Church-Government PART V. A RELATION OF THE English Reformation AND The lawfulness thereof examined by the THESES deliver'd in the Four former Parts Printed at OXFORD 1687. The CONTENTS CHAP. I. EIGHT Theses pre-posed whereby to try the lawfulness of this Reformation § 1. CHAP. II. Three Heads of this Discourse I. 1. Head How the English Clergy were first induced to acknowledge a new Regal Supremacy in Spirituals § 17. And how far only at the first they seem to have allowed it § 23. CHAP. III. II. 2. Head Concerning what Supremacy was afterward by degrees conferred on or also claimed by the Prince § 26. n. 2. 1. In the times of Henry the Eighth CHAP. IV. 2. In the times of Edward the Sixth § 38. CHAP. V. The former Supremacy disclaimed by Queen Mary and by the Bishops in her days and the Pope's Supremacy re-acknowledged § 48. And the final judgment of Ecclesiastical matters restored to the Church And the Church-doctrine under King Edward condemned § 51. That Queen Maries Clergy was a lawful Clergy That the Bishops in King Edward's days were not lawfully ejected § 54. Neither as to the Authority ejecting them Nor as to the Cause That the Bishops deprived in Queen Mary's days were lawfully ejected Both as to the Cause And as to the Judge § 64. Where Concerning the burning of those who in Queen Mary's days were by the Church condemned of Heresy § 65. And therefore others lawfully introduced in their places CHAP. VI. 3. In the times of Queen Elizabeth That as ample a Supremacy was claimed and by Parliament conferred on her as on King Henry or Edward § 70. Where Concerning certain qualifications of her Supremacy urged by the Reformed § 72. And the Replyes to them But such Supremacy not acknowledged or consented to by the Clergy § 77. CHAP. VII III. 3. Head How according to such Supremacy assumed these three Princes acted in Ecclesiastical Affairs § 78. 1. The Actings of Henry the Eighth in Ecclesiastical Affairs In the abrogating of former Ecclesiastical Laws and compiling a new body of them In putting forth a model of the Doctrine of the Christian Faith and the Six Articles § 81. Where Concerning the complaints made by Protestants of his abuse of the Supremacy In the consecrating and confirming of Bishops and Metropolitans § 86. In the putting down of Monasteries c. § 87. The pretences thereof § 89. Reflections upon these pretences § 93. In the dispensing with the former Church Canons concerning Marriages Fasts Holy days c. § 99. In the publishing and afterward prohibiting of the Scriptures in a vulgar tongue § 101. CHAP. VIII 2. The Actings of King Edward in Ecclesiastical Affairs § 104. 1. Set down first more generally In putting forth certain Injunctions and Doctrinal Homilies sending Commissions thro the Realm and ejecting the refractory Clergy c. In the prohibition of Preaching till he had setled Religion The Defence made by the Protestant Divines concerning King Edward's proceedings in matters of Religion The Reply thereto § 111. Where Concerning the Clergy's concurrence and consent to the Kings Reformations § 119. CHAP. IX 2. More particularly In sending certain Doctrinal Articles to be subscribed by the Bishop of Winchester In repealing the Six Articles passed by Synod in Henry the Eighth's time § 137. In seizing on Religious Houses and some Bishops Lands and denying the lawfulness of Monastick Vows In defacing Images In enjoyning Administration of the Communion in both kinds § 142. In suppressing the former Church-Liturgies Ordinals and other Rituals § 143. In setting up new Forms Of celebrating the Communion § 144. Of Ordination § 145. Of Common-Prayer § 146. Out of which was ejected the Sacrifice of the Mass § 147. Where 1. Concerning the alterations of the first Common-Prayer-Book of King Edward's in relation to the Sacrifice of the Eucharist 148. 2. Concerning the further alterations in the second Common-Prayer-Book in relation to the same Sacrifice § 149. 3. Concerning the reduction of some things touching this matter in the new Common-Prayer-Book prepared for Scotland to the first Form of King Edward § 150. Much complained of in Laudensium Autocatacrisis § 151. And the celebration of the Eucharist prohibited when none other to communicate with the Priest § 152. And Invocation of Saints expunged out of the Litanies § 154. And the necessity of Sacerdotal Confession relaxed § 155. CHAP. X. In setting forth a second Form of Common-Prayer than which the first was in many things much more moderate § 157. In which second Book are rectified and removed many things which gave offence in the former § 158. Among the rest Prayer for the Dead and several expressions that seemed to inferr the Real or Corporal Presence in the Eucharist § 160. Where Concerning the reduction of some things touching this Presence made in the new Liturgy for Scotland to King Edward's first Form § 161. Much complained of in Laudensium Autocatacrisis In the abrogation of several Ecclesiastical Laws concerning Fasts Celibacy of the Clergy c Lastly In the Edition of 42 Articles of Religion different from the former doctrines of the Church § 165. Where Whether these Articles were passed by any Synod CHAP. XI 3. The Actings of Queen Elizabeth in Ecclesiastical matters § 170. All the former decrees of the Clergy in King Henry and King Edward's days being reversed by the Clergy in Queen Mary's days Her calling of a Synod which declareth against the Reformation A Disputation between the Bishops and the Râ—â—â—â—med Divines § 177. The Regal Supremacy and all that King Edward had done in the Reformation now re-established by the Qu. and Parliament § 179. But not by the Clergy The ejecting of the Bishops for refusing the Oath of her Supremacy § 180. The unlawfulness of this Ejection Concerning Regal Supremacy How far it seemeth to extend § 181. How far not § 183. That Submission to the Regal Supremacy in this later kind was required from those Bishops § 184. Concerning Forreign Supremacy in Ecclesiastical Affairs how far it is to be acknowledged § 185. That the renouncing such Supremacy was required of those Bishops § 186. That so many of Queen Mary's Bishops could not be lawfully ejected on any other ground as would render the Protestant Bishops a major part § 187. CHAP. XII Concerning the defects of the Queen's Protestant Bishops remaining since King Edward's days § 190. n. 1. Concerning the defects of the new Bishops ordained in Qu. Elizabeth's days § 191. Whether their Ordination unlawful according to the Church Canons § 193. Where Concerning the Queen as Supreme in Ecclesiasticals her dispensing with the former Ecclesiastical Laws for their Ordination § 194. CHAP. XIII Digression concerning The Opinion of several Protestant Divines touching the lawfulness of the Prince's reforming of Religion in matters of Doctrine against the major part of the Clergy when to him seemeth a necessity that requireth it 196. Opinion Of Dr. Field § 197. Of Mr. Mason § 199.
who shall be deputed to be any Chancellor Commissary c may lawfully exercise all manner of Jurisdiction commonly called Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction any Constitution to the contrary notwithstanding And see Reformatio Legum Ecclesiasticarum tit de Officio Jurisd omnium Judicum Rex tam in Episcopos Clericos c quam in Laicos plenissimam jurisdictionem tam civilem quam Ecclesitasticam exercere potest cum omnis Jurisdictio Ecclesiastica Saecularis ab eo tanquam ex uno eodem fonte derivantur § 27 Amongst which Jurisdictions I understand also Excommunication Suspension and Deprivation ab officio of which see more below p. § 46. Not that I affirm the King did ever claim the right of exercising himself this power of the Keys but that he claimed this right which is contrary to the First Thesis that no Clergy-man being a Member of the Church of England should exercise it in his Dominions in any Cause or on any Person without the leave and appointment of him the Supream Head of this Church nor any forbear to exercise where he the Head commanded it As before the Reformation the inferiour Clergy might not exercise any Church Censure contrary to the commands of their lawful Spiritual Superiors which Jurisdiction of their former Spiritual Superiors was now enstated on the King On the King Not as one subordinate to the Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction herein For so a Lay-person in foro exteriori or contentioso as 't is called which Court the Church used before any Prince was Christian may excommunicate sometimes tho not ligare or solvere in foro interiori or poenitentiali yet for the exteriour also see what Provision is made against this in 16. Caroli 1. Can. 13. But as one by God primarily invested with the disposal thereof from whom the Ecclesiastical Governors within his Dominions derive this authority as you have seen in the Preface of this Act. § 28 Again in vertue of this Jurisdiction translated to the King by another Act of Parliament 25. Hen. 8.21 c. the Supreme Power of giving all manner of Licences Dispensations Faculties Grants c for all Laws and Constitutions meerly Ecclesiastical and in all Causes not being contrary to the Scriptures and Laws of God is not only taken from the Pope but from the Clergy too and is committed to the Secular Power contrary to the Eighth Thesis The Statute saith thus That whereas it standeth with Natural Equity and good Reason that in all humane Laws in all Causes which are called Spiritual induced into this Realm your Royal Majesty and your Lords Spiritual and Temporal and Commons in Parliament where you see the Parliaments Supremacy as to admitting or abrogating Ecclesiastical Constitutions joyned with the Kings have full power and authority not only to dispense but also to authorize some elect persons to dispense with those and all other humane Laws of this your Realm as the quality of the persons and matter shall require as also the said Laws to abrogate admit amplify or diminish Be it therefore Enacted That from henceforth every such Licence Dispensation c that in cases of necessity may lawfully be granted without offending the Holy Scripture and Laws of God necessary for your Highness or for your Subjects shall be granted in manner following that is to say the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury shall have Power to grant them to your Majesty c. And if the foresaid Arch-Bishop shall refuse or deny to grant any Licences Dispensations that then upon Examination had in your Court of Chancery that such Licences may be granted without offending against the Scriptures your Highness shall command the Arch-Bishop to grant them c under such Penalties as shall be expressed in such Writ of Injunction And it shall be lawful to your Highness for every such default of the said Arch-Bishop to give Power by Commission to such two Spiritual Prelates or Persons to be named by your Highness as will grant such Licences and Dispensations Here the Supream Power of dispensing with Ecclesiastical Constitutions is ascribed to the King and Parliament as recognized Supream Head of the Church and the Arch-Bishop made his Delegate and after the Arch-Bishop the King or his Court of Chancery made the last Judge what things in such Dispensations offend against Scripture what not § 29 By vertue of the same Jurisdiction translated to the King by an Act of Parliament 25. Hen. 8.20 c. The necessity of the Metropolitan's being confirmed by the Patriarch is taken away and the Clergy are bound to admit and consecrate what person soever the King shall present to any Bishoprick upon Penalty of incurring a Premunire and the Consecration is to be performed by such and so many as the King shall appoint A thing contrary to the Third Thesis and the Canons of former Superior Councils and ruining the Church when the Prince is Heretical See the Statute § 30 Again it is Enacted by the Statute above-mentioned 26. Hen. 8.1 c. That the King should have full power from time to time to visit repress reform correct and amend all such Errors Heresies c as is set down but now § 25. § 31 Again 25. Hen. 8.19 c. It is Enacted by the same authority That all such Canons and Constitutions Provincial or Synodal which be thought prejudicial as I have set it down before § 23. § 32 The like is Enacted 32. Hen. 8.26 c. viz. That all such Determinations Decrees Definitions and Ordinances as according to Gods Word and Christs Gospel should at any time hereafter be set forth by the said Arch-Bishop and Bishops and Doctors in Divinity now appointed or hereafter to be appointed by his Royal Majesty or else by the whole Clergy of England either by the one or by the other therefore is the latter not held necessary but the former sufficient with the Confirmation of the Head in and upon the matter of Christs Religion and the Christian Faith c by his Majesties advice and confirmation under the Great Seal shall be by all his Grace's Subjects fully believed obeyed observed and performed to all purposes and intents upon the pains and penalties therein to be comprised Where note that whereas under the Reformation private men are tyed only to obey and believe the Definitions of Councils when they are set forth according to Gods Word i. e when private men think them to be so Yet here this Liberty was thought fit to be restrained and private men tyed to believe these Definitions when set forth as according to Gods word i. e when the setters forth deem them to be so To obey a thing defined according to Gods Word and to obey a thing defined as being according to Gods word are Injunctions very different § 33 Again whereas the Act 24. Hen. 8.12 c. set down before § 25. ordered Appeals in Causes Spiritual to be finally adjudged by the Arch-Bishop of the Province It is Enacted by Parliament 25. Hen. 8.19 c. First That
