power on the Common-prayer Book but it is not so there being a specification of the holy daies in the book it selfe with this direction These to be observed for holy daies and none other in which the Feasts of the Conversion of St. Paul and the Apostle Barnabas are omitted plainly and upon which specification the Stat. 5. 6. Ed. 6. cap. 3. which concerns the holy daies seemes most exprestly to be built And for the Offices on those daies in the Common-prayer Book you may please to know that every holy-day consisteth of two speciall parts that is to say Rest or cessation from bodily labour and celebration of Diuine or Religious duties and that the dayes before remembred are so far kept holy as to have still their proper and peculiar Offices which is observed in all the Cathedralls of this kingdome and the Chappels Royall where the service is read every day and in most Parish churches also as oft as eyther of them fals upon a Sunday though the people be not on those daies enjoyned to rest from bodily labour no more then on the Coronation day or the fifth of November which yet are reckoned by the people for a kind of holy daies Put all which hath been said together and the summe is this That the proceedings of this Church in the Reformation were not meerly Regall as it is objected by some Puritans much lesse that they were Parliamentarian in so great a work as the Papists falsely charge upon us the Parliaments for the most part doing little in it but that they were directed in a justifiable way the worke being done Synodically by the Clergie only according to the usage of the Primitive times the King concurring with them and corroborating what they had resolved on eyther by his own single Act in his Letters Patent Proclamations and Injunctions or by some publique Act of State as in times and by Acts of Parliament 5. Of the power of making Canons for the well ordering of the Clergy and the directing of the People in the publique duties of Religion WE are now come to the last part of this Designe unto the Power of making Canons in which the Parliament of England have had lesse to doe than in eyther of the other which are gone before Concerning which I must desire you to remember that the Clergy who had power before to make such Canons and Constitutions in their Convocations as to them seemed meet promised the King in verbo Sacerdotii not to Enact or Execute any new Canons but by his Majesties royall Assent and by his Authority first obteined in that behalfe Which is thus briefly touched upon in the Antiq. Britan. in the life of William Warham Archbishop of Canterbury Clerus in verbo Sacerdotii fidem Regi dedit ne ullas deinceps in Synodo ferrent Ecclesiasticas leges nisi Synodus authoritate Regiâ congregata Constitutiones in Synodis publicatae eadem authoritate ratae essent Upon which ground I doubt not but I might securely raise this proposition That whatsoever the Clergy did or might doe lawfully before the Act of Submission in their Convocation of their owne power without the Kings authority and consent concurring the same they can and may doe still since the said Act of their Submission the Kings authority and consent cooperating with them in their Counsailes and giving confirmation to their Constitutions Further it doth appeare by the aforesaid Act. 25. H. 8. c. 19. That all such Canons Constitutions Ordinances and Synodalls Provinciall as were made before the said Submission which be not contrariant nor repugnant to the Lawes Statutes and Customes of this Realm nor to the Damage or hurt of the Kings prerogative Royall were to be used and executed as in former times And by the Statute 26. H. 8. c. 1. Of the Kings Supremacy that according to the Recognition made in Convocation our said Soveraigne Lord his Heires and Successors Kings of this Realm shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit represse reform order correct c. all such errors heresies abuses offences contempts and enormities whatsoever they be c. as may be most to the pleasure of Almighty God the increase of virtue in Christs Religion and for the peace unity and tranquillity of this Realm and the confirmation of the same So that you see these severall waies of ordering matters for the publique weale and governance of the Church First by such ancient Canons and Constitutions as being made in former times are still in force Secondly By such new Canons as are or shall be made in Convocation with and by the Kings Consent And thirdly by the sole authority of the Soveraigne Prince according to the Precedents laid down in the book of God and the best ages of the Church Concerning which you must remember what was said before viz. that the Statutes which concern the Kings Supremacy are Declaratory of an old Power only not introductory of a new which said we shall the better see whether the Parliament have had any thing to doe either in making Canons or prescribing Orders for the regulating of Spirituall and Ecclesiasticall matters and unto whom the same doth of right belong according to the Lawes of the Realm of England And first King Henry being restored to his Head-ship or Supremacy call it which you will did not conceive himself so absolute in it though at first much enamor'd of it as not some times to take his Convocation with him but at all times to be advised by his Prelates when he had any thing to doe that concerned