grant preserve and defend the Rights of the Church 1. FOR first If you consider the King but as a Man in his meer Moral Capacity were it not an unnatural act to betray his best Friends those that to phrase it in e 1 Kings ii 26. King Solomons words have really been afflicted in all wherein the King hath been afflicted And yet this Salomon spake of such a Priest Abiathar who though Loyal in Absalom's Rebellion 2 Sam. xv 24. yet as here too many of our Tribe proved an errand Traitor in Adonijah's second Rebellion 1 Kings i. 7. But our constancy God be thanked makes our case the better For should the King deal worse with his Innocent with his Loyal Priests Nay could the King save the whole Kingdome from ruine by giving but his Consent to take away the Life or but Livelihood of but one Innocent man that we say not a Bishop or a Priest we may safely say by the rules of bare Moral Honesty the King might not do it in Point of Honour as the King is a man 2. But secondly consider the King in his Political Capacity as a Magistrate and of all other Estates or Corporations whatsoever by your own rules the King is bound in Conscience and Law both to defend and provide for the Church as his perpetual Ward in Law since as you say your selves and your own f Sir Edward Coke upon Magna Charta page 3. See the several Records to this purpose quoted by him there Records say no less Ecclesia semper est infrà aetatem in Custodia Domini Regis qui tenetur Jura haereditates suas manu tenere defendere in point of Justice as he is a Magistrate that we say nothing of the INTEREST OF STATE for no State in the whole Realm is more beneficial unto the Princes Exchequer then the Clergy if it be kept flourishing not only because they are deepest in Subsidies but because from the Clergy and so from no other Estate in the Land the King hath a considerable continual standing Revenue of Tenths besides First-fruits c. so that the King will be a loser by the bargain when all is done and * Ezra vi 22. Why should damage grow to the hurt of the King and we hold our Peace 3. But to wave that Temporal respect Thirdly and lastly how much more is the King ingag'd to the Defence of the Church besides his Royal Title of DEFENDER OF THE FAITH which is preserved in and by the Church in point of Conscience or Spiritual Interest if you consider the King in his Spiritual Capacity as a Christian man for that relation trebbles the Kings Obligation to all the premised Acts of Justice and Honesty 4. Especially if in the fourth place you adde to all these Bonds the Solemn Supervention of his Royal Oath Personally taken by the King at his Coronation and to declare his Majesties sincere and plain dealing and his Real Intention to keep his said Oath His Majesty hath therefore graciously been pleased himself thus to publish it 5. In that Oath the King Swears in a manner thrice for the Clergy particularly and so for no other Estate of the Realm besides to intimate that as your Law †8 Esiz c. 1. In the Preamble styles The Clergy a High State and one of the greatest States of this Realm so it deserves a special care and high regard proportionable Therefore as in the first Paragraph g At the Kings Coronation the Sermon being done the Arch-Bishop administreth these Questions to the King and the King Answers them severally §. 1. Episcopus Sir will you grant and keep and by Your Oath confirm to the People of England the Laws and Customs to them granted by the Kings of England Your Lawful and Religious Predecessors and namely THE LAWS CUSTOMS AND FRANCHISES GRANTED TO THE CLERGY by the glorious King Saint Edward Your Predecessor according to the Laws of God the true profession of the Gospel established in this Kingdom and agreeable to the Prerogative of the Kings thereof and the ancient Customs of this Realm Rex I grant and promise to keep them §. 2. Episcopus Sir will You keep Peace and Godly agreement entirely according to Your Power both to God the Holy Church the Clergy and the People Rex I will keep it §. 3. Episcopus Sir will You to your Power cause Law Justice and Discretion in Mercy and Truth to be executed in all Your Judgments Rex I will §. 4. Episcopus Sir will you grant to hold and keep the Laws and rightful Customs which the Commonalty of this Your Kingdom have and will You defend and uphold them to the Honour of God so much as in you lieth Rex I grant and promise so to do Then one of the Bishops reads this Admonition to the King before the people with a loud voice §. 