no manner of Appeals shall be made out of the Realm to the Bishop of Rome in any Causes or Matters of what Nature soever Secondly That for lack of Justice in the Court of the Arch-Bishop Commissioners by the Kings Highness to be appointed shall have full power and authority to hear and definitively to determine every such Appeal with the causes and all circumstances concerning the same and no further Appeals to be made These Commissioners therefore appointed by the King are the ultimate and unappealable Judges after the Arch-Bishop in all Spiritual matters of which doubtless many are concerning what is lawful or unlawful by Gods Word wherein according to the Canon when they were Causes of moment Appeals were formerly made from the Bishop to a Synod or to the Patriarch § 34 Again 25. Hen. 8.14 c. It is Enacted by authority of Parliament That no speaking doing or holding against any Laws called Spiritual Laws made by authority of the See of Rome by the Policy of Man which be repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm or the Kings Prerogative shall be deemed to be Heresy From which all that I would note is this that the King and Parliament undertake to be Judges of Heresy and do declare that no Laws of the Realm nor the Prerogative assumed by the King have any thing of Heresy in them Again it is Enacted by Parliament 34 35. Hen. 8.1 c. That if any Spiritual Person or Persons shall preach or teach contrary to the Determinations which since An. Dom. 1540 are or shall be set forth by his Majesty as is aforementioned that then every such Offender offending the third time contrary to this Act shall be deemed and adjudged an Heretick and shall suffer pains of death by Burning Where the King is made the ultimate Judge of Heresy without any Appeal as appears by the former-quoted Act 25 Hen. 8.19 c. contrary to the First and Seventh Thesis And the Protestants in justifying this Supremacy must allow their own Condemnation if teaching against any thing written in the Book called the Institution of a Christian Man Or A Necessary Doctrine for all sorts of People set forth by the King's Authority at that time or against the Six Articles which were in the same Act Established as likewise in 31. Hen. 8.14 c. the Publishing of which Act saith Lord Herbert p. 447. gave no little occasion of murmur since to revoke the conscience not only from its own Court but from the ordinary ways of resolving Controversies to such an abrupt decision of the Common-Law as is there Stat. 31. Hen. 8.14 c. set down §. 35. n. 1. was thought to be a deturning of Religion from its right and usual course Now to reflect a little upon these several Acts fore-quoted 1. Whereas it is said by Bishop Bramhal Schism Guarded § 3. p. 262. the Title of which Section is That Henry the Eighth made no new Law See likewise his Vindic. p. 86. 1. That these Statutes of Henry the Eighth were only declarative of old Law not enactive of new Law proving it by the authority of Fitz-Herbert and of the Lord Coke Reports Fifth Part. And 2ly Schism Guarded p. 61 62. That these Statutes do attribute no Spiritual Jurisdiction to the King at all save only an External Regiment by coactive Power in Ecclesiastical Causes in foro contentioso Fox the First of these if you please to compare the Clauses of the Statutes before rehearsed with the former Statutes of this Land diligently collected by the Lord Coke Reports §. 35. n. 2. Fifth Part and with those also mentioned by Bishop Bramh. Vindic. 4. c. p. 63. c. You shall find no such thing if you take all and all the extent of King Henry's Statutes You may find Appeals to the Pope or other Forreign Judge and Bulls or Excommunications or Legations from him except that of the Bishop of Canterbury who was Legátus natus to have been prohibited by former Laws that is in some particular Cases wherein the Prince conceived Himself or his Subjects to be injured thereby in his or their Temporal Rights Profits Securities or also in some Ecclesiastical Indulgements obtained formerly from the Pope See that Indulgement granted to King Edw. the Confessor Vobis posteris vestris Regibus c. in Spelm. Conc. A. 1066 Bishop Bramhal's Vindic. p. 66. This appears in that much urged Statute 16. Rich. 2.5 c. quoted in Vindic. p. 80. where upon pain of a Premunire all are prohibited to purchase any Bulls or Sentences of Excommunication from Rome But this is in certain Cases only see Vindic. p. 81. Cases indeed Ecclesiastical but such as were conceived contrary to the Temporal Rights of the King and his Subjects which all Ecclesiastical matters I hope neither are nor are pretended to be viz. these Cases Popes refusing the King's or other Laity's Presentment of a Person to the Benefices of the Church that is of such a Person whose Orthodoxness and Canonicalness the Clergy cannot question Again The Translation by the Pope of English Bishops out of the Realm without the Kings assent whereby saith the Statute the Kings Liege Sages of his Council should be without his assent and against his Will carried away and gotten out of his Realm and the Substance and Treasure of the Realm shall be carried away and so the Realm destitute as well of Council as of Substance surely these are Temporal Considerations and so the Crown of England which hath been so free at all times that it hath been in no Earthly Subjection but immediately subject to God in all things not absolutely as the Bishop represents it Vindic. p. 80. but in all things touching the Regality of the same Crown and to none other should be submitted to the Pope c. the Regality that is in those Temporal things above named In these Cases Bulls c from the Bishop of Rome were prohibited as infringing the Civil Rights And to this Statute in such case it is said there the Lords Spiritual gave their consent But meanwhile making Protestations saith the Statute that it is not their mind to deny or affirm that the Bishop of Rome may not excommunicate Bishops nor that he may make Translation of Prelates after the Law of Holy Church And Richard the Second notwithstanding this Act was far from the denying the Popes Supremacy in his Realms as to many other respects as appears by his zealous supporting of Vrban the Sixth in it 2. Rich. 2.7 Again you may find perhaps Appeals Bulls c prohibited in general without the Kings content first obtained thereto But this not out of an intention of suppressing all such Appeals or Ecclesiastical Laws or Censures whatsoever coming from the Pope or other Spiritual authority abroad or out of an intention of denying these in several Cases to be rightfully belonging unto them but only out of an intention to examine them first whether any thing were contained in them
a Lay Vicar-General and p. 20 That the Power and Reputation of the Clergy was under foot and therefore the Authority of Parliament of more use than afterward in times well ballanced and established meaning those following times wherein the Clergy were now changed and fashioned to the inclinations of the Prince And as for these days of King Edward what Authority concerning Spiritual matters not only the people but the new Divines of Edward acknowledged and enstated in the King and Parliament may appear from that Letter of Bishop Hooper when in Prison sent to the Synod called in the beginning of Queen Mary Episcopis Decanis wherein he cites them before the High Court of Parliament â—ox p. 1933. as the competent Judge in those Controversies i. e for so far as any man can be Judge In this Letter after having urged Deut. 17.8 because of the mention made there of a Judge besides the Priest Voâ— omnes saith he obtestor ut causam hanc vel aliam quamcunqne ob religionem ortam inter nos vos deferre dignemini ad supremam Curiam Parliamenti ut ibi utraque pars coram sacro excelso senatu sese religiosè animo submisso judicio authoritati Verbi Dei subjiciat Vestra ipsorum causa certè postulat ut palam e. c lites inter nos componantur idque coram competenti judice Quid hoc est igitur Quo jure contenditis Vultis nostri causae nostrae testes accusatores judices esse Nos tantùm legem evangelium Dei in causà religionis judicem competentem agnoscimus Illius judicio stet vel cadat nostra causa Tantum iterum atque iterum petimus ut coram competenti judice detur nobis amicum Christianumque auditorium Non vos fugit quomodo publicè palam in facie ac in presentiâ omnium statuum hujus regni in summâ curià Parliamenti veritas verbi Dei per fidos doctos pios ministros de vestrâ impiâ Missâ gloriosè victoriam reportavit Quae quocunque titulo tempore universalitate splenduit ubi per Sanctissimum Regem Edvardum 6. ad vivum lapidem Lydium verbi Dei examinari per proceres heroas ac doctos hujus regni erat mandatum statim evanuit c. Here that Bishop professeth when any do oppose a Synod in a Cause of Religion not the Synod but the Parliament the competent Judge therein and urgeth if I rightly understand him the just Authority thereof in King Edward's time for putting down the Mass Will he then stand to the Parliaments judgment which as it was then affected would have cast him It seemeth Not by that he faith Tantum legem Dei in causâ religionis judicem competentem agnoscimus Illius judicio stet vel cadat causa nostra By whose mouth then shall the Scripture decide it that Sentence may be executed accordingly on him a Prisoner for this Controversy By the Clergy's No. By the Parliament's No for he makes sure to wave that in his Letter By the Scripture then its self But this is urged by both sides to speak for them and saith not one word more after the Cause heard by the Parliament than it did before So that in nominating no other final Judge the Bishops Request here in summe is that his Cause may never be tryed by any Judge CHAP. V. King Edward's Supremacy disclaimed by Qu. Mary § 48 AFter King Edward's Death in the beginning of Queen Mary's Reign a Princess otherwise principled The former Supremacy Disclaimed by Q. Mary and by the Bishops in her days and the Popes Supremacy re-acknowledged all that had been done in the Two former Kings Reigns by Prince by State or by Clergy in setting up a new Lay-Supremacy in Spirituals in restraining the former Power and Supremacy of the Church in innovating the Forms of Divine Service and Administration of the Sacraments of Ordination of Church Rites and Discipline and Jurisdiction in disannulling several former Ecclesiastical Canons and Constitutions and composing new ones All was now by an equal Authority of Prince Clergy and State reversed repealed ejected and Religion only rendred much poorer as for Temporals put into the same course which it had in the twentieth Year of Henry the Eighth before a new Wife or a new Title was by him thought on So that any new Reformation to come afterward must begin to build clearly upon a new Foundation not able to make any use of the Authority of the former Structure being now by the like Authority defaced and thrown down § 49 This Restitution of things made in Queen Mary's days will chiefly appear to you in the Statute 1. Mar. 2. chap where the ancient Form of Divine Service c used in Henry the Eighths days is restored as being the Service saith the Act which we and our Fore-fathers found in this Church of England left unto us by the Authority of the Catholick Church And the final judgment of Ecclesiastical matters restored to the Church and several Acts of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth that abrogated some former Ecclesiastical Laws c or introduced new Forms of Divine Service of Election and Ordination of Bishops and Priests are repealed And in 1 and 2. Mar. 6. chap. where the ancient way of judging Heresies and Hereticks first at the Tribunals of the Church is set on foot again and the Statutes to this purpose which were repealed upon the coming in of a new Supremacy are revived § 50 And in 1 and 2. Mar. 8. c where the Pope's Supremacy is re-acknowledged when also as Fox observes p. 1296. the Queen's Stile concerning Supremacy was changed and in it Ecclesiae Anglicanae Supremum Caput omitted as also Bonner Bishop of London being Chief of the Province of Canterbury in the Restraint of the Arch-Bishop did omit in his Writs to the Clergy Authoritate Illustrissimae c legitime suffulttus In which Statute also the whole Nation by their Representative in Parliament ask pardon and absolution from their former Schism repealing the Oath of the Kings Supremacy and all the Acts made formerly in Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth's time against the Popes Supremacy and amongst them particularly this Act of the Submission of the Clergy set down before § 22. and § 23 whereby the Clergy had engaged themselves to make nor promulge no Ecclesiastical Canons without the Kings consent and bad also besought the King to delegate some persons whom he pleased to reform Errors Heresies c i e. to do the Offices of the Clergy In which Statute also the Clergy in a distinct Supplication beginning Nos Episcopi Clerus Cantuariensis Provinciae in hac Synodo congregati c calling the former Reformation perniciosum Schisma do petition to have the Church restored to her former Rights Jurisdictions Liberties taken from her by the injustice of former times The words are Insuper Majestatibus vestris supplicamus
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 which God gave them to assemble the Congregation Shall Moses have no more to do then Pharaoh or Constantine then Nero See also a Field of the Church l. 5. c. 52. Dr Field His Third Thesis is That the Secular Prince cannot b Soave Hist of Conc. Tr. Pag. 77. 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 Vse of it This Author holds the Negative and tells 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 1st 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 pag. 37. Now was not this Matter of Faith already determine 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 pag. 70. 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 * Burn. His Ref. part 2. l. 1. p. 127. 165. 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 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 Ibid. p. 127. 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 erected so they
upon the Universities abroad was demanded by the Parliament from the Clergy at home because it was said that the Cardinal and some other chief amongst them were thro their falshood and dissimulation the cause of this Forreign Expence Which Summe they resolutely refusing to contribute the whole Clergy are sued by the King and condemned by the Kings Bench in a Premunire also for receiving and acknowledging the Cardinals Power Legantine exercised by him ignorantly or presumptuously without the Kings consent and allowance first obtained The Clergy thus become liable at the Kings pleasure to the Imprisonment of their Persons and confiscation of their Estates assemble themselves in the House of Convocation offer to pay for their Ransome the demanded 100000 l. § 20 But the King having now no hopes of obtaining a Licence for his Divorce from the Pope who at this time stood much in awe of the Emperor victorious in Italy and a near Kinsman and Favourer of Queen Katherine that the Popes Decrees might be of no force against him negociates also by his Agents with the Clergy whilst in these fears to give him the Title of Supremacy in Ecclesiastical matters within his Dominions making account that this obtained he had the assent of his own Clergy at his beck for the nulling of his former Marriage Therefore in the drawing up of the Clergy's Petition to the King for release of the Premunire it was signified from the Court cujus consilii Cranmerus Cromwellus clam authores fuisse existimabantur saith the Author Antiq. Brittanic p. 325. that a Title should be prefixed wherein they should stile the King ecclesiae cleri Anglicani Protector supremum Caput or else the Petition would not be accepted To which with some difficulty they agreed so as qualifying it with this Clause Quantum per legem Christi licet But the King again excepting at this limitation as unworthy the Clergy who either did or ought to know and definitively instruct others what Christs Law did or did not allow at last upon renewed threats this Clause also was procured to be omitted See Antiquit. Brittannic p. 326. Sed Regi saith that Author displicuit ancipitem dubiamque mitigationem moderationem verborum a cleri sui Synodo quae de Christi lege aut certa fuit aut certa esse debuit tam frigide proferri Itaque Cromwellum ad Synodum iterum mandans eam aut tolli voluit aut clerum incursas Sanctionum paenas pati Omnium igitur ex sententiis Rex sine ambiguitate ullâ ecclesiae Angliae supremum caput declaratus est But yet this was not done till after the Clergy who much alledged that the King or some of his Successors might upon this Title ruine the Church of England in their ordering Spiritual matters without or against the Clergy thereof had obtained a voluntary promise from him to this effect That he would never by vertue of that Grant assume to himself any more power over the Clergy than all others the Kings of England had assumed nor that he would do any thing without them in altering ordering or judging in any Spiritual matters See Bishop Fisher's Life published by Dr. Bayly And this was the first Act of the Clergy which being so understood as excluding all authority of the Western Patriarch over the Church of England and transferring such authority for the future to the King is contrary to the Fourth Thesis because some such authority was conferred on this Patriarch by Superior Councils And which Act was so passed by them that as Dr. Hammond acknowledged of Schism 7. c. it is easy to believe See Church Gov. 1. Part §. 