swim in abundance were changed into a competent maintenance And lastly So as all opinion of satisfaction and supererogation were removed I do not see why monasteries might not agree well enough with reformed devotion So then Henry the eighth at the time of his secession from Rome and long after even so long as he lived was neither friend nor favourer of the ensuing reformation nor ordinarily of Protestants in their persons As may yet more manifestly appear by that cruel statute of the Six Articles which he made after all this in the one and thirtieth year of his raign as a trap to catch the Lives of the poore Protestants A Law both writ in blood and executed in blood But suppose that Henry the eighth had been a friend to Protestants what shall we say to all the Orders of the Kingdom what shall we say to the Synods to the Universities to the four and twenty Bishops and nine and twenty Abbats who consented to this Act were all these Schismaticks were Heath Bonner Tonstall Gardiner Stokesley Thurleby c. all Schismaticks If they were then Schismaticks were the greatest opposers of the reformation the greatest enemies of the Protestants and the greatest pillars and upholders of the Roman religion These were they that granted the Supremacy to King Henry the eighth Archbishop Warham told him it was his right to have it before the Pope These were they that preached up the Supremacy of the King at S. Paul's Crosse and defended his Supremacy in printed books These consented to the Acts of Parliament for his Supremacy and the extinguishing of the power of the Roman Bishop in England These were they who helped to make the oath of Supremacy and took it themselves and all others of any note throughout England except onely Fisher Bishop of Rochester and Sir Thomas Moor who were in prison before it was enacted for opposing the Kings Marriage and the succession of his Children to the Crown after it was ordained in Parliament And wise men have thought that the former had taken it if he had not been retarded by the expectation of a Cardinals hatt which was come as far as Calice Or rather what shall we say to the whole body of the Kingdome if we may believe the testimony of Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester a learned person of very near relation to King Henry and in all other things a great Zelot of the Roman Catholick party in his book of true obedience published with a Preface to it made by Bishop Bonner Thus he No forrein Bishop hath authority among us All sorts of people are agreed with us upon this point with most stedfast consent that no manner of person bred or brought up in England hath ought to do with Rome A full confession of an able adversary to which I see not what can be excepted unlesse it be said of him as it was of Aeneas Sylvius Stephanus probavit Wintoniensis negavit Doctour Gardiner approved it but the Bishop of Winchester retracted it Admit it were so as it was indeed what is that to the stedfast unanimous consent of the whole Kingdome which appears not onely from hence but from Tonstal's Epistle to Cardinal Pool and Bekenshaws Commentary of the Soveraign and absolute power of Kings As likewise of the difference between Kingly and Ecclesiastical power And lastly and principally by a book set forth by the English Convocation called The Institution of a Christian man And to shew yet further that Ireland was unanimoâ—â—â—â—erein with England we find in the three and thirtieth year of Henry the eighth which was before all thoughts of reformation not the Irish only as the O Neales O Relies O Birnes O Carols c. but also the English Families as the Desmonds Barries Râ—ches Bourks whose posterities do still continue Zealous Romanists did make their submissions by Indenture to Sir Anthony Sellenger then chief Governour of that Kingdom wherein they acknowledged King Henry to be their Soveraign Lord and confessed the Kings Supremacy in all causes and utterly renounced the Iurisdiction of the Pope So the Bishop of Winchester might well say that there was an Universal and stedfast consent in the separation from Rome The second exception weighes so little that it scarce deserveth an Answer Admitting but not granting that any or all the calumnies of that party against Henry the eighth were true whereof divers by their impossibility and by the contradiction of their authors do carry their own condemnation written in their foreheads And although Henry the eighth had been our Reformer as he was not yet all this would signifie nothing as to this present question God doth often good works by ill agents Iehu's heart was not upright towards the Lord yet God used him as an Instrument to reform his Church and to punish the worshippers of Baal We have heard of late of an aggregative treason not known before in the world But never untill now of an aggregative Schisme The addition of twenty sins of another nature cannot make that to be Schisme which is not Schisme in it self We are sorry for his sins under a condition that is in case they were true which for part of them we have no great Reason to believe But we are absolutely without condition glad of our own liberty The truth is God Almighty did serve himself of a most unlawful dispensation granted by the Pope to King Henry the eighth to marry his brothers Wife as an occasion of this great work I say unlawful because it was after judged unlawful by the Universities of England France Italy after mature deliberation and some of them upon oath and by above an hundred forrein Doctours of principal reputation for learning The coales of the Kings suspicion were kindled in Spain France and Flanders no enemies to the Pope and blown by Cardinal Wolsey for sinister ends But it was Cranmer that struck the nail home And God disposed all things to his own glory To their third exception That to withhold obedience is Schismatical as well as to withdraw it I answer first that they cannot accuse us as accessaries to Schisme until they have first condemned their own great Patrons Champions and Confessours for the principal Schismaticks Did Roman Catholicks themselves find right and sufficient reason to turn the Pope out of England at the foredoor in fair daylight as an intruder and usurper And do they expect that Protestants who never had any relation to him should let him in again by stealth at the back-door Turpius ejicitur quam non admittitur hospes It is true Queen Mary afterwards gave him houseroom again in England for a short time But he raged so extreamly and made such bonefires of poor innocent Christians in every corner of the Kingdome that it is no marvail if they desired his room rather then his company I have often wondred how any rational man could satisfie himself so as to make
Dominions Witnesse the lawes of Ercombert Ina Withred Alfrede Edward Athelstan Edmond Edgar Athelred Canutus and Edward the Confessor among whose lawes one makes it the office of a King to govern the Church as the Vicar of God Another implyes a power in the King and his Judges to take cognisance of wrong done in Ecclesiastical Courts It was to this Holy King Edward the Confessor that Pope Nicholas the second by his bull for him and his Successours granted this ensuing priviledge to the Kings of England for ever Namely the Advocation and protection of all the Churches of England and power in his stead to make just Ecclesiastical constitutions with the advise of their Bishops and Abbats This grant is as full or fuller then that which Vrban the second made to Roger Earl of Sicily from whence the Kings of Spain at this day do not onely Challenge but enjoy in a manner all Ecclesiastical power in Sicily If the Pope had ever had any such right as he pretends this onely Bull were sufficient to justifie our Kings But they injoyed this very power from the beginning as an essential flower of their Crownes without any thanks to the Pope To make just Ecclesiasticall constitutions in the Popes stead saith the Bull. To govern the Church as the Vicar of God saith the law of the Land The Bishops of Rome have ever been very kind in granting those things which were none of their own and in making deputations and delegations to them who stood in no need of their help being lawfully invested before hand by another title in that power and dignity which the Popes pretended out of their goodnesse to confer upon them but in truth did it onely for the reputation of their See and for maintaining the opinion of their own Grandeur Whether