Institution in the charge and cure But the Collation challeng'd by our Princes is of another Nature and signifies no more then the Nominating a Person to be Ordain'd to such an Office or presenting a Person already Ordained to such a Benefice And the right of Investitures which is the same with such a Collation is by this Bishop asserted to Emperours This being clear'd which was by him on purpose perplex'd If we take the extent of the Regal power from this Bishop He tells us That Sovereign's as Nursing Fathers of the Chuâ—â—â— are to see that Bishops and all Inferiour Ministers perform their faithfull duties in their several places and if they be found faulty to punish them His next Author is Mr. Thorndike Who is as large as any one in the Vindication of the Churches rights and Yet He tells us that No man will refuse Christian Princes the Interest of protecting the Church against all such Acts as may prove praejudicial to the common Faith. He holds as this Writer with great concern observes that the Secular power may restore any law which Christ or his Apostles have ordained not only against a Major part but all the Clergy and Governours of the Church and may for a Paenalty of their opposing it suppress their power and commit it to others tho' they also be establish'd by another Law Apostolical Thus that considerative man who held not the Pope to be Antichrist or the Hierarchy of the Church to be followers of Antichrist Bishop Taylour his next Author doth with the rest assert that the Episcopal Office has some powers annex'd to it independent on the Regal But then he farther lays down these Rules That the Supreme Civil-power is also Supreme Governour over all Persons and in all Causes Hath a Legislative power in Affairs of Religion and the Church Hath Jurisdiction in causes not only Ecclesiastical but also Internal and Spiritual Hath autority to convene and dissolve all Synods Ecclesiastical Is indeed to govern in Causes Ecclesiastical by the means and measure of Christ's Institutions i. e. by the Assistance and Ministry of Ecclesiastical Persons but that there may happen a case in which Princes may and must refuse to confirm the Synodical decrees Sentences and Judgments of Ecclesiastics That Censures Ecclesiastical are to be inflicted by the consent and concurrence of the Supreme Civil power The next Author cited is the Learned Primate Bramhal and We have here reason to wonder that one Who praetends to have been conversant in his Writings dares appear in the Vindication of a Cause which the Learned Author has so longe since so shamefully defeated As for the right of Sovereign Princes This Arch-Bishop will tell him That to affirm that Sovereign Princes cannot make Ecclesiastical Constitutions under a Civil pain or that they cannot especially with the advice and concurrence of their Clergy assembled in a National Synod reform errors and abuses and remedy Incroachments and Usurpations in Faith or Discipline is contrary to the sense and practise of all Antiquity and as for matter of Fact He will instruct him that our kings from time to time call'd Councils made Ecclesiastical Laws punish'd Ecclesiastical Persons saw that they did their duties in their calling c. From this Bishop's acknowledgment that the Bishops are the proper Judges of the Canon this Author that He may according to the Language of a modern Pen as well waken the Taciturn with Quaestions as silence the Loquacious with baffling fallacies takes Occasion briskly to ask whether this Bishop doth not mean here that the Bishops may both compose and execute Canons in the King's Dominions and use Ecclesiastical Censures by their own Autority But see saith He the Bishops depriv'd of the former power in the Reformation To which I answer that the power of which they were depriv'd in the Reformation was only of such an executing the Canons as carried with it pecuniary and corporal Punishments and this power the Bishop has told him they could not Exercise by their own Autority And here it were to be wish'd that our Author in reading this Bishop's Works had made use of his advice To cite Authors fully and faithfully not by halves without adding to or new moulding their Autorities according to Fancy or Interest The next Advocate against Regal Supremacy is King Charles the First But if we may take a draught of that Blessed Martyr's Sentiments from his own Portraiture He did not think his Autority confin'd to Civil Affairs but that the true glory of Princes consists as well in advancing Gods Glory in the maintenance of true Religion and the Churches good as in the Dispensation of Civil power with Justice and Honour to the publick Peace He thought himself as King intrusted by God and the Laws with the good both of Church and State and saw no reason why he should give up or weaken by any change that power and Influence which in right and reason He ought to have over both He thought himself oblig'd to preserve the Episcopal Government in its right Constitution not because his Bishops told him so but because his Iudgment was fully satisfied that it had of all other the best Scripture grounds and also the constant practice of Christian Churches He was no Friend of implicit Obedience but after he has told the Prince that the best Profession of Religion is that of the Church of England adds I would have your own Iudgment and reason now seal to that Sacred Bond which Education hath written that it may be judiciously your own Religion and not other Mens Custom or Tradition which you profess He did not give that glorious Testimony to the Religion established