4. and §. 20. that nothing but the apprehensions of dangers which hung over them by a Premunire incurred by them could probably have inclined them to it § 22 After the conceding of this Title of Supremacy to the King and exclusion of the Pope's Authority out of his Dominions and the voiding of all appeals made hence unto him and after the Kings Marriage to Anne Bullen also but before the publication thereof Cranmer being now chosen Arch-Bishop of Canterbury upon the death of Warham a Favourer of the Queen Katherine's Cause Summons her to appear before him and some other Bishops and Commissioners and upon her neglect solemnly dissolveth the Kings former Marriage with her and divorceth him from her § 23 But the Kings ends thus obtained yet things rested not here And how far only at the first they seem to have allowed it But whereas formerly till the Twenty fifth year of Henry the Eighth the Synods of the Clergy saith Dr. Heylin § 1. p 7. after called by the Kings Writ acted absolutely in their Convocations of their own authority the Kings or Parliaments assent or ratification neither concurring nor required and whereas by this sole authority which they had in themselves they made Canons declared Heresies convicted and censured persons suspected of Heresy c Now they having declared the King supream Head of the Church instead of the Pope the Western Patriarch it seemed reasonable therefore that no Acts of the Church should stand good without the concurrence of the Head And conducing much to this end as I learn from the forenamed Dr was a Petition or Remonstrance exhibited to the King by the House of Commons after the Ice was broken A. 1532. See Fullâ—rs Appeal of Injur'd Innocence Pa. 2. p. 65. In which saith he they desiring that the Convocation should be brought down to the same level with the Houses of Parliament and that their Acts and Constitutions should not bind their Subjects as before in their Goods and Possessions until they were confirmed and ratified by the Regal power they shewed themselves aggrieved that the Clergy of this Realm should act authoritatively and supreamly in the Convocation and they in Parliament do nothing but as it was confirmed and ratified by Royal assent An Answer unto which Remonstrance saith he was drawn up by Dr. Gardiner then newly made Bishop of Winchester and being allowed of by both Houses of Convocation was by them presented to the King But the King not satisfied with this Answer resolved to bring them to his bent and therefore on the Tenth of May sent a Paper to them by Dr. Foxe after Bishop of Hereford in which it was peremptorily required that no Constitution or Ordinance shall be hereafter by the Clergy Enacted promulged or put in execution unless the Kings Highness do approve the same and his advice and favour be also interponed for the execution c. Whereupon on the Fifteenth of the same Month they made their absolute submission So He. And thus the next step therefore of this Reformation was that the King so requiring it they bound themselves by a Synodical Act for the time to come not to assemble themselves at all without the Kings Writ and when assembled not to enact promulge or execute any Canons Constitutions Ordinances Provincial or
just Authority of Queen Mary's Clergy Reply to α notwithstanding what hath been objected you must First 1. take notice That the Ejection of Bishops in Queen Mary's days was not the First but Second Ejection the first being made in King Edward's time when Gardiner Bonner Tonstal Day Heath Vesy That the Bishops in K Edward's days were not lawfully ejected and probably some other Bishops were removed from their Sees for I find not the Ecclesiastical History of those times accurately written by any nor Mr. Fox to use the same diligence in numbring the Change of Clergy under King Edward as he doth that under Queen Mary yet something may be conjectured from those general words of his p. 1180 For the most part the Bishops were changed and the dumb Prelate compelled to give place to others that would Preach Secondly That if the Ejection of Bishops in King Edward's time was not lawful so many of the Bishops as were then ejected were by Queen Mary justly restored and those who were introduced into their places justly excluded Thirdly That to prove the Ejection of those Bishops under King Edward lawful it must be done both by a lawful Authority and for a lawful Cause Fourthly But that in both these respects their Ejection if the Principles formerly laid in this Discourse stand good appears not just § 55 For 1. First these Bishops being questioned about matters Ecclesiastical and Spiritual 1. Neither for the Judge their Judges were the Kings Privy Council or his Commissioners part Clergy part Laity as the King pleased to nominate them contrary to Third Thesis Amongst whom tho the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury was one yet he was so not for his Canonical Superiority in the Church but from the Authority he jointly with the rest received from the King when the former Statutes concerning the Tryal of Hereticks by the Clergy See Fox p. 1237 and p 1202. had been first abrogated See before § 39 whereas the Clergy only are the lawful Judges of these matters namely to declare what is done contrary to the Laws of God and of the Church and to depose from the exercise of their Office the persons found faulty therein See Thesis Third § 56 Secondly The Causes Ecclesiastical urged against them for which they were removed from their Bishopricks were these 2. Nor for the Cause their non-acknowledgment of such a large extended Power of the Kings Supremacy as he then claimed and exercised in Ecclesiastical matters their non-conformity to the Kings Injunctions confirmed if you will with the consent of the National Synod of the Clergy in Spiritual matters And amongst these especially their not relinquishing the usage of the former Church Liturgies and Forms of Divine Service and particularly the Canon of the Mass which had been a Service approved by the general Practice of the Church Catholick for near a 1000 Years in which were now said to be many Errors See Church Gâ—v 4. 〈◊〉 §. 39. for which it might not be lawfully used their not using and conforming to the new Form of Common-Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments the new Form of Consecration and Ordination of Priests and many other clear Innovations against the former not only Ecclesiastical Constitutions or External Rites and Ceremonies which it was affirmed in one of the Questions disputed on in the first Year of Queen Elizabeth that every particular Church hath Authority to take away and change but also Ecclesiastical Doctrines established by Synods superiour to that of this Nation as hath been shewed in the Fourth Part of Church Govern A Catalogue of which Doctrines and Canons I have set down before § 45 having taken them out of the Three Copies of Articles proposed to the then Bishop of Winchester See Fox p. 1234 1235. to be subscribed Now such Canons whether concerning matters of Doctrine or of Ecclesiastical Constitution cannot be lawfully abrogated neither by the King See Thesis 1 2.7 8 nor by the National Synods of this Church See Thesis 4.8 and therefore the Ejection of those Bishops in Edward the Sixth's days for not obeying the King I add or the National Synod had there been any such before their Ejection in breaking such Canons was unjust and therefore they justly by Queen Mary restored and the others that were found in their places justly dispossessed Fifthly As for the rest of King Edward's Bishops who besides those Bishops that possessed these non-vacant Sees were ejected in Queen Mary's days § 57 5. That the Bishops deprived in Qu. Mary's days were lawfully ejected their Ejection contrary to the other will be justifiable if done for a lawful Cause and by a lawful Judge 1. First then the Causes of their Ejection were these chiefly § 58 First For their being Married which many if not all the Ejected were Cranmer 1. Bâ—th as to the Cause Holgate the Arch-Bishop of York Coverdale Scory Barlow Hooper Farrar Harley Bird Bush and some of them after having taken Monastick Vows as Holgate Coverdale Barlow as appears in Fox and Godwin contrary to the Canons of the Church both Western and Eastern as to those that marry after having received Holy Orders both Modern and Ancient even before the Council of Nice as is shewed at large in the Discourse of Celibacy § 18 and contrary to the Provincial Canons of the Church of England See Fox p. 1051 and 177 granting Celibacy of the Clergy to have been established here for a Law by a National Synod in the time of Anselme Arch-Bishop of Canterbury about An. Dom. 1080 The Penalty of transgressing which Canons was Deposition from their Office See Conc. Constant in Trullo less strict in this matter than the Western Church Can. 6 Si quis post sui ordinationem conjugium contrahere ausus fuerit deponatur See the same in Concil Neocaesar before that of Nice Can. 1. Conc Elibert 33. c. Affrican Can. 37. And see the same in the Canon of Anselme that all Priests that keep Women shall be deprived of their Churches and all Ecclesiastical Benefices § 59 Secondly For their not acknowledging any Supremacy at all of the Roman Patriarch 2 more than of any other Forreign Bishop over the Clergy of England contrary to the former Canons of many lawful Superior Councils as is shewed in Church Gov. 1. Part. § 53. and also contrary to the former Provincial ones of the English Church And for their placing such an Ecclesiastical Supremacy in the Prince as to use all Jurisdiction to reform Heresy constitute or reverse Ecclesiastical Laws in the manner before expressed Which Supremacy in the Church since some body in each Prince's Dominion where Christians are ever had here on Earth under Christ I say ever not only after that Princes became Christian but before Arch-Bishop Cranmer rather than that he would acknowledge it at any time to have lain in the Church said that before the first Christian Emperors time it resided in the Heathen Princes
Edw. 6.2 where the Arch-Bishop is necessitated to consecrate such person as the King from whom all Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction is derived shall present or he refusing the King may appoint any other two Bishops for him to do it in his stead ergo so might Queen Mary according to these Statutes § 69 Thus much That Queen Mary's Clergy were a lawful Clergy which indeed except for a few and those not yet chosen or acting in the beginning of her Reign cannot be called in question and That their reversing the former Constitutions of Henry the Eighth or Edward the Sixth's Clergy as to the Authority that did it was a lawful Synodical Act. But in the next place suppose that the Queen had acted singly without or against her Clergy but with the Approbation of those Governors in the Church Catholick as are the lawful Superiors to this Clergy in re-establishing the former Profession of Religion used in Henry the Eighth's time before the Reformation yet so far as this Profession is evident to have been according to the Constitutions of the Church and of former Synods Superior to the Synods of this Nation which Constitutions do therefore stand still in their just force this Act of hers would still be justifiable because Sovereigns have such a Supremacy acknowledged by all due unto them as to use a Coactive Power in causing the Execution within their Dominions of such Church Canons as are granted to be in force without any inferiour further Licence or consent thereto Nor is this doing any more than if the King of England now re-established in his Throne should without or against the Vote of the present Ministery heâ—e restore the Bishops and the Ecclesiastical Laws again to their former office and vigour which these men never had any just or superior Authority to displace or abrogate CHAP. VI. The former Supremacy re-assumed by Qu. Elizabeth § 70 IN the last place we come to the times of Queen Elizabeth where we find by the Authority of the Queen and her Parliament 3. What Supremacy claimed c in the times of Q. Eliz. all the repeals of the Statutes of Henry the Eighth and Edward the Sixth in order to the Regal Supremacy and Reformation which Repeals were made in Queen Mary's days now again repealed except in Two 26. Hen. 8.1 c. and 35. Hen. 8.3 c. which give to Henry the Eighth the Title of Head of the Church of England which was changed by the Queen into that of Governor as better befitting a Woman As for Bishop Bramha's Observation of Two other Statutes of Henry the Eighth unrestored by Queen Eliz. 28. Hen. 8.10 c. An Act saith he of extinguishing the Authority of the Bishop of Rome out of this Realm and 35. Hen. 8.5 c. An Act made for Corroboration of the former if you please to view them and compare with them 1 Eliz. 1. c. you will find the cause to be not the Queens preserving and retaining here any Authority of the Pope which Henry renounced but the Six Articles in the one and the old Forms of Oaths in the other thought fit by her to be laid aside and all the Power and Priviledges whatsoever of Supremacy in Ecclesiasticals that were conceded to Henry the Eighth or Edward the Sixth That as ample a Supreacy was claimed by Parliament conferred oâ— her as on K. Hen. or Ed. as fully transferred to Queen Elizabeth For which see the Act 1. Eliz. 1. c. see the same 8. Eliz. 1. c. running thus That all Jurisdictions Priviledges Superiorities Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power hath heretofore been exercised for the Visitation of Ecclesiastical State and Persons and for Reformation Orders and Correction of the same and of all manner of Errors Heresies Schisms c shall for ever by Authority of this Parliament be united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And that your Highness your Heirs c shall have full Power and Authority by vertue of this Act to name and authorize such persons as your Majesty shall think meet without any being obliged as Henry the Eighth was that half the number should be of the Clergy to exercise and execute under your Highness all manner of Jurisdictions Priviledges and to visit reform and amend all such Errors Heresies Schisms c which by any manner Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power may lawfully be reformed and that such persons shall have full power by vertue of this Act to execute all the Premises any matter or cause to the contrary in any wise notwithstanding Provided always that no manner of Order Act or Determination for any matter of Religion or cause Ecclesiastical made by the Authority of this present Parliament shall be adjudged i. e by those persons at any time to be any Error Heresy Schism c any Decree Constitution or Law whatsoever the same be to the contrary notwithstanding this Proviso perhaps was put in because all the Bishops that were in the Parliament opposed this Statute See Cambden 1. Eliz. Provided again that such persons authorized to reform c shall not in any wise have Authority to determine or adjudge any matter or cause to be Heresy I suppose by Heresy is meant here any Error contrary to what ought to be believed and practised in Divine matters but only Such as heretofore have been determined to be Heresy by the Authority of the Canonical Scriptures or by the first Four General Councils or by any other General Councils wherein the same is declared Heresy by the express and plain words of the said Canonical Scriptures or Such as hereafter shall be judged and determined to be Heresy by the High Court of Parliament of this Realm with the assent of the Clergy in their Convocation here therefore nothing whether by the Clergy or other could be de novo declared or adjudged Heresy unless the High Court of Parliament also adjudged it to be so § 71 In the same Statute concerning the Extent of the Queen's Supremacy it is expresly ordained That the Branches Sentences and words of the said several Acts i. c. made in Henry the Eighth's time touching Supremacy and every one of them shall be deemed and taken to extend to your Highness as fully and largely as ever the same Acts did extend to the said late King Henry the Eighth your Highnesses Father The same thing also appears in the Queen's Admonition annexed to her Injunctions to prevent any sinister Interpretations of the Oath of Supremacy then imposed which saith That the Queen's Majesty informed that some of her Subjects found some scruple in the Form of this Oath c would that all her loving Subjects should understand that nothing was is or shall be meant or intended by the same Oath to have any other Duty or Allegiance required by that Oath than was acknowledged to be due to King Henry the Eighth her Majesty's Father or King Edward the Sixth her Majesty's Brother It proceeds shewing
