A TREATISE OF THE OATH OF SUPREMACY Printed in the YEAR 1679. THE Words of the Oath I A. B. do utterly testifie and declare in my conscience that the Kings Majesty is the only Supream Governor of this Realm and of all other His Highnesses Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal And that no Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ougbt to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Pre-eminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forreign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities And do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith true Allegiance to the Kings Highness His Heirs and lawful Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Pre-eminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness His Heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book Introduction 1. THe Oath of Supremacy has long been thought by the generality of Catholicks Inconsistent with Faith both for what it affirms of the King and denies of the Pope And truly who considers only the Words as they ly naked there without seeking to inform himself what they mean of any thing but the bare sounds has reason at first sight to check at it I am apt to believe that every body does not look farther at least I my self did not a great while and therefore thought of it as others did 2. Yet it seemed strange that the most Learned of the Church of England should freely take it without scruple and at the same time Irreprehensibly affirm both of the Kings Power and the Popes what Catholicks therefore refuse the Oath because they think it denies I perceived they must of necessity understand it otherwise than We did For to suspect that either of us proceed otherwise than according to our conscience They in Taking and VVe in Refusing is not either for a Charitable or Reasonable Man I would not handsomly unriddle when a mistake there must needs be on one side how the mistake should ly on theirs or which way they should misunderstand an Oath of their own making In short I knew not what to make of it and while I had no Key to the Lock but the bare words could not easily open it For still those words seemed Irreconcilable to Truth and to that Truth which they profess as well as that which I believe 3. Upon farther search things appeared somthing otherwise I found that what those Learned Men mean when they swear and which they think the VVords of the Oath mean is not only sutable to what they believe themselves but likewise to what we believe and I found there is more Reason than I imagined to believe that the words of the Oath do indeed mean as they judge they do and not as VVe thought VVhat occurs to me I thought a seasonable Charity to communicate to others lest by seeking to avoyd one Error we fall into many 4. For as we are on the one side obliged to prefer a good Conscience before all Worldly respects so we are obliged on the other to obey our Soveraign and his Laws where with a good conscience we can No Man can justify the refusal of an Oath tendred by Lawful Authority without a sufficient Reason The Reason why we have refused this Oath is because we apprehended it Inconsistent with Faith And that is undoubtedly a sufficient Reason if the apprehension be true but if it be not we are left in the Lurch If the Oath as some think do not renounce the Faith of all Catholicks but only the Opinions of some and those both false and pernicious to refuse it is not to preserve but to scandalize our Faith with the imputation of obliging us to things by the Wisdom of the Nation judg'd Intolerable It is to confirm the bad opinion which some have of us that our Religion is indeed Inconsistent with the security of the Commonwealth In a word what we took for Religion would prove Faction 5. Before I speak of the Oath it self it will be convenient to observe that divers priviledges have at divers times been granted by the Piety of Princes to the Church and Church-Men when being long used and their origin either forgotten or dissembled have at length been commonly enough lookt upon and claimed as the proper and inherent Right of the Church Among these is the right of holding Judiciary Pleas and Courts proceeding like Secular Courts to Sentence even of Temporal and Corporal Punishments as Fines Imprisonment c. and Executing their Sentences by their own Officers unless in case of Death for which whether for Form or Substance the Prachiam Seculare was usually call'd upon These Courts were settled by little and little and their Power was sometimes more sometimes less which variety remains to this day as the Secular Power in several Nations concurs more or less with them But it became at last the general Practise that Ecclesiastical Persons should appear only in these Courts for all causes and the Laity for some chiefly such as had relation to the Law of God The Judges there being either Ecclesiastical Men themselves or acting by Commission from them the Courts got the Name of Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Courts the matters determinable in them of Ecclesiastical or Spiritual matters or causes and their Power of Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Power But 6. When things had gone thus Time out of mind and People saw them