the deputation were accepted or not they did not much trouble themselves So they dealt with 〈◊〉 president in the Councell of Nice So they dealt with the Patriarch of Iustiniana Prima so they served Good King Edward and many others This Legislative power in Ecclesiastical causes over Ecclesiasticall persons the Norman Kings after the conquest did also exercise from time to time with the advice and consent of their Lords spiritual and temporal Hence all those Statutes concerning Benefices Tythes Advowsons Lands given in Mortmain prohibitions consultations praemunires quare Impedits priviledge of Clergy extortions of Ecclesiasticall courts or officers and regulating their due fees wages of Priests Mortuaries Sanctuaries Appropriations and in summe all things which did belong to the externall subsistence regiment and regulating of the Church and this in the raigns of our best Kings long and long before the reformation Othobone the Popes Legate under Vrban the fifth would have indowed Vicars upon appropriated Rectories but could not But our Kings by two Statutes or Acts of Parliament did easily effect it With us the Pope could not make a Spiritual corporation but the King The Pope could not exempt from the Jurisdiction of the ordinary but the King who by his charter could convert Seculars into Regulars The Pope could not grant the Priviledge of the Cistercians and other orders to be free from the payment of Tyths but the King The Pope could not appropriate Churches but the King we find eight Churches appropriated to the Abby of Crowland by the Saxon Kings three Churches appropriated to the Abby of Battell by the Conquerour and twenty by Henry the first to â—â—e Church of Sarisbury The King in his great Councel could make void the certificates of Ordinaries in cases of Ecclesiasticall cognisance and command them to absolve those persons who were judged by his authority to be unjustly excommunicated The Pope could not translate an Arch Bishoprick or a Bishoprick but the King The disposition of Ecclesiastical preferments upon lapse accrued not to the Pope but to the King a plain evidence that he was the Lord Paramount And the King onely could incurre no lapse Nullum tempus occurrit Regi because the law supposed that he was busied about the weightie affaires of the Kingdom The revenewes of a Bishoprick in the vacancy belonged not unto the Pope but to the King which he caused to be restored sometimes from the time of the first vacancy sometimes from the time of the filling of the Church with a new Incumbent according to his good pleasure The Canons of the Pope could not change the Ecclesiastical Lawes of England but the King whose lawes they were He had power in his great Councel to receive the canons if they were judged convenient or to reject them and abrogate them if they were judged inconvenient When some Bishops proposed in Parliament the reception of the Ecclesiastical Canon for the Legitimation of Children born before marriage without such a reception the Canon was of no force in England All the Peers of the Realm stood up and cryed out with one voice Nolumus leges Angliae mutari We will not have the lawes of England to be changed The King and Parliament made a Legislative exposition of the Canon of the Councel of Lyons concerning Bigamy which they would not have done unlesse they had conceived themselves to have power according to the fundamental constitutions of the kingdom either to receive it or reject it Ejus est legem interpretari cujus est condere He that hath authority to expound a law Legislatively hath power to make it The King and Parliament declared Pope Vrban to be the right Pope in a time of Schisme that is in relation to England their own Kingdom not by determining the titles of the Popes but by applying the matter to the one and substracting it from the other All these are so many evidences that when Popery was at the highest the Bishops of Rome had no such absolute Ecclesiasticall Soveraignty in the Church and Realm of England And that what power they exercised at any time more then this was by connivence or permission or violent usurpation And that our Primates had no forraign Superiour Legally established over them but onely the King as he was the Supream head of the whole body politick To see that every one did his duty and injoyed his due right Who would not suffer one of his Barons to be excommunicated from Rome without his privity and consent No Legate de latere was allowed by the law in England but the Archbishop of Canturbury And if any was admitted of courtesy he was to take his oath to do nothing derogatory to the King and his Crown If any man did denounce the Popes excommunication without the assent of the King by the law he forfeited all his goods Neither might any man appeale to Rome without the Kings License In the year 1420 the Pope translated the Bishop of Lincolne to York But the Dean and Chapter absolutely refused to admit him and justified their refusal by the Laws of the Land And
as in justice he is bound he is not to be reputed a Schismatick If men might not be saved by a general and implicite repentance they were in a woful condition for who can tell how oft he offendeth Cleanse thou me from my secret faults And if by general and implicite repentance why not by general and implicite faith why not by general and implicite obedience So as they do their uttermost indeavours to learn their duties and are ready to conform themselves when they know them God looks upon his creatures with all their prejudices and expects no more of them then according to the talents which he hath given them If I had books for that purpose I might have cited many Lawes and many Authors to prove that the final separation from Rome was made long before the reformation of the Church of England But it is a truth so evident and so undeniable by all these who understand our affaires that I seem to my self to have done overmuch in it already I do expect that it should be urged by some that there was a double separation of the Church of England from Rome The former from the court of Rome The second from the Church of Rome The former in point of discipline The latter in point of Doctrine The former made in the daies of Henry the Eighth The other in the daies of Edward the sixth That if the Protestants were not guilty of the former yet certainly they were guilty of the later To this I give two answers first that the second separation in point of Doctrine doth not concern this question Whether the Church of England be Schismatical but another whether the Church of England be Haereticall or at least Heterodox for every error doth not presently make an haeresy which cannot be determined without discussing the particular differences between the Church of Rome and the Church of England It is an undeniable principle to which both parties do yeeld firm assent that they who made the first separation from the primitive pure Church and brought in corruptions in faith Leiturgy or use of the Sacraments are the guilty party Yea though the separation were not local but onely moral by introducing errours and innovations and making no other secession This is the issue of our controversie If they have innovated first then we are innocent and have done no more then our duties It is not the separation but the cause that makes a Schismatique Secondly I answer that as Roman Catholicks not Protestants were the authors of the Separation of England from the Court of Rome so the Court of Rome it self not Protestants made the Separation of England from the communion of the Church of Rome by their unjust and tyrannical censures excommunications and interdictions which they thundred out against the Realm for denying their spiritual Soveraignty by divine right before any reformation made by Protestants It was not Protestants that left the communion of the Church of Rome but the Court of Rome that thrust all the English Nation both Protestants and Roman Catholicks together out of their doores and chased them away from them when Pope Paul the third excommunicated and interdicted England in the daies of Henry the eighth before ever any reformation was attempted by the Protestants In that condition the Protestants found the Church and Kingdom of England in the daies of Edward the sixth So there was no need of any new separation from the communion of the Church of Rome The Court of Rome had done â—hat to their hands So to conclude my first Proposition Whatsoever some