5. Our Lord the King we beseech You to pardon and to grant and to preserve unto us and to the Churches committed to our charge ALL CANONICAL PRIVILEDGES and due Law and Justice and that you will protect and defend us as every good King ought TO BE PROTECTOR AND DEFENDER OF THE BISHOPS and the Churches under their Government The King Answereth With a willing and devout heart I promise and grant my Pardon and that I will preserve and maintain to you and the Churches committed to your Charge all Canonical Priviledges and due Law and Justice and that I will be your Protector and Defender to my Power by the assistance of God as every good King in his Kingdom in right ought to Protect and defend the Bishops and the Churches under their Government Then the King ariseth and it led to the Communion Table where he makes a Solemn Oath in sight of all the people to observe the Premisses and laying his hand upon the Book saith The Oath The things that I have here Promised I shall perform and keep so help me God and the Contents of this Book This Oath is to be found in the Records of the Exchequer and is published in his Majesties Answer to a Remonstrance c. of the 26. of May 1642. The same Oath for matter you may read in an old Manuscript Book containing the Form of Coronation c. in the Publick Library at Oxon. of that Oath the King Swears in general to do Justice and Right with Mercy and Truth unto all the whole body of the People and the Clergy joyntly so afterwards more particularly in the second and fifth Paragraphs the King Swears in special for the Clergy and that He will be the Protector and Defender of the Bishops in their Priviledges that is not only or their Persons but of their Possessions also that is of their Persons in such a Condition so qualified in sensu composito with such Rights and Liberties and those Rights must needs pre-suppose their Essence and Office too and that as it was then in being according to
Vbique and that semper and that ab omnibus The genuine Marks of what is truly Catholick yet since 't is our hard hap to live in an Age that puts us to the Necessity of proving Principles we will be at the cost to prove all God willing 1. That to our Substance God himself is Intituled two manner of ways not onely by his General Title of Creation as he is Lord Paramount of the whole World but by a more peculiar Title and proper Right to some Parcels of the whole and for the whole 3. These two Titles as they are distinct for the first universal Right is in and from God himself The second particular Right is our own Act of Donation in acknowledgment of God's universal Right So may these two Titles very well stand together so far are they as some cavil about it from being incompatible or excluding one the other that the one is naturally founded upon the other to wit the special Title upon the universal for because Jure Creationis God is Lord of all therefore very fit it is since that Title is perpetual under the Gospel as well as before and under the Law that Jure Religionis too we and all Mankind should still acknowledge him to be such and testifie this our acknowledgment by a thankful Return of some part for the whole as it were our Pepper-corn-Rent In signum universalis Dominii as the Schools phrase it in token of our Homage to the great Land-Lord of Heaven and Earth and for the support with Honour and Credit of his own publick Service 4. And that Retribution God expects at our hands still proportionable to his bounty and our ability be it more be it less in Moveables or Vnmoveables in Rents or * In some parts of Europe the Priest's Maintenance lieth wholly in Lands Selden in Lands For instance when God allowed his People but Tents for themselves himself also was content to dwell in a Tent or a Tabernacle but when he was pleased to allow them Houses of Cedars then common sense made up the Argument (h) 1 Chron. 17.1 in David's Heart and Mouth and Hand and all It was no longer fit the Ark of the Lord should remain under Curtains and thereupon unbidden devout David (i) 1 Chron. 29.11 O Lord all that is in the Heaven and in the Earth is thine 14. All things come of thee and of thine own have we given thee 16. O Lord our God all this store that we have prepared to build thee an House for thy holy Name cometh of thine hands and is all thine own 17. I know also my God that thou triest the Heart and hast pleasure in uprightness Uprightness is assurance enough of God's Acceptance In the Uprightness of my Heart I have willingly offered all these things and now have I seen with Joy thy People which are present here to offer willingly unto thee expresly upon the premised grounds of 1. Homage 2. In thankefulness 3. For the service of his Maker prepares that solemn Royal-Offering recorded in the Chronicles for our Imitation for David's fact in this particular was no part of the Levitical Service And so far was God from rejecting David's Offering as a piece of Will-worship because not expresly commanded that contrarywise for our encouragement God directly commends (k) Go and tell David my servant thus saith the Lord Thou shalt not build me an house 1 Chron. 17.4 Nevertheless whereas it was in thine heart to build an house unto my Name THOU DIDDEST WELL THAT IT WAS IN THINE HEART 1 Kings 8.18 And therefore I will build thee an house 1 Chron. 