the Church for which there had been no provision made by the Ancient Canons grounding most times his Edicts and Injunctions Royall upon their advise and resolution For on this ground I mean the judgement and conclusions of his Convocation did he set out the Injunctions of the yeare 1536. for the abolishing of superstitious and superfluous holy daies the exterminating of the Popes authority the publishing of the book of Articles which before we spake of num 8. by all Parsons Vicars and Curats for preaching down the use of Images Reliques Pilgrimages and superstitious Miracles for rehearsing openly in the Church in the English tongue the Creed the Pater-noster and the ten Commandements for the due and reverent ministring of the Sacraments and Sacramentals for providing English Bibles to be set up in every Church for the use of the people for the regular and sober life of Clergy men and the releefe of the poore And on the other side the King proceeded some times only by the advice of his Prelates as in the Injunctions of the yeare 1538. for quarterly Sermons in each Parish for admitting none to preach but men sufficiently Licensed for keeping a Register book of Christnings Weddings and Burialls for the due paying of Tythes as had been accustomed for the abolishing of the commemoration of St. Tho. Becket for singing Parce nobis
Scriptures and permitting them to bee read in the English Tongue THE second step towards the worke of Reformation and indeed one of the most especiall parts thereof was the Translation of the Bible into the English Tongue and the permitting all sorts of people to peruse the same as that which visibly did tend to the discovery of the errors and corruptions in the Church of Rome and the intolerable Pride and Tyranny of the Romane Prelates upon which grounds it had beene formerly translated into English by the hand of Wickliff and after on the spreading of Luther's Doctrine by the paines of Tyndall a stout and active man in king Henries daies but not so well befreinded as the worke deserved especially considering that it happened in such a time when many printed Pamphlets did disturbe the State and some of them of Tindals making which seemed to tend unto Sedition and the change of Government Which being remonstrated to the King he caused divers of his Bishops together with sundry of the learnedest and most eminent Divines of all the Kingdome to come before him whom he required freely and plainly to declare aswell what their opinion was of the foresaid Pamphlets as what they did thinke fit to be done concerning the Translation of the Bible into the English Tongue And they upon mature advise and deliberation unanimously condemned the aforesaid bookes of Heresie and Blasphemie no smaller crime Then for translating of the Scriptures into the English tongue they agreed all with one assent that it depended wholly on the Will and Pleasure of the Soveraign Prince who might doe therein as he conceived to be most agreeable to his occasions but that with reference to the present estate of things it was more expedient to explaine the Scripture to the people by the way of Sermons then to permit it to be read promiscuously by all sorts of men yet so that hopes were to be given unto the Laity that if they did renounce their errours and presently deliver to the hands of his Majesties Officers all such bookes and Bibles which they conceived to bee translated with great fraud and falshood as any of them had in keeping his Majesty would cause a true and catholick Translation of it to be published in convenient time for the use of his Subjects This was the summe and substance of the present Conference which you shall finde laid downe at large in the Registers of Archbishop Warham And according to this advice the King sets out a Proclamation not only prohibiting the buying reading or translating of any the aforesaid bookes but straitly charging all his Subjects which had any of the bookes of Scripture eyther of the old Testament or of the new in the English tongue to bring them in without delay But for the other part of giving hopes unto the people of a true Translation if they delivered in the false or that at least which was pretended to be false I finde no word at all in the Proclamation That was a worke reserved unto better times or left to be sollicited by the Bishops themselves and other learned men who had given the counsell by whom indeede the people were kept up in hope that all should bee accomplished unto their desires And so indeed it proved at last For in the Convocation of the yeare 1536. the authority of the Pope being abrogated and Cranmer fully setled in the See of Canterbury the Clergy did agree upon a forme of Petition to be presented to the King that he would graciously indulge unto his Subjects of the Laity the reading of the Bible in the English tongue and that a new Translation of it might be forth with made for that end and purpose According to which godly motion his Majesty did not only give order for a new Translation which afterwards he authorized to be read both in publique and private but in the interim he permitted Cromwell his Vicar-Generall to set out an Injunction for providing the whole Bible both in Latine and English after the translation then in use which was call'd commonly by the name of Matthew's Bible but was indeede no other than that of Tyndall somewhat altered to be kept in every parish Church throughout the kingdome for every one that would to repaire unto and caused this marke or character of authority to be set upon them in red Letters Set forth with the Kings most Gracious Licence which you may see in Fox his Acts Monum. p. 1248. 