not knowing or not weighing the state of our affaires And the Acts and Records of those times have rashly or ignorantly pronounced to the contrary it is evident that the Protestants had no hand either in the separation of the English Church from the Court of Rome or in their separation from the Church of Rome The former being made by professed Roman Catholicks the later by the Court of Rome it self both before the reformation following in the dayes of Edward the sixth both at a time when the poor Protestants suffered death daily for their conscience upon the six bloody Articles CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdom of England in the separation from Rome diâ— make no new Law but vindicate their ancient Liberties THe second Conclusion upon examination will prove as evident as the former that Henry the eighth and those Roman Catholicks with him who made the great separation from the Court of Rome did no new thing but what their predecessors in all ages had done before them treading in the steps of their Christian Ancestors And first it cannot be denyed but that any person or Society that hath an eminent reputation of learning or prudence or piety or authority or power hath ever had and ever will have a great influence upon his or their neighbours without any legal Jurisdiction over them or subjection due from them Secondly it is confessed that in the primitive times great was the dignity and authority of the Apostolical Churches as Rome Antiâ—ch Ephesus Hierusalem Alexandria which were founded by the Apostles themselves And that those ancient Christians in all their differences did look upon the Bishops of those Sees as honourable Arbitrators and faithful Depositaries of the genuine Apostolical traditions especially wherein they accorded one with another Hence is that of Tertullian Constat omnem doctrinam quae cum illis Ecclesiis Apostolicis matricibus et originalibus conspi at c. Whatsoever doctrine agrees with those Apostolical original mother Churches is to be reputed true And in this sense and no other Saint Cyprian a great admirer and imitater both of the matter and words of Tertullian whom he honoured with the title of his Master doth call the Church of Rome a Matrix and a root But if the tradition varied as about the observation of Easter between Victor Bishop of Rome and Polycrates Bishop of Ephesâ—s the one prescribing from St. Peter and S. Paul the other from S. Iohn The respective Churches did conform themselves to their Superiours or if they were free as the Britannique Churches were to their own judgment or to the example of their neighbour Churches or kept them to the tradition delivered unto them by their first converters As in this very controversie about Easter and some baptismal rites the Brittish and Scottish Bishops alwaies adhered to the Eastern Church A strong presumption that thence they received the faith and were not subordinate to the Patriarchal See of Rome But yet all this honourable respect proceeded from a free prudential compliance without any perpetual or necessary subjection Afterwards some Churches lost some gained the place and dignity of Apostolical Churches either by custome so Ephesus lost it or by the Canons of the Fathers so Constantinople did get it or lastly by Imperial priviledges so Iustiniana and Carthage obtained it Thirdly it
that â—aught them this lesson certainly their prudence to prevent dangers was very commendable A third custome was that the revenues of all Ecclesiastical dignities belonging to the Kings demeisne during the vacancy were to be received by the King as freely as the rents of his own demeisnes Tell me who was then the Patron and Political Head of the Church A fourth Custome was that when an Arch-Bishoprick Bishoprick Abbacy or Priory did fall void the election was to be made by such of the principal dignitaries or members of that respective Church which was to be filled as the King should call together for that purpose with the Kings consent in the Kings own Chappell And there the person elected was to do his homage and fealty to the King as to his Liege Lord. That later form of Dei Apostolicae sedis gratia had taken no root in England in those daies The rest are of the same nature as that Controversies concerning Advowsons ought to be determined in the Kings Court Benefices belonging to the Kings patronage could not be appropriated without his grant When a Clergy man was accused of any Delinquency the Kings Court ought to determine what part of his accusation was of Civil and what part of Ecclesiastical cognisance And the Kings Justice might send to the Ecclesiastical Court to see it ordered accordingly None of the Kings Servants or Tenants that held of him in capite might be excommunicated nor their Lands interdicted before the King was made acquainted When it was questioned whether a Tenement were of Ecclesiastick or Lay fee the Kings Justice was to determine it by the oathes of twelve men All Ecclesiasticall persons who held any possessions from the King in capite were to do suit and service for the same as other Barons did and to joyn with the Kings Barons in the Kings Judgments untill it came to sentence of death or diminution of member To this memorial all the Nobility and Clergy of the English Nation did swear firmly in the word of truth to keep all the customes therein contained and observe them faithfully to the King and his heires for ever Among the rest Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury himself was carried along with the crowd to take this Oath Though shortly after he fell from it and admitted the Popes absolution By the Statute of Carlile made in the daies of Edward the first it was declared That the holy Church of England was founded in the estate of Prelacy within the Realm of England by the Kings and Peeres thereof And that the several incroachments of the Bishop of Rome specified in that Act did tend to the annullation of the state of the Church the disinheriting of the King and the Peeres and the destruction of the Lawes and rights of the Realm contra formam collationis contrary to the disposition and will of the first founders Observe in the estate of Prelacy not of Papacy within the Realm not without it By the Kings not by the Popes of whose exorbitant and destructive usurpations as our Ancestors were most sensible so they wanted neither will nor power to remedy them To corroborate this Law by former presidents and thereby to shew that our Kings were ever accounted the right Patrons of the English Church King Edelwalk made Wilfride Bishop of the South Saxons now Chichester King Alfrede made Assertie Bishop of Sherburn And Oenewulphus Bishop of Winchester Edward the Confessor made Robert Archbishop whom before from a Monk he had made Bishop of London Thus the Saxon Kings in all ages bestowed Bishopricks without any contradiction The Norman Kings followed their example No sooner was Stigand dead but William the Conquerour elected Lanfrank Abbat of Saint Stephens in Caen to be Archbishop William Rufus upon his death-bed elected Anselme to be Archbishop of Canterbury And untill the daies of Henry the first the Popes never pretended any right nor laid any claim to the Patronage of the English Churches The Articles of the Clergy do prescribe that elections be free so as the Kings conge d'eslire or License to elect be first obtained and afterwards the election be made good â—y the Royal assent and confirmation And the Statute of provisors Our Soveraign Lord the King and his heires shall have and enjoy for the time the collations to the Archbishopricks and other dignities elective which be of his Advowry such as his progenitors had before free election was granted Sith the first elections were granted by the Kings progenitors upon a certain form and condition as namely to demand License of the King to choose and after choise made to have his Royal assent Which condition not being kept the thing ought by reason to return to its first nature Further by the same Statute of provisors it is declaratively enacted That it is the right of the Crown of England and the Law of the Realm that upon such mischiefs and dammages happening to the Realm by the incroachments and oppressions of the Court of Rome mentioned in the body of that Law The King ought and is bound by his oath with the accord of his people in Paâ—liament to make remedy and Law for the removing of such mischiefs We find at least seven or eight such Statutes made