articles of Faith and Ceremonies of the Church Which being read by the said Bishop the said Honourable Thomas Cromwel the Archbishop and other Prelates with the Prolocutor and Clergy of the Lower House by their Subscriptions Approved of the said Book On the 15th of July It was agreed by the Lord Cromwel the Archbishop and Convocation as to certain Ordinances c. And lastly On the 20th of July the Bishop of Hereford produced a certain Book containing the Causes why the King ought not to appear at the General Council then to be held Which Book the aforesaid Honourable Lord Thomas Cromwel the Archbishop and the Rest of the Convocation by their Subscriptions approved of Thus did the King's Commissioner not only sit but act with the Bishops in their Convocation And I am not aware of any Law that has debar'd the King if need were to do that again now which King Henry 8. heretofore did And this may suffice to shew what Authority the King has over Our Convocation both by the Statute and Common Law by his own Prerogative as a Christian Prince and by the Particular Concessions of our own Parliaments and Convocations But we are told that the Convocation must be consider'd by Us not only as an Ecclesiastical Synod but as an Ecclesiastical Court too and which as such has Jurisdiction to deal with Heresies Schisms and other meer Spiritual and Ecclesiastical Causes juxta legem divinam Canones S. Ecclesiae And herein their Power is not at all Restrain'd by any particular Statute but still remains whole and entire to Them In this respect therefore the Convocation may at least act without the King's Licence and as of Right against any Bishop Priest or Deacon for such Offences This is the Doctrine of our Late Author but is not so clear to me as he would make it That Provincial Synods heretofore did look upon Themselves as endued with a sufficient Authority to proceed against any of their Own Body who by any of the Crimes before mentioned had deserved their Censure is not to be deny'd The Provincial Councils of old did so but especially in the Case of Heresie wherein the Church has ever Accounted it self to be particularly Concern'd But then it must be remember'd too that when they had so proceeded against Any One the Prince still judged whether they had acted Canonically or no And if he found a just Reason to move Him so to do he did oftentimes suspend their Sentence and order a new Enquiry in some other Synod to be made of such a Matter and after all determined it at last as He saw Cause Thus Theodosius did in the Case of Nest orius after he had been Condemn'd in two several Provincial Councils And thus Constantius before him had done in the Case of Photinus a worser Heretick He received his Appeal from the Council of Sirmium and order'd a new Examination to be made of his Case and then confirm'd the Sentence of the Synod and concurr'd in the Deposition of him And when Flavian Patriarch of Constantinople had in like manner condemned Eutyches for his Heresie the Emperor not only referr'd the Matter to the Council of Ephesus to be re-heard by it but when by the indirect Management of Dioscorus that Synod instead of Confirming his Sentence against Eutyches condemn'd Flavian himself tho' Orthodox and Innocent Theodosius not only refused to suspend the Sentences of Both till another Free Council might be call'd to judge of the Matter but left the Sentence of this last Council to remain in force and would not suffer any other Synod to be called about this Affair as long as He lived As for our own Convocation it is not deny'd but that antiently They were wont to judge of Heresy in it The first Instance that occurs of this and that the case of Pelagianism excepted as antient as the first coming of Heresie into our Country is that of the Council of Oxford held about 1260 and the Occasion of which was this It had happen'd some time before that about 30 Persons came over hither out of Germany and held secret Meetings differing from the common Opinion of the Church in several Particulars but chiefly as to the points of Baptism and the Holy Eucharist To prevent the spreading of their Errors the King commanded that Council to meet at Oxford and there to judge of them Being convened before this Synod and convicted of their Errors and refusing to abjure them they were pronounced Hereticks by it and deliver'd back to the King to be punished by the Civil Power It is in a Provincial Council held by Steph. Langton that we meet with the next Instance we have of the like Proceedings In this we are told of two Impostors upon one of whom were found the five Wounds of the Crucifixion convicted and condemn'd by the Judgments of the Church But Bracton adds to these another and a more notable Instance He tells us of a certain Deacon who out of Love to a Jewish Woman apostatiz'd from the Faith of Christ and was thereupon sentenc'd and degraded by the Synod and deliver'd over to the Secular Power to be Burnt for it And the same was the manner by which Sautre was condemn'd as appears not only by the Writ still extant for his Execution but from the Rolls of the Parliament 2 Hen. 4. in which the order was given for issuing out the Writ to the Sheriffs of London for it Feb. 26. He was first examined and condemned by the Clergy in Convocation and by them deliver'd up to the Civil Magistrate to be burned And tho' the Lord Cobham was not finally sentenced in Convocation but by the Archshop of Canterbury assisted by the Bishops of London and Winchester after it was risen yet was this Cause first brought on there and he was therein both Adjudged an Heretick and Excommunicated as such The Truth is so great is the Scandal and so severe in those days was the Punishment too of Heresy that it has moved some very Learned Men to think that before the 2 Hen. 4. no one could be otherwise convicted of it than in a Provincial Synod or Convocation And tho' my Lord Coke maintains this to be a Mistake and affirms that the Bishop always had as He still has Power to convict of Heresy and to proceed by the Censures of the Church against such as are guilty of it yet this is no Argument why the Convocation should not still retain its antient Authority and have the Power of doing that which any single Bishop alone may do But here then a question may arise that will deserve to be consider'd on this occasion and that is When any one is to be convicted of Heresie or of any other the like Ecclesiastical Crime in Convocation who it is
London under Edred An. 948 Of Brandenford An. 959 Of London under Edgar An. 970 Of Winchester and Calne under Dunstan Archbishop of Cant. Of Aenham An. 1009 And of Westminster An. 1066. It is sufficiently evident from the instances I have already given that whatsoever the Synod or Council were in which the affairs of the Church were transacted they depended intirely upon the Princes Authority Who for the most part determined what was needfull concerning them in the great Councils of their Realms and when they did not â—et still kept the management even of their Ecclesiastical Convocations in their own hands And suffer'd them not either to meet act or establish any thing but according to their good Pleasure II PERIOD From the Coming in of William the First to the 23d of Edward the First Hitherto our Princes maintain'd their Rights and asserted that Authority which their Royal Sovereignty gave them over their Clergy But now the Papal Power began to shew its self and to usurp upon their Prerogatives And among other Instances in which it did so this before us was not the least till at last it grew up to that monstrous Pitch in which we shall find it about the latter end of this Period When the King was become of little value to his Synods which were wholly subject to the Popes direction and depended upon the Will either of his extraordinary Legats or of the Archbishop of Canterbury to whose See a kind of perpetual Legantine Power and Authority was in the end annex'd by him I should depart too much from my present subject should I look abroad and consider by what steps these Encroachments were carried on to the prejudice of the civil Power and against which no Princes either asserted their Authority with greater Vigour or took more care to recover it when lost by them than Ours did It shall suffice as a Preparatory to what we shall hereafter meet with barely to point out to you the Artifices that were made use of in order to this end and to shew by what secret and almost indiscernible Workings they first began to restrain and at last utterly destroy'd the Rights of Princes in the point before us And first having either sent their Legat into a Kingdom or else constituted some of the chief Bishops to bear that character the Prince indeed commanded the Clergy to assemble but the other as the Pope's Commissioner advised the doing of it Thus Boniface began the Usurpation in the time of Carloman Anno 745. He assisted as Pope Zachary's Legat in the third Council of Germany in which Gervitio Bishop of Mentz was deposed and the said Boniface put in his place And this Council as the Acts of it speak was held Carlomanno jubente Bonifacio consulente The Prince commanded the Legat advised it to be held But much greater was the advance which Pope John the VIII made in the time of Charles the Bald Anno 876. For now the Pope call'd the Synod and all the Emperour had to do was to require the Pope's Summons to be obey'd So the Acts of the Synod of Pontigon shew where we read That the Holy Synod was gathered together in the name of the Lord by the calling of John the most Blessed and Universal Pope and at the Command of Charles the Emperour And in the Acts of it among other things that were determined by it we find this Canon to our present purpose That As the Pope had with the Connivance Consent and Joynt-determination of the Emperour resolved to establish Ansegisus Archbishop of Sens to be his Legat and had bestow'd upon him the Primacy of France and Germany in calling of Synods and Canonically defining such things as were necessary so did the Fathers of the Synod agree to it and in like manner determine and establish I might take notice of many things determined in this Decree in manifest Derogation of the Emperour's Authority But I shall content my self to observe how by this time the Pope in those parts had got the power of Calling Synods wholly into his Hands and either himself expresly did it or else gave Commission to some other to do it in his Name and by vertue of his Authority 'T is true the Emperour consented to what was done in the present case but that was only to allow that particular Person one of his own Subjects to take upon him the Character of the Pope's Legat not to enable the Pope to grant such a power which he now assumed to himself a right to do And accordingly in the second Synod of Troyes held but two years after the same Pope coming into France to remedy the disorders of the Church and free it from some oppressions which it lay under call'd that Synod by his own Authority Made what Canons he thought needful for those times and publish'd them in the Council and the Council had the honour to approve and receive them from him But as Encroachments of this nature being once begun run still on to a greater excess so Pope Formosus soon carried the Usurpation yet farther He assembled by his Legat the Council of Vien the Metropolis of France and the Bishops met at his Command And from henceforth it became a setled Custom for the Pope by his Legats to call such Synods and to sit with the Bishops in those parts Nor did the Pope only by his Legats call such Synods and assist at them but even when the King himself was present the Legat now began to preside over them and to draw even matters of a civil Nature before him and judge of them So the Synod of Engelsheim under Agapetus the second and Otho the Emperour did It judged of the wrong that had been done to Lewis the 4th King of France and excommunicated the Person by whom it was done To such a Slavery had the Pope brought the Christian World about the beginning of the Period I am now entring upon He call'd Synods He presided over them He sent what Canons he pleas'd to be confirm'd by them and required their Consent to them And lastly He drew not only Ecclesiastical Affairs under their Cognizance but judg'd of the Affairs of Princes in them and the differences that arose among them concerning their civil Authority and Jurisdiction But to none of these Invasions would the Conquerour ever submit but on the contrary he held his Bishops to the same subjection which they paid to their Saxon Princes and tho' upon occasion he made use of the Pope's Authority to serve his own turn against Stigand Archbishop of Canterbury yet that being done he quickly put a stop to his Jurisdiction and suffer'd him not to meddle in any Matters but where it was for his interest to allow of it We are told by one than whom no one better understood the state of these matters that this Prince would not suffer any of his Subjects to acknowledge
Hereticks were privily got into England He commanded a Council of Bishops to meet at Oxford and to call them before them And being accordingly Convicted by them they were publickly punish'd by the Civil Power By whose Authority the next Convention of the Clergy was assembled the year following it do's not appear Certain it is that in the Election of the Archbishop of Canterbury for which they met all was managed to the King 's content and the person chose whom He recommended to them After the death of Becket Richard Archbishop of Canterbury held a Provincial Council At this the two Kings both Father and Son were present and all things were done not only under their Inspection but the very Council was held with their Consent and Good Will And the King with his Lords confirm'd the Decrees of it How these matters flood in the next Reign it will not be very easie to say In which the King was for the most part absent upon his Expedition to the Holy Land and by the means whereof the Affairs of the Kingdom suffered not a little at Home Yet Baldwyn the Archbishop designing to accompany the King before he set out assembled a Provincial Synod to settle the State of the Church and to take such care as he thought needfull to secure the Liberties of his See It was not long after that William Bishop of Eli held another Synod at Westminster But He being endued with the double Character both of Lord Justice of the Kingdom in Richard's Absence and of the Pope's Legate as we cannot tell by which Authority He called it so neither can it be doubted but that between Both he had a sufficient Authority so to do And the same was the Case of Hubert after Who being empower'd both by the King and Pope assembled a Synod at York Presided in it and made many useful Constitutions for the Government of the Church Thus stood the Affairs of our Convocations in these two Reigns We must now go on to another prospect to a Reign in which thro' the ill Circumstances of the Government and the Troubles that fell out by the means of it the Pope according to his Custom made farther Invasions upon the Prince's Right and at last rais'd up his Authority to the highest pitch that ever it arrived at in this Kingdom The King being absent upon his Affairs in France and Hubert still enjoying his Legatine Power by Vertue thereof call'd a Synod to Westminster Anno 1200 And tho' forbidden by Geoffry Earl of Essex whom the King had left as Lord Justice of England during his Absence yet nevertheless went on with it and made several Constitutions in it It was about six years after that Jo. Ferentinus being sent as Legate into England and having got together a vast Quantity of Money held a Synod at Redding and so took his leave of the Realm From henceforth all things began to run into Confusion The King Obstinately opposing the admission of Stephen Langton to the See of Canterbury and the Pope thereupon putting the Kingdom under an Interdict and at last Excommunicating the King himself But it was not long before the Pope and the King came to an Agreement dishonourable to Himself and derogatory to the Rights both of the Crown and Kingdom Insomuch that Stephen himself Opposed it and joyn'd himself to the Barons against both Pope and King in defence of his Countries Liberties It was upon this new Agreement between the King and Pope that John doing what He would with the Preferments of the Church the Archbishop held a Council at Dunstable Anno 1214 And deputed two of their number to go to the Legate whom the Pope on that Occasion had sent hither to stop both His and the King's Proceedings by putting in an Appeal against Them Both to the Court of Rome And the same year the said Legate having received full satisfaction from the King and being therefore to Relax the Sentence which had pass'd both upon Him and the Kingdom that He might do it with the more Pomp caused a solemn Council to be held at St. Paul's London and there Released the Realm from its Interdict and Restored the King to his Royal Authority And here we must put an End to these Enquiries during this troublesome Reign For from henceforth the Kingdom was in a continual disorder in the midst of which the King at last died But tho' by the Wise Management of the Earl of Pembrook his Governour King Kenry the 3d. soon brought things into a better posture in the State yet still the Usurpations were maintain'd in the Church and the Archbishop as Legate continued to Summon the Clergy to his Synod So did Stephen Langton Anno 1222 In which He held his famous Synod at Oxford and publish'd those Constitutions which still pass under his Name About four years after Otto the Legate coming hither to enlarge the Pope's Revenues before too great in this Kingdom held a Council at Westminster the day after Hilary and proposed to the Clergy the project upon which He came To avoid the design He had upon them the Bishops made answer that the King being indisposed was Absent and several of their Brethren were not come to the Synod and so they could Resolve upon nothing for want of Them The Legate who understood the meaning of this proposed to them that They should at least Agree to another Meeting about Mid-lent and he would undertake that the King should come to it But the Bishops replied That without the Consent of the King and their Brethren who were absent they could not Agree to any such Proposal And the King Himself forbad all who held any Baronies of Him to do any thing in prejudice of His Rights So zealous were these Men for the King's Prerogative when they needed it to guard them against the Encroachments of the Pope And so little do Men value how differently they behave themselves when their interests lead them to shift their Party and their Opinions But tho' the King now joyn'd with his Clergy against the Pope yet it was not very long before He himself invited the same Otho to come again as Legate into England Who being accordingly come hither held a Legantine Council at St. Paul's London in the Octaves of St. Martins to Reform the abuses of Pluralities and some other Enormities that were crept into the Church And there proposed his Constitutions to the Clergy that so by their Suffrage and Consent they might be establish'd for the Reformation of the State of the Church of England I insist not upon the two fresh Attempts that were made by this Legate upon the Clergy for Money and in Both which He was constantly refused by Them As was also Rustandus who succeeded him and by the like authority call'd another Synod to fleece the Clergy for the Pope's Advantage About three years after Boniface
this Law And that having not the Prince's leave to meet together they were in the construction of the Law Guilty of Meeting against it Now a Synod being no Ordinary or Siaâ—ed Convention but which was assembled only upon Extraordinary Occasions when the Necessities of the Church required the Meeting of it As there was no General Provision at the beginning made by the Laws for them so it was therefore necessary that in order to their meeting Lawfully the express Command or Allowance of the Emperor should be had for their so doing And if we look up to the History of the first and most famous Councils of the Church we shall accordingly find that They were All Convened by the Imperial Authority Thus Constantine the Great not only summon'd but sat Himself in that of Nice Theodosius the Great both Assembled the Second General Council of Constantinople and at the desire of the Fathers confirmed the Acts of it The Council of Ephesus the next General Council was not only Called by the Emperors Theodosiuâ— the Younger and Valentinian but that All things might be done decently and orderly in it they sent * Candidian as Their Commissioner to preside over the Bishops and to direct their Proceedings according to the Instructions which they had given Him for that purpose And when the Heresy of Eutyches gave a new Occasion â—o the same Emperors to Assemble another Synod They in like manner appointed it to meet at the same place and Commanded Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria to preside in it It was the same Authority that had caused this Synod to meet at Ephesus that after the death of Theodosius appointed a Review to be made of it in another Council which was summon'd first to Nice and from thence was Removed to Chalcedon And this the Emperors did not only upon their Own Authority But tho' Pope Leo had desired with all imaginable Earnestness that it might have been held somewhere in Italy to which they refused to Consent Such was the Authority by which the Four first General Councils of the Church were Assembled Nor were the next Four call'd by any other It was by the express Command of the Elder Justinian that the Second General Council of Constantinople met As it was by the like Summons of Constantinus Pogonatus that the Third in the same City was convened And because in these two no Canons were made for the discipline of the Church Justinian the younger call'd another Council to supply that defect and confirm'd the Canons that were made by it The second Council of Nice thô scarce right in any thing else yet in this was Orthodox that it was assembled by the Authority of Irenè the Empress and her Son Constantine And lastly the Fourth of Constantinople the last of the Eight general Councils was in like manner held by the consent of Basilius the Emperour and Approved by Him This then was the Power which the Christian Emperours claim'd over the Greatest Councils and which those Councils always acknowledged to be due to Them If from these we pass on to the Lesser Synods that were assembled in those days we shall find the Authority of the Civil Magistrate to be still the same And that These also were either expresly convened by Them or were summon'd by some Authority that was derived from Them When the Donatists being Angry that they could not gain their Ends upon Caecilian desired that an Examination might be made of their Case by some foreign Bishops Constantine the Emperour granted their Request And in Order thereunto appointed a meeting to be held at Rome upon that Affair and that three French Bishops should be joyn'd to Fifteen out of Italy for the Hearing of it And These together with the Bishop of Rome by the Emperours Command judged of this Matter And when those turbulent Men were not yet satisfied to put a final end to their Contentions He caused a Greater Number of Bishops to meet in a Synod at Arles and there Review the same Cause and pass a final Judgment in it To enumerate all the several Instances that remain to us of Councils call'd in like manner by the Imperial Authority would be as Infinite as it is Needless It may suffice to say that what Constantine thus began the succeeding Emperours constantly held to And suffer'd not any Assemblies of the Clergy to be made but by their leave and according to their Direction 'T is true there was a General Order made by the Fathers of the Council of Nice that for the better Regulation of the Churches Affairs the Bishops of every Province should meet together in a Provincial Synod under their Metropolitan twice every Year And this Council being not only confirm'd by Constantine who call'd it but by almost all the Emperors that follow'd after and particularly the Constitution now mention'd being provided for and adjusted by the Civil Laws themselves such Councils from thenceforth became Legal Assemblies and were of Course allow'd of tho' not expresly consented to by the Emperors And yet when Theodoret began to be too busie in calling the Bishops together Theodosius not only laid a Prohibition upon him but confined him to Cyrus his own little See as a Punishment for what he had before done So little was it then thought a matter of Right for the Clergy to meet as often as they thought good in Synods Or that any Injury was done them by their Princes when they refused to suffer them so to do But it may be these Emperors had some eminent Authority in them which ceased together with the Empire and which other Princes tho' of Sovereign Authority within their several Kingdoms yet ought not to pretend to That this is not so in Civil Matters I shall leave it to the Writers of Politicks to argue and to the Municipal Laws of their several Kingdoms to shew As for what concerns their Ecclesiastical Authority it is evident that in This as in all other Respects whatsoever Power the Emperors heretofore laid claim to in the Whole the same these Princes have continued to assert within their own particular States and Dominions When the Vandals had over-run the greatest part of Africa and by their Authority set up the Arrian Heresie in Opposition to the Catholick Faith which before prevail'd in those Parts Hunericus their King at the desire of his Arrian Bishops summon'd a General Convention of all the Catholick Bishops to meet at Carthage and there confer about the Point in difference between them And accordingly upon his Summons they all came thither and refusing to renounce the Terms of the Council of Nice were deprived of their Bishopricks and sent into Banishment by him But better was the Success of the Orthodox Bishops in their next Conference held by the like Authority under Gundebald at Rome An. 499 Who at the Request of the Catholick Clergy consented to