§ 70. And see the Reason given by Dr. Heylin why Parliaments which in former Ages abstained from them in this Age of Henry the Eighth began to intermeddle in stating of matters of Religion namely this reason A new Supream in Ecclesiastical Affairs then set up Engl. Reform Justified p. 41. Where he first relateth out of Walsingham how long since Wickleff having many Doctrines strange and new which he desired to establish in the Church of England and seeing he could not authorize them in a regular way addressed his Petition to the Parliament laying this down for a Position That the Parliament might lawfully examine and reform the Disorders and Corruptions of the Church and upon a discovery of the Errors and Corruptions of it devest her of all Tithes and Temporal Endowments till she were reformed But neither his Petition nor Position saith he found any welcome in that Parliament and then he goeth on thus To say truth as long as the Clergy were in Power and had Authority in Convocation to do what they would in matters which concerned Religion those of the Parliament conceived it neither safe nor fitting to intermeddle in such business as concerned the Clergy for sear of being questioned for it at the Church's Barr the Church being then conceived to have the just Supremacy herein But when that Power was lessened tho it were not lost by the Submission of the Clergy to King Henry the Eighth and by the Act of the Kings Supremacy in matters of Religion which ensued upon it then did the Parliament begin to intrench upon the Church's Rights to offer at and entertain such businesses as formerly were held peculiar to the Clergy only next to dispute their Charters and reverse their Priviledges and finally to impose many hard Laws upon them Thus he Which Example of the Parliaments meddling with Opinions and stating of Heresy thus begun under Henry the Eighth's Church Supremacy hath made some Parliaments since also so active with the assistance of some Persons selected by them out of the Clergy of the same Inclinations in altering modelling establishing an Orthodox Religion and hath emboldened Mr. Prinn see Heylin p. 27. to affirm it an ancient genuine just and lawful Prerogation thereof to establish true Religion in this Church by which establishing if Mr. Prin means not judging of Truth and Error in matter of Religion but only requiring Obedience to the Judgment of the Church this is willingly granted to be an establishing duly belonging to that Supream Court. § 83 I have dwelt the longer on the Instances foremen tioned Where Codeer the complaâ—â—ts made by Pâ—testaats of his abuse of the Suprenacy that you may see when a Prince together with his particular Clergy or rather whom out of them he shall choose without these being linked in a due subordination to the whole claimeth such a power of composing Models of Christian Faith and declaring all those his Subjects Hereticks who do not believe and obey such his Determinations what danger what mutability Christian Religion incurrs in such a Nation as often as this Supreme and Independent Head is not every way Orthodox And so it happened in the Acts of this new-sprung Supremacy of Henry that those who much pleased themselves in it whilst it run the course they would have it in abating the former Power of the Clergy in throwing down Monasteries Religious Vows Relicks Images c yet afterward lamented it as much when necessity of the Kings compliance with Forreign Princes and the influence of new evil Counsellors saith Fox p. 1036. made the same Supremacy produce a contrary sort of Fruit which they could not so easily digest I mean the Six Articles here also pronouncing Heresy to the Opposers and punishing the same with Fire and Faggot and the Prohibition and suppression of many Godly Books as Mr. Fox calls them but full of Errors and Heresies as the Supream Head of this Church and also as Arch-Bishop Cranmer whose Declaration against them see in Fox p. 1136. then judged them some of the Contents of which Godly Books as they were then collected by Cranmer and other Prelates you may see in Fox ibid. and the Prohibiting all Women Artificers Husbandmen c from reading the Scriptures of which more anon § 84 Which Supremacy so ill used as he thought forced from Mr. Fox that sad complaint both in particular concerning the Kings imposing of the Six Articles p. 1037. That altho they contained manifest Errors Heresies and Absurdities against all Scripture and Learning whereby we may see how these Supream Heads also may deviate from the truth and how dangerous it is to commit the Reformation of all Errors and Heresies into their hands who by this Power instead thereof may enjoyn Errors and Heresies and that even against all Scripture and Learning as Henry the Eighth tho a Scholar is here supposed to have done and that even to pronouncing those Hereticks that do not submit to such Heresy he goes on Yet such was he miserable Adversity of that time and of the Power of Darkness yet King Henry said the times were full of Light that the simple Cause of Truth was utterly forsaken of all friends For every man seeing the Kings mind who was now the Legislator in Spirituals so fully addicted upon politick respects to have these Articles to pass forward few or none in that Parliament would appear who either could perceive that which was to be defended or durst defend that they understood to be true And also in general concerning that Kings managing his Supremacy p. 1036. from which Posterity might have learnt some wisdome To many saith he who be yet alive and can testify these things it is not unknown How variable the State of Religion stood in these days How hardly and with what difficulty it came forth what chances and changes it suffered even as the King was ruled and gave ear sometimes to one sometimes to another so one while it went forward at another Season as much backward again and sometime clean altered and changed for a Season according as they could prevail who were about the King So long as Queen Anne lived the Gospel had indifferent Success Here then the Supream Head of the Church was directed by a Woman and managed the Affairs of Religion accordingly After that she by sinister Instigation of some about the King was made away the course of the Gospel began again to decline but that the Lord stirred op the Lord Cromwel opportunely to help in that behalf who did much avail for the increase of Gods true Religion Here then the Supream Head of the Church was directed by a Laick and managed Religion accordingly and much more had he brought to perfection if the pestilent Adversaries maligning the prosperous Glory of the Gospel had not supplanted his vertuous Proceedings Mr. Fox names not Cranmer amongst these Worthies because he was an Agent in many of those Proceedings of Henry the Eighth which
and form save that he shall bless and consecrate the biggest Chalice or some fair and convenient Cup or Cups full of Wine with some water put unto it and that day not drink it up all himself but taking one only sup or draught leave the rest upon the Altar covered and thus exhort the people Dearly beloved c. Thus the Rubrick And this Form as Mr. Fox goes on exhabited unto the King was by his Majesty's Council particularly sent to every Bishop of the Realm requiring and commanding them by their Letters on the Kings Majesty's behalf that they should forthwith have diligent respect to the due execution thereof c. In which Letter the motive urged by the Council why this new Form was drawn up and imposed is That the Statute of the former Parliament ordering that the Sacrament should be distributed unto the people in both kinds might be well executed in such sort as is agreeable with the word of God as if for the distribution of the Sacrament in both kinds there was any need of altering or superadding any thing to the Mass when as with that same Form of the Mass it was in the publick Communions for many Centuries only so distributed and when as that same Form of the Mass is urged by Protestants as contrary to communicating the people only in one kind but the true cause of altering it I shall shew you by and by Now this new Form was thus imposed by the King and his Council before allowed by any Synod of the Clergy or Act of Parliament which were procured afterward in the second Parliament of King Edward Meanwhile such alterations in King Edward's time about the Doctrine and the Administration of this Sacrament as they were uncanonical so they were in this respect also very hurtful in that they occasioned in the ignorant especially much profaneness and irreverence toward the Blessed Sacrament in those days as you may partly also gather from an Act 1. Edw. 6.1 c. made against such irreverent speaking against it For whereas the Sacrament was according to ancient custome delivered to each Communicant in a small round Wafer hence they gave it the name of Round-Robin And because the parts thereof that were reserved to be carried to the sick were hanged up over the Altar in a Pix or Box they named it Jack in a Box and instead of the Sacrament of the Altar called it the Sacrament of the Halter See Heylin's Hist of Reform 49.63 Such profaneness followed the remedy of what they called Superstition § 145 Secondly 2. Of Ordination See 3 4. Edw. 6.10 c. Having likewise condemned amongst other superstitious Books the former Church-form of Ordination and Consecration of Bishops and Priests the King caused a new Form to be prescribed upon this pretence in the Act of Parliament That so concord and unity might be had within his Majesty's dominions in these Ordinations But could not this have been done without innovation by strictly confining all to the use of the former Church form or if these were various to some one of them Stat. 3 4. Edw. 6.12 c. Now for the compiling of this new Form the Parliament orders That such as by fix Prelates See before §. 42. and six others to be appointed by the King or by the major part of them should be devised for that purpose and set forth under the great Seal should by vertue of their Act without obtaining or requiring any ratification thereof from any Synod be lawfully used and none other any law or prescription to the contrary thereof notwithstanding In which new Form amongst other things which were in the former now cast out this is one to the great contradiction of all Antiquity The Bishops conferring on the ordained Presbyters potestatem offerendi sacrificium propriè dictum verè propitiatorium see in what sense understood and explained by the Church in Discourse of the Eucharist § 251. c Deo Missasque celcbrandi tam pro vivis quam pro defunctis Quod omnem superat impietatem saith Mason de Minist p. 242. 17. c. And this is another The Oath of Submission of the Ordained or Consecrated to the Supremacy of the Patriarch instead of which is prescribed another Oath to the Supremacy of the Temporal Prince From which Regal Supremacy also we find Cranmer after fifteen years governing the Province of Canterbury receiving at the coming in of a new Sovereign a new Licence of ordaining Bishops and Priests therein durante Beneplacito Regis The Form as Sanders p. 170. hath set it down runs thus Quandoquidem omnis jurisdicendi authoritas atque etiam jurisdictio omnimoda tam illa quae ecclesiastica dicitur quam seecularis a Regia petestate velut a supremo capite manta c. Ad ordinandum igitur quoscunque intra Diaecesim tuam Cantuariensem ad omnes etiam sacros Presbyteratus ordines promovendum per praesentes ad nostrum beneplacitum duraturos tibi damus potestatem And some such thing is intimated by Mr. Prin unbishoping of Timothy p. 80. I must inform our Bishops saith he for their Learning that all the Bishops in King Edward the Sixth's time had special clauses in their Letters Patents authorizing them to ordain Ministers and Deacons as Bishop Poynet's Scory's Coverdale's Patents 5. Edw. 6. pars 1. testify at large and there is no wonder in this if you recall to mind Arch-Bishop Cranmer's Answers to the Queries made concerning these matters recited before § 105. n. 3. Which Patents if they imply such a Supremacy Ecclesiastical in the Prince as that he may if he please prohibit any Ecclesiastical person at all from ordaining Ministers in his dominions are contrary to the first Thesis above § 2. But yet this new Ordinal was not so well purified from former Superstitions See in Fox p. 1366. the Kings and Earl of War wick's Letters but that some who were presented to Bishopricks were stumbled therewith and the Kings dispensation was obtained in order to the consecrating of Bishop Hooper for his not observing of some things therein and particularly for his not taking the new Oath either that of obedience to the Arch-Bishop or that of the Kings Supremacy which perhaps he lately seasoned abroad with Calvin's Doctrine See before §. 37 could not so easily digest § 146 Thirdly 3◠of Common Prayer Not long after the production of the new Form in administring the Communion in the second year of his Reign he caused it to be reviewed and also then to be drawn up a new Form of Common Prayer for Mattins and Evensong and the Administration of the other Sacraments of the Church if I may use the phrase of the Act 2. Edw. 6.1 c. which Form composed by seven Bishops and seven other learned men of the Clergy chosen by the King yet one of them Day Bishop of Chicester after it was done refused to subscribe it who was afterward also turned out of his