in the Raigns of several Kings against Papal provisions reservations and collations and the mischiefs that flowed from thence Let us listen to another Law The Crown of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been iâ— no earthly subjection but immediately subjected to God in all things touching its regality and to no other and ought not to be submitted to the Pope Observe these expressions free at all times free in all things in no earthly subjection immediately subjected to God not to be submitted to the Pope And all this in Ecclesiastical affaires for of that nature were all the grievances complained of in that Law as appears by the view of the Statute it self Then if the Kings of England and the representative body of the English Church do reform themselves according to the word of God and the purest Patterns of the primitive times they owe no account to any as of duty but to God alone By the same statute it is enacted That they who shall procure or prosecute any popish Bulls and excommunications in certain cases shall incurre the forfeiture of their estates or be banished or put out of the Kings protection By other statutes it is enacted That whosoever should draw any of the Kings Subjects out of the Realm to Rome in plea about any cause whereof the cognisance belongeth to the Kings Court or should sue in any forrain court to defeat any judgment given in the Kings court That is by appealing to Rome they should incur the same penalties The body of the Kingdom would not suffer Edward the first to be cited before the Pope Henry the sixth by the Councel of Humphry
challenge a Jurisdiction not upon us who deny it Men are not put to prove negatives Let them produce their Registers and shew for the first six hundred years what Ecclesiastical Courts the Roman Bishops or their Legates have held in Brittain what causes they have removed from thence to Rome upon appeals what sentences given in Brittain they have repealed there what British subjects they have excommunicated or summoned to appear at Rome let them shew what Bishopricks they have conferred in Brittain in those daies what British Bishops did then intitle themselves to their Bishopricks by the Grace of God and of the Apostolique See let them declare to the world how many of our British Primates or Patriarchs of York London or Caerleon have constantly or at all repaired to Rome to be ordained or have received Licenses or dispensations thence for their ordination at home or elsewhere for ordinationis jus caetera jura sequuntur He who is necessarily by law obliged to have recourse to a forraign Prelate for his ordination is thereby implyed to be inferiour or subject to his ordainer If they can say nothing to any of these points they may disclaime their Patriarchall right in Brittain and hold their peace for ever The reasons why I set York before London in the order of our British Patriarchs or Primates are these First because I find their names subscribed in that order in the Councel of Arles held in the year 314. consisting as some say of 200. as others say of 600. Bishops convocated by Constantine the great before the first Councel of Nice to hear and determine the appeal of the Donatists from the sentence of the Imperiall delegates whereof Melchiades the Bishop of Rome was one It were a strange sight in these daies to see a Pope turn Legate to the Emperours in a cause of Ecclesiasticall cognisance Secondly for the same reason that Rome and Constantinople in those daies of the Roman Puissance were dignified above all other Churches because they were then the seats of the Emperours York was then an Imperial City the Metropolis of the chief Britannick Province called at that time maxima Caesariensis where Severus the Emperour died and had his funerall pile upon Severs hill a place adjoyning to that City where Constantine the great was born in domo Regali vocata Pertenna in the Royal Palace whereof some poor remainders are yet to be seen then called Pertenna now a small part of it called vulgarly Bederna a very easy mistake if we consider that the Brittish Pronounce P. for B. and T. like D. situate near Christs Church in Curia Regis or in the Kings Court on the one hand and extending it self near to St. Helens Church upon the walls now demolished on the other hand Although their silence alone to my former demand at least of so many whom I have seen that have written upon this Subject be a sufficient conviction of them and a sufficient vindication of us yet for further manifestation of the truth Let us consider first that if we compare the ages and originals of the Roman and Britannique Churches we shall find that the Britannique is the more ancient and Elder Sister to the Roman it self The Britannique Church being planted by Ioseph of Arimathea in the raign of Tiberius Caesar where as it is confessed that Saint Peter came not to Rome to lay the foundation of that Church untill the second year of Claudius secundo Claudii anno in Italiam venit So if we look to the beginning according to the direction of the Councel of Ephesus the Britannique Church in its first original was free from the Jurisdiction of the Bishop and Court of Rome where there was neither Bishop nor Court nor Ecclesiastick Jurisdiction at that day Secondly that it continued free in ensuing ages appears evidently by that opposition which the Church of Britain maintained against the Church of Rome siding with the Eastern Churches about the question of those times concerning the observation of Easter and the administration of Baptisme wherein Austine about the six hundreth year laboured to conform them but in vain Is it credible that the whole Brittish and Scottish Church should so unanimously have dissented from Rome for many hundred years together if they had been subject to the Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop as of their lawfull Patriarch or that the Bishop of Rome in all that time should never so much as question them for it if they had been his Subjects Even then when Pope Victor durst attempt to deny or withdraw his communion from all the Asiatick Churches about the same businesse Neither were the Brittish Churches at last conformed to Rome by any Patriarchall power but by many conferences by the necessity of their civill affaires and by long tract of time some sooner some later A long tract of time indeed when some in the most Septentrionall parts of these Provinces were not reduced until a little before the late reformation Thirdly among the principal priviledges of patriarchall power is the right of ordination That all Metropolitans at least should either be ordained by the Patriarch or by License from the Patriarch This appears clearly in the dispute between the Patriarch of Antioch and the Cyprian Bishops But where the Bishops were 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 independent upon not subject unto any forrain Prelate there they ordained at their own pleasures needed no License Such were our British Primates ordained alwaies or ordinarily at Rome according to the Cyprian priviledges creating new Bishopricks ordaining new Bishops at their own pleasures without giving any account to Rome So we read of St. Telaus who had been driven out of his own Country by an Epidemical sicknesse for a long time that at his return he consecrated and ordained Bishops as he thought fit That he made one Hismael Bishop of St. Davids And in like manner advanced many other men of the same order to the same degree sending them throughout the country and dividing the parishes for the best accommodation of the Clergy and of the People And if there were no other proofe of our exemption but onely the small number of the Bishops that were ordained by all the succeeding Popes for about the first three hundred years untill the death of Marcellinus It were sufficient to shew that the Bishops of Rome in those daies had little or nothing to do out of their owne Province and that their jurisdiction extended nothing near so far as Britain Saint Peter Ordained but three in his supposed five and twenty years that is Linus and Cletus ut sacerdotale Ministerium Romano populo advenis benè sentientibus exhiberent and Clement to whom he bequeathed his Episcopal Chair Linus but eleven Clement but fifteen Anacletus but six Evaristus but five Alexander but five Sixtus but four c. These were few enough for their own Province and none to