but is moreover at Liberty to determine both the Manner and the Method of their Proceedings in Them Now this as far as concerns the Peace and Order both of the Members of every such Assembly and of those who meet together upon the Occasion or Account of it is not to be doubted It being a part of the Prince's Right as he is a Civil Governour to keep all his Subjects Clergy as well as Laity under a due Restraint and not permit any Tumults or Disorders to be raised by them But the Prince has an Authority as to these Matters beyond this viz. to Prescribe not only the Subject upon which Synods are to debate but withal after what Manner and in what Order they shall proceed to debate upon It. And to this End it was as well as for Peace and Quietness sake that when They were not present Themselves they commonly deputed some Commissioners in their stead to hold the Fathers to the Rules by which they were order'd to proceed And not suffer them to meddle with any Other Matters than those which belong'd to Them or with those in any Other Manner than the Prince had appointed them to do It was for this Reason that Constantine who himself had moderated in the great Council of Nice sent Dionysius to preside in that of Tyre that he might overlook their Actions and especially take care that a due Order was kept amongst Them But most evident is the Account which we have of this part of the Prince's Prerogative in the Acts of the famous Conference between the Catholicks and Donatists at Carthage anno 411. For the Regulating of which as Honorius and Theodofius the Emperors appointed Marcellinus to be their Commissioner So the Orders which he thereupon publish'd to be observed in it abundantly shew how far their Authority as to these matters extended For First He declared to the Bishops of both Parts that but seven of a side should speak Yet so that seven more should be present with whom Those who spake might at any time Go aside and Confer in private about any thing that should arise to be debated at that Meeting Next He appointed the Time and Place of the Conference and forbad any Consluence either of the Bishops and Clergy or of the Laity of either Part to come to it And lastly To the End that this Conference might finally conclude these kind of Disputes He oblig'd all the Bishops of each side to promise under their hands that they would Abide by whatever their Delegates did And that no Exceptions might be taken at the Report of the Conference He order'd them to chuse Four Notaries out of their Clergy to transcribe what was spoken and that Four Bishops of a side should be nominated to Overlook those Notaries and see what was transcribed and digested by them And that whatsoever Any one said should immediatly be signed first by Marcellinus himself and then by Him who spake it that so there might be no Contradiction made to the Sincerity of that Account which should afterwards be given of it These were the Rules which Marcellinus by the Emperor's Authority prescribed for the proceeding in that Conference and according to these Measures both Parties were obliged to proceed in it It would betray a Desire to Cavil rather than assord any solid Exception to this Instance to dispute Whether this Meeting might properly be called a Synod seeing it is plain it was a meeting of Ecclesiastical Persons upon an Ecclesiastical Affair And there can no reason be given why if the Emperor has so much Authority over such an Assembly He should not have as great a Power over any other of the like kind But yet that all possible Exception may be Removed as to this particular I will further shew from the Instances of several undoubted and even General Synods that he has the same Right to direct their Proceedings as those of any Other Convention When Theodosius appointed Candidian to take care of the Acts of the Fathers in the General Council of Ephesus his Commission was limited and he was Order'd only to see that the Monks and Laity raised no Disturbances in the City that the Bishops did not fall into any Quarrels among themselves and that every one had his liberty to Vote freely in it But much larger was the Commission which the same Emperor gave to Elpidius in the next Synod which met at that place He appointed him not only to look to the Peace of the Synod but if he should perceive any one go about to raise any Tumults or Disorders to the Prejudice of our Holy Faith he should commit him to safe Custody and send an Account of it to the Emperor He further commanded him to take Care that the Fathers proceeded in Order upon the Matters that came before them That he should be present when they judged of them and use his utmost Endeavours to bring the Holy Synod to a speedy and Circumspect Examination of the Business which they met about This is a Commission that comes fully up to our present purpose And how exact Elpidius and his Companion Eulogius were in holding the Fathers to the Rules deliver'd to them the Acts of this Synod when remov'd to Chalcedon do abundantly shew But I shall content my self in so clear a Point to Represent this in the Practise of the First Council of Ephesus before mention'd and so conclude this Consideration Theodosius having Summon'd a General Council to meet at Ephesus and as was before observ'd appointed Candidian to be his Commissioner at it the greatest part of the Bishops who were order'd to come to it accordingly arriv'd at Ephesus at the time appointed them by the Emperor But it happen'd that John the Patriarch of Antioeh being hinder'd Fifteen days in coming to Ephesus wrote to Cyril Patriarch of Alexandria and President of the Council not to tarry any longer for him but to proceed in his Business without him The Synod thereupon Summon Nestorius to appear before them This Nestorius refuses and in his Excuse pleads that the Patriarch of Antioch with his Metropolitans was not yet arriv'd The Father 's not accepting this Excuse after several Summons sent to him proceed to Examine his Doctrine and unanimously agree to his deposition It was but a very little while after this that John the Patriarch of Antioch arriv'd at Ephesus And being angry that the Council had ended this matter without him form'd another Synod consisting of about Thirty Metropolitans that came with him and depos'd Cyril President of the Council and Memnon Bishop of Ephesus for what they had done In requital whereof Cyril and the Council Suspend both John and his Synod for proceeding by themselves in so Un-canonical and unjustifiable a Manner Candidian who in all this had favoured the Patriarch of Antioch reports what had been done on both sides to Theodosius And Theodosius immediately rescinds all that had pass'd upon this Account
a kind of Conciliary Authority to it Or if this be not yet plain enough let it farther be observed that the Council hereupon treated Nestorius both in Words and Actions as a Catholick Bishop and invited him to come and sit among them as such Which evidently shews that the Council made no doubt but that the Emperor had sufficient Authority to suspend those Synods Decrees and that by his Suspension their Sentence had not yet taken place against him And the same was done in the Case of Eutyches the next great Heretick that infested the Church Who being condemn'd by Flavian Patriarch of Constantinople and his Council obtain'd of Theodosius another General Council to meet at Ephesus under the Presidence of Dioscorus Patriarch of Alexandria In this Council by the Power and Fury of Dioscorus all was tumultuously transacted and Flavian was condemn'd as having deposed Eutyches contrary to the Canons Against this Sentence Flavian appeals and Pope Leo being applied to calls a Synod at Rome and therein rejects the Acts of the Ephesine Council in which all things had been carried in a very disorderly and â—ncanonical Manner For the better repealing of which Leo applies to Theodosius for help He intreats him that he would by his Authority resâ—ind all that had been done either by Flavian against Eutyches or by Dioscorus against Flavian or at least would suspend it till a General and Free Council should determine the Matter 'T is true this Theodosius would not consent to tho' Leo had interested no less Persons than Valentinian and his Empress in the Cause with him But yet Leo's Request shews that he thought the Emperor had Power to resâ—ind the Acts of Both those Councils And his Refusal convinces us that he himself thought he was no way concluded by what Leo and his Synod had resolved in Opposition to the Council of Ephesus However what Theodosius refused Marcian assented to He caused a General Council to be held at Calcedon and when he found Flavian to be justified by it he revoked both the Definition of the former Synod and the Constitution of Theodosius against him Such an Authority were the Emperors wont to exercise over the Acts of the most General Councils in confirming suspending or annulling their Sentences And so undoubtedly did the Bishops in those times believe that they ought of Right to be allow'd such an Authority Nor has the Prince any less Power to judge of their Constitutions than to enquire into their Sentences and either to confirm or reject them as he approves or not of their Decisions When Reccaredus confirm'd the Canons of the Third National Council of Toledo he gave this Reason why he did it That they were composed with great maturity of Sense and Understanding that they were agreeable to his Judgment and conformable to the Discipline of the Church It was the same Perswasion that moved Ervigius to confirm the Acts of the Thirteenth Synod held in the same City He specially recited and approved of their Decrees and by his Royal Authority form'd their Canons into an Ecclesiastical Law for all his People to observe The same did Egica in the Seventeenth Council He recited the several Heads of what the Fathers had done and upon a mature Consideration a full Knowledge and Approbation of their Acts he gave force to them The truth is it seems to have been the usual Method of the Princes about this time not so much to confirm the very Acts of their Synods as to form the Substance of their Definitions into a Law and to take Occasion from their Decrees to determine such things as concern'd the Church Thus the Spanish Kings now mention'd did and so Clotharius the Third did with Respect to the Fifth Council of Paris An. 615. He publish'd his Edict in the Close of it and therein expresly establish'd what the Fathers in the Synod had agreed to It was after the same manner that a great part of the Capitulars of the French Kings were composed They took the Substance of what their Synods had agreed to and having examined and form'd it according to their own liking they publish'd it for a Law to their Subjects Insomuch that sometimes they have even referr'd to the Canons of their Synods for the more clear understanding of what the Law had only briefly and in general deliver'd Such in particular was the Use which both Carloman and Charles the Emperor made of his Synods They call'd them as their Council to advise them in Ecclesiastical Matters and their Synods look'd upon themselves no otherwise They submitted their Decrees to their Examination and pretended not to expect that They should confirm them any farther than they appear'd to them to deserve it Thus the Fathers in the Third Council of Tours declare that they met to assist the Emperor by their Remarks of what they judged to need some Amendment And having drawn up their Opinions in Fifty one Canons they thus finally conclude All These things we have thus debated in Our Convention But how it will please our most Pious Prince hereafter to Act with Relation there unto we his faithful Servants are Ready with a willing Mind to submit to his Pleasure And the same was the Deference which the Council of Arles which met the same Year paid to his Authority These things say the Fathers which we found to need Amendment we have in a few words after the shortest manner observed and decreed to present to our Lord the Emperor Beseeching his Clemency that if Any thing be found wanting it may be supplied by his Prudence If any thing be designed otherwise than in Reason it ought to have been by his Judgment it may be Amended if any thing be Well and Rationally decreed it may thro' his Help by the Blessing of God be brought to Perfection Such a Submission did these Synods pay to their Emperor And this makes good what Eginhart a Contemporary Author of the Life of Charles the Great has observed as to this Matter That Councils by his command were held throughout all France for correcting the State of the Church And the Constitutions which were made in Each of Them were All together Compared and Examined by Him in the Convention of Aix la Chappelle Anno 813. I might farther confirm this from the Instances of many other Synods which have in like manner own'd the same Authority But I shall conclude all with the Words of that Council which gave Pattern to all the Rest of that Country I mean the First Council of Orleans under King Clouis Anno 511 whose Epistle to the King runs in these Terms To their Lord the Son of the Catholick Church the most Glorious King Clouis all the Priests whom you have commanded to come to the Council For as much as so great a Care of our Glorious Faith stirs you up to the Honour of the Catholick Religion that with the Affection
Allowance to them Was it because they had a Right to demand it Or that He had no Right to refuse it Was it because it had always been Customary for them to Sit when the Parliament met and to have such a Commission sent to them as often as they sat Nothing of all this But for divers Urgent and Weighty Causes and Considerations Him thereunto especially moving Out of his especial Grace and meer Motion That he granted it by virtue of his Royal Prerogative and of that Supreme Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical which gave him the same Power over his Clergy that all other Christian Princes were wont to exercise over Theirs And which how Great it was as to these matters I have before particularly shewn But to go on with this Commission The King having thus asserted his Authority now by virtue thereof gives leave to that Convocation Always provided that the President and greater number of the Bishops were present during the Session of the Parliament then Assembled to Propose Confer Treat Debate Consider Consult or Agree upon the Exposition or Alteration of any Canon or Canons then in force and of and upon any such other New Canons Orders Ordinances and Constitutions as they should think necessary fit and convenient for the Honour and Service of Almighty God the Good and Quiet of the Church and the better Government thereof to be from time to time observed fulfill'd and kept c. And further to Confer Debate Treat Consider Consult and Agree of and upon such other Points Matters Causes and Things as himself from time to time should deliver or cause to be deliver'd unto the said Lord Bishop of Canterbury President of the said Convocation under his Sign Manual or Privy Signet to be Debated Consider'd Consulted and Concluded upon This was the Business for which that Convocation sat and which they were accordingly licensed to enter upon But the Restrictions under which they were allowed to Act are yet more narrow than Those which his present Majesty laid upon our late Convocation For all this They were required to do not only under the same Conditions that I have beforeshewn were laid upon the Other but with these further Limitations namely That the said Canons Orders Ordinances Constitutions Matters and Things or Any of Them so to be Consider'd Consulted and Agreed upon as aforesaid should not be contrary or repugnant to the Liturgy Established or to the Rubricks in it or to the 39 Articles or to any Doctrine Orders and Ceremonies of the Church of England already Established Thus did this Prince give such Orders for the Proceedings of this Convocation as he thought expedient to be observed by Them And when for the more effectual suppressing and preventing of the Growth of Popery He resolved an Oath should be framed for the Clergy to take of their firm adherence to the Doctrine and Discipline of the Church of England And that a Canon should be drawn to enforce the taking of it He sent a new Order to them May 17 to empower them to enter on that Debate and to require them to Prepare and present such an Oath and Canon to Him But other Princes have gone yet farther than this They have not only prescribed to their Convocations what they should go about but have actually drawn up beforehand what they thought convenient to have Establish'd and have required them to Approve of it In the Convocation which met May 18 1 Jac. 1 The King sent his Letters with the Articles of 1562 to Them to be Approved and Allowed of by Them And to another Convocation about four Years after the same Prince signified to both Houses his Pleasure for Singing and Organ Service to be settled in Cathedral Churches without ever submitting it to their Judgment whether they approved of it or no. I shall conclude these Remarks with the Opinion which the Lower House of Convocation had of the Necessity of the King's Authority to Empower Them to enter with Security on their Debates about Matters of Religion in the first Year of King Edward the Sixth At the first Meeting of which we find this Order among some others made by them That Certain be appointed to know whether the Arch-bishop has obtain'd Indemnity for the House to intreat of Matters of Religion in Cases forbidden by the Statutes of this Realm to treat in But there is another Particular in which I have before shewn that Christian Princes had upon Occasion exercised an Eminent Authority over their Synods Whilst for the better Observance of the Orders which they gave to Them They asserted a Right either in Person or by their Commissioner to sit with and to preside over Them That our Kings heretofore did meet and sit together with their Clergy is not to be deny'd And our Great Oracle of the Law has told us That they did oftentimes appoint Commissioners by Writ to sit with them at the Convocation and to have Conusance of such Things as they meant to Establish that nothing might be done in prejudice of their Authority 'T is true since the Restriction laid upon the Clergy by the Statute of K. Henry 8 the King is now become so secure of them that He has no great need to send any such Commissioner to them to regulate their Proceedings For being neither at liberty to enter upon any Synodical Act but what he gives them leave to go upon Nor when they have concluded upon any Point being allow'd to Promulge or put it in Execution unless it shall be approved of and confirmed by Him He has nothing left to apprehend from them but is by his Commission as effectually President over their Debates as if he were present in Person among them And yet tho' this Act has therefore render'd the Exercise of such an Authority less necessary than it was before it has not depriv'd the King of it For even after the passing of this Statute K. Henry 8 by his Vicar General not only presided together with the Archbishop over the Convocation but Deliberated Voted and to all intents and purposes Acted together with his Clergy in it This is manifest from the Acts of the Convocation of the year 1536 and of which it may not be amiss to give a short account upon this Occasion Upon the 9th day of June 1536. Mr. William Peter came into the Convocation and alleged That for as much as this Synod was called by the Authority of the most illustrious Prince K. Henry 8 and that the said Prince ought to have the first Place in the said Convocation and in his Absence the Honourable Master Thomas Cromwel his Vicegerent being Vicar General in Ecclesiastical Causes ought to possess his Place Therefore he desired that the said Place might be assigned to Him And at the same time presented his said Master's Letters Sealed with the Seal of his Office as Vicar General Which being read the most Reverend the Archbishop assign'd him a Place besides