of it was allow'd to have no power in Causes Ecclesiastical Nor is the Clergy which here reverses repeals and ejects less liable to Exceptions For the first change was not of Religion but of the Pastors and the Reforming Bishops were ejected before the Reformation c See them reckon'd by this Author §. 53. Thirteen Prelates we find depriv'd to make room for a reversing Hierarchy and of d Bur. V. 2. p. 276. Sixteen-thousand Inferior Clergy-men as they were then computed 12000 turn'd out for committing the unpardonable Sin of Matrimony As for the Autority of the State i. e. the Parliament it was none we were told in the 2 former Reigns and sure it had no advantage in this if it be remembred how a Burn. V. 2. p. 252. Elections were manag'd and how predominant Spanish Gold was The 4 next Paragraphs give us an account of the Restitution of things made in Q. Mary's days § 49 50.51.52 which I allow and only desire the Reader to carry a long with him what has been hinted of the manner of it § 53 Paragraph the 53d questions whether this Clergy in Q. Mary's days were a lawfull Clergy §. 54. ad §. 65. And the succeeding pages endeavour their Vindication The Bishops ejected by Q. Mary he has numbred from Fox but least we should have too much truth together has took care to qualifie it with his Paratheses Fox mentioning Hooper ejected from Worcester it is added he might have said from Glocester too for Hooper in the latter end of Edward the 6th 's time held both these Sees together in Commendam Our Author might have spar'd this Observation from Sanders had he consulted the b Burn. V. 2. App. p. 396. Appendix to the History of the Reformation where this lie of Sanders is confuted Hooper was first made Bishop of Glocester which before King Henry the 8th 's time had been part of the Bishoprick of Worcester In King Edward's time these Sees were reunited so that Hooper had not two Bishopricks but one that had for some Years been divided into two He only enjoy'd the revenue of Glocester For Worcester Latimer for Non-conformity to the Six Articles had been ejected out of it or for fear resign'd it yet for what reason I know not could not in King Edward's time be restor'd to it This again is a transcript from the inexhaustible a Sand. p. 181. Sanders Latimer b Bur. V. 2. App. p. 385. 392. Hist V. 2. p. 95. was not ejected but freely resign'd his Bishoprick upon passing the Six Articles with which he could not comply with a good Conscience In King Edward's time the House of Commons interpos'd to repossess him but he refus'd to accept of any Preferment Taylor was remov'd from Lincoln by death not by the Queen as appears from Fox p. 1282. Q. Mary's c Bur. V. 2. Coll p 257. Commission for displacing the Bishops is extant amongst which Taylor is one Fox positively saith He was depriv'd He saith indeed in the place cited that he died but not that his Death was before his Deprivation Having given us this Catalogue of the ejected thus adulterated with his false mixtures he desires us in Vindication of the just Autority of Q. Mary's Clergy to take notice That the Ejection of Bishops in Q. Mary's days was not the First but Second Ejection the first being made in King Edward's time when Gardiner Bonner Tonstal Day Heath Vesy were remov'd from their Sees But here we have a Supernumerary put in to enhance the Catalogue Vesy d Godw. Catal. of Bishops was not depriv'd but did resign His Character in History is so scandalous that he ought to have been depriv'd and therefore it had been pardonable to have guess'd that he was but it was unlucky to assert it Probably he saith some others were remov'd from their Sees To which it may be enough to answer probably not I find not the Ecclesiastical History of those times accurately written by any An Accurate Writer in his Sense is one who favours his own Cause and is careful to insert a necessary Supplement of his own where the History wants it His admir'd Sanders is in this Sense accurate enough but not so accurate as our Author could have wish'd Nor Mr. Fox to use the same diligence in numbring the change of Clergy under King Edward as he doth that under Q. Mary As for the Bishops which are the Clergy here meant Fox mentions the Deprivation of all that were depriv'd and it is because He had not this Author's diligence that he named no more Something may be conjectur'd from those general words of his For the most part the Bishops were chang'd and the dumb Prelate compel'd to give place to others that would preach Mr. Fox was no great Master of Style nor rigorous in his Expressions from which our Author would make advantage But it is a sign his cause is desperate when he is forc'd thus to build upon empty conjectures The Deprivation of Bishops is not a matter of so little importance that our Historians should take no notice of it but amongst them all We find no more Depriv'd then have been mention'd Dr. Heylin and Dr. Burnet have been very exact in this particular but they have not arriv'd to our Author's diligence and accuracy He must therefore be content with the ejection of only 5 Bishops in King Edwardâ—s time which he promises us to prove not lawful and consequently the ejected justly restor'd and the introduc'd justly ejected in Q. Mary's time The ejection he proves not lawful Because 1st Not done by Lawful Autority 2ly Nor for a Lawful Cause § 55 1st Not done by lawful Autority Because the Bishops being tried for Matters Ecclesiastical their Judges were the King's Commissioners But neither is it true at least not prov'd that they were tried for Matters Ecclesiastical Nor is it true that the King's Commissioners amongst whom was the Metropolitan were not proper Judges in such Causes as has been prov'd by the Animadverter Nor can the Autority of such Commissioners tho' unlawful be declin'd by this Writer who presently will prove the Bishops in Q. Mary's time ejected by lawful Judges Who yet were no other then that Queen's Commissioners So that there is in this one Period such a complication of falshood as nothing can match but what follows concerning the Causes of their Deprivation The Causes he supposeth to be all the Articles of Popery as distinct to the Religion Reform'd Their not owning the King's Supremacy Non-conformity to his Injunctions Not-relinquishing the Use of former Church-Liturgies Not conforming to the New-Service and other Innovations He supposes he has by this time confirm'd his Autority with the Reader so far that he will credit his bare assertion without vouching any History But it is impossible He could have falsified so grosly had not an implicite Faith in Sanders given him over to a Spirit of delusion Tonstal
is the assisting of the Church in her business not the abridging of her in her power The Second Thesis That the Clergy cannot alienate or make over and give away to the Secular Governor §. 4 Thes 2. or to his Ministers and Delegates any authority or office which they have received and been charged with by Christ with a Command to execute the same to the end of the world and with a threat to become answerable to God for any miscarriage of the people by their default therein From which it follows that the Clergy's doing of either of these Two things First The binding themselves for ever to any Secular Governor never to make or never to teach abroad and publish to the people his Subjects any judgment or decision of theirs made in matters of Faith and Gods Worship or made for reforming some Error or Heresy or other abuse in Gods Service without the consent of such Governor first obtained thereto which Governor as I said tho Christian and a Believer yet may be a Sectarist an Heretick c. 2. Or Secondly which is yet worse the authorizing of the Secular Governor or of those whom he shall please to choose and nominate who will be sure to name those rather of his own Sect to determine and decide and promulge such Spiritual matters for the Clergy and in their stead So that now not only the Clergy cannot do such things without such Secular Governor but also such Governor may do those things without the Clergy I say these two are unlawful as being contrary to the duties of the Clergy said above Thesis the First to be committed to them by Christ The Third Thesis §. 5. Thes 3. That the Secular Prince cannot depose or eject front the exercise of their office in his Dominions any of the Clergy neither absolutely without any cause pretended as he may remove those Officers and Ministers under him who hold their places only durante beneplacite Nor for a cause alledged if it be such as this namely for their not obeying the decisions which he or his civil Council shall make in Spiritual matters or for their transgressing of the Ecclesiastical Canons 2 nor can introduce others into the places of the ejected without the consent of the major part of the Clergy or of their Ecclesiastical Superiors which consent if he obtain I reckon not this deposition c. to be his Act but theirs And here note that what is said of other Clergy may be said likewise of the Patriarch for any authority in such Princes Dominions which he stands possessed of by such Ecclesiastical Canons as cannot justly be pretended to do any wrong to the civil Government Touching which matter see Church Gov. 1. Par. § 38. c. § 6 First The Prince cannot eject them 1. 1. Neither without giving any cause thereof because they hold not these their Offices from the Prince much less from him only during pleasure but they receive them by Solemn Ordination from their Predecessors in this Ministery the Substitutes of the Lord Christ even this Office among the rest to oversee instruct and use Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction in making or publishing Ecclesiastical Laws and imposing censures over the flock of Christ in what Princes Dominions soever or in whatsoever Province or Diocess thereof as every one by his Ecclesiastical Superiors is appointed as appears by their equally exercising such Office in the three first Centuries in all Dominions distributed into several Provincial and Parochial Governments the Twelve Apostles being said at the first to have allotted to themselves several Circuits after the same manner even when the Supreme Power-civil not only licenced not but opposed and prohibited them to do it on pain of death Of which matter see Mr. Thorndike Right of the Church 1 chap. Seeing the Church saith he subsisted Three Hundred years before any State professed Christianity whatsoever right it used during that time manifestly therefore it ought still to use and enjoy this being the most pertinent evidence to shew the bounds of it i. e. of such rights independent on any Temporal Governor See him 4. c. p. 169. And the Apostles themselves were they who first set up this Church Government in Civil States And St. Paul made Titus Superintendent of Creet and Timothy of Ephesus for Spiritual Affairs without the Secular Governors leave * who were in these places to ordain others to preserve for ever the Doctrines and Discipline delivered to them For this cause saith Paul to Titus 1. chap. 5. ver left I thee in Creet that thou shouldest set in order the things that are left undone and ordain Presbyters in every City as I had appointed thee Which ordaining of others signifieth also Institution in the charge or cure whereto they ministred as Bishop Carleton confesseth Jurisdict Regal Episcopal 4. chap. pag. 40. Again * Who were in these places to receive Accusations hear Witnesses which cannot be without appointed Assemblies and Meetings silence false Teachers excommunicate Offenders See Tit. 1.11 Rev. 2.20 1. Tim. 1.3.5.19 Against an Elder receive not an Accusation but before two or three Witnesses Now he saith the same Author pag. 42. that is appointed to hear Accusations and to receive the testimonies of witnesses is seated in a place of judgment with Jurisdiction See more of this in Succes Clergy § 4. and this they did when the Temporal Governors of those places licenced them not yea persecuted them So Athanasius ejected by Constantius his Emperor from the charge which the Church had committed to him of Alexandria and Paulus from Constantinople were nevertheless accounted still the true Bishops of those Sees Princes indeed may deprive the Clergy at pleasure or according as Covenants made of what they bestow on them Houses Lands Priviledges Jurisdictions Lordships Temporal but the Offices abovenamed they bestow not 2. Again as Princes may not depose them at pleasure so neither for any cause which concerns things Spiritual without the Clergy's consent For it is necessary that a Judge to be a competent one have as well potestatem in causam as in personam and the Prince as hath been mentioned in the first Thesis hath no authority to judge such causes meerly Spiritual To this may be added that neither Heathen nor Heretical Prince can justly prohibit totally all that Clergy whom the Church declares Orthodox from entring into or from preaching and otherwise officiating in Divine matters within his Dominions And if he put such to death for disobeying this his Command when as it is contrary to Gods and Christs who sendeth them to all Nations in effect he puts them to death for obeying Gods Command and they dye Martyrs As also the Primitive Martyrs were put to death for not obeying the Emperors Laws concerning matters of their Religion § 7 Second 2. As the Prince cannot thus eject or depose Clergy so neither can he introduce any into the place of those who are ejected or deceased without