1363 Afterwards when the new Translation so often promised and so long expected was complete and finished printed at London by the Kings authority and countenanced by a grave and pious Preface of Archbishop Cranmer the King sets out a Proclamation dated May 6. An. 1541. Commanding all the Curates and Parishioners throughout the kingdome who were not already furnished with Bibles so authorized and translated as before is said to provide themselves before Alhallowtide next following and to cause the Bibles so provided to be placed conveniently in their severall and respective Churches straitly requiring all his Bishops and other Ordinaries to take speciall care to see his said Commands put in execution And therewithall came out Instructions from the King to be published by the Clergy in their severall parishes the better to possesse the people with the Kings good affection towards them in suffering them to have the benefit of such heavenly Treasure and to direct them in a course by which they might enjoy the same to their greater comfort the reformation of their lives and the peace and quiet of the Church Which Proclamation and Instructions are still preserved in that most admirable Treasury of Sir Robert Cotton And unto these Commands of so great a Prince both Bishops Priests and People did apply themselves with such cheerefull reverence that Bonner even that bloody butcher as he after proved caused sixe of them to be chayned in severall places of Saint Paul's Church in London for all that were so well inclined to resort unto for their edification and instruction the booke being very chargeable because very large and therefore called commonly for distinctions sake The Bible of the greater Volume Thus have we seene the Scriptures faithfully Translated into the English Tongue the Bible publickly set up in all parish-churches that ev'ry one wch would might peruse the same and leave permitted to all people to buy them for their private uses and reade them to themselves or before their families and all this brought about by no other meanes than by the Kings authority only grounded on the advice and judgement of the Convocation But long it was not I confesse before the Parliament put in for a share and claimed some interest in the worke but whether for the better or the worse I leave you to judge For in the yeare 1542 the King being then in agitation of a league with Charles the Emperour he caused a complaint to be made unto him in his Court of Parliament That
the liberty granted to the people in having in their hands the bookes of the old and new Testament had beene much abused by many false glosses and interpretations which were made upon them tending to the seducing of the people especially of the younger sort and the raysing of sedition within the Realme And thereupon it was enacted by the authority of the Parliament on whom he was content to cast the envy of an Act so contrary to his former gracious Proclamations that all manner of bookes of the old and new Testament of the crafty false and untrue Translation of Tyndall be forthwith abolished and forbidden to be used and kept As also that all other Bibles not being of Tyndalls translation in which were found any Preambles or Annotations other than the quotations or Summaries of the Chapters should be purged of the said Preambles and Annotations eyther by cutting them out or blotting them in such wise that they might not be perceived or read And finally that the Bible be not read openly in any Church but by the leave of the King or of the Ordinary of the place nor privately by any Women Artificers Prentices Iourneymen Husbandmen Labourers or by any of the servants of Yeomen or under with severall paines to those who should doe the contrary This is the substance of the Statute of the 34. 35. H. 8. cap. 1. which though it shewes that there was somewhat done in Parliament in a matter which concern'd Religion which howsoever if you marke it was rather the adding of the penalties than giving any resolution or decision of the points in Question yet I presume the Papists will not use this for an Argument that we have eyther a Parliament-Religion or a Parliament-Gospell or that we stand indebted to the Parliament for the use of the Scriptures in the English Tongue which is so principall a part of the Reformation Nor did the Parliament speede so prosperously in the undertakiug which the wise King permitted them to have an hand in for the foresaid ends or found so generall an obedience in it from the common people as would have beene expected in these times on the like occasion but that the King was faine to quicken and give life to the Acts thereof by his Proclamatiom An. 1546. which you shall find in Fox his booke fol. 1427. To drive this nayle a little farther The terror of this Statute dying with H. 8. or being repealed by that of K. E. 6. 