any Pope but such as was agreeable to his Will and Pleasure And particularly that he would not endure any Synod to be held by the Bishops of England or any thing to be determined in any Ecclesiastical Causes without Leave and Authority first had from him to empower them so to do And the same was the Resolution of his Sons after him And tho' being necessitated for the sake of their civil Interests to yield a little some of our following Princes did submit to the Papal Usurpations yet no sooner was their Government grown strong and their Peace setled but both our Kings and our great Men presently began to assert their Freedom and to cast off those Chains which the Pope had watch'd his Opportunity to put upon them So that now then to give a short account of the method of managing the Affairs of the Church in this Period it was briefly this In the great Council of the Realm and which tho' alter'd in some circumstances by the Conquerour from what it was before yet still continu'd in the main the same as the Bishops and most considerable of the Abbots had a place so now as heretofore Ecclesiastical as well as civil Causes were handled by them and Laws pass'd for the Government of the Church no less than of the State In the other and more select Councils of our Kings which in this Period were held sometimes at the great Feasts and sometimes at such other Seasons as our Princes thought sit and to which they took such of their great Men only both Ecclesiastical and Secular as themselves thought sit many Affairs of the Church were also debated tho' not with such Authority as in the other more general Councils Besides these Assemblies as from the beginning of this Period Ecclesiastical Synods did often meet so in them were the rest of those Matters transacted which appertain'd to the Church But then these as they met not without the King's Licence so neither did they determine any thing but by his Consent nor were their Acts of any Authority until they were confirm'd by him This was the State of the Church in the beginning of this Period whilst it as yet stood free from the Usurpations of the Bishop of Rome How it came to be enslaved afterwards will better appear from that particular view we are now to take of those Councils in which any thing of greater Moment relating to the Church has been concluded I have before observed how our Princes very early began with great Solemnity to keep the three chief Festivals of the Year and to be attended by their Bishops and Lords at them At one of these Seasons presently after he was setled in the Government the Conquerour commanded a Synod to be held and made use of the Pope's Au 〈…〉 rity and the Presence of his Legats to strengthen what he had to do in it Having thus assembled the Bishops apart into an Ecclesiastical Council he proceeded not only to deprive Stigand Archbishop of Canterbury who in some measure deserved it but several others of the Clergy for no other real reason but only that he did not love them or else wanted to have his Normans in their places And having thus proceeded as far as he thought good in this Council he stopt still the next solemn Festival And then in another Synod of the same kind and assembled by the same Authority he went on to farther Deprivations after the like manner as he had done before It was at a like meeting of his Bishops and Lords about two years after that resolving the great Council into an Ecclesiastical Synod he determined the Primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury over the Archbishop of York and subscribed his Name to the Acts of it What that Synod was which Lanfrank sometime after held at Westminster we are not told This we are inform'd that it was call'd by the King's Command and that he was present at this as he had been at the other two Whether this were the same Council which we find recorded by Malmsbury in the life of Lanfranc or whether there was another assembled the same year I cannot tell But that a Synod was held about this time at London we are well assured In this many ancient Canons were revived and the foundation laid for renewing the Ecclesiastical Discipline of the Church And because this had not sufficiently determined what was necessary to be done the next Year after he held another at Winchester in which several usefull Constitutions were establish'd the Heads of which still remain to us These are the chief of those Ecclesiastical Synods that we are told were assembled under K. William the Conquerour And the last of which however said to have been call'd by Lanfranc who also presided in them yet still we must remember what we have before in general observed of this King that the Archbishop call'd them by his Command Who also approved their Acts before he suffer'd them to have any Authority in this Realm For the farther Confirmation of which Remark let us only cast our Eye upon the Conduct of this Prince as to these matters in his own Dutchy of Normandy and from thence we shall be able the more certainly to judge what Power he claim'd over his Clergy in his new Dominions And here we find that at Whitsontide Anno 1086 he assembled his Parliament at Roan The Members who composed it were the same that in those days made up ours There were present the Archbishop Bishops and Abbots of his Territories and with them the great Lords of the Laity Being met they made several Laws for the Government both of the Church and State and he was both present at their Debates and by his Authority confirm'd what had been agreed on by them And when some time before the Archbishop of Roan held a Provincial Synod with his Bishops and Clergy purely to consult of the Affairs of the Church and several Canons were compiled by them the Acts of it observe that the Conquerour was himself both present at the making of them and that he afterwards confirm'd them by his Command Such was the Authority which this Prince exercised over his Synods As for his Successor King William the Second he was not at all less but rather was more stiff in asserting his Rights as to these matters than ever his Father had been Insomuch that being on a time desired by Anselm Archbishop of Canterbury To employ his Authority to the restoring of Christianity almost utterly defaced in his Realm He ask'd him What he would have him do Command says Anselm Councils to be renew'd according to ancient Custom There let it be enquired what has been done a miss and let a seasonable Provision be made for the remedying of it There has not been held a general Council of Bishops since you came to the Crown nor for some time before Through this defect many
Enormities have broke out and there being none to suppress them they have by an evil Custom grown to too great a Height To which the King answer'd Of this I will determine when I see fit and that at my own Pleasure not at yours And he kept his word with him For during his whole Reign there was no Ecclesiastical Synod held in England But what this King deny'd the next readily complied with For in the second Year of his Reign he consented to the desire of Anselm to call a Synod and accordingly at Michaelmas Anno 1102 a Convocation met in St. Peter's Church near London At this Synod not only the King but all his Nobles were present The Archbishop desiring they might be fully satisfied in the Orders which should be made to the end they might the more readily afterwards concurr with the Bishops in the enforcement of them For so the Iniquity of those times required in which for want of Synods Vice was grown to an extraordinary heigth and the Fervour of Christianity was much abated It was a long time after this before any other Ecclesiastical Synod was held in this Country but then there met one of an extraordinary Nature and which I must take particular notice of because that in it was made the first considerable Invasion upon the Princes Authority as to this matter in these parts Pope Honorius having appointed Jo. de Crema to go as his Legat into England he met the King in Normandy and after having been stop'd for some time by him managed his business so well as to obtain the King's Permission to come over hither Being arrived here he assembled a National Council by his Legatine Authority Anno 1125. And the method He took of doing of it is worth our Notice It being the first Instance we have of any thing of this nature that was Attempted here The Legate assuming to Himself the King's Prerogative commands the Archbishop of Canterbury to Issue out his Writ for the Calling of it This the Archbishop was forced to submit to yet being desirous to maintain his Own Authority as well as He could He drew up the Writ in these Words William c. Archbishop of Cant. to Urban Bishop of Landaff Health I signifie to you by this Letter that John Cardinal Priest and Legat of the Roman Church has by Our Order and Connivance design'd to Hold a Council at London the day of the Blessed Virgin 's Nativity Wherefore I Command you that at the Time and Place prefix'd you fail not to meet us with the Arch-deacons Abbots and Priors of your Diocess to Determine concerning Certain Ecclesiastical Affairs and to Reform or Correct what the Sentence of Our said Convocation shall agree is to be Reformed or Corrected The Council being thus Assembled the Legate presided in it He sate not only above the Archbishop and Bishops but above all the Nobility of England who came thither By this Pride of his he raised the Indignation of the whole Realm against Him And being caught in Bed with a Whore at Night after having bitterly inveighed against the Marriage of the Clergy the day before He was forced to leave the Kingdom in a very dishonourable Manner But tho' the Archbishop therefore did what he could to assert his Authority yet he was not without a very tender sense of the Assront that had been put upon Him To prevent the like for the future instead of maintaining the Rights of his See and the Privileges of his Country and in both which our Nobility would certainly have stood by Him He applied to Rome for a Legatine Power to be Granted to him and so unhappily brought both the Kingdom and his own Dignity under a greater Servitude Being return'd from Rome with his New Character Anno 1127. He the same Year held a Council not as Archbishop but as the Pope's Legate the first of the Kind that ever any Archbishop held in England To this was gather'd besides the Bishops a great Croud both of the Clergy and of the Laity But these were spectators only the Bishops alone Voted in it And all the Power the King was now allowâ—â— was after having heard what was defined by Them to Consent to it and to give leave to them to put in execution what had been as we see determined by Them But tho' the Clergy by this means began to get Ground upon this Prince yet it was not very long before he found out a way to be even with Them and that such a One as was very Gratefull to his Close and Thrifty disposition For about three years after having Observed how little the Decrees of the late Councils had prevailed to Oblige the Clergy to Abandon their Wives in another Council held at London August the 1st 1129. He persuaded the Bishops to leave the Ordering of that matter to Himself Which being done He exacted vast Summs of Money from the Married Priests and instead of forcing them to leave their Wives gave license to such as would pay for it to live on freely with Them King Henry being dead it cannot be wondred if the Invasions begun to be made upon the Prince's Rights towards the latter end of his Reign were not only continued but encreased under K. Stephen He who sounded One part of his Title to the Crown upon the Papal Authority could hardly be supposed capable of denying the Pope the same Power which his Predecessors had allow'd to Him And for the Opposing whereof he had himself so weak a foundation Three Synods we meet with during the Reign of this King and Every One held by the Legatine Power The first was in the Year 1138 It was call'd by Albericus Bishop of Ostia and all the favour which was allow'd the King was That He was present at it and help'd to make Theobaldus Archbishop of Canterbury in it But much less was his interest in the next of these Synods which met at Winchester about four years after and which was not only call'd without his leave by the Legatine Authority of his Brother the Bishop of that See but was assembled on purpose to Animate the Clergy against him and to prepare the way for Maude the Empress to overthrow Him But the fortune of the King prevail'd And about the End of the same Year in another Synod of the like kind at Westminster the Legate return'd to the King his Brother's Party and Recommended it to the People to pay that Obedience they Owed to Him Thus pass'd these Affairs in this troublesome Reign and in which the Authority first Usurp'd by the Pope in the time of King Henry the First got new strength and began now to plead prescription in its favour But now the Civil State being a little more Quiet the King was thereby in a better condition to Assert his ancient Rights And accordingly being inform'd that some foreign
Archbishop and Legate held a Synod at Merton upon St. Barnabas's day The Pope had the year before granted to the King the Tenths of the Clergy for three years But the Clergy tho' they Honour'd the Pope much yet resolved not to part with their Money And the Archbishop held this Synod on purpose to Oppose the payment of what he had granted Upon another Legate's being sent hither Anno 1261 several Councils were this year call'd and held in Our Country The two Archbishops Assembled their Respective Clergy at London and Beverley And Boniface held another distinct Council at Lambeth and publish'd many excellent Constitutions in it But most famous in these times as of chiefest Authority afterwards was the Council Assembled by Ottobon another Legate about the Year 1268. He had two years before at the Parliament at Northampton Assembled the Clergy who met there and with Them Excommunicated all such as should adhere to Simon Montfort and his Party And now he held this Other at London with the Clergy of the whole Kingdom and therein publish'd those Notable Constitutions we still have under his Name It was now become a matter of Custom and accounted a matter of Right for the Legates Extraordinary and the Archbishop of Canterbury as Legate of Course to Summon the Clergy to Convocations Insomuch that we do not find this Great King who otherwise was sensible enough of the Encroachments that had been made and were daily making upon the Royal Authority to have been at all Offended at it Hence Peckham the Archbishop being return'd from Rome Anno 1280 the same year held a Council at Redding and therein commanded the Constitutions of the General Council of Lyons to be observed And the next year He assembled another at Lambeth in which the Orders and Constitutions establish'd by Otho and Ottobon were Confirm'd and some Others added for the better Government of the Church About ten years after the same Peckham again held another Synod at Redding in which when the King heard that They were attempting some Orders in derogation to his Authority He sent to the Archbishop and Bishops to desist And upon his Threatnings they put a stop to their Proceedings and Brake up the Council And thus have we seen what Encroachments were made towards the End of this Period upon the Prince's Authority in the Subject before Us. There were within this Period as all along after besides these National and Provincial Councils several Episcopal or Diocesan Synods Assembled for the Affairs of that particular Diocess in which they were held and some Rules were made by Them to be observed by the Clergy of that District only Such were the Constitutions of Alexander Bishop of Coventry Anno 1237 Of Walter Bishop of Worcester made in his Synod at Worcester Anno 1240 Of Walter Bishop of Norwich made in his Synod at Norwich Munday after Michaelmas Anno 1255 Of Giles Bishop of Salisbury Anno 1256 And of which it is not necessary that I should take any particular Notice on this Occasion But tho' the Affairs of the Church were in great measure handled in these several Kinds of Ecclesiastical Synods yet this did not hinder but that still Our Kings with their Great Councils did from time to time interpose in these Matters and order many things relating to Ecclesiastical Persons and Causes When Wulstan Bishop of Worcester challenged some Lands as belonging to his See which were with-held from it by the Archbishop of Tork the Cause between them was judged by William the Conquerour in his Parliament at Pendrede the Archbishop Bishops Lords and Great Men being present This was manifestly a State Assembly and by these was the Right between the two Bishops examined and determined But more properly Ecclesiastical was the Cause which William the Second examined in his Parliament at Rockingham upon Anselm's resolving to go to Rome and to receive his Pall from thence This the King vehemently opposed and declared that the Archbishop could not both preserve his fidelity to him and pay obedience to the Pope And it is observable that the referring of this cause to the Judgment of the Parliament was at Anselm's own desire who cannot be suspected of doing any thing that he thought in the least inconsistent with the Liberties of the Church The next great Controversie that arose of this kind was in the second Year of King Henry the First about the Right of Investitures This was a point much debated in those times not only here but in most of the Countries of Europe To this the King laid a claim and accounted himself to have as good a Title to it as his Father and Brother before him had Upon this occasion the Quarrel grew so high between the King and Anselm that the latter was once more sorced to leave the Kingdom But the cause was at last brought before the Parliament and there it was by mutual Consent resolved that from thenceforth no one should be invested by the King or any other lay hand to a Bishoprick or Abbey by the delivery of the Pastoral Staff or Ring but yet upon such a promotion they should do Homage to the King for it which was the other thing that Pope Urban had before insisted upon as much as upon the point of Investitute its self This matter was scarce ended when another arose about the Marriage of the Clergy And this was in like manner ended in Parliament by the Authority as well of the King and his Lords as of the Archbishops and Bishops And an order made to prohibit all such as were in any Clerical Order to cohabit with their Wives There was yet a third great Controversie remaining concerning the Primacy of the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Subjection that was due from the Archbishop of York to him This also was brought before the King at Whitsontide and determined by him with his Bishops and Lords and the Authority of the See of Canterbury asserted by them And when some time after this Thurstine Archbishop of York refused to be concluded by this Decree he was in full Parliament obliged either to renounce his Bishoprick or to pay Obedience to the See of Canterbury No sooner was this King dead and Stephen placed in his Throne but in full Parliament he confirm'd the Liberties of the Church and made very ample Concessions to it In his Parliament at Northampton two years after he disposed of several Ecclesiastical Preferments And that this was the customary manner of those times may be gathered from the last Parliament of this King Which was call'd by him as well for the Affairs of the Kingdom as to make Provision for the Church of York then vacant by the death of St. William the late Bishop of it How far the Parliament still continued to meddle with Ecclesiastical Affairs under the next King's Reign the
Archbishop's Command and so they proceeded to the business for which they were called And here then we have a full Representation of the State of our Convocation and how it was managed in these times Great was the Usurpation which the Pope in all this made upon the King's Authority And it ought the rather to be taken notice of because this Archbishop was otherwise a hearty Friend to the Liberties of his Country and had a true respect and value for the King whose Follies and Excesses wrought so far upon him that they are at last thought to have broke his Heart The next Archbishop that succeeded him as he came in by the Pope's Authority so to maintain his Power the better he took care by such means as seldom fail in the Roman Court to gain mighty Privileges from that See Being supported with these he proceeds to make a Provincial Visitation holds several Synods at Oxford Lambeth and in other places And in one at Westminster publishes his Provincial Constitutions And all that the King was able to do was to send a Prohibition to him not to attempt or do any thing to his Prejudice or to the Prejudice of the State his Crown or Kingdom As for Simon Mepham who succeeded this Archbishop he held some few Synods and made some Provincial Constitutions in neither of which there is any thing extraordinary to be observed And the same must be said of the Convocations held by Archbishop Stratford who follow'd after In all which there is little to be taken notice of more than this that what Constitutions were made by them he ordered to be observed by his own Authority and to be publish'd by the Clergy throughout his Province But here tho' it be not necessary to our present purpose yet it may not be amiss to observe how our Kings began by degrees to assert their Authority and to put a stop if not an end to the Usurpations of the Court of Rome It was about the Year 1343 that the Pope desiring to encrease his Revenue here sent a Message to the Clergy to perswade them out of the two Provinces of Canterbury and York to maintain too Cardinals at Rome This being brought before the Parliament it was resolved by the common Consent of that great Council to let the Pope freely know that they were grown weary of his Impositions and neither could nor would bear any longer those Burdens which he was continually laying upon the Kingdom For which end it was also resolved that whosoever procur'd any Benefice in this Realm by vertue of the Pope's Provision should be obliged to come and live upon it and not be suffer'd to draw the Wealth of the Nation into other Countries And least this should not do it was also farther establish'd that no one should be admitted to any Benefice upon the Authority of any Bull from Rome without the King 's special License and Consent And all the Lords and Nobles declared that if the Pope went on by his Provisions to dispose of Benefices whether to Foreigners or others which their Ancestors had given by way of Charity to religious Persons to pray for them they would forthwith seize them into their own hands and dispose of them as they thought good This was a brisk stand and some restraint it did put to the Pope's Exorbitancies And yet it was but a year after that he sent two Bishops to the King to prevail with him to revoke these orders But our Historians tell us that they received a short Answer and presently return'd home again And the next year following the King put a Fine upon all Foreign Clergy-men and took of every one according as they were able to give It would be too long for me to say how far this great King following herein the steps of his Royal Grandfather King Edward I. proceeded to maintain his own Authority and the Liberties of his Country against the Papal Encroachments I shall only add that notwithstanding all the endeavours of the Court of Rome to the contrary he constantly adhered to the Laws made against Provisors c. And when the Pope publish'd his Indulgence at Rome Anno 1349 he not only expresly forbad any of his Subjects to go thither but recall'd those who were already there But to return to our Convocations and the method observed in holding of them When the Archbishop complain'd in the Parliament of the Violation that was made of the Privileges of the Church in that Clergy-men known to be such were oftentimes forced to appear before the King's Judges it was freely told him that in this nothing was done but what was absolutely necessary to the Peace of the Realm For that the Ordinary was so negligent in punishing of them that there would be no bounds set to their Excesses unless the civil Magistrate took some care to restrain them The Archbishop was sensible that this was but too true and thereupon he went apart with his Parliamentary Clergy and by their common Advice and Consent set forth an order for the more severe confining and punishing of such Offenders As for the other Synods held by this Archbishop there being little remarkable in them I shall not need to insist upon them It was about the Year 1393 that the famous Statute of Proemunire was pass'd and by which it was hoped that an effectual stop would have been put to the Usurpations of the See of Rome And indeed it has been said by some that from this time forward our Archbishops did leave off to summon Convocations by their own Authority and call'd them only at the King's Command But tho' I am not altogether satisfied in this particular yet that they now began to be more moderate in the Exercise of their Power I do easily believe And certain it is that not only after this Act but all along before when things ran at the highest against the Royal Prerogative yet still our Kings often interposed their Authority and summon'd Convocations by their own Writs directed to the Archbishop as they still continue to be at this day And now the Preaching of Wickliffe and the Opinions by him brought in began to be taken notice of Insomuch that Courtney being Archbishop thought it needfull to hold a Synod at London on purpose to pass a Sentence of Condemnation upon them Whether he did this at the King's Command or by vertue of his own Legatine Authority I shall not enquire But this we are assured that the King thereupon issued out his orders for the Arresting of all such as held any Heretical Tenets and particularly that opposed the Doctrine of the Church agreed upon in that Convocation And the same was the business of the Councils held by Arundel his Successor first at Oxford Anno 1394 then at London Anno 1408. And lest the orders of such Synods should not be sufficient to put a stop to the growth of