usurped Papal Supremacy Examin Champ. 2. c p. 69. than these Bishops did retracting their acknowledging of such a Regal Supremacy and that upon deprivation of their Bishopricks and Imprisonment of their persons some in King Edward's and some in Qu. Elizabeth's days retracting c I suppose for this reason because by sad experience they saw it much enlarged beyond those bounds within which only they formerly had maintained it just And Fourthly By the early Act of Parliament 24. Henry 8.12 c. where in the Preface it is said That when any Cause of the Law Divine cometh in question that part of the Body Politick called the Spirituality now being usually called the English Church is sufficient and meet of it self without the intermeddling of any exteriour person or persons to declare and determine all such doubts and where in the Act it is ordered that such Causes shall have their appeals from the Arch-Deacon to the Bishop and from the Bishop to the Arch-Bishop of the Province and there to be definitively and finally adjudged Finally i. e without any further appeal to the King Neither can it be shewed that expresly this authority or jurisdiction To repress reform correct and amend all such Errors Heresies Abuses Enormities whatsoever they be which by any manner of Spiritual Authority or Jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be repressed reformed c any Forreign Laws Forreign Authority Prescription or any thing or things to the contrary thereof notwithstanding tho it was allowed to the King as a Branch of his Supremacy by the Parliament was conceded or voted by the Clergy or pretended to be so but was built only by consequence upon the Clergy's recognizing him the supream Head of the Church of England as appears in the Preface of that Act 26. Hen. 8.1 c. By these things therefore it seems that as yet all the Jurisdiction for determining Spiritual Controversies that was taken from the Pope was committed to the Community of the English Clergy or finally placed in the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury But you will find by what follows that it long rested not here but was shortly after removed from hence into the hands of the King And as it was thus with the Clergy so in the Laity also in the Parliament its self in the new power given of altering and dispensing with former Church Laws 25. Hen. 8.21 c. there seemeth at first to have been a kind of jealousy upon the new introduced Supremacy left it might afterward proceed to some exorbitancy as to changing something in the substance of Religion Therefore in the forenamed Act they insert this Proviso Provided always this Act nor any thing therein contained shall be hereafter interpreted that your Grace your Nobles and Subjects intend by the same to decline and vary from the Congregation of Christs Church in any things declared by the Scriptures and the word of God necessary concerning the very Articles of the Catholick Faith of Christendome or any other things declared by the Scripture necessary for your and their Salvation but only to make an Ordinance by Polities necessary and convenient to repress vice and for good conservation of this Realm in peace unity and tranquility from rapine and spoyl insuing much the old ancient Customs of this Realm on that behalf Not minding to seek for any reliefs succors or remedies for any wordly things and humane laws in any case of necessity but within this Realm at the hands of your Highness which ought to have an Imperial power and authority in the same and not obliged in any worldly Causes to any Superior Upon which Proviso Bishop Bramhal hath this note Schism Guarded p. 63. That if any thing is contained in this Law for the abolishing or translation i. e from the Clergy of power meerly and purely Spiritual it is retracted by this Proviso at the same time it is Enacted CHAP. III. The Supremacy in Spirituals claimed by King Henry the Eighth II. Head § 26 II. VVE have seen how far the Clergy and Laity also at first seem to have proceeded in the advancing of the Kings Supremacy Concerning what Supremacy was afterward by degrees conferred on or also claimed by the Prince Now to come to the Second thing I proposed to you Concerning what Supremacy was afterward by degrees conferred on or also claimed by the Prince After the Title then of Supream was thus yielded by the Clergy as likewise that they would thence-forward enact or publish no Synodal Decrees or Constitutions without the consent first obtained of this their declared Supream It was thus Enacted by the Authority of Parliament 26. Hen. 8.1 c. 1. In the times of H. the 8th That the King shall have and enjoy united to the Imperial Crown of this Realm all Jurisdictions to the said Dignity of Supream Head of the same Church belonging which Jurisdiction how far it is understood to be extended see 1. Eliz. 1. c. where it is Enacted that such Jurisdictions Priviledges and Preheminencies Spiritual and Ecclesiastical as by any Spiritual or Ecclesiastical Power hath heretofore been or may lawfully be exercised or used for the Visitation of Ecclesiastical State and Persons and for Reformation of all manner of Errors Heresies Schisms c shall for ever by authority of this present Parliament be united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And further see the Act 37. Hen. 8.17 which runs thus Whereas your most Royal Majesty is justly Supream Head in Earth of the Church of England and hath full authority to correct and punish all mannner of Heresies Errors Vices and to exercise all other manner of Jurisdictions commonly called Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction Nevertheless the Bishop of Rome and his Adherents have in their Councils and Synods Provincial established divers Ordinances that no Lay-man might exercise any Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical or be any Judge in any Ecclesiastical Court which Ordinances or Constitutions standing in their effect did sound to be directly repugnant to your Majesties being Supream Head of the Church and Prerogative Royal your Grace being a Lay-man And whereas albeit the said Decrees by a Statute 25. Hen. 8. be utterly abolished yet because the contrary thereunto is not used by the Arch-Bishops Bishops c who have no manner of Jurisdiction Ecclesiastical but by under and from your Royal Majesty it giveth occasion to evil disposed persons little to regard and to think the proceedings and censures Ecclesiastical made by your Highness and your Vice-gerent Commissaries c to be of little or none effect whereby the people have not such Reverence to your most Godly Injunctions as becometh them In consideration that your Majesty is the only and undoubted Supream Head c to whom by Holy Scripture all power and authority is wholly given to hear and determine all manner of Causes Ecclesiastical and to correct vice c May it therefore be Enacted that all persons as well Lay as those that are Married being Doctors of the Civil Law
Saying p. 92. If thus the Bishop will have Secular Princes to have nothing to do in the making or hindring any Decrees or Laws of the Church-men in matters meerly Spiritual but only to have such a sole dominion over the Secular Sword as that none can use it but he or by his leave in the execution of such Laws all is well but then the former-quoted Statutes of Henry the Eighth shew much more Power challenged than the Bishop alloweth This in Answer to the Bishop Secondly If it be further said here touching that particular Statute of much concernment 26. Hen. 8.1 c. quoted before § 26 and § 25. Namely §. 35. n. 4. 1 That the King shall have full power from time to time to visit repress reform all such Errors and Heresies as by any manner of Spritual Authority c lawfully may be reformed c. See §. 25. If it be said here that the King hath only this power therein ascribed to him to redress and reform the Errors and Heresies which are declared such by the Church by former Councils or by the Synods of his Clergy but that he hath no power given him to judge or declare what is Error or Heresy 1. First thus then he hath not all the power given him which by any manner of Spiritual Authority or Jurisdiction may be exercised as it follows in that Act because there is a Spiritual Authority also that may declare new Errors and Heresies or that may reform such Errors as have not been by Synods formerly declared such and it seems this He hath not Secondly Thus the Clause ending the Act any Custome Forreign Laws Prescription c notwithstanding is utterly useless because no Forreign Laws or Prescriptions deny this Authority to Kings to reform Errors c in their Dominions so that they still confine themselves to the precedent Judgments of the Church Thirdly In the Act fore-quoted 25. Hen. 8.19 c. 'T is granted to his Highness and Thirty Two Commissioners elected by him to annul and make invalid what former Synodal Canons they think not to stand with the Laws of God therefore they have power to judge which Canons are such and to reform them i. e to teach and declare the contrary truths to them when thought by them Errors against the judgment of former Synods and without the judgment of a new Synod and what is this but to judge and pronounce de novo what is Error and Heresy Enormity Abuse c Fourthly Lastly how comes the King or his Commissioners to be made the ultimate judge See before § 31.25 Hen. 8.19 c. in all Appeals touching Divine matters if he or they cannot judge in these what is Error Since some Causes and Controversies may haply come before him not determined by former Councils And for the Errors he reforms if he is still to follow the judgment of his Clergy what are such Errors how are there in these things Appeals admitted to him from the judgments of his Clergy § 36 This said to remove the mis-interpretation of that Act I will add to these Acts of Parliament which I have been reciting to you from § 26. those words in the Kings last Speech which he made in Parliament not long before his death reprehending his Subjects for their great dissension in Opinion and Doctrine If you know surely saith he that a Bishop or Preacher erreth or teacheth perverse Doctrine Lord. Herb. Hist p. 536. come and declare it to some of our Council or to us to whom is committed by God the high authority to reform and order such causes and behaviours and be not Judges your selves of your fantastical Opinions and vain Expositions Here making his Council or himself Judge of the Bishops Doctrines And those words in King Henry the Eighth's Proclamation 1543. made for the eating of White-Meats Milk Butter Eggs heese in Lent where he saith That the meer positive Laws of the Church may be upon considerations and grounds altered and dispensed with by the publick authority of Kings and Princes In Fox pag. 1104. whensoever they shall perceive the same to tend to the hurt and damage of their people Vnless perhaps he restrain damage here to Civil Affairs Contrary to the Eighth Thesis And those words in Cromwell's Speech when he presided as the Kings Vicar-General over the Clergy assembled to state something in Controversies of Faith then agitated betwixt the Roman Church and Lutherans who told them That His Majesty would not suffer the Scripture to be wrested and defaced by any Glosses Fox p. 1078. any Papistical Laws or by any Authority of Doctors or Councils By which if this be meant that we are not obliged to embrace the Doctrine of Scriptures according to those Determinations and Expositions which lawful Councils have made of them it is contrary to the Fourth and Seventh Thesis and overthrows the Government of the Church See the same thing said on the Kings behalf by the Bishop of Hereford against other Bishops urging the Doctors of the Church Fox p. 1079. I will conclude with what Bishop Carleton in Jurisdict Regal and Episcopal Epist dedicat § 37 And Calvin upon those Words in Amos 7.13 Prophecy not any more at Bethel for it is the Kings Court say of these times Bishop Carleton relateth out of Calvin That Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester being at Ratisbon in Germany upon the Kings Affairs and there taking occasion to declare the meaning of that Title Supreme Head of the Church given to Henry the Eighth taught that the King had such a power that he might appoint and prescribe new Ordinances of the Church even matters concerning Faith and Doctrine and abolish old As Namely ' That the King might forbid the Marriage of Priests and might take away the use of the Cup in the Sacrament of the Lords Supper and in such things might appoint what he list And there likewise Bishop Carleton confesseth That when Henry the Eighth took this Title of Supreme Head c tho the sounder and more judicious part of the Church then understood the words of that Title so as that no offence might justly rise by it I suppose he means in that sense as himself takes it which is For the King to have a Jurisdiction Coactive in External Courts binding and compelling men by force of Law and other External Mulcts and Punishments to what the â—hurch in Spiritual matters defines For this Bishop saith that the Church is the only Judge of such matters See before p. 4. and in his whole Book written purposely on this Subject I do not find that he gives the King any Coactive Authority in Spiritual matters against any definition of the Church Yet saith he they that were suddenly brought from their old Opinions of Popery not to the love of the Truth but to the observance of the Kings Religion received a gross and impure sense of these words But this gross sense is such as Bishop Gardiner
promise of the guiding of his Spirit into all truth But that any such Council hath at any time allowed the Mass c I affirm saith he to be impossible for Superstition i e. the Masy and the sincere Religion of Christ can never agree together For Determination of all Controversies in Christ's Religion Christ hath left unto the Church not only Moses and the Prophets to ask counsel at but also the Gospels Christ would have the Church his Spouse in all doubts to ask counsel at the word of his Father written Neither do we read that Christ in any place hath laid so great a Burthen upon the Members of his Spouse that he hath commanded them to go to the Universal Church It is true that Christ gave unto his Church some Apostles some Prophets c. But that all men should meet together out of all parts of the world to define of the Articles of our Faith I neither find it commanded of Christ nor written in the Word of God To which Bishop Latimer nexeth these words In things pertaining to God and Faith we must stand only to the Scriptures which are able to make us all perfect and instructed to Salvation if they be well understood And they offer themselves to be well understood only to those who have good wills and give themselves to study and Prayer neither are there any men less apt to understand them than the prudent and wise men of the world Thus Latimer in application of his Discourse to General Councils See likewise Bishop Ridley's Disputation at Oxford where being pressed with the Authority of the great Lateran Council Fox â— 1321. after having replyed that there were Abbots Priors and Friers in it to the Number of 800 he saith that he denyeth the Authority of this Council not so much for that cause as for this especially because the Doctrine of that Council agreed not with the word of God i e. as he understood this word Thus he who was counted the most Learned of those Bishops concerning the Authority of Councils See like matter in the Discourse between Lord Rich and Mr. Philpot Fox p. 1641. § 63 To proceed These Canons and Definitions I say not of Popes and Pontificians as they were ordinarily then Nick-named but of supposed former lawful Superior Councils were then in just force in Queen Mary's days notwithstanding any abrogation of them made by a National i e. an Inferior Synod See Thesis the Fourth and the Eighth as also was frequently urged against those questioned Bishops See the Examination of Arch Bishop Cranmer Fox p. 1702. where Dr. Story the Queens Commissioner thus objecteth but receives no answer there to it The Canons which be received of all Christendome compel you to answer For altho this Realm of late time thro such Schismaticks as you have exiled and banished the Canons yet that cannot make for you for you know that par in parem nec pars in totum aliquid statuere potest Wherefore this Isle being indeed but a Member of tire whole could not determine against the whole Thus Dr. Story Yet neither in Queen Mary's time could the Authority of a National Synod or an Act of Parliament be pleaded for such an abrogation of the old Canons or Liturgies or Supremacies and the establishment of new because both the Synod and Parliament of this Nation in the beginning of her Reign had pulled down again what those under King Edward and Henry had builded so that those Bishops could not hereupon ground their non-conformity which Argument Dr. Story there also prosecuteth against the Arch-Bishop § 64 Such