in the Church of England that it was the best in the World not only in the community as Christian but also in the special Notion as Reformed and for this reason required and intreated the Prince as his Father and his King that he would never suffer his Heart to receive the least check against or disaffection from it till he had first tried it and after much search and many disputes thus concluded These are the Sentiments of our Authors in which if I have been over-long the Reader will excuse me that I choose rather to intermix something useful from these great Pens then to entertain him altogether with the Paralogisms and prevarications of this Writer There is nothing that remains considerable under this first Thesis but his Sub-sumption that whatever powers belong'd to the Church in times of persecution and before Emperours had embrac'd Christianity are and must still be allowed to belong to her in Christian States Which I conceive not altogether so Necessary that it must be allowed and I am sure by our Authors it is not As for Convening of Councils the power of greatest concern Bishop Andrews to this Quaestion What say you to the 300 Years
before Constantine How went Assemblies then Who call'd them all that while returns this Answer Truly as the people of the Jews did before in AEgypt under the tyranny of Pharaoh They were then a Church under persecution until Moses was rais'd up by God a Lawful Magistrate over them The cases are alike for all the world No Magistrate did assemble them in AEgypt and good reason why they had none to do it But this was no barr but when Moses arose authoriz'd by God had the Trumpets by God deliver'd to him He might take them keep them use them for that end for w ch God gave them to assemble the Congregation Shall Moses have no more to do then Pharaoh or Constantine then Nero See also Dr Field His Third Thesis is That the Secular Prince cannot depose or eject from the exercise of their office in his Dominions any of the Clergy nor introduce others into the place of the ejected But the Quaestion here is not Whether the Prince can eject any of the Clergy from the Exercise of their Office but Whether he can depose any for not Exercising it While the Clergy faithfully discharge their Office the Prince ought to protect them and if for this they suffer no doubt but they are Martyrs But it is possible they may abuse their power and then it is to be enquir'd Whether Civil Laws may not inhibit them the Use of it This Author holds the Negative and tell us 1st They cannot eject them at pleasure without giving any cause thereof But he doth not pretend that the Reforming Princes ever ejected any without a Cause given And therefore he adds 2ly Neither may Princes depose them for any Cause which concerns things Spiritual but with this Limitation without the consent of the Clergy I could wish he had here told us what he ment by things Spiritual For things as well as Persons Spiritual are of great Extent d Pope Paul the 3d told the Duke of Mantua that it is the Opinion of the Doctors that Priest's Concubines are of Ecclsiastical Jurisdiction But he gives us his reason for his assertion Because it is necessary that a Judge to be a competent one have as well potestatem in causam as in Personam and the Prince as has been mention'd in the 1st Thesis has no Autority to judge such Causes purely Spiritual Now the power denied to the Prince in the Ist Thesis is to determine matters of Faith. But may not the Prince judge whether an Ecclesiastick deserves Deprivation without determining a Matter of Faith May not he judge according to what has been already determin'd by the Church Or may not he appoint such Delegates as can determine matters of Faith Or are all the Causes for which a Clergy-man may be depriv'd merely Spiritual By Virtue of this Thesis he proves the Ejection of the Western Patriarch unlawful Now was not this Matter of Faith already determin'd by the Clergy Had they not unanimously decreed That he had no more Autority here then any other forreign Bishop And can the King be said here to have acted without the consent of the Clergy And yet that matter of fact is applied to this Thesis As for the Ejection of the Bishops in King Edward's time is not that confest to have been for not acknowledging the Regal Supremacy But this was a matter which wanted no new Determination for the Church-Autority had decided it in their Synod in King Henry's Reign But it is said the Judges were not Canonical as being the King's Commissioners part Clergy part Laity But neither was the cause purely Canonical for denying the Supremacy was not only an infringment of the Canon but also a Violation of an Act of Parliament As for the Bishops Bonner and Gardiner they were accus'd for not asserting the Civil power of the King in his Nonage Nor do they plead Conscience for not doing it but deny the Matter of Fact The same Objections were then made against their Deprivation as are reassum'd by this Author now and therefore it may suffice to return the same answers That the Sentence being only of Deprivation privation from their Sees it was not so entirely of Ecclesiastical Censure but was of a mix'd nature so that Lay-men might joyn in it since they had taken Commissions from the King for their Bishopricks by which they held them only during the Kings pleasure they could not complain of their Deprivation which was done by the King's Autority Others who look'd farther back remembred that Constantine the Emp. had appointed Secular Men to enquire into some things objected to Bishops who were call'd Cognitores