its determinations Proceeds in the next place for their sakes who have No Religion at the bottom nor any Notion of a Church however for their Worldly Interest they may pretend to this or that Party by joyning Themselves to its Communion to shew What the Law of their Country says in this Case That so they may be for ever silenced in this Question and not dare to mutter any more after what this New Pythagoras shall have declared to Them And having thus engaged our attention he proceeds Oraculously to pronounce KNOW therefore says He that a Convocation is an Ecclesiastical Court or Assembly Essential to our Constitution and Establish'd by the Law of it It is the Highest of all Our Ecclesiastical Courts or Assemblies Is called and convened in Parliament time by the King 's Writ directed to the Archbishops It consists of all the Clergy of both Provinces either Personally or Representatively present In the Upper House are the Archbishops and Bishops In the Lower House or House of Commons spiritual are the Deans Arch-deacons One Proctor for Every Chapter and Two for the Clergy of Each Diocess This is the Court. The frequent sitting of this Court is One of the Chief Rights of the Church of England The Church of England is a National Church and to such it is certainly incident to have National Synods or Convocations And in like manner to those Synods to have freedom of Speech or Debate about Matters proper for their Cognizance relating to the Being or Well-being of their Body as a Church And if the Church of England have any Rights or Privileges this of Assembling Debating and Conferring is certainly One and the Chief of Them 'T is true a Convocation cannot Assemble without the Assent of the King His Writ is necessary in Order to it And his Prerogative do's Empower him to Prohibit the Clergy Assembling in Synod without his Summons But then it is as true too that the Assembling of Them is not entirely dependant on His Will nor lodged purely in the Breast of the Sovereign But it is with the Convocation as it is with the Parliament The King is intrusted with the Formal part of Summoning and Convening it but so that by the very Essence and Constitution of our Church a Convocation ought at certain times to Meet Sit and Act and the Fundamentals of our Government shew Him When and How his Power in this Respect is to be Exercised and that it ought not to be at his free Will and Pleasure To Grant therefore that the King's Writ is necessary to the Assembling of the Convocation The Question is Whether that Writ ought not to Issue whensoever a Summons goes out for a Parliament And to this we say That the Law of the Realm hath directed the King or at least His Chancellour Keeper or Other Minister having the Custody of the Great Seal to Issue forth such Writs and they can no more be Omitted than any Single Peer's Summons to Parliament Thus far our Way is plain and clear But supposing all this the Question still is Whether or no the Convocation may conferr after their Summons and Meeting without the King ' s Special License and Assent In answer to which I must acknowledge that the Common Received Opinion is in the Negative However if what has been offer'd already with regard to their Convening have any weight in it it must hold also in some degree with respect to their Conferring and Treating when met about Matters proper to their Cognizance If they are a Court and have their Jurisdiction and are a Legislature and have the Power of making Ecclesiastical Laws both which they certainly are and have then the liberty of Conferring and Discussing is necessary to their very Existence c. This is the Summ of what this Author has asserted as to the point in Question and for the most part is express'd in his Own Words Let us now see Wherein we differ from One another And reduce the matter in debate between Us to as narrow a Compass as we can And 1st Tho' I will not enter upon a New Subject yet I must needs say I am by no means satisfied that the Church has either Command or Authority from God to assemble Synods or by Consequence any inherent and unalterable Right to make any such authoritative Definitions as He supposes in Them I am not Aware that either in the Old or New Testament there is so much as One single direction given for its so doing And excepting the singular Instance which we have Acts XVth I know of no Example that can with any shew of Reason be offer'd of such a Meeting And whether that were such a Synod as we are now speaking of may very justly be doubted The foundation of Synods in the Church is in my Apprehension the same as of Councils in the State The necessities of the Church when it began to be enlarged first brought in the One as Those of the Common-wealth did the Other And therefore when Men are Incorporated into Societies as well for the service of God and the salvation of their Souls as for their Civil peace and security these Assemblies are to be as much subject to the Laws of the Society and to be regulated by Them as any Other publick Assemblies of what kind soever are Nor has the Church any Inherent divine Right to set it at liberty from being Concluded by such Rules as the Governing part of every Society shall prescribe to it as to this Matter This is my Notion of these things and thus I conceive Synods are to be managed in Christian States As for those Realms in which the Civil Power is of another Persuasion natural Reason will prompt the Members of every Church to consult together the best they can how to manage the affairs of it and to Agree upon such Rules and Methods as shall seem most proper to preserve the Peace and Unity of the Church and to give the least offence that may be to the Government under which they live And what Rules are by the Common-consent of Every such Church agreed to ought to be the measure for the assembling and acting of Synods in such a Country Whether this notion will please this Author or no I cannot tell If it do's not I hope he will shew me wherein my Error lies and how I may correct it In the mean time this security I have that if I am mistaken I err with Men of as great a Judgment and as comprehensive a Knowledge in these Matters as Any can be who differ from Me. But to come to that which I am now more properly to examine That the two Convocations consider'd as a National Synod are the Highest Ecclesiastical Assembly of this Kingdom I readily Agree Nor shall I deny but that a Convocation may be said to be Essential to our Constitution But that the frequent sitting
Convocation is called They should not only meet Formally but sit and act as the Parliament do that there should be a Session of Convocation as well as a Session of Parliament Now not to be too curious in examining the Parallel here offered betwixt these two and which were it as exact as I am confident it is not would yet no more prove their Privileges to be Equal than the Likeness of two Corporations in having a Mayor Aldermen and Common-Council would prove that therefore in despight of their several Charters they must have all the same Privileges also 1st I am not satisfied that the Convocation is of the same Power with Regard to the Church that the Parliament is in Respect of the State Because I am told by very good Lawyers that the Convocation in making Ecclesiastical Constitutions must proceed by certain Rules and cannot even with the King's consent conclude any thing contrary to the Laws or Statutes or Customs of the Realm But now the Parliament is not subject to any such limitations Its Power is Arbitrary and Uncontroulable And being joyn'd with the Royal Authority can enact what it will for the publick Good any Law Statute or Custom to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding 2. As for the Word Parliament I shall not much contend with him about it It is well known that it was a name brought in by the Normans and but late Received among Us to denote those Meetings of State which were anciently called mycel 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Colloquium Concilium Synodus and the like It is more extraordinary which He tells us that as Wittena-Gemote was wont to signifie what we call a Parliament so Church-Gemote denoted what we call a Convocation And for which I am confident He will be hard put to it to bring us any Author elder than Sir Edw. Coke from whom as poor Godolphin first so has he now taken it at all Adventures Tho' were this true the Observation would amount in plain English to no more than this That as a Parliament was anciently call'd an Assembly of the Wise-men so was a Convocation call'd an Assembly of Church-men And of which if He can make any Use I shall not envy him the Honour of so weighty and critical a Remark Were it needfull in Return to these little Remarks to mention the several Differences that might be assigned between these two Assemblies I might easily enlarge them into many more particulars and of much greater Importance than Those which He has alledged To say nothing of the Convocations being multiplied according to the number of the Provinces into which the Church is divided and representing the Clergy not of the whole Church but only of One part of it whereas the Parliament is an Assembly for the whole Realm The manner of Consulting Resolving and Acting is very different in the One and in the Other The Authority of the Archbishop is much other in the Convocation than the Lord-Keepers is in the Parliament But especially the Power of the Parliament in making Laws free and unbounded whereas the Convocation is by Authority of Parliament determined both in its Principle and Power of Acting And can neither Debate effectually nor Resolve to any purpose of any thing but what is Agreeable to the Laws of the Realm and is no wise prejudicial to the Civil interests of any But to allow of the supposed Parallel between the Parliament and Convocation What will this Gentleman inferr from it Not I hope that the One should therefore â—it and act whenever the Other do's A Father for example has two Sons They are both his Children both of the same Sex both Equally Related to Him perhaps and both Equally Beloved by Him But will this Author from thence conclude That they have an Equal Right to his Estate and ought Equally to succeed in it This would be a very Agreeable conclusion to many I make no doubt but I am afraid will hardly be allow'd by the Elder Brothers to be a Just One 'T is true a Father in this Case may possibly have left them Portions alike and have made them as equal in their Fortunes as they were in their Relation to him And so perhaps Our Constitution may have made the Parliament and the Convocation But whether the Father has done this must be proved from the settlement of his Estate and not from any supposed Equality of Right in his Sons to his Affection And whether Our Constitution has given these Assemblies an Equal right to meet â—it and act must be determined by the Laws and Customs of the Realm and not be collected from imaginary Parallels and wild Inferences which have neither any Law and but very little Sense in Them 3. As for those State Maxims which he has finally added to support this Argument it will then be proper to give a Reply to them when this Author shall have shewn us that there is any thing in them to be Replied to In the mean time I must observe that whether we consider the Nature or End of the Parliament the Necessities of the Civil Affairs or the Interest which Both the Prince and People may have in the Assembling of it there must in all probability be always a much greater need of Frequent Parliaments for the benefit of the State than of Frequent Convocations for the Welfare of the Church When a National Church is once thoroughly Establish'd and neither needs any farther Laws to be made for the enforcing of its Discipline or any new Confessions to be framed for the security of its Doctrine When its Liturgy and other Offices are fix'd and stated and there is so far from being any need of altering or improving any of these that it is thought a Crime but even to suppose that it is possible to improve them or to make any Alterations but for the Worse in them I cannot imagine untill something arises to unsettle such a Constitution what a Convocation could have to meet about But this is not the Case of the Civil State which is God knows subject to many more changes than the Ecclesiastical and will oftner want to have publick Remedies applied for the redress or prevention of its publick Evils Perhaps a Prince arises who affects an Arbitrary sway and his Ministers joyn in the same designs with him and nothing less than the Authority of a Parliament can put a stop to their Attempts This therefore may make it necessary in times of Peace and Quietness for the Parliament to meet at certain times to prevent such attempts and to keep every Member of the Constitution within its due bounds And such was the Case of the last Reign It may be the Common-wealth is assaulted by its Enemies from abroad and those Enemies are countenanced by a factious discontented Party at home and it is necessary for the Parliament to meet and to raise Supplies for the Defence of the Realm against the One and to make some
is a Convocation that for many years past has had no Existence And the Convocation of which we are now disputing is quite another thing Is summon'd by another kind of Writ and consisted of another sort of Persons As by comparing the ancient Writs of both may evidently be discern'd So that this invincible Argument has one terrible defect in it that whether it could otherwise be answer'd or not yet 't is evidently nothing at all to the purpose But here our Author objects against himself That once upon a time the Archbishop call'd a Synod by his Own Authority without the King's License and was thereupon prohibited by Fitz-herbert Lord Chief Justice but the Archbishop regarded not his Prohibition What this is to his purpose I cannot tell nor do I see wherefore he brought it in unless it were to blame Rolls for quoting Speed for it And therefore in behalf of Both I shall take the liberty to say thus much That I know not what harm it is for a Man in his Own private Collections for such Rolls's Abridgment was tho' afterwards thought worthy of a publick View to note a memorable passage of History and make a Remark of his Own upon it Out of one of the most faithfull and judicious of all our Modern Historians I have before taken notice of this passage and that not from Speed but from Roger Hoveden from whom I suppose Speed may also have taken the Relation I shall therefore only beg leave to set this Gentleman to whom all our Historians are I doubt equally unknown right in two particulars by telling him that neither was Fitz-herbert the Man who prohibited the Archbishop nor was he Chief Justice when he did it His Name was Geoffrey Fitz-Peter He was Earl of Essex and a very Eminent Man in those days And his Place was much greater than this Author represents it even Lord Justice of England which he was first made by King Richard Anno 1198. And held in the King's absence to his death Anno 1213 In which year K. John going over into France constituted Peter Bishop of Winchester Lord Justice in his Place And now we are come to a low Ebb indeed the description of the Convocation as it stands in our Law-Dictionaries and that too like all the rest nothing to the purpose The Convocation is by them described to be a meeting of the Clergy in Parliament-time And some there were in the Long Parliament of 1641 who thought it could not lawfully be held but while the Parliament sate Well what follows Why therefore the Convocation has a Right to sit and act as often as the Parliament meets For a close Reasoner let this Author alone In the mean time I have before shewn that tho' the Convocation be Summon'd together with the Parliament yet it may sit when the Parliament do's not And we are like to have a hopefull time of it to answer such proofs where there is neither Law in the Antecedent nor Reason in the Consequence These then are the Arguments which this Author has offer'd to establish his first assertion namely That the Convocation has a Right to sit and act not only upon all such Occasions as the Necessities of the Church or Realm require it should but generally and without regard to any thing there is for them to do as often as the Parliament is Assembled I proceed II dly To consider What he has alledged for his Other Position Viz. That being met they have no need of any License from the King to empower them to act but may conferr debate and make Canons and do any other Synodical business which they think fit by their Own Authority And that either no Commission at all is needfull to enable them to do this or that if there be it ought of Course to be granted to Them In order whereunto I must in the first place observe that those who affirm that the King's License is necessary to warrant the Convocation to act do not sound their Opinion either upon the Power he has to assemble it or upon the Form of the Writ by which he Summons Them tho' that do's plainly seem to imply that some such Commission is to be expected from him But either first in General Upon that supreme Authority which Every Christian Prince as such has in Ecclesiastical Matters And by vertue whereof whenever they have admitted their Clergy to meet in Synods they have still prescribed to them the Rules by which they were to proceed in Them Or else 2dly In Particular Upon the Statute of the 25 Hen. VIII which has expressly declared this Power to belong to the King and forbidden the Clergy to presume to act Otherwise than in subordination thereunto But against this our Author excepts For first Is the Case be so Then is the Convocation an Assembly to little or no purpose whatsoever If their Tongues be entirely at the King's Will 't is improper to give their Resolutions any Title but the King's Rules and Ordinances They are to all intents and purposes His upon whose Will not only their Meeting but their very Debating depends In answer whereunto I reply First That either there is really no Inconvenience in all this Or if there be it follows not from what I am now asserting For certain it is that this was the Case of the most General and famous Councils that were ever held in the Church And which were not only call'd by the Emperour's Authority but being met acted intirely according to their prescription But indeed I cannot perceive that any of those hard things this Author so much complains of do at all follow from this supposition For what tho' the King do's propose to them the Subject of their Debates What they are to consult about and draw up their Resolutions upon Are They not still free to deliberate conferr resolve for all that Will not their Resolutions be their Own because the King declared to them the General Matter upon which they were to consult Is a Counsellor at Law of no use or has he no freedom of Opinion because his Client puts his Case to Him Or do's our Law unsitly call the Answer of a Petit-Jury its Verdict because the Judge Summ'd up the Evidence to them and directed them not only upon what points but from what proof they were to Raise it What strange Notions of things must a Man have who argues at such a Rate as this And might upon as good Grounds affirm the Parliament its self not to be free as he has deny'd the Convocation to be so because that in the main parts of their Debates That also is as much tho' not so necessarily directed by the King in what He would have them consult about I have insisted the more upon this particular because it is one of the most popular Arguments he has offer'd in defence of his Opinion tho' alas 't
had might easily be made appear were it needful to enlarge upon so Known and Melancholy a Subject Now this as it has obliged not only the Best Men but the Wisest Emperours to be very careful how they either called or encouraged such Assemblies unless they had some Reason to hope for a Good Effect of Them so may it suffice to convince Us still that neither are All Times nor All Causes either Proper for or Worthy of such Meetings and that the Expediency of Them ought to be very Clearly made out before it can with any Reason be expected that the Prince should consent to their Assembling It has I think been generally agreed that the main End for which Synods are necessary to be Assembled is either to establish the Faith and to declare the Unity of the Church in matters of Doctrine Or to advise and assist the Civil Magistrate in things pertaining to the Discipline of it As for the Exercise of Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction that in every well settled Church is commonly provided for by some more Ordinary Means So that except in a few Cases of an Extraordinary Nature there is seldom any Occasion for a Synod to meet upon any such account Now as these are the Ends for which Synods ought to be Assembled so I believe it will be allow'd by all Considering Persons that the Prince ought never to Call them when Either 1st It is needless Or 2dly It would be hurtful so to do When there is no Appearance of any Good to come from their Meeting but rather it may justly be fear'd that their Meeting will turn to the Prejudice of the Church In short That the Prince ought never to call his Clergy together but for some Rational and Good End When there is something Proper for such an Assembly to do and They may be likely to Do it so as to advance the Welfare of the Church by it This I conceive must be allow'd in point of Prudence to be the General Measure by which the Prince ought upon all Occasions to judge whether it be Necessary or even Expedient for him to suffer a Convocation to Meet or no. And from these General Measures we will proceed to draw some farther and more particular Directions for our better judging in the Point before Us. And 1st Because in Clear and Evident Cases where both the Truth is Manifest and the Consent of the Church Constant and Out of doubt there is no need of any Definitions either to declare its Sense or to testifie its Agreement therefore neither can there be any Need to Assemble a Convocation to Judge or Determine in such Cases If in a Christian Country where the Gospel is profess'd and its Truth establish'd and Men have for many Ages been Bred up to the Knowledge and Belief of it A sort of Libertines should arise to deny not only the truth of Christianity but the very Being of a God the Certainty of Revelation the Authority of the Holy Scriptures and the like Common and Avow'd Principles of Religion It would be not only Needless but Absurd for a Synod to be call'd to debate over again the Fundamentals of Piety and solemnly to define against these Sceptical Profane Disputers That there is a God That He has Revealed his Will to Mankind and that the Scriptures were written by divine Inspiration And all that they would Gain by doing of it would be only this that they would see their Authority and their Definitions despised by Them And might probably give Offence to Good Men as if they had so much Reason on their side or there were so much Difficulty in this Case as to need the Solemnity of a Convocation to interpose in it In such Cases as this the Christian Magistrate ought to take upon him the Protection of Religion of the Faith which he professes and of that Saviour by whom He hopes to be Saved And so to Order Matters that such Persons shall either Cease to blaspheme Or they shall find out some Other Place than a Christian Country to do it in Civil Authority may Restrain such bold Men but 't is Ridiculous to think that all the Synods in the World should ever be able to Perswade Them Again 2dly Upon the same Grounds I affirm that neither is there any need of a New Synod to declare the Doctrine and Consent of the Church in such Points in which it has by as Great Or even Greater Authority been before Declared Thus supposing any Church should not only have solemnly Received the Four first General Councils but in farther testimony of its Agreement in Faith with Them should have given their Creeds a Place in its Publick Liturgy And to strengthen all this should have drawn up a Clear and Full Confession of its Own upon the Principles by them defined and have Required that Confession to be Received and Subscribed to by All who are Admitted to any spiritual Office or Function in it How ridiculous would it be for such a Church to Assemble a Convocation to declare to all the World that it believes our Saviour's Divinity and holds a Trinity of Persons in the Unity of the God-head What tho' there be some in such a Church who deny this and take advantage of the Liberty or rather Licentiousness of evil Times to dare even to Write and Argue against it The Doctrine and Faith of the Church are still the same And it may as well be said that in Our Protestant Reform'd Church it is needful to call a Convocation to protest again against the Errors and Superstitions of the Church of Rome because some not only Write in defence of Them but are buisie also to make Converts to them As for such a Church to call a Synod to declare that it has no part with those who Write and Argue against its own Avow'd Sense in the Points of the Holy Trinity and of the Divinity of the Son of God A Convocation may sit and draw up what Creeds and Confessions it will But if They expect that Those who despise the Authority of the Ancient General Councils of the Church should be Concluded by their Definitions It will I doubt appear that They have but flatter'd themselves with Vain Hopes And they will find too late that those who are not to be Restrain'd by what has been already Determin'd will much less regard any New Decisions that can be made Against Them In this Case again 't is the Civil Power or nothing that must Restrain their Presumption A Good Law may Oblige them to be silent but I doubt neither that nor any Thing else will be Able to cure them of their Infidelity But. 3dly If a Convocation ought not to be called without need then neither can it be Necessary or even sitting to Assemble it for such Matters as not only may be Equally provided for by Ordinary Means but which fall more properly under the Cognizance of some Other Authority Such are first