as these then being the Causes of the Ejection of those Bishops I think it is evidenced And 2â—◠〈◊〉 to the Jâ—â—â— that they were Regularly and Canonically ejected as to the Cause And 2. Next so were they as to the Judge They being condemned as guilty of Heresy 2. or other Irregularities which are mulcted with Deposition and so ejected or also degraded and excommunicated with the greater Excommunication further than which the Ecclesiastical Power did not proceed not by any Secular Court or by the Queen's Commissioners but by those whom the Church hath appointed in the Intervals of Councils the ordinary Judges of Heresy or other Breaches of her Canons Amongst whom the highest Judges are the Patriarchs and above them the first Patriarch of Rome By whose Delegates the more Eminent Persons that were accused of Heresy the Arch-Bishop and the Bishops were here tryed according to the Authority shewed to be due to and to be anciently used by him in Chur. Gov. 1. Part. § 9.20 c and 2. Part § 77 and other Inferior Persons were tryed by the Bishop who was their Ordinary Queen Mary having revived the Statutes repealed by King Henry and Edward concerning the Tryal of Hereticks by the Church's Authority as hath been noted before § 49. The issue of which Tryal by the Church if they found guilty was either Deposition only from their Benefice and Office for Breach of her Canons or also Excommunication excommnnicatione majori and Degradation for Heresy and Opposition of her Definitions hi matters of Faith and so the yielding them up as now by degradation rendred Secular Persons to have inflicted on them by the Secular Power the punishments appointed for such crimes by the Secular Laws as you may see in the Forms of the Condemnation of Cranmer Ridley c Fox p. 1603 and elsewhere and in the Profession of the Bishop of Lincoln to Bishop Ridley Fox p. 1597. All saith he that we may do is to cut you off from the Church for we cannot condemn you to dy as most untruly hath been reported of us c. § 65 As for the burning of such afterward whom the Church first condemns of Heresy To β. it is to be considered Where Concern the buâ—â—ing of those whâ— in Q. Mary days were by the Câ—u condemned of Heresy That the Secular Laws not Ecclesiastical appoint it and the Secular Magistrates not Ecclesiastical execute it Again That Protestant Princes as well as Catholick King Edward King James Queen Elizabeth as well as Queen Mary have thought fit to execute this Law upon Hereticks So in Edward the Sixth's days Joan of Kent Anne Askews Maid who was burnt in Henry the Eighth's days for denying the Real Presence and George Paris were burnt for Hereticks Fox p. 1180 And some other Anabaptists condemned and recanting were enjoined to bear their Faggots See Stow p. 596. And in Henry the Eighth's time Arch-Bishop Cranmer in the Kings presence disputed against Jo. Lambert for denying the Real Presence and the Lord Cromwel pronounced Sentence upon him to be burnt for it Fox p. 1024 1026. And the same Arch-Bishop being as yet only a Lutheran saith Fox p. 1115 prosecuted others upon the same grounds and also in the beginning of King Edward's Reign before that the Protector and his Party appeared much for Zuinglianisme committed to the Counter
where they could be secure of no breach in greater matters § 119 To η. Where concerniâ—g the Clergy's concurrence and consent to the Kings Reformations To η. That the words urged out of the charge against Winchester prove not the Clergy's reception of or submission to all the Kings Injunctions touching the Reformation but only to the first Injunctions That whether they be extended to the first or to all they must be understood in some such sense as this That at that time when this charge against Winchester was drawn there were as yet none other known to the Council that did by open Protestation and Letters as it follows in that charge shew a wilful disobedience thereto c. Or else the verity of them will not consist with the story of those times which often signify a great opposition and averseness in many of the Clergy besides Winchester to the Kings proceedings in the alteration of Religion so far as that many were silenced suspended imprisoned ejected out of their Spiritual Preferments for this cause § 120 For evidencing which see first in Fox p. 1192. Bishop Bonner's protestation concerning these first Injunctions and Homilies when they were tendered unto him by the Commissioners which protestation was so far from being interpreted an obedient reception or reverent observance of them that for it he was sent to the Fleet. And what was done by Gardiner and Bonner leading Bishops that it was done also by many others I pray you review Mr. Fox's words before recited § 107 That for the most part the Bishops of Churches and Diocesses were changed which you may compare with what is said before § 107. of the many new Bishops made by King Edward That Learned Men were sent for out of forreign Countries surely not because the Leaders of the Universities were not so well studied see their Disputations but because not so conformable to the new prescriptions That of the old Bishops some were committed to one ward some to another where he names Bonner Gardiner Tonstal but might have mentioned also Heath Day Vesy that we know of And to the same purpose much-what speaketh Godwin p. 223. A. D. 1548 who after having commended Day and Tonstal for very learned Pre lates saith That the drift of the punishments of such men when in Henry's time they were accounted the chief Lights of our Church he conceives to have been that the rest of that Order might by their Example be admonished without dissimulation either to resign their Bishopricks to others that were thought by the present times more worthy or be induced by this terror to conform themselves to the present Reformation of the Church according to the prescript of the Laws in that behalf lately enacted i. e by Parliament Thus he But that the imprisonment of these or of some other Clergy as also that the dissent of many others to the Kings Injunctions who were not as yet imprisoned for it preceded the confirmation of these Injunctions by any Act of Parliament or Convocation appears from the very Act it self 2. Edw. 6.1 c. Where the Parliament desires of the King That all persons that have offended in the Premises i. e in refusing the Form of Common-Prayer or at least of the Mass Fox p. 1184 imposed by the King before this Act other than such person or persons as now be and remain saith the Act in the ward of the Tower of London or in the Fleet may be pardoned thereof Some Clergy therefore were imprisoned for this cause before this Act and more also had offended in this matter than those who were imprisoned whose pardon here was begged by the Parliament § 121 Which reluctance of the Clergy may be seen also in what Mr. Fox relateth p. 1184 who after he hath first told us how a new Form of Communion was agreed on by certain learned men appointed by the King which Form you must know was not allowed or seen by the first Parliament of King Edward which Parliament appointed Communion in both kinds indeed but this might have been observed without altering or adding one Syllable to the Mass and enjoined by the Council to be duly executed both by the Bishops and their subordinate Clergy thus complains Nevertheless saith he as at no time any thing can be so well done of the godly but that the wicked will find some means to deface the same so likewise at this present thro the perverse obstinacy and dissembling frowardness of many inferiour Priests and Ministers of Cathedral and other Churches of this Realm there did arise a marvellous Schism and variety of fashions in celebrating the Common Service and administration of the Sacraments and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church For some zealously allowing the Kings proceedings did gladly follow the order thereof and others though not so willingly admitting them did yet dissemblingly and patchingly use some part of them but many carelesly contemning all would still exercise their old wonted Popery i. e in other language would still retain the former solemn Church Service Thus He. Now this variety of fashions only mentioned by Fox if you desire more particularly to know we find a more punctual relation thereof in Parsons 3. Convers of England 2. Part 12. Chapter What a Babylonical confusion saith he in the two first years of the Kings Reign ensued upon these innovations in all Churches is wonderful to recount For some Priests said the Latine Mass some the English Communion some both some neither some half of the one half of the other This was very ordinary to say the Introitus Confiteor in English and then the Collects and some other parts in Latine after that again the Epistles and Gospels in English and then the Canon of the Mass in Latine and lastly the Benediction and last Gospel in English But that which was of more importance and impiety some did consecrate Bread and Wine others did not but would tell the people before-hand That they would not consecrate but restore them their Bread and Wine back again as they received it from them only adding to it the Church's benediction And those that did consecrate did consecrate in divers forms some aloud some in secret some in one form of words some in another And after Consecration some held up the Host to be adored after the old fashion and some did not and of those that were present some did kneel down and adore others did shut their eyes others turn away their faces others run out of the Church crving Idolatry Hitherto Parsons View also Dr. Heylin's Hist. of Reform p. 63.74 concerning this-matter Whereby we see how averse and unsatisfied divers of the Clergy were with the Kings alterations § 122 And this not only before his new Liturgy is said to be confirmed by Act of Parliament and Convocation but after also For afterward we find the King and his Council in their Letter to the Bishop of London Fox p. 1186. complaining That it
be changed he confessed both that they were ancient and might in some manner be inculpably used but yet thought it better that they should be removed 1. because not appointed in Scripture by word or example 2. because they might be or also had been abused'to superstition 3. because the Church should partake as little as might be of the same usages with Anti-Christ Bucer Censur in Ordinat Eccles Angl. p. 458. 467. c. § 179 Upon such exceptions taken at the Liturgy as well from abroad as also by some of the preciser sort at home saith Dr. Heylin Reform Justif p. 31. and Hist of Reform p. 107. and because there had risen divers doubts for the fashion and manner of the ministration of the said Service rather by the curiosity of the Minister and mistakers than of any other worthy cause saith the Act of Parliament it self 5 6. Edw. 6.1 c. which shews what a good opinion they had of the former Book It was committed to be new corrected but by what persons we know not The Act without any such Encomium of these Reviewers as of the first Composers faith only That the King caused it to be faithfully and godly perused explained and made fully perfect Perhaps it was corrected which is one of Dr. Heylin's conjectures See before § 42. by those who were appointed by the King about this time to compose a Form of Ordination which Form the Act joined with this new Service-Book But it could not be done by the same persons that composed the former at least not by all of them because Day before this was ejected out of his Bishoprick and two more Shyp and Holbeck as I think before this deceased and Harley and Taylor were chosen their Successors The thing matters not much-Thus corrected it was presented to the Parliament and it only by them authorized to be used § 160 Which second Form besides casting out several other things that were retained in the former Among the rest Prayer for the dead and several expressions that seemed to â—â—ser the Reaâ—or Corporal Preseace in the Eucharist as the Commemoration of Saints and Prayer for the dead many Rites in the Administration of Baptisme the liberty of extream Vnction the Oblation and Prayers in the Communion which were made immediately after Consecration spoken-of before § 148 149. above all seems to have taken a vigilant special care for the altering and removing out of the former Form all those passages Which might argue any real or corporal Presence of the Body and Blood of Christ whether it be by Trans or Con-substantiation or any other way with the Symbols Whereas therefore in the Prayer of Consecration these words are in the Missal Quam oblationem tu Deus in omnibus quaesumus benedictam acceptabilemque facere digneris ut nobis Corpus Sanguis fiat dilectissimi Filii tui Domini Nostri Jesu Christi and so in the first Form of King Edward these words Hear us O Merciful Father we beseech the and with Holy Spirit and word vouchsafe to bl ✚ ess and sanc ✚ tify these thy gifts and creatures of Bread md Wine that they may be unto us the Body and Blood of thy most dearly beloved Son Both the Missal and that Form ordering the person consecrating at this time to take both the Bread and the Cup into his hands Instead of this the second Form is thus changed Hear us O Merciful Father we beseech thee and grant that we receiving these thy Creatures of Bread and Wine according to thy Son our Saviour Jesus Christ's holy Institution in remembrance of his Death and Passion may be partakers of his most blessed Body and Blood omitting also the Priests touching or handling the Pattin or Chalice which is done according to Bucer's directions in his Censura p. 468. Whereby seems to be avoided the acknowledging of any Presence of Christ's Body and Blood with the Symbols of which also Bucer saith p. 476. Antichristianum est affirmare quicquam his elementis adesse Christi extra usum praebitionis receptionis For the same reason it seems to be that the Glory be to God on high c. and the Benedictus qui venit in nomine Domini after the Sursum Corda the one is transferred after the Communion and the other omitted Likewise whereas in the administring of these Mysteries the Missal useth this Form Corpus Domini Jesu Christi custodiat animam tuam in vitam aternam and so also the first Book of King Edward the Second as it were against the apprehending of any Real Presence to the Symbols or any oral feeding on that Body removeth those words and placeth instead thereof only these Take and eat this in remembrance that Christ dyed for thee and feed on him in thy heart by Faith with thankgiving Again Drink this in remembrance c So whereas it is said in the first Form in the Player of humble access Grant us so to eat the flesh of thy dear Son Jesus Christ and to drink his blood in these holy Mysteries the second omits in these holy Mysteries Likewise at the end of the Communion-Service is added this Rubrick declaring that kneeling at the participation of the Sacrament is required for a signification of the humble acknowledging of the benefits of Christ given therein unto the worthy receiver and not for giving any adoration to the Sacramental Bread and Wine there bodily received or in regard of any real or essential Presence of Christ's natural Body and Blood Whereas it s ordained in the Administration of the Lord's Supper that the Communicants kneeling should receive the Holy Communion which thing is well meant for a signification of the humble and grateful acknowledging of the benefits of Christ given unto the worthy receiver and to avoid the profanation and disorders which about the Holy Communion might else ensue Lest yet the same kneeling might be thought or taken otherwise we do declare that it is not meant thereby that any Adoration is done or ought to be done either unto the Sacramental Bread or Wine there bodily received or unto any real and essential Presence there being of Christ's natural Flesh and Blood For as concerning the Sacramental Bread and Wine they remain still in their natural substances and therefore may not be adored for that were Idolatry And as concerning the natural Body and Blood of our Saviour Christ they are in heaven and not here for it is against the truth of Christ's true natural Body to be in moe places than one at one time Thus that Rubrick thought fit to be omitted in the Common-Prayer-Book of Queen Elizabeth of which see the Reason below § 179. n. 2. Accordingly the Altar was changed into a Table the sides whereof were set North and South set near the Reading-place ordered at the Communion time to be covered with a fair white Linnen Cloth the other vestments prohibited save only a Surplice for a Priest and Rochet for a