constantly act not by renewed Commissions as Subordinate Officers use to do but by a Right of their own a Right charily preserved by them and freely confest by every body els as undoubtedly it was both by a good Title at first and a quiet possession of many Hundred Years it came to be thought at last that this Right of theirs was given them with their Character by God whereas in Truth it proceeded from the condescendence of Pious Men and as all Humane things are subject to change may by the same Power which gave it on just occasion be taken away 7. In the mean time the Notion of Spiritual when applyed in the Law to Power Judge Court Matter Cause or Thing has generally relation to these External Courts The word is ordinarily taken so in our common Language but there seldome otherwise and when we find it in the Law we must expect it should signify as it uses to do in the Law not as it does in Philosophy or Controversy or Ascetics It is so well known that I know not whether it be not idle to mention the different Significations which the same words have in different Occasions For example who thinks of the Theological vertue when he is to swear Faith to his Prince who of a Stone or Tree when he hears of a Body not in Philosophy but Physick and when a Man
the taking the aforesaid Temporal Powers away is very much as I have already prov'd 26. For a Fourth Reason we may reflect that this Act both by its Title and Preamble seems to intend the Exclusion of only what K. H. 8. excluded in his here approv'd and reviv'd Acts only with this Difference that this seems to do at once and in general VVords what his did by Parts and in more particular Terms And he as we have seen by looking into all Particulars excluded not the Pope as Pastor More-over as she did what he did so he did fully what Catholick Kings shew'd him Example to do If one may take his VVord in the Preamble to the Statute 24 King Henry the 8th cap. 12. and the express VVords of his Proviso An. 25. cap. 21. after which he did nothing of Note besides ordering that Bishops should have their Bishopricks and preach without the Pope's Order as they did for a long time among the Brittains and others Also we may gather their Senses are the same from alike way of proceeding and speaking in Law 27. For a Fifth That 't is unreasonable to think that this Parliament should in this Act exclude the Pope's purely Spiritual Power as far as it is held to be a Tenet of Catholick Religion all over the VVorld and in the same Act revive the afore-said Proviso that formerly commanded it should not be excluded Except we should say that it had at the same time a mind it should and should not be kept in Kept in because the Will they had that the Words of the former Statute should not be taken in a Sense contrary to the Religion of the then Catholick Church which believ'd Religiously the said purely Spiritual Power of the Pope which Will these Men express'd by Reviving the Proviso could proceed only from a mind that no such Religious Tenet nor consequently this of the Pope's purely Spiritual Power should be deny'd And Not kept in if in this it denyes or excludes it And that the Proviso commands that is clear for it runs thus 28. Provided alwayes that this Act nor any Thing or Things therein contained shall be hereafter interpreted or expounded that your Grace your Nobles and Subjects intend by the same to decline or vary from the Congregation of Christs Church in any Things concerning the very Articles of the Catholick Faith of Christendom or in any other Things declared by Holy Scripture and the Word of God necessary for Your and Their Salvation But only to make an Ordinance by Policies necessary and convenient to repress Vice and for good Conservation of this Realm in Peace Unity and Tranquility from Rapine and Spoyl ensuing much the old Antient Customs of this Realm in that Behalf Not minding to seek for any Reliefs Succours or Remedies for any Worldly Things and Human Laws in any Case of Necessity within this Realm but at the Hands of your Highness your Heirs and Successours Kings of this Realm which have and ought to have an Imperial Power and Authority in the same and not oblig'd in any Worldly Causes to any other Superior 29. A Sixth Reason is Because a Proviso of the last Act 5 Eliz. cap. 1. sayes thus Provided alwayes that for as much as the Queen's Majesty is otherwise sufficiently assur'd of the Faith and Loyalty of the Temporal Lords of her Highnesses Court of Parliament Therefore this Act nor any Thing therein contained shall not extend to compel any Temporal Person of or above the Degree of a Baron of this Realm to take or pronounce the Oath above-said not to incur any Penalty limited by this Act for not Taking or Refusing the same any thing in this Act to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding Where we see the Queen's being without this Act and Oath sufficiently assur'd of the Temporal Lords Faith and Loyalty is brought as a Reason why neither it nor its Oath belongs to them which would have been no Reason in case it had been also to deny the Pope's being Chief Preacher or such a Preacher as is to have a particular Care that all Christians and English among the rest know and practise Christ's Doctrine and that all Preachers