all Private Cases which are determinable in Other Courts and before some Other Judges which the Law has provided for Them And the King might as well Assemble his Parliament to try a Thief or a Felon as his Convocation to convict a Man of Heresie or Schism There are Civil Courts appointed for the One and Ecclesiastical Courts provided for the Other And if these Neglect or Refuse to do their Duty there are Shorter Ways of Applying a Remedy to it than by calling either a Parliament or Convocation for such a Purpose And such are secondly such Disorders as either the Bishop in his Diocess the Arch-bishop in his Province Or the King in the whole Church have sufficient power by their Own immediate Orders or Injunctions to redress Whether they be Occasion'd by Mens departing from the Rules and Measures already prescribed to Them Or for want of a Vigorous Execution of those Laws by which they ought to be punish'd for their so doing Indeed where the Discipline and Authority of the Church its self is defective and Irregularities both in the Clergy and Laity abound for want of a Power sufficient to suppress them a Convocation may be needful to consider How a Remedy may be provided for this Defect and the Church be enabled more successfully both to Guard the Faith and to Reform the Manners of its Members And I heartily wish our Circumstances were such that a Convocation might meet for this Purpose But I am afraid our Distemper is become too Great to be healed And that we are Uncapable of such a Discipline as above all things We the most Want And therefore 4thly And to go on with these Remarks As in such Cases as I have hitherto mentioned it is needless to Call a Convocation so would it be in Vain to Assemble it for such purposes in which there were no probable Expectation of Success or hope that any Good should be done by it This as for ought I know it may be One Great Reason why a Convocation is not called to Review some of our Publick Offices to Improve our Discipline And to Reform many Disorders in the Exercise of the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction so am I the rather Confirm'd in my Opinion of the little Probability there is of any Good to be yet done by a Convocation in this respect that amidst all the Reasons Offer'd by this Author to prove the necessity of holding a Convocation He has never Once given any Intimation of these matters tho he could not but know that they were look'd upon by the Government as the principal things for which a Convocation might be wanting But 5thly And to have done As there are many Cases for which it would be improper to call a Convocation so may there be some Times too in which it â—ould be altogether Unadvisable to Assemble it When Mens Passions are let loose and their Minds disorder'd When their Interests and Designs their Friends and their Parties nay their very Judgments and Principles lead them different Ways and they Agree in nothing so much as in being very Peevish and Angry with One Another When their very Reason is depraved and they judge not according to Truth or Evidence but with Respect of Persons and Every One Opposes what Another of a different Perswasion either Moves or Approves of What Good can the Prince propose to Himself or any Wise Man hope for from any Assembly that can be brought together under the unhappy Influence of These and the like Prepossessions It was the sense of this made a Wise Man in the last Age tell Charles the Vth That it appear'd by Experience and might from Reason be demonstrated that those Affairs seldom succeeded well which were to be done by Many And if such be the inconvenience to which Number alone exposes such meetings in the best times Sure I am both Reason and Experience will much more convince Us that in times of doubt and discontent this will be more likely to be the Case and that under such Circumstances there is little Good to be expected from them And this may suffice in General to shew what those Cases and those Times are in which the Prince may have Reason to think that it is either needless or improper for him to suffer his Clergy to Meet and Act in Convocation I Go on II. Secondly Upon these Principles to Examine what this Author has Offer'd to prove the Necessity or even Expediency of their present Assembling Now this He pretends to make out by these 2 Ways 1st By Proving that there is upon many Accounts an Absolute necessity that something should be done for the Defence of Religion and the Church And 2dly By shewing That what is thus necessary to be done can be done no Other Way but by a Convocation 1st That something is necessary to be done He proves from the Open Looseness of Mens Principles and Practises and that setled Contempt of Religion and the Priesthood which He says has prevail'd every where And upon this General Ground he go's on to dilate in several Particulars which must therefore he Consider'd by Us. But before I proceed any farther in this Debate I must here once for all profess that I should be far from Opposing any thing that could reasonably be proposed to be done in Order to so Good an End as the Reforming the Open Loosness of Mens Principles and Practises would certainly be I am by no means Unsensible that a Great Part of what this Author here complains is but too true Tho' whether the Loosness of Mens Principles has corrupted their Manners or the Depravity of their Manners may not rather have been at the bottom one great Cause of the Corruption of their Principles I am not able to determine And were a Convocation necessary to Vindicate the Church from being in any degree accessary to these Crimes or had it Authority sufficient to Reform this Licentiousness I would much rather joyn with this Author in Petitioning for their Sitting than Contend with Him about the Expediency of it But being fully Satisfied that the Convocation has neither Strength sufficient to Grapple with these Enormities nor is in any respect necessary to assert the Churches Innocence But especially being perswaded that should it meet for any such purpose under our present Circumstances it would only expose its Own Authority and our Religion to the Greater Contempt of Profane and Wicked Men I shall proceed with all freedom to Examine the Reasons here alledged and to Vindicate not only the King's Honour but the Churches too and shew that if the Other Ways which this Author here Rejects be not sufficient to Reclaim Mens Vices neither can it be hoped that the Convocation should be able by any Orders it can make to Reclaim Them First then Let us suppose that as he alledges Scepticism Deism and even Atheism its self is pouring in upon Us Would this Gentleman have a Convocation called to
beyond all Others if not to help to Reform the World yet certainly to take Care that they do not help to make it Worse Whilst Pride and Pâ—â—vishnâ—ss Hatred and Evil-will Divisions and Discontents prevail among those who should teach and correct Others And instead of improving a true Spirit of Piety and Purity of Love and Char 〈…〉 of Peaceableness and Humility we mind little else but our several Interests and Quarrels and Contentions with one another What wonder if we see but little Success of our Ministry and are but little Regarded upon the account of it We must Reverence our Office our selves if ever we mean that others should Reverence us upon the accou 〈…〉 of it A Teacher who is an Hâ—retick iâ— any Point of Doctrine may do somewhat to Corrupt the Faith But 't is the Minister who shews himself an Infidel in his Practise that Roots up the very Foundations of Religion and prompts Men to cast off at once all Belief of it And thus have I consider'd those Evils from whence this Author has endeavour'd to shew that it is absolutely necessary a Convocation should be call'd for the Redress of them I go on 2dly To Examine what He has Offer'd to prove that nothing but a Convocation can do it And 1st The Bishops He says cannot safely proceed in Matters of Heresie because of the Danger they may Incurr thereby But this is an Argument that either really proves nothing or if it do's will prove more than He desires it should It being certain that the Convocation can no more declare Heresie or proceed any farther in the Punishment of it than any Single Bishop by Law may do What is by our Law to be accounted Heresie the Stat. of 1 Eliz. c. 1. has declared And tho' that Statute particularly Referrs to the High Commissioners yet is it by Construction a Safe Rule for all Others to proceed by As for the Punishment of it I do not find it in the least doubted but that a Bishop may proceed by Ecclesiastical Censures against Hereticks And certain it is that now they can Go no farther So that here then there is no such mighty Danger unless for those who would make more to be Heresie than the Law has declared so to be And if that be the Danger this Author speaks of I believe all Wise and Charitable Men will desire that they may be always lyable to it However as I before observed be the Hazzard what it will the Convocation is subject to the same Limitations that every single Bishop lies under And the One if they are too busie may as easily run into a Praemunire as the Other 2. As for the Authority of the Universities I confess it extends only to their Own Members But yet so great a Number of Those who make the chiefest Figure among Us when they are Men have commonly their Education there in those Years in which they ought to be well settled in their Principles of Religion as â—ell as in their other Notions that I cannot but account it a kind of Pâ—â—lick B 〈…〉 sit to the Church and Kingdom not only that those Great Bodies hold so Sound and Intire but that they are endued with a sufficient Power to hinder any Contagious Principles to spread within them and to infect their Members His Majesty's Authority is next excepted agaiâ—st as extending no farther than to inforce the Exercise of those Powers which says He I have already shewn and Experience proves to be too short Or clogg'd with too much Difficulty and Discouragement to attain the End we all so much want and contend for 'T is true his Majesty does not pretend to enlarge his Supremacy beyond those Bounds which the Laws of the Realm have set to it Nor has he any Need so to do The Authority of the King in all these Matters is by Law very Great and extensive And I believe few Evils can happen to the Church which may not in Good Measure be provided for by it But here our Author opens himself and gives us a broad Hint what it is He wants He would have the Bishops or rather the Convocation empower'd to determine what they please to be Heretical And when they have done so to proceed against their Own Members it not against Others accordingly By Vertue of this Power whatsoever Books were publish'd by Men whom they did not like should be censured and executed as Heretical and the Authors be obliged to a Retractation of Them And I am sometimes afraid this Gentleman do's really fancy the Convocation to have a certain Original Inherent Right in it so to do Should this be so and should there chance to be any considerable Number of his Convocation Friends of the same Opinion I shall onlâ— say 't is Happy for Them that they are not permitted to come together For certainly they would quickly undo themselves if they were It can hardly be doubted but that upon this Supposition one of the first things these Members would do would be to fall soul upon Dr. Sherlock as an Heretick Now let us only suppose the Dean to have as much Kindness for himself and Regard to his Own Reputation as we see the Men of the last Age had And that he should thereupon take the same Course to defend himself that Dr. Standish before did Who can tell what the Opinion of the Temporal Judges in such a Case might be Or what they might make of their proceeding And tho' King Henry the 8th let the Matter fall and took no farther notice of it yet should they now be deem'd to have fallen under a Praemunire by such an Attempt who will ensure them that another Prince shall not take the Advantage of it But indeed tho' when Men are Resolved to maintain an Hypothesis 't is no great matter what they affirm and in such a Case his Majesty's Authority may seem nothing to them yet I cannot imagine what a Convocation can do that the King may not as well and much more safely do in these Matters He can Forbid some Men to affect new Terms Can discourage Others who advance new Theories to the detriment of the Authority of the Holy Scriptures He can publish Rules for the Preaching of Some and Orders to Reform the Vices of Others But indeed he cannot by all this or by any thing else that He can do Oblige some Men And therefore ought the less to be blamed if he do's not trouble himself to Go out of his Way to gratifie their peevish and unreasonable Desires 4. And now we are come to the last Authority I mean that of the King and Parliament and if this also be thought Unable to do Our Business we may I think venture to Conclude that the Immoderate Passion which this Gentleman has for the sitting of a Convocation do's so Byass him that He can Approve of nothing else But why may not the Parliament be as well Qualified to put a Stop to
claim or put in ure any Constitutions or Ordinances Provincial or Synodals or any other Canons Nor shall enact promulge or execute any such Canons Constitutions or Ordinance Provincial by whatsoever Name or Names they may be called in their Convocations in Time Coming which alway shall be Assembled by Authority of the King 's Writ unless the same Clergy may have the King 's most Royal Assent and Licence to make promulge and execute such Canons Constitutions and Ordinances Provincial or Synodal upon pain of every one of the said Clergy doing contrary to this and being thereof convict to suffer Imprisonment and to make fine at the King 's Will. Provided alway that no Canons Constitutions or Ordinances shall be made or put in Execution within this Realm by Authority of the Convocations of the Clergy which shall be Contrariant or Repugnant to the King's Prerogative Royal or the Customs Laws or Statutes of this Realm any thing contained in this Act to the contrary hereof notwithstanding V. The Commission sent by King Charles Ist. to the Convocation of 1640. 1. CHarles by the Grace of God c. To all whom these Presents shall come Greeting Whereas in and by One Act of Parliament made at Westminster in the 25th Year of the Reign of King Henry VIIIth reciting that whereas the King 's Humble and Obedient Subjects the Clergy c. Reciting all verbatim as in the Extract Numb iv And lastly it is provided by the said Act that such Canons Constitutions Ordinances and Synodals Provincial which then were already made and which then were not Contrariant or Repugnant to the Laws Statutes and Customs of this Realm nor to the Damage or hurt of the King 's Prerogative-Royal should then still be used and executed as they were before the making of the said Act until such time as they should be view'd search'd or otherwise Order'd and Determin'd by the Persons mention'd in the said Act or the more Part of them according to the Tenour Form and Effect of the said Act as by the said Act amongst divers other things more fully and at large it doth and may Appear 2. Know ye that we for divers urgent and weighty Causes and Considerations us thereunto especially moving of Our especial Grace certain Knowledge and meer Motion have by Vertue of our Prerogative Royal and Supreme Authority in Causes Ecclesiastical given and granted and by these Presents do Give and Grant full free and lawful Liberty Licence Power and Authority unto the most Reverend Father in God William Lord Bishop of Canterbury Primate of all England and Metropolitan President of this present Convocation for the Province of Canterbury during this Present Parliament now assembled and to the Rest of the Bishops of the same Province and all Deans of Cathedral Churches Arch-deacons Chapters and Colleges and the whole Clergy of every several Diocess within the said Province That they the said Lord Archbishop of Canterbury President of the said Convocation and the Rest of the Bishops and other the said Clergy of this present Convocation within the said Province of Canterbury or the greater Number of them whereof the said President of the said Convocation to be always One Shall and may from Time to Time during the present Parliament Propose Conferr Treat Debate Consider Consult and Agree upon the Exposition or Alteration of any Canon or Canons now in force and of and upon any such Other New Canons Orders Ordinances and Constitutions as they the said Lord Bishop President of the said Convocation and the rest of the said Bishops and other the Clergy of the same Province or the Greater Number of them whereof of the said Lord Bishop of Canterbury President of the said Convocation to be One shall think necessary fit and convenient for the Honour and Service of Almighty God the Good and Quiet of the Church and the better Government thereof to be from Time to Time observ'd perform'd fulfill'd and kept as well by the said Lord Bishop of Canterbury the Bishops and their Successors and the rest of the whole Clergy of the said Province of Canterbury in their several Callings Offices Functions Ministries Degrees and Administrations as also by all and every Dean of the Arches and other Judges of the said Bishops Courts Guardians of Spiritualties Chancellors Deans and Chapters Archdeacons Commissaries Officials Registers and all and every Other Ecclesiastical Officers and their Inferiour Ministers whatsoever of the same Province of Canterbury in their and every of their distinct Courts and in the Order and Manner of their and every of their Proceedings and by all other Persons within this Realm as far as lawfully being Members of the Church it may concern them And further to conferr debate treat consider consult and agree of and upon such other Points Matters Causes and Things as We from Time to Time shall deliver or cause to be deliver'd unto the said Lord Bishop of Canterbury President of the said Convocation under our Sign-manual or Privy-Signet to be debated consider'd consulted and concluded upon the said Statute or any Other Statutes Act of Parliament Proclamation Provision or Restraint heretofore had made provided or set forth or any other Cause Matter or thing whatsoever to the contrary notwithstanding 3. And we do also by these Presents give and grant unto the said Lord Bishop of Canterbury President of the said Convocation and to the Rest of the Bishops of the said Province of Canterbury and unto all Deans of Cathedral Churches Arch-deacons Chapters and Colleges and the whole Clergy of every several Diocess within the said Province full free and lawful Liberty Licence Power and Authority that They the said Lord Bishop of Canterbury President of the said Convocation and the rest of the said Bishops and other the Clergy of the same Province or the greater Number of them whereof the said President of the said Convocation to be One all and every the said Canons Orders Ordinances Constitutions Matters Causes and things so by them from Time to Time conferr'd treated debated consider'd consulted and agreed upon shall and may set down in Writing in such Form as heretofore hath been accustom'd and the same so set down in writing to exhibit and deliver or cause to be exhibited and delivered unto Us to the End that we upon mature Consideration by Us to be taken thereupon may Allow Approve Confirm and Ratifie or otherwise Disallow Anhillate and make void such and so many of the said Canons Orders Ordinances and Constitutions Matters Causes and Things or Any of them so to be by force of these presents consider'd consulted and Agreed upon as we shall think fit requisite and convenient 4. Provided always that the said Canons Orders Ordinances Constitutions Matters and Things or Any of them so to be consider'd consulted and agreed upon as aforesaid be not contrary or repugnant to the Liturgy establish'd or the Rubricks in it or the xxxix Articles or any Doctrine Orders and Ceremonies
THE AUTHORITY OF Christian Princes Over their Ecclesiastical Synods ASSERTED With Particular Respect to the CONVOCATIONS OF THE CLERGY of the REALM AND Church of England Occasion'd by a late Pamphlet intituled A Letter to a Convocation Man c. By William Wake D. D. and Chaplain in Ordinary to his Majesty LONDON Printed for R. Sare at Grays-Inn-Gate in Holborn 1697. TO THE Most Reverend Father in God THOMAS By Divine Providence Lord Archbishop of Canterbury Primate of all England AND Metropolitan c. My LORD THAT I presume to Prefix your Graces Name to so Rude and Hasty a Production it is not because I think the following Treatise deserves your Acceptance but because I fear it may need your Patronage To appear against an Author who pretends to be the Champion of the Church of England and to stand up in Defence of the long Neglected Rights and Priviledges of its Clergy has something in it so Improper in Any but especially so Unbecoming a Minister of that Church that I thought it would be Requisite for me to take all the Care I could to Remove those Prejudices which this might be apt to raise in some against the very Design of my Discourse And I knew no Way more effectually to do this than by begging leave to Inscribe what I had done to your Grace who as by Providence you are placed in the First and Highest Station in Our Church so have you upon all Occasions no less eminently signalized your self in the Defence of it It would my Lord look too much like Vanity in me to say that I here publish nothing but what has in some Measure been before Approved of by your Grace It shall suffice me if I may be allow'd to declare thus much That the Principles upon which I go are such as in your Graces Judgment have nothing in them that is either Contrary to the Doctrine of the Church of England or otherwise injurious to the Rights and Liberties of it Who the Person against whom I Write is I neither do Know nor am at all Sollicitous to Discover But as his Principles seem but too much to look towards a Party against which the Church of England ever has and I am perswaded will always be ready Vigorously to oppose her self so the Disaffection which appears in the whole Process of his Discourse to the present Establishment sufficiently shews that He had some farther Design in the publishing of it than barely to assert the Rights of the Clergy and Convocation But of this let every One judge as he sees Cause My Business is with his Book not with his Person or Design In my Reply to which as I have endeavour'd according to my Ability to defend the Cause both of the King and Church so for the Arguments sake if for nothing else I thought I might presume to commend the Protection of it to your Grace Who have so Great a Zeal for Both and will therefore I hope be the rather disposed to favour this Honest though but Imperfect Performance of Him who with all possible Duty and Respect shall ever remain My LORD Your Graces Most Humble and Obedient Servant WILLIAM WAKE ERRATA PReface page iii. line 23. read Of divine p. vi l. 17. r. fell Book p. 7. l. â—4 r. yet p. 24. marg l. 8. r. Masticon p. 49. l. 13. r. Ariminum p. 81. l. 20. r. how far p. 91. l. 12. r. of Their p. 92. marg l. 10 r. placeâ—it ibid. l. 16. r. defined p. 95. l. 8. r. Countries p. 99. l. 5. r. Convocation p. 101. l. 24. add Consent p. 109. l. 14. r. Canons p. 175. l. 11. r. Gervilio p. 203. marg l. 9. r. 271 l. 15. r. 502 p. 237. l. ult r. two p. 270. l. 22. r. than p. 293. l. 27. to r. for p. 311. l. 5. r. these p. 376. l. 20. r. Annihilate THE PREFACE I Am so well assured that I have asserted nothing in the following Discourse but what is agreeable to the Principles of the Church of England that I shall not make the least Apology for declaring my self against an Author whose Notions neither our Own nor any other Reformed Church that I know of has ever approved nor is there any Reason to expect that any Christian Prince should be content to allow of them How this Gentleman came to be Engaged to write in Defence of the supposed Rights of our Convocations I cannot tell But sure I am he has done it in such a manner as is not much for the Benefit of the Church nor will I suppose at all encourage any One to stand up in Defence of Him That his main Assertion is New and Paradoxical Contrary to the Sense of all the Learned in the Law and Repugnant to the Constant Practice of our Convocations ever since the time of Henry VIII is certain nor does He himself deny it One would therefore have hoped that his Arguments should have born some proportion to his Allegations and that there should have been at least as much Weight in the One as there was Assurance in the Other But when I came to examine them I found there was nothing formidable in this Author but his Confidence and that like some empty Spectre his power was only to fright such as had not the Resolution to Speak to him If any one shall ask how I came to Oppose so large an Answer to a Letter so little in Bulk and so much yet less in Weight and Substance He may please to know that the much Greatest as well as most Useful part of the following Book has no concern at all with it but was only Written upon Occasion of it I was willing to lay hold on the Opportunity which this Author had given Me to search as far as my Leisure would permit into this Subject and having so done I was no less willing to communicate what I had met with to the World not knowing but that some others might receive as much Satisfaction from these Researches as I was sensible I my self had done It has been complain'd of by this Gentleman as no small Neglect in Those of our Profession that they are for the most part but little acquainted with the Rights and Power of an English Convocation And indeed a Subject it is that has but very little been searcht out by them or Examined by any Others of our Antiquaries for Them I may presume to say I have here published more than I have ever yet met with in any One Piece upon this Argument But yet when that is said I am not so carried away with an undue Opinion of my own Performance as not to know that what is here publish'd is at most but an imperfect Essay and like the first Lines of a Draught shews rather what I design'd than what I have been able in any tolerable manner to finish I cannot deny but that next to the Knowledge in Divine things there is nothing I should rather