or Triers and such had examin'd the business of Coecilian Bishop of Carthage even upon an Appeal after it had been tried by several Synods and given Judgment against Donatus and his party The same Constantine had also by his Autority put Eustathius out of Antioch Athanasius out of Alexandria and Paul out of Constantinople and though the Orthodox Bishops complain'd of their particulars as done unjustly at the false suggestion of the Arrians yet they did not deny the Autority of the Emperors in such cases But neither is the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury by this Author allow'd to be a proper Judge that because He did not Act by his Canonical Superiority in the Church but by the Autority he joyntly with the rest receiv'd from the King As if he had ever the less the power of a Metropolitan because He was also the King's Commissioner By this way of arguing the Decrees of Oecumenical Councils will be invalid because they were call'd to determine Controversies by the command of Emperors But how Uncanonical soever King Edward's Bishops are said to have been He does not except against Queen Mary's Bishops tho' they in depriving the Reformed acted by Commission from the Queen As for the Bishops ejected in Q. Elizabeth's time it has been already said it was for a Civil cause i. e. refusing the Oath of Supremacy which why it should be lawful in her Father's time and unlawful in her's why it should be contriv'd by Roman Catholics in that Reign and scrupled by the same Roman Catholics in this Why it should be inoffensive when exprest in larger terms and scandalous when mitigated whence on a sudden the Refusers espied so much Obliquity in that Oath which they had all took before probably either as Bishops or Priests in the reigns of King Henry the 8th and Edward the 6th whence this change of things proceeded unless from secret intimations from Rome or their own Obstinacy will not easily be conjectur'd As for his Note that what is sayd of the other Clergy may be said likewise of the Patriarch for any Autority which he stands posses'd of by such Ecclesiastical Canons as cannot justly be pretended to do any wrong to the Civil Government He has been often told by our Authors that Patriarchs are an Humane Institution That as they were
regulated by the Laws of the Land. Thus the Priest has a power to bind and loose from our Saviour's Commission and yet according to this Author before the Reformation the Inferior Clergy might not exercise any Church Censure contrary to the Commands of their lawful Spiritual Superior Thus also if a General Council have power to determine matters of Faith then according to his Principles they have power to convene in order to such Determination and this power of theirs is unalienable and yet the Romanists will not allow that such Conventions may be made at pleasure but that the hic nunc are determinable by the Pope who only has power to indict Councils and to give Autority to those decrees which yet derive their power from the Council's being infallible and from the Holy Ghost assisting them Another Act which from the same Thesis he accuses of Injustice is the Clergy's beseeching the King's Highness that the Constitutions and Canons Provincial and Synodal which be thought prejudicial to the King's Prerogative Royal or repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm or to be otherwise overmuch onerous to his Highness and his Subjects may be committed to the judgment of his Highness and of 32 Persons 16 of the Temporalty and 16 of the Clergy of this Realm to be chosen and appointed by the King's Majesty and that such Canons as shall be thought by the more part of them worthy to be annull'd shall be made of no value and such other of the Canons as shall be approv'd to stand with the Law of God c. shall stand in power Now it is to be consider'd that the Laws which the Clergy here desire may be revis'd are of a far different Nature and therefore the Inspection of them may well be committed to different Judges Some of them were suppos'd prejudicial to the King's Praerogative Royal or repugnant to the Laws of the Realm and here the Lay-Commissioners being persons of the upper and lower House of Parliament see the Stat. were the best Judges Of others it was to be enquir'd Whether they were agreeable to the word of God or not and here the Clergy were ready to give their Determination And altho' they both acted in a joynt Commission yet no good reason seems assignable why both Lay and Ecclesiastical Judges should be appointed but that the matters to be examin'd being of different cognizance those which related to Civil Affairs should be determin'd by the Temporalty those which were of a Spiritual Nature by the Spiritualty And if so then the deciding of these matters is not transfer'd from the Spiritualty to the Temporalty but from one part of the Clergy to another And this He himself after all his descants upon this Act confesseth For whatever sense the words in the Praeface of this Act were or may be extended to I do not think the Clergy at first intended any such thing as to make the King or his Commissioners Judges of matters of Faith or Divine truth and for this Opinion of his He gives us his Reasons in that and the subsequent pages Another Act which is by this Author judg'd contrary to his first Thesis is that Statute of King Henry the eighth which orders that no speaking holding or doing against any Laws call'd Spiritual Laws made by Autority of the See of Rome which be repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm or the King's