and English amongst the rest Preach and help others under them to Practise the same For the Act and Oath being in this Supposition made upon two Accounts to wit for the Assurance of Allegiance and Denyal of Religion the Act might have belong'd to them and the Oath might have been offer'd them though the Queen had been other-wise assur'd or their Allegiance for Denyal of that Part of Religion which the Queen was so far from being other-wise assur'd that they did deny that she otherwise certainly knew that abundance at least of them did constantly profess it 30. For a Seventh and last Reason I alledge that they could not intend to make People swear in the First and Fifth of her Reign when this Oath was made and enjoyn'd that the Pope had not the Power of a Pastor then in England when as they certainly knew he had and exercised such a Power over Multitudes of Catholicks that then were by the State permitted to Live in and profess an Obedience to him as such Especially if it be found that the greatest Part of this Parliament were Catholicks which would not vote the Forswearing of their Faith And if they did not intend it their VVords do not signify it If it be said they could not intend to make the People swear he had not de facto such a Power since every Body knew this to be evidently False but that he had not de jure or ought not to have such a Power I answer 1st That the Words are And that no Forreign Prince c. hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction c. within this Realm And unless one will say that Hath and Ought to have are just the same and that Hath has not its Signification as well as Ought to have which is not very likely the Meaning must be that he hath not de facto the Power they there speak of Which infers that they there speak not of Pastorall Power 31. Next I answer That this Argument evidently concludes what it endeavour'd to wit that they could not intend that the Words of the Oath should signify that the Pope had not any Pastorall Power in England de facto And hence I argue that they could not intend to take them in the whole Latitude of their Sound and also that they intend to exclude no Pastorall Power de jure First Because their Words speak no more of this than they do of that of which they speak not at all Next Because 't is not likely that they should intend to make his Pastorall Power de jure be abjur'd by some as prejudicial to the Jurisdictions of the Crown for example and that others should not abjure it but be irreprehensibly permitted to believe and profess it Lastly Because it was Premunire and Treason
our Prince the Ministring either of God's Word or the Sacraments but that only Prerogative which we see to have been given to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself That is That they should Rule all Estates and Degrees committed to their Charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil Doers 26. I could add here divers other Eminent and publickly approved Authors who are very full in expressing the same Sense of the Oath as Doctor Bilson Bishop of Winchester in Queen Elizabeth dayes Doctor Carlton Bishop of Chichester in King James's Time both cited at large by Mr. Cressy in his Reflections upon the Oaths Sect. 6. and others But I conceive enough is said to the clearing the Affirmative Clause of the Oath and perhaps they may be more proper here-after to explain the Negative Part of it to which we now address Section II. Of the Negative Clause of the OATH THe Negative Clause runs thus That no Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ought to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Pre-eminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm Now though there want not some who think that taking the Words of the Oath in a Law-Sense and allowing Common Reason to scan the whole not Fancy to catch suddainly at single Words the Oath even as it lyes may lawfully be taken by those who are able to penetrate throughly into it Yet the Generality whom chiefly I must endeavour to satisfy are more apt to judge that if those Words be taken in the full Latitude of what they seem first to sound they cannot be sworn by any Catholick And they have Reason For it is plain that no Human Authority can take away what is given by Christ It is plain in Scripture that Christ did give to his Apostles and in them their Successors Power to Teach and Feed to Bind and Lose c. and this over all the World The Exercise of this Power may be and is restrained by Human Constitutions because it being to Edification not Destruction 't is against its Nature to be us'd where 't would do harm as if every Pastor should promiscuously Feed every Flock there would happen so much Confusion and Disorder that a good part of the Sheep would be not Fed but Starv'd 'T is this which truly binds up the Power Human Laws shew and that Authoritatively and Obligingly where the Harm is but have their obliging Vertue from that Harm Should They under pretence of Destruction forbid what Truths were to Edification They would indeed expose the Contraveners to Penalties but induce no Obligation to Obedience upon the Conscience So we see the Apostles the great Masters of Submission and Obedience to Authority when they were commanded to forbear Preaching