be first made Whether the Convocation has a Right to Meet and Act as often as the Parliament does § 1. The Method which this Author has taken to vindicate this supposed Right of the Convocation censured § 2. The Design of the following Treatise laid out § 3. CHAP. II. The first General Point proposed and the Method laid down for the handling of it In pursuance whereof a general Enquiry is first made What Power Christian Princes have always been allowed to exercise over their Ecclesiastical Synods or Convocations with respect both to the sitting of them to the managing of them when sat and to the Confirming or Annulling of their Acts after The first General Question proposed and the Method laid down for a full Resolution of it § 1. That Christian Princes have Authority over Ecclesiastical Persons and in Ecclesiastical Causes § 2. And that Particularly with reference to their Synods and Convocations § 3. Which I. Cannot meet without their Permission or against their Consent § 4. That the eight first General Councils were all call'd by the Emperors Authority § 5. So were all the lesser Synods held under the Roman Emperors § 6. The Gothish Princes in the Empire kept their Synods to the same Rule § 7. So did the Princes of the several Kingdoms which rose up out of the Ruins of it Of Spain § 8. Portugal § 9. Burgundy § 10. Germany § 11. France § 12. The Bishops and Clergy never opposed this or made any Complaints against it § 13. 1 Christian Princes have often call'd such Councils by their own Authority without the Advice of their Clergy and refus'd to do it when the Bishops have desir'd it § 14. Who 2 Being so refused have never pretended to meet in Council against their Will or asserted any Right so to do § 15. 3 No not in Provincial Councils for which they seem'd to have some Right on their side § 16. 4 That the Prince has a Right to determine the Time and Place of their meeting § 17. 5 And may direct what Persons shall be allow'd to come to them § 18. The first Point summ'd up § 19. II. Of the Princes Authority over Ecclesiastical Synods when they are met § 20. 1. He has a Right to prescribe to them What they shall debate about § 21. The Ground of this ibid. The several Methods that have been taken by them to do this § 22. The Practice of the Church in Confirmation hereof In the Roman Empire § 23. In other places § 24. 2. To determine in what Manner and Order they shall proceed in their Debates § 25. The Practice of the Roman Emperors in confirmation hereof § 26. 3. To sit with them and to preside over them So the Emperors did § 27. And so did the Princes who succeeded them in their several States § 28 c. How far the Prince thus presiding may act synodically with his Clergy § 31. III. Of the Authority of the Prince over these Conventions after they have ended what was to be done by them § 32. The Clergy cannot regularly break up their Synod without his leave § 33. Their Acts are of no Authority till confirm'd by him § 34. How far the Prince is at liberty to examine their Determinations to confirm annul or amend them § 35. What Power he has over their Judgments § 36. What over their Constitutions § 37. The whâ—lâ— applied to our own Case § 38. CHAP. III. Of the Authority which our own Kings have over their Convocations with respect both to their Meeting and Acting first and to the Confirming or Annulling their Acts after That our Princes ought of Right to have the same Authority over their Convocations as any other Princes have before been shewn to have § 1. I. That the Convocation cannot meet without the King 's Writ to empower them so to do § 2. The Judges Opinion to this purpose ibid. The Parliaments and Convocations § 3. The King has a Right to name the Time and Place of their Meeting § 4. As also to appoint what Persons shall come to it § 5. Being summon'd it lies in his Breast whether they shall sit or no. § 6. II. That being Met they have no Power to Act but by the King's Permission § 7. This also confirm'd by the Opinion of the Judges agreeably to the Act of the 25 Hen. 8. And farther proved from the Tenour of the Convocation-Writ § 8. The Form of which is the same now that antiently it was wont to be § 9. As also from the Commissions wont to be sent to them for that purpose § 10. Several Instances of which are offer'd § 11. From the judgment of the Convocation in the 1. Edw. VI. § 12. Of the Power of our Kings to sit with or to send Commissioners to their Convocations § 13. Whether the Convocation as a Court may proceed to judge any Cause without the King's Licence § 14. The Convocation did antiently judge of Heresie § 15. How it judged § 16. It is most probable that it cannot judg any person without the King's Leave § 17. It is certain the King may in a particular Case prohibit them so to do § 18. And Suspend or Annul their Sentence ib. III. Of the Authority which our Kings have over their Convocations after they have done what they were called for They cannot break up without the King's Licence § 19. His Authority requisite to confirm their Acts. § 20. How far and in what Cases He is empower'd to Confirm them ibid. The King has power not only to Review their Acts himself but to submit them to the Judgment of his Council § 21. The Practice of this proved to § 24. Whether he may Alter and Correct their Definitions ibid. From the whole an Answer is distinctly given to the first Question proposed § 25. CHAP. IV. In which the State of the Convocation is Historically deduced from the First Conversion of the Saxons to our own Times The Occasion of this Enquiry and the Method proposed to be observed in it § 1. 1. Period How the Affairs of the Church were transacted from the first Conversion of the Saxons to the Time of the Norman Conquest The Clergy summoned to Convocation after Two very different Manners By the Parliament Writ § 2. By the Provincial Writ § 3. The Foundation of this laid in these first times wherein the Clergy were members of the Civil Councils as well as of Ecclesiastical Synods § 4. Of the Nature of our Great Councils in these times and how Ecclesiastical Affairs were transacted in them § 5. Shewn from the like Councils in France Under Pepin § 6. Under Charles the Emperor § 7. Their manner of Debating § 8. Their Politie clear'd § 9. The Nature of our own Great Councils stated upon this Foundation § 10 11 12 Of the Ecclesiastical Synods of these Times Of what Persons they consisted By what Authority they were held § 13. A particular View taken of the principal
Synods of this kind during this Period § 14. c. Of the Ecclesiastical Matters of most note that were transacted in the great Councils of the same Period § 18. c. II. Period From the coming in of K. William I. to the 23d of K. Edward I. The Papal Power began about this time to prevail over the Princes Authority § 21. By what degrees it did so § 22 c. William the Conqueror stood out against its Incroachments and continued the Affairs of the Church in the same state they were in before § 24. So did his Sons after him § 25. What that State was ibid. An Historical Account of the chief Ecclesiastical Synods under King Willam I. § 26 27. King William II. § 28. King Henry I. § 29. How the Pope now began to send his Legats hither and by that means encroach'd upon the King's Prerogative in the business before us § 30. How the Arch-bishop of Canterbury gave the next shock to it § 31. Of the Affairs of the Church under K. Stephen § 31. K. Henry II. § 32. K. Richard I. § 33. K. John § 34. K. Henry III. § 35. K. Edward I. § 36. How far our Kings during this Period continued to transact the Affairs of the Church in their Great Councils § 37 III. Period From the 23d of King Edward I to the 25th of King Henry VIII Of the Nature of the Civil Government about the beginning of this Period particularly of the Great Council of the Nation § 43. Of the Change which some suppose was about this time made in it § 44 45 That the same Change was made in the Ecclesiastical which seems to have been made in the Civil part of it § 46. What place from thenceforth the Inferiour Clergy had in it shewn From the Parliament Writ § 47. From the Parliament Rolls § 48. How our Great Councils Met and Acted at the beginning of this Establishment § 49. Of the State of the Convocation as it is a Provincial Synod about this time shewn From the difference between the Parliament and Convocation Writ § 50 51. How the Convocation came to bè summon'd at or about the same time with the Parliament § 51. Whether One may not be held without the Other § 52. By whom the Convocation in these times was wont to be Called § 53. Of the chief Convocations held under K. Edw. I. § 54. K. Edw. II. § 55. K. Edw. III. § 56. Of the Opposition which began about this time to be made to the Pope's Usurpations ibid. Of the Convocations under our following Kings to the time of King Henry VIII § 58 ad 61. Period IV. From the 25th of K. Henry VIII to Our Own Times An Historical Account of the Statute 25. Hen. VIII cap. 19. § 62 63 64. Of the Dependance which the Convocation has upon the Parliament § 65. Whether the Convocation as it now stands be any part of the Parliament § 66. Of Select Committees and the Great Use that has been made of them under this Period § 67. The several Ways of transacting Ecclesiastical Affairs at this day consider'd in Five Particulars § 68. It is at the Prince's choice by which of these he will from time to time transact them § 69 70. CHAP. V. The Opinion advanced in the Late Letter to a Convocation Man stated and the Arguments examined by which the Author of it pretends to shew 1. That the Convocation has a Right to meet whenever the Parliament does And 2. That being Met it has also a Right to Act without any Licence from the King to empower it so to do The Subject of this Chapter proposed § 1. And the Questions in debate stated from the Words of the Letter here to be Examined § 2. Whether the Church has any Original Inherent Right of its Own to Assemble Synods § 3. The First Question brought to its true State § 4. The Second Question in like manner reduced to its true bounds § 5. I. Question § 6. That the Convocation has a Right to Sit as often as the Parliament meets does not follow 1. From any supposed Parallel between them § 7. Which is examined and answer'd ib. That there is more need of frequent Parliaments than of frequent Convocations § 8. 2. Nor from the 8th Hen. VI. § 9. 3. Nor from its power to judge in matters of Heresie § 10. 4. Nor from the Bishops Parliament Writ § 11. The Objection of the Archbishop's being prohibited by the King's Justice to hold a Synod by his Own Authority neither well Related nor to the purpose § 12. 5. Nor from the Descriptions of a Convocation in the Law Dictionaries § 13 II. Question § 14. That the Convocation being Met may proceed to Act without the King's Licence Not proved 1. From any thing unreasonable that would follow if it might not § 15. 2. Nor from any supposed Right which they have to the King's Licence if it be needful § 16. 3. Nor from the Parallel again urged between the Convocation and the Parliament § 17. 4. Nor from the Prohibitions antiently sent by the King to it § 18. 5. The Stature 25. Hen. VIII Vindicated from the new Interpretation given of it by this Author § 19 20. The King 's Right to send Commissioners to sit in Convocation nothing to his Advantage § 21. Of the Authority of the Convocation in point of Judicature § 23. The Case between Dr. Standish and the Convocation Related as it stands in our antient Law Books § 24. CHAP. VI. Some Rules laid down by which to judge for what Causes and at what Times Synods ought or ought not to be Assembled And the Allegations brought to prove a Convocation to be at this time necessary to be held Examined by Them It is confess'd that the King ought to suffer the Convocation to sit when the Necessities of the Church do really require it § 1 The Author's Position laid down and the Method proposed for the Examining of it § 2. I. That Synods are oftentimes Useless and even Hurtful to the Church § 3. The Ends for which Synods ought to be call'd best shew when it is fitting to call them § 4. The General Measures from whence to judg of this from thence stated § 5. From those General Measures the following Particular Rules deduced 1. Synods ought not to be called to determine plain and clear Matters § 6. 2. Nor for such as have by an Equal or perhaps Greater Authority been already determined § 7. 3. Nor to do that which may be done by more Easie and Ordinary Methods § 8. 4. Nor when there is no probable Expectation of any Good to come from their Meeting § 9. 5. Nor in Unquiet and Unsettled Times § 10. II. What the Author of the Letter c. has offered to prove that it is necessary a Convocation should now meet § 11. It is confess'd that we stand in great need of a Reformation but it does not thence follow that we
need a Convocation § 12. 1. A Convocation not necessary to condemn Scepticks or Deists § 13. 2. Nor to censure Socinians § 14. 3. Nor against those who plead for a General Toleration § 15. 4. Nor to call some Particular Persons to account § 16. 5. Nor to prevent these things from Corrupting the Manners of Men. § 17. The farther Pretences of this Author to the same purpose consider'd and answered viz. 1. That the Bishops cannot Reform those Abuses § 18. THE AUTHORITY OF Christian Princes ASSERTED c. CHAP. I. The Design of the following Discourse with a short account of the Method that is proposed to be observed in the Prosecution of it THO it be not very material in what Order we examine the Questions here proposed nor shall I therefore pass any ensure upon the Method which our Author has taken in handling of them yet because I think the matter of Right in this case is of much greater Concern in it self than that of Expedience and the Proof of which if it stand good will supersede the necessity of looking any farther I shall take the liberty to begin with that Point which howsoever it be resolved will go a great way towards a Determination of this whole Controversie For if the Convocation has a legal Right to Sit and Act Independent upon the Will and Pleasure of the Prince and if to deny them so to do as often as the Parliament is Assembled is to violate that Right which by vertue of our Constitution they ought to enjoy as this Author doubts not to affirm Then whether there be any such present Occasion for their Sitting as he pretends or no it must be confess'd that the Clergy have had wrong enough already done them and ought not to be encroach'd upon by any farther Adjournments On the contrary If the Meeting and Acting of the Convocation does depend upon the Grace and Pleasure of the Prince so that they can neither Assemble nor Consult without his Permiss 〈…〉 nor is He any farther obliged to 〈◊〉 of either than he is persuaded 〈◊〉 Meeting and Acting will be for the 〈◊〉 Benefit of the Church and Kingdom Then it must follow that in pretending to judg of these Matters our Convocation-Man and his Friend have meddled with that which does not belong to them And that in vain do they insist upon what seems agreeable to their Apprehensions whilst they cannot tell but that His Majesty may have as Good or Better Reasons against their Sitting under the present Circumstances of Affairs as they can Imagine they have offer'd for it Indeed if our Author be at this time a Member of the House of Commons as in One passage of his Book he seems to intimate that He is And if His Concern for the Honour of Religion and the Good of the Church be so Great as he would have us think it to be I cannot but wonder why he has so long suffered that Honourable House to neglect this matter so far as never once to enter upon the Consideration of it He knows the Commons have a standing Committee for Religion and he seems to lay it to their charge that notwithstanding this nothing has 〈◊〉 been done by 'em since the Revolution in favour of it But why then did not our Zealous Advocate chuse rather to Represent the Injury that is done our Church and the Invasion that has been made upon the very Fundamental Frame of our Constitution to those worthy Gentlemen and at such a Committee where he had a Right to speak and where this Point would have been properly debated than to creep out into the World under the disguise of a nameless Author and Expose both Himself and his Cause to those Censures which by this means are so justly pass'd upon Both. We cannot suppose that he declined this out of any distrust of the Arguments he had to allege to make good his Pretensions in favour of the Convocation No we find he is so consident of their Clearness that he asserts it again and again with much Assurance that to Sit and Act is their Right and that the King cannot hinder them from doing Both without Violating our Constitution as well as Injuring the Convocation And for his Opinion of the Readiness of the House of Commons to do us Justice as to this matter I shall need only to repeat his own Words to shew that He had no reason to Except against That For the same Reason says he that they are concern'd to maintain the Rights and Privileges of Their own Body They would be careful not to invade Those of Another They are wise enough to know that the preserving the Constitution as it is is the best way to preserve their true and real Interests and that the Constitution can no otherwise be upheld than by the several parts of it being preserved in their just Rights and Powers allow'd to Act in their proper Spheres and Circumscribed within them This I say they are wise enough to know and withal just enough to own That a Convocation is as much a part of the Constitution as a Parliament it self But our Author has taken his own Way and I must either follow him in it or must leave one great part of his Letter unanswered And it is not unlikely but that in doing this some may be so far byass'd in his Favour as to believe that it was unanswerable And tho' I am sensible that in pursuing of these Considerations I shall meddle with such Matters as do not at all belong to a private Debate yet since others have had the Boldness to arraign the Government for not suffering the Convocation to meet and to tell the World that both the Honour of Religion and the Good of the Church are concern'd in it and cannot be preserved without it I hope I may take the liberty to examine what Ground there is for so invidious a Suggestion and have as much Right to transgress in behalf of Authority as this Gentleman has taken to offend against it And the Method that I shall choose for the clearing of this Subject shall be this First I will enquire as to the matter of Right whether there be any Law that Commands or Permits the sitting and acting of the Convocation besides the absolute free Pleasure of the Prince And if there be What that Law is And how far the Prince is obliged by it Which being settled I will Secondly Consider What Occasion there is at present for a Convocation And whether the Necessity of its Meeting and Acting be so great and the Delay of it so dangerous as our Author pretends it to be As for his Third Question which respects the Validity of the Acts of a Convocation any farther than they are Confirm'd and Approved of by Parliament that is not much insisted upon by our Author And what is needful to be said to it will incidentally fall in in the Prosecution