Praerogative shall be deem'd to be Haeresie from which he infers that the King and Parliament undertake to be Judges of Haeresie Now the King and Parliament do not here in my Opinion take upon them to decide matters of Faith but only to Enact that in such a case the Subject shall not suffer the Punishment usually inflicted on Haereticks Whether such speaking or doing be Haeresie or not they have power to ordain that it shall not be deem'd so i. e. the Speaker shall not suffer as an Haeretick Something parallel to this we have in that Statute of much concernment to use our Author's expression of another Act made 23. Eliz. c. 1. Wherein it is enacted that The Persons who shall withdraw any of the Queens Majesties Subjects from the Religion established by Law to the Romish Religion shall be to all intents adjudg'd as Traytors and shall suffer as in cases of High Treason and the like of Persons willingly reconcil'd Where without disputing whether every such Reconciler or Reconciled is necessarily for that Act ipso facto a Traytor all that is here enacted is that he shall suffer as such For it is undoubtedly within the reach of the Civil Power to ordain where they will inflict or not inflict their Secular Punishments without being accountable for this to any Autority under God's And it seems very hard that if a Subject expresses himself or acts against such Laws of a Forreigner as are repugnant to the Laws of his own Country there the Prince cannot exempt him from a Writ de Haeretico comburendo without invading the Churches right Another Act condemn'd by Virtue of his 1st and 2d Theses is The Convocation's granting to certain persons to be appointed by the King's Autority to make Ecclesiastical laws and pursuant to this 42 Articles of Religion publish'd by the Autority of King Edward in the 6th Year of his Reign Now not to engage my self in a dispute Whether these Articles were not really what in the Title praefix'd they are said to be Articuli de quibus in Synodo London A. D. 1552. ad tollendam opinionum dissentionem consensum verae Religionis firmandum inter Episcopos alios eruditos Viros convenerat Regia autoritate in lucem editi I shall only accept of what is by him granted that de illis convenerat inter Episcopos alios eruditos Viros qui erant pars aliqua de Synodo London So that here is only a part of the Synod employ'd in drawing up these Articles and not any Jurisdiction Spiritual transfer'd from Ecclesiastial persons to Secular which was by him to have been prov'd Another Inference which he deduces from these Theses is the Unlawfulness of the Oath of Supremacy Now how far the Regal Supremacy is by us extended will best be learnt from our Articles The King's Majesty has the chief power in this Realm of England and other his Dominions Unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all causes doth appertain and is not or ought not to be subject to any forreign Jurisdiction So far for the extent of this power but now for the restraint Where we attribute to the King's Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended We give not to our Prince the ministring either of God's word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions also lately set forth by Q. Elizabeth do most plainly testify
this Authority is by the Laws vindicated from Forreign Usurpation then he would have been in those days when such Usurpation was tolerated and conniv'd at Having dwelt hitherto on the Epistle and discover'd so much Insincerity in that which yet was to bespeak the Reader 's good Opinion of the ensuing Discourse We have no great reason to expect any fairer dealing in the prosecution of his design And here I shall be excus'd if I be the shorter in the Examination of his Theses both because they are such as being propos'd only and not prov'd it lies in our power to accept or reject them at pleasure as also because they have already undergone the Censure of a Noble Pen and have not been able to abide a fair Tryall Some of them are so ambiguously exprest that they may be either true or false according to the different construction they are capable of The fals-hood of others is self-evident But then for the better vending of these some truths are intermix'd according to the policy of Luther's Antagonist observ'd by his Biographer Who to make his bad wares saleable diligently mixeth some small stock of good with evil so to make this more current and all easily swallow'd down together by the imprudent and credulous Another Artifice much practis'd by our Author is that he lays down his Propositions in general terms but afterwards restrains them by such limitations which if adher'd to would make them utterly disserviceable to his Cause but then when they come to be applied the These are refer'd to at large without any regard to such limitations Thus when in his first Thesis he has propos'd That it is not in the just power of the Prince to deny giving the Ministers of Christ license to exercise their Office and their Ecclesiastical Censures in his Dominions He means he saith in general for he meddles not with the Prince his denying some of them to do these things whilst he admits others Now if this Restraint be observ'd then all which he would establish from this Thesis will come to Nothing For he will not I believe presume to say that the Reforming Princes ever laid a general Interdict upon all the Clergy to prohibit them the exercise of their Ecclesiastical Functions This is an Act which the Reformation detests and which we leave to the charitableness of the Universal Pastor who by Virtue of our