17.10 The purpose could not be unlawful so long as it was not expresly forbidden for where no Law is there is no Transgression Rom. 4.15 As there was no command for it so there was no command against it and that is enough to clear the Offerer from Will-worship David's devout purpose even then when for some personal causes he forbids the performance 5. And except they will say that we under the Gospel are less obliged to God than they were under the Law then sure this example as far as it is Moral and not Typical concerns us as much nay more than it did them or any the Priviledges of our Christendom as far surpassing the bare natural or legal Advantages as our Redemption excels our Creation 6. Behold in the Root of this discourse the very first Original of Tythes and Offerings the two main branches to which the whole Portion of Religion God's special Demesnes and mans Devotions in this kind are reducible 7. By the first of these Tythes God Almighty himself seems to have pointed out unto us and to all Mankind that for the general he well approves of and accepts too this very way of divine Homage or Appropriation witness 1. His own Original Reservation of a Part and for the Quota it self of a tenth part accordingly paid unto God in his Priest Melchizedech under the Law of Nature an example if Typical yet all over full of reference to the State under the Gospel as some (l) Heb. 7. See Sacriledge sacredly handled by Sir James Sempill have at large made it good for this was long before the Levitical Law by above (m) Gen. 14. Abraham paid Tythes to Melchizedeck An. M. 2030. and the Law positive about Tythes and Offerings Num. 18. was not enacted till the year 2454. 400 years and about 150 years after Jacob (n) Gen. 28.22 in his Vow pitcheth again upon the very same Quota no doubt induced by the same Precedent and upon the same grounds which and 't is very strange unless it were founded upon something more universal yea and perpetual too than the Jew 's Ceremonial Law was the Practice not onely then of an Abraham or a Jacob men within the Pale of the Church but long after this above 1300 years after of a Roman (o) Plutarchus in Camillo Tuo ductu Pythice Apollo pergo ad delendam Urbem Veios tibique hinc Decimam partem praedae voveo B. Brissonius de formulis l. 1. p. 95. 96. Camillus c. meer Heathen themselves happen upon the self same Quota witness those old Inscriptions in Brissonius where just as Abraham to Melchizedeck so the Pagan Votary devotes the Tenth of his spoyls of the Hetrurian City unto his Apollo just as the Israelite so the Heathen agrees upon the matter of the Vow as well as upon the form to do it thus voluntarily by way of Vow which supervenient Tye is so far from being superfluous that it rather adds very much to our natural obligation we being naturally so dull and backward to perform what the Law requires and so fickle too and frail to persevere in our duty we had need of all these Moral bonds to deterre us from the violation and to * Duplex vinculum fortiùs ligat strengthen and to stir us up unto Devotion 8. Such holy Vows
repeat the so many several complaints of your own Gildâ—sses of old nor of late of your Gilpins Ridleys Latimers Tindals Jewels Hookers Andrewsses and of so many more nor their several sad Considerations Prophecies and humble Petitions put as it were up in their Sermons and Epistles yet extant and directed to their several Kings and Queens even then when this Serpent was but a Scorpion in the Egge what then would all those Å¿ Bern. Gilpin in a Serm. at Greenwich An. 1552. before Edw. 6. B. Ridley in his Le ter to Mr. Cheek July 23. 1551. from Fulham among the Letters of the Martyrs by Miles Coverdail p. 683. Lond. 1564. Latimers Serm. of Covetousness Grindals Manuscript Letter to Q. Elizabeth 1580. Jewel's Sermons on Hag. 1. v. 2 3 4. and on Psal 69.9 Hooker B. 5. of Eccles Polit. B. Andrews did much finde fault and reprove three sins too common and raigning in this latter age 1. One was Usury c. 2. Another was Simony c. The third and greatest was Sacriledge which he did abhor as one principal Cause among many of the Forreign and Civil Wars in Christendom and Invasion of the Turks wherein even the Reformed and otherwise the true Professors and Servants of Christ because they took GODS PORTION turned away it to publick prophane uses or to private advancements dâ—d suffer just Chastisement and Correction at Gods hand And at home it had been observed and he wished some man would take the pains to collect how many Families that were raised by the Spoils of the Church were now vanished and the place thereof knows them no more See the Sermon Preached at the Funeral of the Lord Bishop Andrews by the then Lord Bishop of R chester Anno 1626. forty years ago good men have said