1 E. 6. c. 12. the Bible was againe made publique and not only suffered to be read by particular persons either privately or in the Church but ordered to be read over yearely in the Congregation as a part of the Liturgy or divine Service which how farre it relates to the Court of Parliament we shall see anon But for the publishing thereof in print for the use of the people for the comfort and edification of private persons that was done only by the King at least in his name and by his authority And so it also stood in Q. Elizabeths time the Translation of the Bible being againe reviewed by some of the most learned Bishops appointed thereunto by the Queenes Commission from whence it had the name of the Bishops-Bible and upon that Review reprinted by her sole Commandement and by her sole authority left free and open to the use of her well affected and Religious Subjects Nor did the Parliament doe any thing in all her Reigne with reference to the Scriptures in the English tongue otherwise than as the reading of them in that tongue in the Congregation is to be reckoned for a part of the English Liturgy whereof more hereafter In the translation of them into Welch or British somewhat indeed was done which doth looke this way It being ordered in the Parliament 5. Eliz. c. 28. That the B. B. of Hereford St. Davids Bangor Landaffe and St. Asaph Should take care amongst them for translating the whole Bible with the booke of Common Prayer into the Welch or British tongue on paine of forfeiting 40 a peece in default hereof And to encourage them thereunto it was enacted that one booke of either sort being so translated and imprinted should be provided and bought for every Cathedrall Church as also for all parish Churches and Chappells of ease where the said tongue is commonly used the Ministers to pay the one halfe of the price and the parishioners the other But then you must observe withall that it had beene before determined in the Convocation of the selfe same yeare An. 1562. That the Common-prayer of the Church ought to be celebrated in a tongue which was understood by the people as you may see in the booke of Articles of Religion Art 24. which came out that yeare and consequently as well in the Welch or British as in any other And for the new Translation of K. Iames his time to shew that the Translation of Scripture is no worke of Parliament as it was principally occasioned by some passages in the Conference at Hampton Court without recourse unto the Parliament so was it done only by such men as the King appointed and by his authority alone imprinted published and imposed care being taken by the Canon of the yeare 1603. That one of them should be provided for each severall Church at the charge of the Parish No flying in this case to an Act of Parliament either to authorize the doing of it or to impose it being done 3. Of the Reformation of Religion in points of Doctrine NExt let us look upon the method used in former times in the reforming of the Church whether in points of Doctrine or in formes of Worship and we shall find it still the same The Clergy did the worke as to them seemed best never advising with the Parliament but upon the post fact and in most cases not at all And first for Doctrinals there was but little done in king Henries time but that which was acted by the Clergie only in their Convocations and so commended to the people by the Kings sole authority the matter never being brought within the cognizance of the two Houses of Parliament For in the yeare 1536 being the yeare in which the Popes authoritie was for ever banished there were some Articles agreed on in the Convocation and represented to the King under the hands of all the Bishops Abbats Priors and inferiour Clergy usually called unto those meetings the Originall whereof being in Sir Robert Cottons Library I have often seene which being approved of by the King were forthwith published under the Title of Articles devised by the Kings Highnesse to stable Christian quietnesse and unity amongst the people In which it is to be observed first that those Articles make mention of 3 Sacraments only that is to say of Baptisme Penance and the Sacrament of the Altar And secondly that in the declaration of the Doctrine of Iustification Images honouring of the Saints departed as also concerning many
with the curiositie of the Ministers and mistakes of the People rather then for any other weighty cause As the Statute 5. 6. Ed. 6. cap. 1. it was thought expedient by the King with the Assent of the Lords and Commons in Parliament assembled that the said Order of Common-Service should be faithfully and godly perused explained and made fully perfect Perused and Explained by whom Why questionlesse by those who made it or else by those if they were not the same men who were appointed by the King to draw up and compose a Form of Ordination for the use of the Church And this Assent of theirs for it was no more was the only part that was ever acted by the Parliament in matter of this present nature save that a Statute passed in the former Parliament 3. 4. Ed. 6. c. 12. unto this effect that such Form and manner of making and consecrating Archbishops Bishops Priests Deacons and other Ministers of the Church which before I spake of as by six Prelates and six other men of this Realm learned in Gods Lawes by the King to be appointed and assigned shall be devised for that purpose and set forth under the Great Seale shall be lawfully used and exercised and none other Where note that the King only was to nominate and appoint the men the Bishops and other learned men were to make the book that the Parliament in a blinde obedience or at the least upon a charitable confidence in the integrity of the men so nominated did confirm that book before any of their Members had ever seene it though afterwards indeed in the following Parliament this book together with the book of Common-prayer so printed and explained retained a more formall confirmation as to the use thereof throughout the kingdome but in no other respect for which see the Statute 5. 