all Right and Justice on purpose that he might Oppress Them so to Do They yet submitted to his Commands and chose rather to suffer by their Obedience than to Usurp an Authority which they were sensible did not belong to Them But lest this should be thought to have been only the Perverseness of an Heretical Prince we shall find the same Power both Claim'd and Exercised by the most Orthodox Emperors and such as were in all Respects the most zealous for the Churches Interest When Eutyches began to corrupt the Christian Faith and it was thought necessary that a General Council should be call'd to put a stop to his Errors Leo Bishop of Rome petitioned Theodosius with all imaginable Earnestness that He would consent to let a Synod be assembled in Italy for the Judging of it This the Emperor utterly Refused to do and Order'd the Council to be held at Ephesus and the Good Bishop was so far from Complaining of it that he submitted to his Summons and thank'd him that he would at least vouchsafe to have it there And when by the Practices of Dioscorus that Council answer'd not what was Expected from it The same Leo not only supplicated the Emperor again with tears and groans in the Name of all the Bishops of the West that he would Command another Council to be held somewhere in the West to determine that Affair but moreover engaged Valentinian and Eudoxia his Wife with many others of the Greatest Note to join in the same Request with him But Theodosius not only now refused him as to the place but deny'd him as to the calling of any Other Synod nor would He be persuaded to suffer any other to meet as long as He lived And this brings me to a 2d Observation which ought to be taken notice of upon this Occasion viz. That whenever the Civil Magistrate has refused to Call a Synod tho' the Affairs of the Church have never so much seem'd to stand in need of One and the Bishops have never so Earnestly desired One yet have they quietly submitted to the Refusal and not presumed on any Pretence of Right which they had in Themselves to meet together without his Leave or against his Consent So Liberius and the Catholick Bishops did to Constantius first and Leo and the Western Bishops to Theodosius afterwards And I believe it would be difficult in those best and most early times of the Church to find out any Instance wherein the Orthodox Bishops have ever departed from this Rule or which is much the same thing have ever been justified by the Church in those Cases in which they have departed from it Nay but 3dly Tho' the Council of Nice first and after that several Other Synods provided for the Constant Meeting of Provincial Councils at a certain Season every year and these being allow'd of by the Emperors and Other Princes who confirm'd those Canons and Approved of what They had Defined may seem to have put these kind of Synods at least out of their Power Yet even in these we find Them still continuing to Exercise their Authority And not suffering even such Councils to be held without their Leave or against their Consent I have before observed how Theodosius the Emperor restrained Theodoret when he thought him too buisy in calling together the Bishops to these Lesser Synods And when in after times Wolfolendus Bishop of Bourges summon'd a Provincial Council according to these Canons to meet at the beginning of September yet having neglected to consult the King's Pleasure in it we find Sigebert for that Reason alone sent a Prohibition to his Bishops to go to it And it is worthy our notice for what Reason he put a Stop to its assembling He professes he was well content that they should meet some Other Time always provided that they first made Him acquainted with it that so he might Consider whether he should allow of it as proper either for the State of the Church or for the Benefit of the Kingdom or Otherwise fit to be consented to And therefore when the Fifth Council of Paris had resolv'd that it was Expedient that Provincial Synods should be held every Year according to the Orders of the Church and the Canonical Custom establish'd in it They made it their Request to Louis the Emperour and Lotharius his Son that they would consent that at a fit Season every Year they might be Assembled This Request was again Renew'd some Years after in another Synod And yet notwithstanding these General Permissions before they did come together they were to have a particular Warrant for their so doing as is evident from the Acts of the Synod of Soissons which was held about the same time that those very Orders I have now mention'd were made So intirely has the Assembling of Synods been look'd upon to depend upon the Will and Authority of the Christian Prince But this is not all For 4thly When it was resolv'd that a Synod should be held the Prince evermore either determin'd or allow'd both the Time and Place of their Meeting This is evident from the very Acts of all those Synods of which any Perfect Accout remains to Us and is most apparently confirm'd by the History of the most Antient Councils of the Church I have before observ'd how Theodosius not only Appointed the Council which he had order'd to meet about the Affair of Eutyches to assemble at Ephesus but utterly refus'd the Request of Leo and his Bishops who earnestly desired it might have been held in Italy But Marcian the Emperor went farther He not only Summon'd the Fourth General Council to Nice first and then to Chalcedon tho' requested in like manner as Theodosius had been by the Bishop of Rome and his Suffragans that it might meet in Italy but when being press'd in time Leo petition'd the Emperor that he would defer it but a little while for his greater Convenience Marcian refus'd him That also and the Good Man contentedly yielded to him in both Such Power did the antient Emperors assume to themselves over their Bishops as to these Circumstances Nor did the following Princes claim any less When Pepin resolv'd that Two Synods should be held in France every Year He not only specify'd the time for Both viz. the first of March and of October but reserv'd the Nomination of the Place where the Former should meet to his own Appointment and for that of the latter determin'd that it should either be at Soissons or at such other place as the Bishops should agree upon in their first Assembly And Ludovicus Pius having thought fit for the better settling of the Ecclesiastical discipline to have Four Synods meet at Once that so they might separately Consider of the State of the Church and then their Opinions be altogether laid before him in one Common View not only Order'd this distribution of them but determin'd withal
first place resolved that a Synod should be held every Year and that the Emperor being present the Decrees of the Canons and the Rights of the Church should be renew'd and the Christian Religion be amended And how far the Design of this Canon was to extend may at large be seen in the Injunction made thereupon by the Emperour which we find in the Collection of the same Capitularies according to the Edition of Benedictus Levita pag. 823. Num. ii ibid. And now if from Germany we pass into France we shall there also meet with the like Practice It was the constant Method of Charles the Great in that Kingdom as well as in the Empire to preside over his Clergy Thus we see he did in most of those Synods whose Acts remain to Us And in an Antient MS. of St. Germains wherein the Canons of the Bishop of Langres are transcribed the first Chapter carries this Inscription Out of the Council of Bishops where Charles the Emperor Presided And Charles the Bald not only Sate in the Second Council of Soissons anno 853 but proposed to the Fathers what He desired they should debate about and oftentimes prescribed to their very Resolutions also From what has been said I may now I conceive take it for granted That the Prince has a Right either to preside over his Synods in Person Or if he rather thinks fit to appoint his Commissioner to do it in his stead The only difficulty will be to determine how far he may be accounted a Part of the Synod and be allow'd not only to Preside over it but also to Sit and Vote in it And 1st As I have observed that One great End of his Sitting there is to keep the publick Peace and to see that all things be Regularly and Quietly transacted by the Bishops and Clergy in them So it must also be allow'd that He has all that Power over Them that is necessary for the obtaining of this End He may therefore without Controversie Commend the Modest and Ingenuous Reprove the Factious May keep all to their proper Business and not suffer them to Wander into other Matters or pursue any other Method than what He has prescribed to Them And if any shall become so disorderly as to need it He may as the antient Emperors did not only commit such turbulent seditious Persons to safe Custody and punish them according to the Nature of their Offence but if need be may annul the Acts that were so tumultuously and irregularly done by Them 2dly In the Debates of every such Synod of whatever kind they be the Prince may freely join with the Synod and offer any Objections or propose any Difficulties He shall think fit in order to his being better convinced of the Truth of what is to be believed or of the Expediency of what is determined by it For Princes are Men of Reason and Capacity as well as Bishops and Priests And when a Matter is debated may be as capable of making a sound Judgment as any One that is there Assembled It has I know been speciously Objected against this that Princes have commonly Other things to do than to study Divinity to read Commentators Fathers Councils and the like Books which are the proper Subjects of the Clergies Meditations This indeed is true nor shall I go about to deny it But are they sure it is necessary that the Prince should have study'd all these Books to be able to make a sound Judgment of what may be alleged out of Them May not a Point be proposed and Scripture be Quoted and Antiquity Alleged and Learned Men canvas these Matters so long till a Stander by who is endued with a good Natural Judgment shall be able very evidently to discern on which side the Truth and Authority lies If not I am sure the Generality of Christians will be left under very hard Circumstances who must at last believe as the Church believes and pin their Faith upon the Authority of their Clergy and neither be alow'd to judge of the Grounds of it nor if once in an Error be capable of ever being convinced of it But if therefore it must be confess'd that an Argument may be managed by Learned Men in such wise as to convince those that are not Learned on which side the Truth lies then certainly the Prince may also be capable of discerning whether his Synod has Reason for their Definitions or not tho' He has not perhaps himself Read so much Divinity as to be able to enter into the Learned Part of the Debate with the Fathers of it Whether therefore it be a Matter of Faith or a Matter of Discipline I see no Reason why the Prince if he think fit may not only be present when the Synod debates about it but may not also enter into the Merits of the Cause with Them and propose his Doubts and manage his Arguments and do whatsoever is requisite to his full Information and Satisfaction Concerning it And having done this I add 3dly That as Charles the Emperor did in the Great Synod of Frankford so may Every Other Christian Prince if he please do still I mean may Vote with Them in such things as concern the Discipline of the Church Because in these both the Rights of the People and the Power of the Prince are for the most part very nearly concerned Whether the Prince may judicially concur with the Clergy in their Decisions in Matters of Faith I do not think it worth the while to dispute Thus much I dare confidently affirm That if He may not judge with them He not only may but must judge after them For as much as He is not only concern'd in Common with his Subjects to believe aright but as a Christian Prince ought to assert the Right Faith too And do what in Him lies to promote the belief and profession of it in his Dominions For give me leave thus far to anticipate what I shall presently have Occasion more particularly to Consider When the Synod has settled the Doctrine of Faith and framed as they conceive a just and Orthodox Confession of it Is it the Duty of the Prince to Receive and give Countenance to their Definition or is it not To say that it is not is to sink the Credit of such Meetings very low indeed and to make their Assembling of very little Consequence if when They have done all they can to fix the Doctrine of the Church neither the Prince has any Obligation to support their Definition nor the People to Receive it But if when the Synod has done and their Sentence is pass'd and perhaps their Anathema's too have been thunder'd out against all that shall presume to call their Decisions in Question the Prince is obliged to add his Sanction to their Definition Then I hope They will think it to be their Duty in order to his confirming their Decrees with a Good Conscience to convince him of
of a Priestly Mind you have commanded your Priests to be gathered together into one Place to treat of such things as are Necessary We have according to the Purpose of your Will and the Heads which you gave to us answer'd in Our Definition as to us seem'd Good So that if those things which we have Established are also approved of as Right by your Judgment The Consent of so great a King and Lord may Confirm the Sentence of the Priests to be observed with the Greater Authority And thus have I done with the First Thing which I proposed to Consider I have shewn what Authority the Christian Prince has always been accounted to have over Ecclesiastical Synods with respect to the Assembling of them to their Proceedings whilst they are Sitting and to the Confirming or Annulling their Decrees afterwards I shall make only an Observation or two upon the whole with Respect to our present purpose and so conclude this Chapter And 1st I must take notice that whatever Privileges I have here shewn to belong to the Christian Magistrate they belong to Him as such They are not derived from any positive Laws and Constitutions but Result from that Power which every such Prince has Originally in Himself and are to be look'd upon as part of those Rights which naturally belong to Sovereign Authority Hence we find that All Princes in All wountries how different soever they have been in other Respects have yet evermore claim'd an Equal Authority in these Matters And the little Kings of Suevia and Burgundy accounted themselves to have as good a Title to Them as the Roman Emperors in their most flourishing Estate had Which being so it will follow 2dly That every Sovereign Prince has a Right to Exercise this Authority within his Dominions And that to prove this Right it is sufficient to shew That he is a Sovereign Prince and therefore ought not to be deny'd any of those Prerogatives which belong to such a Prince among which this Authority is One. 'T is true such Princes may by their own Acts limit themselves as they think fitting And these Limitations may give such Assemblies a Privilege in One Country beyond what they have in Another But then these Limitations must be plainly proved to have been made in their favour And till they are so the Prince must be accounted to have a Right to that Power which as a Prince belongs Him and is not yet proved to have been given away by Him And therefore 3dly Whereas it is now to be Enquired What the Authority of our Kings is over our Convocations We have thus far proceded towards the discovery of it that we have shewn what Power They had Originally over Them and as Christian Princes ought still to Enjoy And those who will Restrain Them with narrower Bounds must first shew how they came to lose that Power which they would take from Them and which till This shall be cleared they must be Presumed still to have a Right to CHAP. III. Of the Authority which our Own Kings have over their Convocations with Respect both to their Meeting and Acting first and to the Confirming or Annulling of their Acts after WE have now seen what Authority all Other Christian Princes have claim'd and Exercised over their Clergy from the first Conversion of the Empire to Christianity till the Prevalence of the Papal Power began to deprive Them of that Supremacy which of Right belong'd to Them Let us go on upon this Foundation to Enquire II. Whether our Own Kings have not as Great an Authority over their Convocations as any Other Princes have ever pretended to over their Councils That this of Right they Ought to have I have before observed The only Question is whether our Own particular Constitution has interposed to deprive Them of that Authority which we have already shewn did originally belong to Them And here I might justly leave it to Those who advance such Pretences to produce their Proofs and shew us upon what Grounds they do it And account the Right of our Kings to this Authority to have been sufficiently established in that common Claim which I have already proved all Christian Princes as such have ever made to the Exercise of of it But that nothing may be wanting to the clearing of this Matter beyond all reasonable Exception I shall to the General Argument I have before made use of add those particular Confirmations which our own Laws and Customs afford us of this Truth And shew that by our own Constitution the King of England has all that Power at this day over Our Convocation that ever any Christian Prince had over his Synods 1st Then if we consider His Authority as to the first thing before-mention'd viz. of Calling together of the Clergy in Convocation We are told by One of the most Eminent Professors of our Laws that it was among other Points Resolved by the Two Chief Justices and other Judges at a Committee of Lords in Parliament Trin. 8. Jac. 1. That a Convocation cannot Assemble at their onvocation without the Assent of the King And One would think such Persons should not only be very well Qualified to know what our Law is but should also be very Careful especially at such a Time and in such a Place not to deliver any thing for Law which They were not very well assured was so But because some have excepted against the Authority of this Report as a Piece that was published after the Death of the Author and in Suspected Times Tho' I cannot see what Interest any One should have to falsifie his Relation in the Instance before Us We will take his Opinion from a Book which we are sure is Authentick and lies open to no Exceptions 4. Instit. pag. 322. Where treating expresly about the Court of Convocation He affirms that the Clergy were never Assembled or Call'd together at a Convocation but by the King 's Writ And in which tho' I am sensible He has spoken a little too Generally as to matter of Fact yet in point of Law and in which only I make use of his Authority I cannot but look upon him to have been absolutely in the Right It being certain that the Clergy not only now cannot but never could be lawfully call'd together in Convocation but by the King 's â—rit or with his Consent And in assirming this I say no more than what was the joint Opinion of the whole Representative Body of the Nation as well of the Clergy in their Convocation as of the rest of the Realm in Parliament 25 Hen. 8. And from whence if from any Authority we may certainly the best take our Measure to judge Whether a thing does of Right belong to the King and is a part of his Royal Prerogative or No. For 1st As for the Clergy We are told in the Preamble to the Act of the 25 Hen. 8. chap. 19. That the Clergy of this Realm of England had acknowleged
which all humane Constitutions are exposed that tho' I have before sufficiently shewn what the Nature of our Convocation at present is and what Authority our Kings have over it yet we can by no means from thence conclude that this was always the case of it or that the Act of the 25th of King Henry the VIII did only restore our Kings to their ancient Rights over their Clergy and not rather give them a greater Power than ever they before had or than the Parliament ought to have put into their hands To clear this matter and withal to shew how Ecclesiastical Affairs have heretofore been transacted in this Realm I shall here take a short View of the State of our Convocation in times past and of the method that was wont to be observed in making of Canonical Orders and Constitutions from the Conversion of the Saxons to the settlement of it in that Form under which it continues to this very day And the Method I shall take for the better clearing of this matter shall be this I. I will consider how the Affairs of the Church were managed from the first Conversion of the Saxons to the time of the Norman Conquest II. From the coming in of K. William the Conquerour to the 23d of Edward the First About which time both the Parliament and the Convocation seem to have been fully setled upon the same foot on which they have both continued to stand ever since III. From the 23d of Edward the First to the 25th of Henry the Eighth When the Parliament and Clergy restored the Crown to those Rights which the Usurpations of the Court of Rome had before in great Measure deprived it of And IV. From the 25th of Henry the Eighth to our own times I PERIOD And First Let us enquire how the Affairs of the Church were transacted from the first Conversion of the Saxons to the time of the Norman Conquest It is evident to any one who has ever consider'd by what Authority and after what Manner our Clergy are called together in Convocation that when those Writs were framed which we still continue to make use of they referr'd to a double end and it was intended the Clergy should meet together under a double Capacity by vertue of them When the King issues out his Parliamentary Writs and summons the Bishops to come to that great Council every Bishop is thereby distinctly required To give notice to the Dean and Chapter of his Cathedral Church and to the Arch-deacons and Clergy of his Diocess of the King's Pleasure to the end that they the said Dean and Arch-deacon in their proper persons their Chapter by one and the Clergy of every Arch-deaconry by two Proctors lawfully chosen and empowered may together with the Bishop attend upon the King in Parliament and there consent to such things as shall be agreed upon for the good of the Church or State Now this Clause as it equally requires the inferiour Clergy as the rest of the Writ does the Bishop himself to come to Parliament so has the necessity of it been accounted so great that some have thought this to be the reason why if the See be Vacant the Writ shall in such a case bedirected to the Guardians of the Spiritualties viz. That by this means the Proxies of the Clergy may by them be proemonished to come to the Parliament according to their duty and as of ancient Custom they have been required to do It must therefore be allow'd and accordingly it is indeed confessed by those who have been the best acquainted with the Nature of our Constitution that the Clergy were anciently a part of the Parliament and that the Dignitaries and Proxies of the Lower Order did together with the Spiritual Lords make up the third Estate in it But now together with this Parliamentary Writ sent out to every Bishop in particular There is another general Order directed only to the Archbishop of each Province to call together the whole Clergy of their several Provinces to another place and usually upon another day The Copy of this Writ the Archbishop of Canterbury sends to the Bishop of London as Dean of the Episcopal College and requires him to summon the Clergy of his Province and to attend himself with the Clergy of his own Diocess according to the King's Command And this is more properly a Provincial Synod tho' at present it consists of the same Persons and was oftentimes heretofore employed to the same ends that the Clergy who came to the Parliament were and consulted at once both of the State of the Church and how to supply the Prince's Wants And as this is the case of the Clergy at the present so if we look back to those first Times we are now particularly to consider we shall find the foundation of this difference laid in them and clearly see how it came to be derived down from thence to the Times that follow'd after It has ever been the Wisdom as well as Piety of Christian Princes to pay a just deference both to the Judgment and Integrity of their Church-men And to think none more proper to advise with even in their civil Concerns and ostentimes to intrust too with the management of them than those whose Profession at once disposes them both to a greater extent of Knowledge and to a quicker sense of their duty than is ordinarily to be met with in other Men. And I believe there is no Nation where the Gospel of Christ has prevailed in which Ecclesiastical Persons have not been by a kind of general Consent admitted to the Management of civil Affairs and been advised with as well in matters relating to the State as in those which concern the Church Now as this first brought them into the Great Councils of Princes so was it the same opinion of their Ability and Integrity which first gave original to that part they now have and ever did enjoy in the Parliaments of this Nation For as our Princes from the beginning were wont to do all things of greater Moment with the Advice of their great Councils so in all those Councils the Clergy still had the chiefest place as in the progress of these remarks I shall have occasion very plainly to shew Nor were the Laity any losers at all by this For the Bishops and great Clergy-men being by these means present at their Councils and the King by his very Office having an original Right to deliberate concerning the Affairs of the Church as well as of the State it came to pass that these great Councils by degrees transacted both They deliberated as well of Ecclesiastical as of civil Affairs and the causes that concerned the Church were no less determined by the Judgment and Authority of the Laity than the civil ones were by the Advice of the Clergy But because it may be of some advantage to the right understanding of this whole subject to have a clear