the Doctrine of Christ declared plainly it was their Duty in that case to prefer God before Man But where Edification requires the Power should be exercis'd no Power of Man can hinder the Ordinance of God nor shelter those who do not Evangelize from the Wo with which they are threatned As any Bishop and any Priest might perform the Functions of a Bishop and Priest in any Part of the World before Canons were made to limit them to Places and Persons so They may still where Necessity or what-ever Circumstance takes off the Restraint and leaves the Power to its own Original Liberty Now the VVords of the Oath saying That no Forreign Prelate has any Spiritual Power in England do in the utmost Latitude of their Sound deny that the properly Spiritual Power given and commanded to be us'd by Christ in all the VVorld can even on any occasion be exercis'd by any Forreign Prelate in England And this being contrary to the Appointment and Grant of Christ cannot I think be sworn by any who believes in Christ For a Forreign Prelate being a Prelate cannot be without the Power of a Prelate nor that Power excluded from any Part of the VVorld where Edification requires it 2. I purposely abstain from speaking particularly of the Pope because the Oath speaks not particularly of him though it comprehends him under the General Term Prelate And because I conceive his Power concerns us not at present since the Case would be the same though there were no such thing as a Pope in the World For our Question is not What Power forreign Prelates have but What they have not If the Oath be meant of the Power given by Christ it is opposite to the Power given by him to all Prelates and so not Takeable for their sakes If it be not meant of that Power it is not opposite to what was given by Christ to any and so not Refusable for the Pope's sake Our Business at present is to inquire What Power the Oath means not what Christ gave If we find the Oath leaves it untouch't 't is best for us to leave it so too For to do otherwise is to stray into a different and unconcerning Question and amuse our selves unprofitably with what is not spoken of 3. That the Oath does not speak of that Power at all there are many Reasons to perswade me They who fram'd the Oath were Christians and knew and acknowledged the uncontroulable Power of Christ I cannot imagin they either would go about to take away any thing which he gave or think they could though they would They knew that notwithstanding the Confinement of Pastors to their own Flocks as firmly establisht as Human Laws both Ecclesiastical and Civil can establish any thing nothing is more apparent in Ecclesiastical History than that Prelates thought themselves at liberty to exercise the Power of Prelates upon occasion any where As Lucifer Bishop of Calaris in Sardinia made them a Bishop at Antioch St. Gregory of Nazianzen took care of Constantinople and a hundred such Examples there are England to its great Advantage has had Experience of the same as when Germanus and Lupus came hither out of France and preserved us from Arianism At this day if a Bishop of the Church of England happen to go beyond Sea as I think some did when His Majesty was there himself though they carry not with them that External Power which they have in their own Dioceses I suppose they do not think themselves bard from Preaching or Ordaining or Exercising any Episcopal Function where they think it necessary or expedient because they are in the Diocess of another Man And so though the Priests which are Ordained in the Church of Rome are liable in their Persons to the Penalty of the Laws in England no Body thinks their Acts invalid None will Re-baptize one whom they have Baptized or think they live in Adultery who pursuant to the Doctrine of that Church receive the Sacrament of Marriage from them Every Forreign Person is as much excluded by the Oath as Forreign Prelates Had Luther or Calvin come hither would They have been bard from
to hold or profess what the Acts deny'd the Pope But it was neither Prmunire nor Treason for a Lord or other in those dayes to profess himself a Catholick though it was punishable not to be at Common-Prayer which includes the holding and professing the Pope's Pastorall Power de jure as well as de facto Therefore it evidently was not this Pastorall Power de jure that was there deny'd 32. Having thus seen that neither the Words of the Oath nor the Acts to the Profession of whose Sense only the Oath is ordain'd deny the Pope's Pastorall Power let us in the last Place see whether the Explication given it by Act of Parliament 5 Eliz. cap. 1 denyes it For if this doth not nothing doth that concerns it and us Now this Act makes that to be the Sense of the Oath which the Queen gives it in her Admonition And sums up the Sense of the Admonition in short to be To confess and acknowledge in her Majesty her Heirs and Successors none other Authority than that was challeng'd and lately us'd by the Noble King Henry the Eighth and King Edward the Sixth as in the said Admonition more plainly may appear Now since the whole Design here spoken of which is to be suppos'd all of it is the confessing of Power in the Queen the Negative Part is to be taken to signify no farther than to deny to another what is