in England for sundry ages following that a Dean and Chapter were able to deal with them not onely to hold them at the swords point but to soile them Lastly King Henry the eighth himself had been long a suiter unto Clement the seventh to have his Predecessor Iulius the seconds dispensation for his marriage with his Brothers wife to be declared void But though the Popes own Doctors Universities had declared the dispensation to be unlawfull and invalide and although the Pope himself had once given forth a Bull privately to his Legate Cardinall Campeius for the revocation thereof wherein he declared the marriage to be null and that the King could not continue in it without sinne yet the King found so little respect either to the condition of his person or to the justice of his cause that after long delayes to try if he could be allured to the Popes will in the conclusion he received a flat deniall This was no great incouragement to him to make any more addresses to Rome So what was threatened and effected in part in the dayes of Henry the third and Edward the third was perfected in the reign of Henry the eighth when the Jurisdiction of the Court of Rome in England was abolished which makes the great distance between them and us Different opinions are often devised or defended on purpose to maintain faction if animosities were extinguished and the mindes of Christians free from prejudice other controversies might quickly be reconciled and reduced to primitive general truths The power Paramount of the Court of Rome hath ever been and still is that insana laurus which causeth brawling and contention not onely between us and them but between them and the Eastâ—rn Churches yea even between them and those of their own communion as we shall see in the next Chapter Yea the originall source true cause of all the Separations reformations made in the Church in these last ages As all the Estates of Castile did not forbear to tell the Pope himself not long since in a printed memoriall and the Kingdom of Portugall likewise To conclude this point These former Kings who reigned in England about the years 1200. and 1300. might properly be called the first Reformers and their Lawes of Proviso's and Prâ—munire's or more properly premoneres the beginning of the Reformation They laid the Foundation and Henry the Eighth builded upon it Now having seen the authority of our Reformers and the justice of their grounds in the last place let us observe their due moderation in the manner of their separation First they did not we do not deny the being of any Church whatsoever Roman or other nor possibility of salvation in them especially such as hold firmly the Apostles Creed and the faith of the four first Generall Councels Though their salvation be rendred much more difficult by humane inventions and obstructions And by this very sign did Saint Cyprian purge himself and the African Bishops from Schisme Neminem judicantes aut à jure communionis aliquem si diversum senserit amoventes Iudging no man removing no man from our communion for difference in opinion We do indeed require subscription to our Articles but it is onely from them who are our own not from strangers nor yet of all our own but onely of those who seek to be initiated into holy orders or are to be admitted to some Ecclesiastical preferment So it is in every mans election whether he will put himself upon a necessity of subscription or not neither are our Articles penned with Anathema's or curses against all those even of our own who do not receive them but used only as an help or rule of unity among our selves Si quis diversum dixerit If any of our own shall speak or preach or write against them we question him But si quis diversum senserit if any man shall onely think otherwise in his private opinion and trouble not the peace of the Church we question him not We presume not to censure others to be out of the pale of the Church but leave them to stand or fall to their own Master We damne none for dissenting from us we do not separate our selves from other Churches unlesse they chase us away with their censures but onely from their errours For clear manifestation whereof observe the thirtieth Canon of our Church It was so far from the purpose of the Church of England to forsake and reject the Churches of Italy France Spain Germany or any such like Churches in all things which they held and practised c. that it only departed from them in those particular points wherein they were fallen both from themselves in their aâ—cient integrity and from the Apostolical Churches which were their first founders So moderate are we towards all Christians whether forreigners or domesticks whether whole Churches or single persons But because the Roman Catholicks do lay hold upon this charitable assertion of ours as tending mainly to their advantage Behold say they Protestants do acknowledge a possibility of salvation in the Roman Church But Roman Catholicks deny all possibility of Salvation in the Protestant Churches Therefore the Religion of Roman Catholiques is much safer then that of Protestants Hence proceeded their Treatise of charity mistaken and sundry other discourses of that nature wherein there are mistakes enough but little charity For answer If this Objection were true I should love my Religion never the worse Where I find little charity I look for as little faith But it is not true for when the businesse is searched to the bottom they acknowledge the same possibility of salvation to us which we do to them that is to such of either Church respectively as do not erre wilfully but use their best endeavours to find out the truth Take two testimonies of the Bishop of Chalcedon If they that is the Protestants grant not salvation to such Papists as they count vincibly ignorant of Roman errours but onely to such as are invincibly ignorant of them they have no more charity then we for we grant Church saving faith and salvation to such Protestants as are invincibly ignorant of their errours And in his book of the distinction of fundamentals and not fundamentals he hath these words If Protestants allow not saving faith Church and salvation to such as sinfully erre in not fundamentals sufficiently prâ—posed they shew no more charity to erring Christians then Catholicks dâ— for we allow all to have saving faith to be in the Church in way of salvation for so much as belongeth to faith who hold the fundamental points and invincibly erre in not fundamentals because neither are these sufficiently proposed to them nor they in fault that they are not so proposed Secondly as our separation is from their errours not from their Churches so we do it with as much inward charity and moderation of our affections as we can possibly willingly indeed in
all ages affronted and curbed the Roman Court and reduced them to a right temper and constitution as often as they deviated from the Canons of the Fathers and incroached upon the liberties of the Gallicane Church Whereby the Popes jurisdiction in France came to be meerly discretionary at the pleasure of the King Hincmare had been condemned by three French Synods for a turbulent person and deposed Pope Adrian the second takes Cognisance of the cause at Rome and requires Carolus Calvus the King of France to send Hincmare thither with his accusers to receive justice The Kings apologetick answer will shew how he relished it Valde mirati sumus ubi hoc dictator Epistolae scriptum invenerit esse Apostolica authoritate praecipiendum ut Rex corrector iniquorum districtor reorum atque secundum leges Ecclesiasticas atque mundanas ultor criminum reum legaliter ac regulariter pro excessibus suis damnatum sua fretum potentia Roman dirigat We wondered much where he who dictated the Popes Letter hath found it written as commanded byâ— Apostolical authority that a King who is the Corrector of the unjust the punisher of guilty persons and according to all Lawes Ecclesiastical and Civill the revenger of crimes should send a guilty person legally and regularly condemned for his excesses to Rome He tells him that the Kings of France were reputed terrarum Domini not Episcoporum Vice-Domini or Villici Lords paramount within their Dominions not Licutenants or Bayliffes of Bishops Quis igitur hanc inversam legem infernus evomuit quis tartarus de suis abditis tenebrosis cuniculis eructavit What hell hath disgorged this disorderly law what bottomlesse depth hath belched it up out of its hidden and obscure holes The Kings of France have convented the Popes before them So Charles