those I shall therefore think my self concern'd in the first place to Consider Now among these not to mention the two Conferences of Austin with the British Bishops I know of none more ancient than that which was held before King Oswi and his Son at Streanshealch in the Monastery of Hilda concerning the time of Easter the form of Tonsure and as Florence of Worcester adds some other Ecclesiastical Matters Whether King Oswi by his Authority called this Synod it do's not appear this we know that He not only consented to the meeting of it but also sate with his Son in it and managed the debates of it He proposed the business for which they met and at last finally Resolved what was to be held to with Reference to the Points that had been debated And tho' the Argument that determined him to embrace St. Peter's Tradition rather than St. John's viz. that He kept the door in Heaven and therefore He durst not contradict him lest when he came thither the Apostle should Resuse him Entrance was but very mean and suitable to the Rudeness and Ignorance of those Times yet we see what Authority our Princes from the beginning had as to these matters and how considerable a part they were allow'd in their Synods But more eminent as well as more exact were the Synods held by Theodore Archbishop of Canterbury in the first of which at Herudford as the Bishops of several Provinces were assembled so did they Agree with Theodore upon many usefull Constitutions for the Government of the Church And as this Synod first setled the Discipline of the Church in these Parts so did that of Heathfield which met about seven years after establish the Faith of it It admitted of the decisions of the Five first General Councils and setled the Catholick doctrine of the Church against the several Heresies which had been condemn'd in those Councils In both these Synods it is expressly said that Theodore Presided And so he did in the next I am to take notice of which was held at Atwyford Anno 685. In which among other things St. Cuthbert was chosen Bishop of Lindisfarn and upon Easter-day was Consecrated by seven Bishops who Attended upon the King at that solemn Season By whose Authority these Councils were call'd it do's not sufficiently appear to Us but that in this last King Egfride was present we are expressly inform'd And the constant Custom of the Princes in those days will not suffer us to doubt but that it was by their Direction that their Bishops both met and acted in Them At the Council of Cloveshoe Anno 742 not only Aethelbald K. of the Mercians Presided but his Princes and Officers were present too Yet this was properly an Ecclesiastical Synod and the Matters transacted in it all Related to the Church Nor is this so much to be wonder'd at seeing in the Legatine Synods held by Gregory and Theophylact sent hither by Pope Adrian the First for that purpose Our Kings not only directed the Assembling of Them but together with their Nobles sate in Them And to testify their Consent to what was done together with their Lords as well as Bishops subscribed to the Acts of Them And these are the chief of those Ecclesiastical Synods which were held in these Times As for the many Others whose Acts remain to Us they are manifestly Civil Conventions and most of them such Assemblies of the States as were afterwards call'd by the Name of Parliaments Among these as none ought more to be consider'd so were none more plainly such than Those in which our Ancient Saxon Laws were either drawn up or publish'd And a very considerable part of which relate to the Order and Discipline of the Church Thus Ina made his Laws with the Consent of his Bishops and all his Aldermen K. Alfred collected his with the advice of all his Wise-men K. Edward the Elder and Guthrun review'd and enlarged Them as assisted by their Wise-men And tho' in the Preamble to the Laws of K. Aethelstan we find mention only made of his Archbishop and Bishops because they indeed only drew up those Laws which were more properly Ecclesiastical yet in the Close of them we are told that all these Constitutions were publish'd in one of those Synods at which not only Wulfhelm the Archbishop but all his Great and Wise-men were present that is were publish'd in one of his Great Councils by him K. Edmund compiled his Laws in the Assembly of his Wise-men as well Ecclesiasticks as Lay-men So did Edgar and Ethelred afterwards And lastly Canutus in the Preface to his Laws not only tells us that they were made with the Advice of his Wise-men to the Glory of God-Almighty the Ornament of his Kingly Majesty and the Good of the Common-wealth But precisely notes the time when he compiled them namely That they were made at Christmas in the City of Winchester where he then kept that Feast and his Nobles according to the ancient Custom attended upon him and sate in Council with him To run thro' all the other Councils of the like nature in which Constitutions have been made and Debates held concerning things relating to the Church would engage me in a needless as well as tedious Research I shall only mention a few of those of chiefest Note which together with those before spoken of may suffice to give us a right Understanding of the Nature and Quality of them At Becanceld about the Year 694 Withred King of Kent held a General Council and if the relation be true it was indeed of an extraordinary Composition There were present at it not only the Archbishop of Canterbury and Bishop of Rochester with the Lords and others of the Laity but the Abbots Abbesses Priests and Deacons of the Clergy It was called by Archbishop Brithwald at the Kings Command And not only the King and Bishops but all others of the Clerical Order subscribed to it At Berghamsted the same King about three Years after held another Council with his Bishops and Military Men and by their common Consent made several Constitutions to be added to the Laws and Customs of Kent But more remarkable is the Council at which Wulfred presided under Kenulph King of the Mercians Anno 816. At which as at that of Becanceld before not only a great number of Bishops were present but together with the King came also his Princes Dukes and Lords And all these were surrounded with the rest of the Holy Orders Abbots Priests and Deacons treating with one accord of what was usefull or necessary for the Church I insist not upon the Synods of Cloveshoe assembled by Beornulfe King of the Mercians Anno 822 824 And both which were evidently great Councils of that Nation As were also the Council of London An. 833 Of Kingstone An. 838 Of Kingsbury An. 851 Of Winchester An. 855 Of
be Summon'd to the Convocation as often as the Other Estates are to the Parliament But as Our Kings have often been wont to hold Convocaons when there were no Parliaments sitting so in this very Age we know the Convocation was continued after the Parliament was dissolved and our most Eminent in the Law declared that it might lawfully be so How long our Archbishops went on by their Own Authority to call these Convocations I am not able precisely to determine But as it is observed by One who has been very Curious in these Remarks of Simon Langham first That He summon'd such Synods partly at the desire and command of the King and partly without the King's Letters at his own pleasure and of Thomas Arundell after That the Convocation of 1408 as almost all the Others of His Time were called by the sole Letters and Command of the Archbishop tho' nevertheless He sometimes held Them at the desire of the King and by vertue of his Letters for the Publick Affairs of the Realm So it is plain that not only in these times the King did often send his Orders to the Archbishop for this purpose but that from the very time of Edward the First He had been constantly used so to do And it is no improbable con 〈…〉 ure of our Church-Historian that about the End of Arundell's time the King began wholly to Assume this Power and that from thenceforth no Convocations were call'd but at his Command That this was the Case in Henry the Eighth's time the Act of his 25th Year Chapt. 19. tells us And whosoever shall weigh the Introduction of that Statute will see cause to conclude from the Wording of it that so it had been for some considerable time before And now having thus prepared the way for a Right understanding of the nature of the Convocation as it was first setled in the beginning of this Period and has from thence been derived down to Us Let us go on to take a brief View of the chiefest of those Meetings of which any Account remains to Us and from thence we shall be able more clearly to discover the Nature of them and what dependence of Right they ought to have upon the Royal Authority No sooner was Winchelsea made Archbishop of Canterbury but He presently turn'd his Mind to the Reformation of his Court of Arches and for the better accomplishing thereof call'd a Provincial Synod in which He publish'd those Orders for the Regulation of it which still Remain to us under his Name The next year after the same Archbishop held Another Synod and therein agreed that a Sentence of Excommunication should be publish'd against all such as should Infringe the Liberties granted by the King in his Great Charter and Charter of the Forest and that the Copies of Them order'd by the King and Parliament to be sent to Every Cathedral Church should according to their Command be publickly Read to the People Assembled there There were some other things done in this Convocation for the better securing of the Privileges of the Church and an Order publish'd by the Archbishop throughout his Province to make known to the Clergy what had been Resolved by Them What was design'd to have been done in the Convocation again called the year following is not known All that we are told of it is That two Fryars appear'd there in behalf of the King to shew that notwithstanding the Pope's Prohibition the Clergy might lawfully grant a Subsidy to the King to help Him in his Wars Which being done they laid a Command upon the Clergy under pain of Imprisonment not to publish any Sentence of Excommunication either against the King or against any that put Themselves under his Protection and thereupon the Synod immediately broke up For the better understanding of which we must know that the Archbishop had procured a Bull from Rome to forbid the Clergy to grant the King any farther assistance without his leave first had for the doing of it The King hereupon put the Clergy out of his protection And then the Clergy granted him a fifth part of their Goods only the Archbishop Himself stood out and had his Goods Confiscated But so ill were the Circumstances of the King at that time that he thought it not safe to Contest it with Him but in a little time return'd again to Peace with the Archbishop and restored his Goods to Him But this Reconciliation lasted not long the King seeming rather to have waited for an Opportunity of doing him a mischief without hurting himself than to have truly forgiven him And therefore being now in better Circumstances with the Pope He accused the Archbishop of having been the chief Fomenter of all the late Troubles he had met with from his Barons and forced him to go to Rome to answer for it And when in the last year of his Reign He held his Parliament at Carlisle An. 1308 He caused an Inhibition to be Put upon William de Testa a new Legate sent to get up more Money here and a Restraint to be laid upon such Monks as had Lands in England but whose capital Houses were in other Kingdoms So earnestly did this King labour to recover his Authority from those intollerable Usur pations that had been made upon it No sooner was King Edward the Second His Son Crown'd but He gave the Archbishop now Return'd from Rome to understand that He would not suffer his Realm to be obliged either by the Decrees of the General Council of Lyons abroad or by the Constitutions of Otho and Ottobon at home against his Consent And therefore that he should not deprive any of his Chaplains of their Benefices on any pretence of Pluralities or Non-Residence But still the Pope's Authority both in assembling and managing of our Convocations nevertheless prevailed An eminent instance of which we have in the Convocation held the year after and from whence we may collect how they were order'd about this time The Pope having resolved to suppress the order of the Knights-Templers summons a general Council to mâ—et at Vienne To this he invites or rather commands our Archbishops and Bishops to come And that they might be the better prepared for what they were to do there he requires the Archbishop of Canterbury to assemble a Provincial Synod and therein to deliberate about the affairs of the Knights-Templers and to dispose the way for their more essectual Condemnation at the general Council The Archbishop having received this order from the Pope immediately sends his Writ to the Bishop of London requiring him to call the Bishops and Clergy to a Convocation The Bishop of London sends abroad his Summons accordingly And when they met the usual Preliminaries being over the Pope's Bulls were in the first place read next the Bishop of London's Certificate to shew what he had done in obedience both to the Pope's and
agree to Offer the King a Summ of Money And in the next place by an Act of Convocation to submit Themselves to Him and Recognize his Royal Authority over Them This was that submission upon which the Act for Regulating the Convocation was drawn and in which among Other things these two Points became setled both by Parliament and Convocation First That the Clergy have no Right to meet in any Synod without the King's License testified by his Writ to the Archbishop And Secondly That being Met They cannot proceed to Act but according to his Direction Thus was the Crown after a long Invasion upon it Restored to those Rights it anciently enjoy'd and which our Kings as we have seen continued to assert till the Papal Power or Interest became too strong for Them And accordingly ever since the Convocation has continued to assemble and act according to these Measures so that I shall not need to take any more particular View of its Proceedings It is I conceive without all doubt that since the passing of this Act the Convocation has still been summon'd as often as a Parliament has been held And as long as the Clergy therein continued to assist the Government by granting of Subsidies it has generally been allow'd to sit too as often as it was necessary for that purpose tho' it has seldom done any thing besides But altho' it has t 〈…〉 efore been the General Custom for the Convocation to meet whensoever the Parliament do's yet neither since the Passing of this Act nor before have these two been accounted to have so inseparable a Relation to one another but that if the King pleased the Convocation might be held when the Parliament was not And the Parliament sit and act and yet the Convocation do neither An instance of the former of these we have within about four years after the Passing of the Convocation-Act The Archbishop by Order of the Vicar-General call'd a Convocation Anno 1537. And the Clergy accordingly both Met and Did business tho' no Parliament was held that Year As for the latter it is a matter of daily practise and has been so ever since the Reformation It is certain then that the Convocation as we now understand it that is to say as it is an Assembly of the Clergy call'd by the King 's Writ directed to the Archbishops and by their Order Grounded thereupon is an Assembly altogether different from the Parliament of this Realm and evidently no Member of it The only Question is What we are to think of it when it meets together with the Parliament and has a pretension to its Assembling as well by the Bishop's Parliamentary Summons as by the Archbishops Orders When Mr. Philpot was examined before the Lords of the Council Novemb. the 6th Anno 1555 concerning the Heresie of which he was Accused One part of His Plea for himself was That they took advantage of certain things that had been spoken by him in Convocation And that for this He ought not to be call'd to account Because that House being a Member of the Parliament ought to be a place of free speech for All Men of the House by the ancient and laudable Custom of this Realm And indeed so firmly was this Notion setled in the Minds of the Clergy in those days that in the Convocation held the first year of Edw. the Sixth a Motion was made That it should be desired in the Name of the Lower House of Convocation that their House might be United to the House of Commons But the Lords Rich and Windsor told Mr. Philpot That the Convocation was No Part of the Parliament tho' by an Old Custom it was call'd together by One Writ of Summons with the Parliament To their Opinion Mr. Philpot submitmitted nor shall I pretend to enter any Plea against it Thus much is plain That the Convocation was once accounted in this Respect a Member of the Parliament And the Reason why it was accounted so was Because by this Writ of Summons the lower Clergy were Called no less than the Bishops themselves to it Now thus they continue to be summon'd still The Writ is the same it ever was Is as constantly Issued out and as expressly Worded as when they were from thence confess'd to be a part of the Parliament And therefore the Reason of the thing being the same one would think it should still inferr the same Conclusion But Logick is one thing and Law is another And all this notwithstanding the Clergy is now no Member of the Parliament Nor is there any Reason why it should be For now there being so many learned Bishops there I suppose heretofore there were no Bishops there their Presence is no longer holden necessary So my Lord Coke has learnedly determined this matter Which makes me the more wonder that the Presence of the Inferiour Clergy being no longer holden necessary it should nevertheless be holden necessary to continue their Summons and not rather be thought adviseable to Reduce the Bishop's Writ to its first Form when the Proctors of the Clergy not coming neither were they summon'd to Parliament Such then is the Case of our Present Convocation But now besides these Provincial Synods there is another sort of more select Conventions if not first introduced yet more especially made use of in this last Period And they consist of such Certain Bishops and Clergy-men as the King thinks sit to Choose and by his Commission to Authorize to meet together at such time and in such place as he therein prescribes to them To these he proposes whatsoever it be that he would have them to consult about and having so done they are to lay the Result of their Opinions according to his Direction before Him That by such Synods as these the Reformation was especially carried on is not to be deny'd They have often determined the greatest Matters And upon their Advice the Government has accordingly proceeded without ever consulting any larger Convocation concerning them But this was in some measure owing to the Necessities of those times in which a great part of the Clergy were yet engaged in the Romish Errors Enemies to the Reformation and therefore not qualified to promote so good a Work At present their business is chiefly this Either to Advise the King in such Matters as He do's not think it necessary to trouble the Convocation to meet about Or else in Matters of a greater Moment to prepare what may be sit for the King to lay before the Convocation that since they must not debate on any thing without his leave He may thereby be the better enabled to Propose what is Expedient to Them So that now then if we would know after what manner Ecclesiastical Affairs have been transacted since the time of the Reformation we shall find it to have been by some or other of these Five following Ways 1. Sometimes the King has by his Own
the Loosness or rather the Licentiousness of our present Times as the Convocation That hitherto they have not done it is no Argument that they are either Unfit for or Uncapable of doing it That they are not Skill'd in Divinity may be a Good Argument to prove that they are not so well provided to dispute with Hereticks as a Convocation may be but do's by no means hinder but that they may be Able to take a much more Effectaul Way of dealing with Them And I have before shewn that to enable them to know what is Heretical it is by no means necessary that they should be nicely Skill'd in the Languages of the Bible much less that they should be Masters of all the Learned Fathers or of the History of the Primitive Church Let them stick to the Rule already Establish'd by Authority of Parliament 1 Eliz. c. 1. And provide only that nothing be innovated or attempted contrary thereunto and I believe it will puzzle the Convocation to shew what could more effectually be done to support the Catholick Faith or to suppress those Heresies which now especially set themselves up in Opposition thereunto As for the Papists Objection against our Religion as meerly Parliamentary it has been often answer'd and would receive no great Strength by the adding of one new Law in defence of the Catholick Faith We cannot but remember what Endeavours the Papists themselves once made to get a Parliament for their Purpose Could they have attain'd their Ends and have got their Religion restored again by a legal Authority I believe they would hardly have thought the worse of it for being Parliamentary or have refused to let it be introduced by the Will of the Prince and the Authority of the Peers and Commons And whatsoever this Gentleman may fancy I dare say the Parliament will always think that it lies in the Breast of the King and of that High Court to determine what shall be the National Religion and have the Advantage of a Legal Establishment to support it And I would desire this Author to tell us if He can Supposing an Act were drawn up upon his Own Terms to prohibit all Persons to Write or Dispute in favour of Atheism Deism Socinianism c. Or any Books relating to Religion to be printed or sold that were not Licenced by the Archbishop of the Province and approved by the Bishop of the Diocess in which the Author Lived whose Name should evermore be set to them And were this Law enforced with suitable Penalities and care taken that those Penalties should be put in due Execution I say supposing such an Act were pass'd let this Author judge whether it would not be much more likely to put a Stop to the Presumption of such Persons than ten thousand Canons made by the Convocation tho' an Anathema were added to every one of them And now our Author has but one thing more to do and then He thinks he has clear'd his Point beyond all Exception and that is to Obviate an Objection which I perceive gives him some little Disturbance And that is supposing when the Convocation meets somebody should have the Boldness to attempt to raise a Ferment in it in Defence of Doctrines or Persons too justly liable to Censure Now in this Case he tells us It 's not to be doubted but that the Piety and Moderation and Christian Courage of the Rest would be soon Able to Suppress it and to advance the Good Ends for which they are call'd I am willing to indulge any Good Opinion of a Convocation that any one can reasonably desire and therefore shall not Oppose our Author in this Only I must Observe that all this is but a Conjecture and must be left to Time to discover when this Great Assembly shall be met and these Persons be call'd to an account by them The Proceedings of large Bodies are very Uncertain And 't is as hard to calculate before-hand how they will act when they come together as to compute at Christmas which way the Wind will sit in March A very little matter throws them into Disorder and when Men think they have made their Party so strong that nothing can Oppose them yet we know how mistaken they have oftentimes been and have seen all their Projects by some indiscernible Accident or Omission brought to nothing To conclude then It is confess'd that the Evils which this Gentleman here complains of are certainly very Great and it were much to be wish'd that some Remedy might be thought of that would effectually deliver us from them But as there is no need to Assemble a Convocation to assert the Honour and Innocency of our Church and to shew that she is no way consenting to Them so if what former Synods have done to Correct them be not sufficient as a sad Experience shews that it is not I do not see what a new Convocation could pretend to do more for the Suppression of them Were a better Discipline setled in the Church and a Vigorous Law made in Defence of our Faith and to Restrain those scandalous Attempts that are made against it this might possibly reduce our Disorders within some tolerable Bounds but any thing short of this would I fear signifie very little And when our Other Circumstances shall be so favourable as to encourage the Government to think of this I shall then readily Close in with this Gentleman and confess that it will not only be very sitting but a matter of Duty in the Prince to call a Convocation and to Require them to consider how to Restore the Honour of Religion and to suggest to his Parliament such Heads as may be proper for them to pass into an Act for the better Preservation of it in Times to come CONCLUSION AND thus have I done with the Reasoning of this Author and I hope given a sufficient Answer to Every Thing that can pretend to such a Character in his Letter It may possibly be expected that I should now take some Notice of those Reflections which he has made with a more than Ordinary Freedom upon all sorts of Persons and upon none more than upon Those who might have expected to have the least fallen under the Levities and Scurrilities of such a Piece But this is a Work of too ungrateful a Nature to be particularly pursu'd And I am sensible that in doing of it I must either say very much less than He has taken care to deserve Or very much more than I am willing to allow my self to do It is indeed very sad to consider what an Immoderate Liberty some Men indulge Themselves on these Occasions With what Readiness nay with what Satisfaction they catch at any thing that is scandalous and may help to blacken Those whom they do not Love And if they can but give it a Witty Turn or pass it off with a Little Grace as if they were sorry to speak it or