6. Ed. 6. c. 1. As for the time of Q. Elizabeth when the Common prayer book now in use being the same almost with the last of King Edward was to be brought again into the Church from whence it was cast out in Q. Maries Reigne it was committed to the care of some learned men that is to say to Master Whitehead once Chaplain to Q. Anne Bullen Doctor Parker after Archbishop of Canterbury D. Grindall after Bishop of London D. Coxe after Bishop of Ely D. Pilkinton after Bishop of Durham D. May Deane of S. Paules D. Bill Provost of Eaton after Deane of Westminster and Sr. Tho. Smith By whom being alter'd in some few passages which the Statute points to 1 Eliz. cap. 21. It was presented to the Parliament and by the Parliament received and established without more adoe or troubling any Committee of both or either Houses to consider of it for ought appeares in their Records All that the Parliament did in it being to put it into the condition in which it stood before in King Ed. Reigne partly by repealing the Repeale of King Ed. Statutes made in the 1 of Q. Mary cap. 2. and partly by the adding of some farther penalties on such as did deprave the book or neglect to use it or wilfully did absent themselves from their parish-Churches And for the Alterations made therein in King Iames his time being small and in the Rubrick only and for the additions of the Thanksgivings at the end of the Letany the Prayer for the Queen and the royall Issue and the doctrine of the Sacraments at the end of the Catechisme which were not in the book before they were never referred unto the Parliament but were done only by authority of the Kings Commission and stand in force by virtue only of his Proclamation which you may find before the book the charge of buying the said book so explained and altered being layd upon the severall and respective parishes by no other authority than that of of the eightieth Canon made in Convocation An. 1603. The like may also be affirmed of the Formes of Prayer for the Inauguration day of our Kings and Queenes the Prayer-books for the fifth of November and the fifth of August and those which have beene used in all publique Fasts All which without the help of Parliaments have been composed by the Bishops and imposed by the King Now unto this discourse of the Formes of Worship I shall subjoyn a word or two of the times of Worship that is to say the holy daies observed in the Church of England and so observed that they doe owe that observation cheifely to the Churches power For whereas it was found in the former times that the number of the holy daies was grown so great that they became a burden to the common people and a great hindrance to the thrift and manufactures of the kingdome there was a Canon made in the Convocation An. 1536 for cutting off of many superstitious and superfluous holy daies and the reducing them unto the number in which now they stand save that St. Georges day and Mary Magdalens day and all the Festivals of the blessed Virgin had their place amongst them according to which Canon there went out a Monitory from the Archibishop of Canterbury to all the Suffragans of his Province respectively to see the same observed in their severall Diocesses which is still extant on Record But being the authority of the Church was then in the wane it was thought necessary to confirm their Acts and see execution done upon it by the Kings Injunction which did accordingly come forth with this Form or preamble That the abolishing of the said holy daies was Decreed ordained and established by the kings Highnesse Authority as supreme Head in Earth of the Church of England with the common consent and assent of the Prelates and Clergy of this his Realm in Convocation lawfully assembled and Congregate Of which see Fox his Acts and Monuments fol. 1246.1247 Afterwards in the yeare 1541. The King perceiving with what difficulty the People were induced to leave off those holy daies to which they had been so long accustomed published his Proclamation of the twenty third of Iuly for the abolishing of such holy daies amongst other things as were prohibited before by his Injunctions both built upon the same foundation namely the resolution of the Clergy in their Convocation And so it stood untill the Reigne of King E. 6. at what time the Reformation of the publique Liturgy drew after it by consequence an alteration in the present businesse no daies being to be kept or accounted holy but those for which the Church had set apart a peculiar office and not all those neither For whereas there are severall and peculiar offices for the day of the Conversion of Saint Paul and the day of St. Barnabas the Apostles neither of these are kept as holy daies nor reckoned or esteemed as such in the Act of Parliament wherein the names and number of the holy daies is precisely specified which makes some think the Act of Parliament to have had an over-ruling