the Great dealt with Leo the third and Lotharius with Leo the fourth The Kings of France have appealed from Popes to Councels So Philip the 4th with the advise of all the orders of France and the whole Gallicane Church appealed from Boniface the eighth and commanded his appeal to be published in the great Church at Paris So Henry the great appealed from Gregory the 14th and caused his appeal to be affixed to the gates of Saint Peters Church in Rome So the School of Sorbone appealed from Boniface the eight Benedict the eleventh Pius the second and Leo the tenth The Kings of France have protested against the Popes decrees and sleighted them yea in the very face of the Councel of Trent Witnesse that protestation of the Ambassadour of France made in the Councel in the name of the King his Master We refuse to be subject to the commands and disposition of Pius the fourth we reject refuse and contemn all the judgements censures and decrees of the said Pius And although most holy Fathers your Religion Life and Learning was ever and ever shall be of great esteem with us Yet seeing indeed you do nothing but all things are done at Rome rather then at Trent And the things that are here published are rather the decrees of Pius the fourth then of the Councel of Trent we denounce and protest here before you all that whatsoever things are decreed and published in this Assembly by the meer will and pleasure of Pius neither the most Christian King will ever approve nor the French Church ever acknowledge to be decrees of a General Councel Besides this the King our Master commandeth all his Archbishops and Bishops and Abbats to leave this Assembly and presently to depart hence then to return again when there shall be hope of better and more orderly proceedings This was high and smart for the King and the Gallicane Church so publickly to reject refuse and contemn all Papal decrees and to challenge such an interest in and power over the French Archbishops and Bishops as not onely to license them but to command them to depart and leave the Councel whither they were summoned by the Pope The French Kings have made Lawes and constitutions from time to time to repress the insolencies and exorbitances of the Papal Court so often as they began to prejudice the liberties of the Gallicane Church with the unanimous consent of their Princes Nobles Clergy Lawyers and Commons As against their bestowing of Ecclesiastical dignities and benefices in France and their grosse Simony and extortions in that way against the payment of Annates and tenths to Rome and generally for all the liberties of the Church of France Against reservations and Apostolical graces and all other exactions of the Court of Rome Charlâ—s the seventh made the pragmatical Sanction to confirm all the Acts of the Councels of Constance and Basâ—l against the tyranny and usurpation of the Pope It is true that Lewis the eleventh by the flattering perswasion of Aeneas Sylvius then Pius the second did revoke this Sanction But the Kings Proctour and the Rectour of the University of Paris did oppose themselves formally to the Registring and Authorizing of this revocation Whereupon the King desired the advise of his Parliament in writing which they gave to this effect That the revocation of that Sanction tended to the confusioâ— of the whole Ecclesiastical order the depopulation of France the exhausting and impoverishment of the Kingdom and the total ruine of the French Church Hereupon the King changed his mind and made diverse declarations and edicts conformable to and in pursuance of the pragmatical Sanction After this the three Estates assembled at Towers made it their first and instant request to Charles the 8th that he would preserve inviolable the pragmatical Sanction which they reputed as the Palladium of France And in the National Councel assembled by Lewis the 12th in the same City it was again confirmed But the Pope stormed and thundered and excommunicated and interdicted Lewis the 12th Francis the first and the whole Realm and exposed it as a prey to the first that could take it And gave plenary Indulgence to every one that should kill a Frenchman King Francis fainted under such fulminations and came to a composition or accommodation with Leo the tenth which was called conventa or the concordate On the one side the Popes friends think he wronged himself and his title to a spiritual Sovereignty very much by descending to such an accommodation And exclude France out of the number of those Countries which they term pays d' obedience As if the French were not loyal obedient Subjects but Rebels to the Court of Rome On the other side the Prelates the Universities the Parliaments of France were as ill contented that the King should yeeld one inch and opposed the accord Insomuch as the University of Paris appealed from it to a future Councel and expedited Letters Patents sealed with the Universities Seal containing at large their grievances and the reasons of the appeal which after were published to the world in print I cannot here omit
Thirdly the King of Spain when he pleaseth and when he sees his own time doth not onely pretend unto but assume in his other Dominions that self-same power or essential right of Sovereignty which I plead for in this treatise It is not unknown to the world how indulgent a Father Vrban the eighth was sometimes to the King and Kingdom of France and how passionately he affected the interest of that Crown And by consequence that his eares were deaf to the requests and remonstrances of the King of Spain The Catholique King resents this partiality very highly and threatens the Pope if he persist to provide a remedy for the grievances of his Subjects by his own power Accordingly to make good his word he called a general Assembly of all the Estates of the Kingdome of Castile to consider of the exorbitancies of the Court of Rome in relation to his Majesties Subjects and to consult of the proper remedies thereof They did meet and draw up a memoriall consisting of ten Articles containing the chiefest abuses and innovations and extortions of the Court of Rome in the Kingdom of Castile His Majestie sends it to the Pope by Friar Domingo Pimentell as his Ambassadour The Pope returned a smart answer by Senior Maraldo his Secretary The King replied as sharply All which was afterwards printed by the special command of his Catholick Majesty The summe of their complaint was first concerning the Popes imposing of pensions upon dignities and other benefices Ecclesiastical even those which had cure of soules in favour of strangers in an excessive proportion to the third part of the full value That although benefices were decayed in many places of Spain two third parts of the true value Yet the Court of Rome kept up the Pensions at the full height That it was contrived so that the Pensions did begin long before the beneficiaries entred upon their profits insomuch as they were indebted sometimes two years pensions before they themselves could taste of the fruits of their benefices And then the charge of censures and other proceedings in the Court of Rome fell so heavy upon them that they could never recover themselves And further that whereas all trade is driven in current silver onely the Court of Rome which neither toiles nor sweats nor hazards any thing will be paid onely in Duckates of Gold not after the current rates but according to the old value That to seek for a remedy of these abuses at Rome was such an insupportable charge by reason of three instances and three sentences necessary to be obtained that it was in vain to attempt any such thing This they cried out upon as a most grievous yoak They complained likewise of the Popes granting of Coad jutorships with future succession whereby Ecclesiastical preferments were made hereditary persons of parts and worth were excluded from all hopes and a large gap was opened to most grosse Simony They complained of the Popes admitting of resignations with reservation of the greatest part of the profits of the benefice insomuch that he left not above an hundred Duckats yearly to the Incumbent out of a great benefice They complained most bitterly of the extortions of the Roman Court in the case of dispensations That whereas no dispensation ought to be granted without just cause now there was no cause at all inquired after in the Court of Rome but onely the price That a great price supplied the want of a good cause That the gate was shut to no man that