confess'd to be in the Queen else the whole Business of the Oath would not be Confessing of Power in her Whence evidently follows that they are not to be taken in a Sense exclusive of the Pope's Pastorall Power The Admonition it self is as follows An Admonition to Simple Men deceived by Malicious 33. The Queens Majesty being inform'd that in certain places of the Realm sundry of her Native Subjects being call'd to Ecclesiastical Ministry in the Church be by sinister Perswasion and perverse Construction induced to find some scruple in the form of an Oath which by an Act of the last Parliament is prescribed to be requir'd of divers Persons for the Recognition of their Allegiance to her Majesty which certainly never was ever meant nor by any Equity of words or good sense can be thereof gather'd would that all her loving Subjects should understand that nothing was is or shall be meant or intended by the same Oath to have any other duty Allegiance or bond required by the same Oath than was acknowledged to be due to the most noble Kings of famous Memory K. Henry the 8th Her Majesties Father or K. Edward the 6th Her Majesties Brother And farther her Majesty forbiddeth all manner her Subjects to give ear or credit to such perverse and malicious persons which most sinisterly and maliciously labour to notify to her loving Subjects how by words of the said Oath it may be collected that the Kings or Queens of this Realm Possessors of the Crown may challenge Authority and Power of Ministry of Divine service in the Church wherein her said Subjects be much abused by such evil-disposed persons for certainly her Majesty neither doth nor ever will challenge any other Authority than that was challeng'd and lately us'd by the said noble Kings of famous Memory K. Henry the 8th and K. Edward the 6th which is and was of ancient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm That is under God to have the the Soveraignty and Rule over all manner of persons born within these Realms Dominions and Countries of what estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be SO AS no other forreign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them And if any person that hath conceived any other sense of the form of the said Oath shall accept the same Oath with this Interpretation sense or meaning her Majesty is well pleased to accept every such in that behalf as her good and obedient Subjects and shall acquit them of all manner of Penalties contain'd in the said Act against such as shall Peremptorily or Obstinately refuse to take the same Oath 34. That the Popes Pastoral or purely Spiritual Power is not deny'd in this Admonition may be collected from her saying there that the Oath was requir'd of certain Persons for the Recognition of their Allegiance and such as was in Ancient and so Catholick times due to the Crown For the Recognition of which no Exclusion need or ought to be made of that Power of the Pope which is no way Repugnant to it but so he use his Power as he ought and if he do not he is not to be obey'd a Commander of it Next from the words so as no forreign power c. shall or ought to have any Superiority over them First because the proper and common that is first sense of the words Power and Superiority is Temporal Next because Superiority is not joynd here to the Pope as Prelate but as forreign Power or Prince And therefore is by being apply'd to it determin'd to a civil sense and so are both of them determin'd to the same by being us'd in an explication of a Law and in in a matter of Allegiance and Soveraignty over all Persons 35. Lastly because the words SO AS must either retain their most proper sense and be an answer to the Great Question that caus'd this Admonition which was how she pretended to be Supream Governour in all causes Spiritual whether as a Queen or as an Administer of divine service in the Church which therefore seems to be a sense of those words directly belonging to her Purpose And then 't is evident that the following words can signify only Temporal Authority For if it be ask'd after what manner is the Queen Supream Governess whether after a Civil or Spiritual manner and it be answer'd after such a manner as no forreign power hath or ought to have any Superiority which is the same as if it had been answer'd after a civil manner since it was then known to all that no forreign power had a Superiority after a civil manner and as certainly known that the Pope had one de facto at least after a Spiritual manner It follows out of this Answer that she hath the Supreme Government after a Civil manner because 't is the same thing to say she hath the Supreme Rule after that manner as no Forreigner hath any as to say she hath it after a Civil Manner Of which Truth she endeavour'd to perswade simple deluded People 36. Or the words SO AS must mean the same as SO THAT And then we must either say the Pope's Pastoral power is not excluded by the words following or elss that no Coherent sense is in them For in case it be excluded the sense must be The Queen hath the whole Temporal rule over all persons so that no Forreigner hath power to Preach Christ's Doctrine or she is Queen so that no Forreigner is a Preacher or Pastor might not she as pertinently say she is Queen so that no French