think you had they been so unhappy as to live to our Sacrilegious dayes to see this sin grown to the stature of a full Dragon indeed 4. But lest these being but Domestici testes should seem partial in their own cause therefore we intend to cite none but the Masters of the Reformation abroad whom you shall hear crying aloud against the Sacriledge of the Reformers in their several times and places charging them with deep Hypocrisie damnable Avarice and what not and that under pretence of Reformation they did but intend nay practice Robbery in the Usurpation of those Church Revenues that were Dedicated to God for the maintenance of his Ministers of such free and full strains their Writings are top full 5. And yet to prove all this we will only single out one eminent Triumvirat of such witnesses as we are confident even with these men we are pleading against will be most free from all exception They be Luther Calvin and Knox as it were so many Delegates for Germany France and Scotland the Three great Foreign Stages of the Reformation 6. According to their Seniority the first main Witness we produce in the behalf of our Cause is Luther who preaching on that ample Text of S. Paul to the Galathians t Quoties lego Pauli Adhortationes c. This Testimony being prolixe we will only extract the most Emphatical points in it and refer the Reader to the Author at large Summa homines videntur degenerare in Bestias Satan horrendissimum malum hoc vehementer urget per Impios Magistratus in Civitatib Nobiles in Rure qui BONA ECCLESIARUM ex quibus Ministri debebant vivere rapiunt c. Tangit autem acu mores Nostratium qui securissimè nostrum Ministerium contemnunt Praecipuè Nobiles qui pastores suos sibi tanquam viles Servos obnoxios faciunt nisi haberemus tam pium amâ—ntem veritatâ—s Principem Jam dudum ex his terris èxturbassent nos Exclamant quando pastores postulant aut queruntur Sacerdotes avarisunt Insatiabiles Tyranni subsannatores Dei videri tamen volunt Evangelici Puniet Deus acerrimum odium vestrum in Ministroâ— Ferox Nobilitas Cives Rustici cum periculum moâ—â—is Instabit sentient Comminationem quam rident Deus enim non irrideâ—ur Sint illa PAPAE BONA per meram Imposturam coacervata tamen Deus Spolians Aegyptios hoc est Papistas suis Bonis tranfert ea in locis nostris in pium usum Non quando Nobiles rapiunt transferunt in abusum sed quando ij qui gloriam Dei annunciant inde aluntur Sciamus igitur nos bonâ Conscientià posse fruâ— BONIS ECCLESIASTICIS See at large Luther himself on Galat. 6.6 Let him that is taught in the word communicate unto him that teacheth in all good things you may call this the Ministers Magna Charta indeed irrevocable by any humane Authority or Municipal Laws whatsoever for I hope none of our Religion will presume herein to shake hands wth the Pope to pretend a Power to dispense Contrà Apostolum Luthers Gloss upon St. Paul doth so fit our Meridian in almost all the particulars as if it had been penned but yesterday here in England not a hundred years ago nor so far as Germany St. Basil somewhere argues that the Holy Ghost was no doubt very God because he was present at the same time with Habakkuk in the Field Jeremy in the Dungeon Daniel in the Den witness the Concordance of their Prophecies I stand not now upon the truth of the Chronology but only I do observe that sure there is somewhat more then ordinary of Gods publick Spirit in this publick Cause of the Church seeing that all these men of several Nations at that distance of times and places yet still consort in a Harmony however their Descant do vary their Ground is one and the same and all of them joyntly constant unisones against this particular kinde of Sacriledge namely the Converting of the Lands and Possessions c. formerly given to Superstitious or Popish Uses unto Lay-Uses and that also which is worth the observing after those Superstitious Officers and Offices Mass-Priests and Popish Monks c. had by lawful Authority not so here the Bishops and Deans been abolished But now * It is to me a wonder how those Declaimers against such alienations of Cathedral Lands can with any forehead produce such eminent Protestant Authors as bearing witness for them against this practice after the Offices be all at an end Cornelius Burges in the Preface to his Sacrilegious Book where like another Goliah 1 Sam. xvii 10 he bids defiance to all Fathers Canonists Schoolmen Protestants though never so eminent if they dare cross his way to his Mammon of Iniquity by Cornelius Burges his leave let the Witnesses be heard to cite them with their reasons will be enough to confute him To begin with Luther if you please but tacitly all along to apply him to Cornelius Burges his Case †A Case concerning the Buying of Bishps Lands with the Lawfulness thereof presented to his Parliament Anno 1650. as a Prodromus to his Book for Sacriledge you