brought money That their dispensations had no limits but the Popes will That for a matrimonial dispensation under the second degree they took of great persons 8000. or 12000. or 14000 Duckats They complained that the Pope being but the Churches Steward and dispenser did take upon him as Lord and Master to dispose of all the rights of all Ecclesiastical persons That he withheld from Bishops being the true owners the sole disposing of all Ecclesiastical preferments for eight monthes in the year That he ought not to provide for his own profit and the necessities of his Court with so great prejudice to the right of Ordinaries and Confusion of the Ecclesiastical order whilest he suffers not Bishops to enjoy their own Patronages and Jurisdictions They cite St. Bernard where he tells Pope Eugenius that the Roman Church whereof he was made Governour by God was the Mother of other Churches but not the Lady or Mistris And that he himself was not the Lord or Master of other Bishops but one of them They complained that the Pope did challenge and usurpe to himself as his own at their deaths all Clergymens estates that were gained or raised out of the revenue of the Church That a rich Clergyman could no sooner fall sick but the Popes Collectors were gaping about him for his goods And guards set presently about his house That by this means Bishops have been deserted upon their deathbeds And famished for want of meat to eat That they have not had before they were dead a Cup left to drink in nor so much as a Candlestick of all their goods It is their own expression That by this means Creditors were defrauded processes in Law were multiplied and great estates wasted to nothing They complained that the Popes did usurp as their own all the revenues of Bishopricks during their vacancies sometimes for divers years together all which time the Churches were unrepaired the poor unrelieved not so much as one almes given And the wealth of Spain exported into a forreign Land which was richer then it self They wish the Pope to take it as an argument of their respect to the See of Rome that they do not go about forthwith to reform these abuses by their own authâ—â—ity in imitation of other Provinces So it was not the unwarrantablenesse of the act in it self but meerly their respect that did withhold them They complained of the great inconveniences and abuses in the exercise of the Nuncio's office That it is reckoned as a curse in holy Scripture to be governed by persons of a different language That for ten Crowns a man might purchase any thing of them That the fees of their office were so great that they alone were a sufficient punishment for a grievous crime They added that self-interest was the root of all these evils That such abuses as these gave occasion to all the Reformations and Schismes of the Church They added That these things did much trouble the mind of his Catholique Majestie And ought to be seriously pondered by all Sovereign Princes qui intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae Culmina tenent ut per eandem potestatem disciplinam Ecclesiasticam muniant Behold our Political Supremacy They proceeded that often the heavenly Kingdome is advantaged by the earthly That Church-men acting against faith and right discipline may be reformed by the rigour of Princes Let the Princes of this world know say they that they
owe an account to God of the Church which they have received from him into their protection For whether peace and right Ecclesiastical discipline be increased or decayed by Christian Princes God will require an account from them who hath trusted his Church unto their power They tell his Holinesse it was a work worthy of him to turn all such Courtiers out of his Court who did much hurt by their persons and no good by their examples Adding this distich Vivere qui sanctè cupitis discedite Roma Omnia cum liceant non licet esse bonum And for remedy of these abuses they proposed that the Popes Nuncio's should not meddle with the exercise of Ecclesiasticall Jurisdiction but be meerly in the nature of Ambassadours That all Ecclesiastical causes should be determined at home according to the Canons That the Pope should delegate the dispensation of matters of grace to some â—it Commissioners within the Kingdome That Ecclesiastical Courts or Rota's should be â—rected within the Realm wherein all causes should be finally determined without recourse to Rome except in such cases as are allowed by the ancient Canons of the Church Lastly they represented that his Majestie was justly pressed by the continual clamours and reiterated instances of his Subjects to whose assistence and protection he was obliged to contribute whatsoever he was able as their Natural Lord and King to procure their weal with all his might by all just means according to the dictates of natural reason And to remedy the grievances which they â—uffered in their persons and in their goods by occasion of such like abuses not practised in other Kingdomes Especially this propositâ—on being so conformable to the Apostolical precepts and to the sacred Canons of Councels They tell the Pope that their first addresse is to him to whom as universal Pastour the Reformation thereof doth most properly belong that there might be no need to proceed to other remedies prescribed by the Doctours of the Church And in the margent they cite more then twenty several Authours to shew what the Magistrate might do in case the Pope should refuse or neglect to reform these abuses So you see they confessed plainly that there were other lawful remedies And intimated sufficiently that they must proceed to the use of them in case the Pope refused or neglected to do his duty That was for the Sovereign Prince with his Bishops and Estates to ease his Subjects and reform the abuses of the Roman Court within his own Dominions And this by direction of the Law of nature Upon our former ground that no Kingdom is destitute of necessary remedies for its own preservation But they chose rather to tell the Pope this unwelcome Message in the names and words of a whole cloud of Roman Catholick Doctours then in their own In fine the Pope continued obstinate And the King proceeded from words to deeds And by his Sovereign power stopped all proceedings in the Nuncio's Court. And for the space of eight weeks did take away all intercourse and correspondence with Rome This was the first act of Henry the eighth which Sanders calls the beginning of the Schisme untill the Pope being taught by the costly experience of his predecessours fearing justly what the consequents of these things might be in a little time was conâ—ented to bow and condescend to the Kings desires To shew yet further that the Kings of Spain when they judge it expedient do make themselves no strangers to Ecclesiasticall affaires we read that Charles the fifth renewed an edict of his predecessours at Madril That Bulls and Missives sent from Rome should be visited to see that they contained nothing in them prejudicial to the 〈◊〉 or Church of Spain which was strictly observed within the Spanish Dominions I might adde upon the credit of the Portugueses how Alexander Castracan was disgraced and expelled out of Spain for publishing the Popes Bulls and that the Papal censures were declared void And how the Popes Delegates or Apostolical Judges have been banished out of that Kingdom for maintaining the priviledges of the Roman Court. And when the King of Spain objected to the Pope the Pensions which he and his Court received yearly out of Spain from Ecclesiastical benefices and dignities The Popes Secretary replied that all the Papal Pensions put together did scarcely amount to so much as one onely pension imposed by the King upon the Archbishoprick of Siville Neither did the King deny the thing but justifie it as done in favour of an Infante of Castile And did further acknowledge that it was not unusual for the Kings of Spain to impose pensions upon Ecclesiastical preferments to the fourth part of the value except in the Kingdom of Galiâ—a This was more then ever any King of England attempted either before or after the reformation Before we leave the Dominions of this great Prince let us cast our eyes a little upon Brabant and Flanders who hath not heard of a Book composed by Iansenius Bishop of Ypres called Augustinus And of those great animosities and contentions that have risen about it in most Roman Catholick Countreys I meddle not with the merit of the cause