Saviour's Command of Pasce oves challenges to himself a power of depriving the flock of all Spiritual food Thus again When in his third Thesis he has asserted that the Secular Prince cannot eject from the exercise of their Office in his Dominions any of the Clergy nor consequently the Patriarch from any Autority which he stands possest of by Ecclesiastical Canons He restrains such Canons to those only that cannot justly be pretended to do any wrong to the Civil Government Now he knows that all Canons which would obtrude upon us a forreign usurp'd Autority are by us pretended whether justly or not they will best judge who impartially weigh our Reasons injurious to the Civil Government Another Limitation of this Thesis is that the Civil power may judge and eject and disauthorize Spiritual Persons for Moral and Civil Misdemeanors damageable to the Common-Wealth But this Limitation is forgot when from this Thesis He would prove the ejection of the Bishops in Queen Elizabeth's time unlawful For their Deprivation was for refusing the Oath of Supremacy made first by Roman-Catholicks in King Henry the 8th's time and reviv'd by Queen Elizabeth so that the Justice of it depends merely on the Right of the Civil power to make Oaths for the better security of their Government and to impose such Penalties as are exprest in the Law on the Violators and if such Refusal be damageable to the Common-Wealth as it was then judg'd then the Deprivation of those Refusers will be justifiable according to his own Principles Thus again in his 8th Thesis When he has laid down That as for things of meer Ecclesiastical Constitution Neither National Synod nor Secular power may make any New Canons contrary to the Ecclesiastical Constitutions of former Superior Councils nor reverse those formerly made by them He restrains it to those only as neither the Prince can shew some way prejudicial to his Civil Government nor the National Synod can shew more prejudicial to their particular Church then the same Constitutions are to the rest of Christian Churches Where by the way methinks it should suffice if they were aequally prejudicial for one Church is never the less wrong'd because another suffers Now we desire no more then the benefit of this limitation for if the Prince may reverse such Constitutions when prejudicial to Civil Government and the National Synod when praejudicial to their particular Church and each of these are Judges of such praejudice for neither doth AEquity admit nor doth He appoint any other Arbiter then each of these have as much power granted them as they challenge which is only to alter such Constitutions as are prejudicial to them Having praemis'd thus much in general and caution'd the Reader against this piece of Sophistry which runs through the greatest part of this Discourse I shall now proceed to a particular survey of his Theses As for the first and second I shall at present grant him that favour which he seems to request of all his Readers i. e. suppose them to be true and shall content my self only to examin what Inferences he deduces from them And here I cannot but commend his Policy for setting his Conclusions at so great a distance from his Praemisses for they are commonly such as would have by no means agreed to stand too nigh together From his first and second Thesis that the Clergy have power to determine Controversies in pure matters of Religion and to judge what is divine truth what are Errors that they cannot alienate this Power to the Secular Prince he infers That that Synodical Act of the Clergy in K. Henry the Eighth's time whereby they promise not to Assemble without the King 's Writ nor when Assembled to execute any Canons without the King's consent is unlawful Now it is to be observed that the Clergy neither do deny that they have a Power to determine Controversies in pure matters of Religion which is what the first Thesis would prove nor do they transfer such a Power on the King which might be against the Tenor of the second The utmost which can be deduc'd hence is That the Clergy did for prudential motives limit themselves in the Exercise of one branch of their Spiritual Power and it will be difficult for this Author to prove that He who has a power jure divino may not by humane Laws be limited in the Use of it Husbands have a power over their Wives Fathers over their Children and Masters over their Servants by the Law of God and yet this power may be
but that only Prerogative which We see to have been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scriptures by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates and degrees committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the Stubborn evil doers It is therefore by our Author to be prov'd that they who give no more to their Prince then hath been given always to all Godly Princes in Holy Scripture by God himself do alienate to the Secular Governour any Autority or Office which they the Clergy have receiv'd and been charg'd with by Christ with a command to execute the same to the end of the World which being a Contradiction I leave it to him to reconcile That by this Oath or any other Act of Queen Elizabeth a greater Power was either assum'd by herself or given to her by Others then is consistent with that Autority that is given by our Saviour to the Church will be very difficult for any Reasonable man to conceive who shall have recourse to the Injunction of this Queen to which this very Article refers us Where she declares that she neither doth nor ever will challenge any Autority but what was challeng'd and lately us'd by the Noble Kings of famous memory King Henry the 8th and King Edward the 6th which is and was of Ancient time due to the Imperial Crown of this Realm that is under God to have Sovereignty and Rule over all manner of Persons born within these her Realms Dominions and Countreys of what Estate either Ecclesiastical or Temporal soever they be so as no other forreign Power shall or ought to have any Superiority over them And if any Person that hath conceited any other sense of the form of the said Oath shall accept the same Oath with this Interpretation sense or meaning Her Majesty is well pleas'd to accept every such in that behalf as her good and Obedient Subjects and shall acquit them of all manner of penalties contain'd in the act therein mention'd against such as shall peremptorily and obstinately refuse to take the same Oath So that it 's evident from this Injunction that it 's no way here stated what Autority belongs to the Church and what to the Civil Magistrate farther then that the Queen as justly she might challenged what was due of Ancient time to the Imperial Crown of this Realm and neither did nor would challenge more but what that was is not here determin'd and she is content without such Determination if any Person would take this Oath in such a sense as only to exclude all forreign Jurisdiction whether Ecclesiastical or Civil Another Act which He finds repugnant to his 1st Thesis is King Henry the 8th's claiming a right that no Clergy-man being a Member of the Church of England should exercise the power of the Keys in his Dominions in any Cause or on any Person without his leave and appointment But it is to be remembred that the Ecclesiastical Censures asserted to belong to the Clergie in the first Thesis have reference to the things only of the next world but the censures here spoken of are such as have reference to the things of this world The Habitual Jurisdiction of Bishops flows we confess from their Ordination but the Actual exercise thereof in publick Courts after a coercive manner is from the gracious Concessions of Sovereign Princes From the 1st and 2d Thesis he farther condemns the taking away the Patriarch's Autority for receiving of Appeals and exercising final Judicature in Spiritual Controversies as also the taking away the final judging and decision of such Controversies not only from the Patriarch in particular but also from all the Clergy in general not making the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury or Convocation but himself or his Substitutes the Judges thereof For which he refers us to Stat. 25. H. 8. 19. c. But in that Statute I find no mention of a Patriarch or Spiritual Controversies but only that in causes of Contention having their commencement within the Courts of this Realm no Appeal shall be made out of it to the Bishop of Rome but to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and for want of Justice in his Courts to the King in Chancery Upon which a Commission shall be directed to such Persons as shall be appointed by the King definitively to determine such Appeals Here is nothing of determining Controversies in pure matters of Religion of deciding what is Gods word and divine Truth what are Errors in the faith or in the practise of Gods Worship and Service nor any of the other Spiritual powers by him enumerated in the 1st Thesis Or if any such Quaestions should be involv'd in the Causes to be tried Why may not the Commissioners if Secular judge according to what has been praedetermin'd by the Clergy or let us suppose a case never yet determin'd How doth he prove a power of judging in such causes transfer'd on secular Persons since if Occasion requir'd the Delegates might be Persons Ecclesiastical But not only the Acts of State and Church but the Opinions of our Doctors are to be examin'd by his Test and therefore from the same Theses he censures that Assertion of Dr. Heylin that it is neither fit nor reasonable that the Clergy should be able by their Synodical Acts to conclude both Prince and People in Spiritual matters until the stamp of Royal Autority be imprinted on them Now it is plain to any one that views the Context that the Dr. speaks of such a concluding the Prince and people in matters Spiritual as hath influence on their Civil rights For he there discourses of the Clergy under King Henry obliging themselves not to execute those Ecclesiastical Canons without the Kings consent which formerly they had put in Execution by their own Autority But the Canons so executed had the force of Civil Laws and the Violators of them were obnoxious to Secular punishments The Dr. therefore very justly thought it unreasonable any should be liable to such Punishments without His consent who only has the power of inflicting them Nor is this inconsistent with our Authors first Thesis had he at so great a distance remembred it which extends Church-Autority only to Ecclesiastical Censures which have reference to things not of this but the next World. These are the Inferences which I find deduc'd from his first and second Theses in the several parts of this Discourse which had they been as conclusive as they are false yet I do not find but that his own party if that be the Roman Catholick had suffer'd most by them For if the Supremacy given to King Henry was so great an Invasion of the Churches right what shall we think of that Roman Catholick Clergy who so Sacrilegiously invested him with this Spiritual power If that Synodical Act was betraying the trust which the Clergy had receiv'd from Christ what shall we think of those