whether Iansenius followed Saint Austine or Saint Austine his Ancients or whether he be reconciliable to himself in this question I do willingly omit all circumstances but onely those which conduce to my present purpose So it was that Vrbane the eighth by his Bull censured the said Book as maintaining divers temerarious and dangerous positions under the name of St. Austine forbidding all Catholicks to print it sell it or keep it for the future This Bull was sent to the Archbishop of Mechline and the Bishop of Gant to see it published and obeyed in their Provinces But they both refused And for refusing were cited to appear at Rome And not appearing by themselves or their Proctours were suspended and interdicted by the Pope and the copy of the sentence affixed to the door of the great Church in Brussels Although in truth they durst not publish the sentence of condemnation without the Kings Licence And were expresly forbidden by the Councel of Brabant to appear at Rome under great penalties as appeareth manifestly by the Proclamation or Placaâ—t of the Councel themselves dated at Brussels May 1â— 1653. Wherein they do further declare that it was Kennelick ende noâ—oix c. Well knowâ— and notoriously true that the Subjects of those Provinces of what state or condition soever could not be cited nor convented out of the land neither in person nor by their proctour selveroock niet voor het hoff van Roomen no not by the Court of Rome it self And further that the provisions spiritual censures excommunications suspensions and interdictions of that Court might not be published or put in execution without the Kings approbaâ—ioâ— after the Councels deliberation And yet further they do ordain that the said defamatory writing So they call the Copy of
by the favour of the country carried the cause So as the Pope was forced to Recall him to Lincolne Having mentioned the statutes of Mortmain I cannot but do my native country and the Church of England that right to clear it from an heavy accusaâ—ion framed against it upon mistaken grounds That the English protestants had made a Law to maintain and patronize Sacriledge that no man how penitent soever could restore any thing to the Church which had been formerly taken from it God forbid First the statutes of Mortmain were not made by Protestants but in the daies of Henry the third Edward the first and Richard the second between the last of which and Henry the eighth there raigned six Kings successively That is one great mistake Secondly the Statutes of Mortmain did not at all concern the restitution of any thing that had been taken away There was no use for that in those daies The onely scope of those Lawes was to restrain the first donation of Lands to the Church without royal assent That is another mistake Thirdly these very Lawes of Mortmain are not so incredible nor so hard to be believed nor so altogether destitute of presidents and examples as that authour doth imagine so as posterity should scarcely believe that ever any such Law had been made He might have remembred the Proclamation of Moses when the people had already offered abundantly for the adorning of the Sanctuary Let neither man nor woman make any more work for the offering of the Sanctuary So the people were restrained from bringing He might have called to mind a like law of Theodosius a godly Emperour and propitious to the Church to moderate the peoples bounty and the Clergies covetousness Which Law Saint Ambrose and Saint Hierome do so much complain of not against the Emperour who made the Law but against the Clergy who deserved to have such a Law made against them He might have found the like Law made by Nicephorus Phocas and afterwards revived by Emanuel Comenus He might have remembred that the troubles between the Pope and the Venetians did spring partly from such a Law Briefly with a little search he might have found like Lawes in Germany Poland France Spain Italy Sicily And if he will trust Padre Paâ—lo in the Papacy it self The Prince cannot wrong his Subject that is an owner or possessour of Lands or haereditaments in a well ordered State Then why should it be in the power of a Subject that is an owner to wrong his Prince and his Country But by such alienations of Lands to the Church in an excessive and unproportionable measure the Prince loseth his right that is both his tribute and his military service and fines upon change of Tenants The Common-Wealth loseth its supportation and due protection Therefore they were called the Lawes of Mortmain because Lands so aliâ—nated to the Church were put into a dead hand from whence they never returned And so in time the whole Signioury should be the Churches as it is elegantly expressed by the Venetian Oratour to Paul the fifth Nè fortunis omnibus exuantur ne quicquid sub coelo Veneto homines arant ferunt aedificant omnia veluti quodam oceano Ecclesiae absorbeantur â—ihilque sibi reliqui fiat unde Rempublicam patriam tecta templa aras focos sepultura majorum defendere possint Lest the Citizens should be turned out of their estates lest all which men plow sow build under the Vâ—netian heaven should be swallowed up into the Ocean of the Church And nothing be left where with to defend the Common-Wealth their Country their houses their temples their altars their fires and the sepulchers of their Ancestors To prevent this great inconvenience the Lawes of Mortmain were devised prudently to ballance the spiritualty and the temporalty that the one do not swallow up the other to which all wise Legislators have ever had ought to have a special regard In France no man can build a new Church without the Kings License verified in Parliament A new Monastery builded in Genua without License is to be confiscated In Spain without License Royal no new Religions can enter into the Kingdome The Fathers of Saint Francis de Paula began to build a Church in Madrid upon their own heads but they were stopped So aequitable so necessary hath this Law of Mortmain been thought to all Nations But to leave this digression and to come up closer to the direct point without any consequences In the Reign of King Henry the second some controversies being likely to arise between the Crown and Thomas Bâ—cket Archbishop of Canterbury The King called a general Assembly of his Archbishops Bishops Abbats Priors and Peers of the Realm at Clarendon where there was made an acknowledgment or memorial cujusdam partis consuetudinum libertatum Antecessorum suorum Regis videlicet Henrici avi sui aliorum quaeobservari debebant in Regno ab omnibus teneri of a certain part of the Customes and Liberties of his predecessors that is to say his Grand-father Henry the first son of the Conquerour and other Kings A parte but ex ungue Leonem from the view of this part we may conclude of what nature the rest were of the customes The customes of England are the Common Law of the Land of his predecessors that is to say the Saxon Danish and Norman Kings successively And therefore no marveil if they ought to be observed of all This part of their ancient customes or liberties they reduced into sixteen Chapters or Articles To which all the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiasticks with all the Peeres and Nobles of the Realm did not onely give their acknowledgment and consent but also their oathes for the due observation of them It would be tedious and impertinent to relate them all I will onely cull out some of them One was that all appeales in England must proceed regularly from the Arch-Deacon to the Bishop from the Bishop to the Archbishop and if the Archbishop failed to do justice the last complaint must be to the King to give order for redresse that is by fit Delegates But there might be no further or other Appeales without the consent of the King whereby the Nunciatureâ— and Legantine Court and the Court of Rome it self are all at the Kings mercy Wherein did the Popes great strength lie in those dayes when his hands were fast tied both at home and abroad Another Custome was that no Ecclesiasticall person might depart out of the Kingdome without the Kings License no not though he were summoned by the Bishop of Rome And if the King permitted them to go yet if he required it they must give caution or security to act nothing hurtful or prejudicial to the King or Kingdome in their going thither abiding there aâ—d returning home You see our Ancestors were jealous of Rome in those daies Whether it was their providence or their experience