Bishop and to take away all Superstition the Communion Bread appointed to be such as is usually eaten at the Table but the purest of that sort that can conveniently be had See the Rubricks of King Edward's secondCommon Prayer-Book Fol. 126. And Visita S ck Fol. 22. And lastly whereas the first gives caution § 161 that so much Bread and Wine shall be consecrated Where Concerning the reduction of somethingâ— touching this Presence made in the new Liturgy for Scotland to K. Edw. frâ—st Form as shall suffice for the persons appointed to receive the Holy Communion except some shall be reserved for the Communion of the Sick The second omits any such caution ordering only that the Curate have the remains to his own use But the new Liturgy composed for Scotland well discerning what these alterations aimed at reduceth all things to the former way restores those words in the Consecration with thy holy spirit and word c. that They may be unto us the Body c. ordering again the Presbyter that officiates to take the Pattin and Chalice in his hands and leaving out also the caution of non-elevation which was inserted in the first Book of King Edward removes the words added in the delivering of the Mysteries Take and eat this c. and instead thereof adds aster the former words the people's response Amen according to the custome of Antiquity See Dionys Alexand. apud Euseb Histor 7. l. 8. c. Leo Serm. 6. de jejunio 7. mensis August ad Orosium quaest 49. spoken as a Confession of their Faith that they acknowledged that which they received to be Corpus Domini Lastly requires him that officiates that he consecrate Bread and Wine with the least to the end there may be little left and that what is left be not carried out of the Church but reverently eaten and drunk by such of the Communicants only as the Presbyter that celebrates shall take unto him § 162 All this could not pass the Observation of the Scotchman who in the Laudensium Autocatacrisis Much complained of 〈◊〉 Laudensium Autocatacrisis p. 107. thus censures it In the next Prayer saith he i. e. that of Consecration are put in the words of the Mass whereby God is besought by his omnipotent Spirit so to sanctify the Oblations of Bread and Wine that they may become to us Christ's Body and Blood From these words all Papists use to draw the truth of their Trans-substantiation wherefore the English Reformers i. e. the lattor scraped them out of their Books but our men put them fairly in And good reason have they so to do For long ago they professed that about the Presence of Christ's Body and Blood in the Sacrament after Consecration they are fully agreed with Lutherans and Papists except only about the formality and mode of Presence here quoting Mountag Appeal p. 289. They make an express Rubrick for the Priest's taking the Patin and the Chalice in his hand in the time of Consecration Which taking not being either for his own participation or the distribution to others why shall we not understand the end of it to be that which the Mass there enjoyns their Elevation and Adoration The Elevation being long ago practiced by some of our Bishops and Adoration when the Patin and Chalice are taken in the Priest's hands avowed by Heylin's Answ to Burt. p. 137. The English indeed in giving the Elements to the people retain the Mass-words but to prevent any mischief Autocat p. 111. that could arise in the people's mind from their sound of a Corporal Presence they put in at the distribution of both the Elements two Golden Sentences of the hearts eating by Faith of the Soul 's drinking in remembrance But our men being nothing affraid for the people's belief of a Corporal Presence have pulled out of their hands and scraped out of our Book both these Antidotes And the Mass-words thus quit of the English Antidotes must not stand in our Book simply but that the people may take extraordinary notice of these Phrases there are two Rubricks set up to their backs obliging every Communicant with their own mouth to say their Amen to them The English permit the Curate to carry home the relicks of the Bread and Wine for his private use but such Profanity by our Book is discharged The Consecrate Elements are enjoyned to be eaten in the Holy place by the Priest alone and some of the Communicants that day yea for preventing of all dangers a cautel is put in that so few Elements as may be consecrate And our Book will have the Elements after the Consecration covered with a Corporal c. § 163 Thus the first Form both when first established in King Edward's and when revived in King Charles's time found many Adversaries But did the new one escape any better No. For when all these offensive things in the second draught were amended according to several preciser fancies yet neither so did the second content all palats for the humour of Innovation knoweth no bounds Soon after it was framed as the chief body of the Clergy under Queen Mary deserted both it and the former and returned to the old Church-Service so the English Protestants that were then dispersed abroad at Franckford in Germany fell into great dissensions about it as some for so many against it See a fuller relation in Heylin's Hist of Reform in Queen Mary p. 59. c. And Calvin hearing the noise thereof as he had formerly used his Pen to the Protector c against the first Book so now doth he to the English in Franckford Calvin Ep. p. 213. against the second saying In Anglicanâ Liturgiâ qualem describitis i. e. the new one which some of them then used at Franckford mult as video fuisse tolerabiles ineptias Sic ergo a talibus rudimentis incipere licuit ut doctos tamen graves Christi ministros ultra eniti aliquid limatius ac purius quaerere consentaneum foret Si hactenus in Anglia viguisset sincera religio aliquid in melius correctum multaque detracta esse oportuit Nunc cum eversis illis princtpiis alibi instituenda vobis sit Ecclesia liberum sit formam de integro componere he thinks it seems any Pastors have power to make to themselves new Liturgies quid sibi velint nescio quos faecis Papisticae reliquiae tantopere delectant Amant ea quibus assueti sunt Hoc nugatorium puerile est c. Thus Calvin And so Bucer likewise in his censure of the first who died within a few weeks after he had writ it before the compiling of the second hath blamed many things that remain in the second After Queen Mary's death the second Book being restored here again to its former authority many of the more zealous Reformists both by words and writings made such opposition against it that Queen Elizabeth in terrorem executed two for this cause See
other general words whereby her Highness by her Supreme power and authority had dispensed with all causes or doubts of any imperfections or disability that could be objected against the same So that to all those that will well consider of the supreme and absolute authority of the Queens Highness i. e. in Ecclesiasticals which she had used and put in ure in the making and consecrating of the said Arch-Bishops and Bishops See it before §. 70 it is evident that no cause of scruple ambiguity or doubt can be justly objected against the said Consecrations c. Thus the Act. And this is proposed for the satisfaction of those whose chief solicitude was concerning the transgressing the Laws of the Church in these Church matters And the Answer seems in effect this That tho these Bishops were ordained contrary to the Laws of the Church yet they were ordained according to the Laws of the Land and that this was sufficient to warrant the Ordination because these Laws of the Land had given authority to the Queen to dispense with any repugnant Laws of the Church § 195 Thus much of Queen Elizabeth's change of her Clergy And here I think meet to prosecute no further this Subject this reformed Clergy being such persons as would act according to the pleasure of a reformed Prince and therefore it is not strange if the Prince acted no more against but by them and began now a-new to use the Synod more than the Senate in the transaction of Spiritual Affairs CHAP. XIII The Opinion of several Protestant Divines concerning a Reformation in Religion made against a Major Part of the Clergy § 196 ONly before I conclude this Discourse let me shew you The opinion of several Protestant Divines touching the lawfulness of the Prince's reforming of Religion in matters of doctrine against the major part of his Clergy when to him seemeth a necessity that requireth it after all the rest that as it hath been affirmed here that the Reformation was not effected by the Clergy of this Nation but by the Princes and their Council against the inclinations of the much major part thereof So some of the ablest of the reformed Divines tho they contend that our Princes did not so Yet as if they doubted much whether they should be able to make this good do reserve this as a secure retreat for themselves that a Prince when there is a necessity that requires it of which necessity the Prince is to judge or in cases extraordinary of which cases the Prince is to judge may lawfully reform Religion both in matters of Doctrine and Discipline contrary to the major part of the Clergy these Learned Men defending the Secular powers herein by the example of the good Kings of Israel Upon which also they make no scruple to joyn Communion with those Transmarine Protestants whom all grant to have reformed against all their Spiritual Superiors Nay also in the beginning of this work such Reformers were sent for from abroad to assist them here against the contrary current of the Clergy of this Land And indeed it seemeth but necessary that they should patronize this Tenent because if they should once maintain That no Reformation is valid which is done against the major part of the National Clergy by the same reason they must assert that the Reformation of no National Clergy is valid which is done against a major part of the Patriarchy or of the Church or Council to which this National Clergy will be found to owe obedience § 197 The first testimony of those I shall produce for this assertion is that of Dr. Field He The Opinion of Dr. Field after these specious Concessions We do not make our Princes with their Civil States supreme in the power of commanding in matters concerning God and his Faith and Religion without seeking the direction of their Clergy Of the Chur. 5. l. 53. c. Again We do not attribute to our Princes with their Civil Estates power newly to adjudge any thing to be Heresy without the concurrence of the State of their Clergy but only to judge in those matters of Faith that are resolved on according to former resolutions Where the Dr. seems to leave the Prince no liberty to judge or establish any thing in matters of Faith according to his own opinion but in matters formerly determined confineth him to the judgment of former Councils in matters not formerly determined to the judgment of his Clergy i. e. the major part thereof Yet after such specious Concessions I say he proceedeth as it were to protect the Reformation on this manner Touching errors of Faith or aberrations in the performance of God's Worship and Service there is no question but that Bishops and Pastors of the Church to whom it appertaineth to teach the truth are the ordinary and fittest Judges and that ordinarily and regularly Princes are to leave the judgment thereof unto them But because they may fail they i e. the Bishops and Pastors of the Church and not onely single persons but Synods of them else single persons failing may easily be reduced by Synods and a minor by the major part and so long the Prince judges with his Clergy not against them and the Judgment of such things being made by this major part is still ordinary and regular Neither needs the Prince to remove the matter from these to other Judges either thro negligence ignorance or malice Princes having charge over Gods people and being to see that they serve and worship him aright are to judge and condemn them the foresaid Clergy that fall into gross errors contrary to the common sense of Christians or into any other Heresies formerly condemned I conceive he meaneth condemned by former Councils And tho there be no general failing in the Clergy yet if they see violent and partial courses taken they may interpose themselves to stay them and cause a due proceeding or remove the matter from one sort of Judges to another I suppose he meaneth either from the whole Clergy to Secular Judges or from that part of the Clergy tho more which he dislikes to some others of the Clergy tho fewer whom he approves for to remove the matter from fewer to more is regular and ordinary But here he speaks what the Prince may do extraordinarily Thus Dr. Field § 198 Who not to urge Bishop Andrews his observation against him Tort. Tort. p. 372. Ad extraordinariam potestatem confugere non solet quis nisi cui deplorata res est here seems to six the Prince as one that cannot fail thro negligence ignorance or malice to others or at least cannot fail so soon as the whole body of the Clergy may what not fail in ignorance of Divine matters sooner than they As one that hath a charge over Gods people and is to see that they worship God aright as if the Clergy had not such charge much more than he or as if he could judge what was
as any one in the Vindication of the Churches rights and Yet He tells us q Epilog Pag. 391. 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 r Church Government pag. 390. 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 ſ Church Government pag. 391. 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 t Ductor Dub. l. 3. c. 3. r. 4. That the Supreme Civil-power is also Supreme Governour over all Persons and in all Causes u Ibid. r. 5. Hath a Legislative power in Affairs of Religion and the Church x Ibid. r. 7. Hath Jurisdiction in causes not only Ecclesiastical but also Internal and Spiritual y Ibid. r. 7. n. 9. Hath autority to convene and dissolve all Synods Ecclesiastical z Ibid. r. 8. 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 a Ibid. r. 8. n. 6. but that there may happen a case in which Princes may and must refuse to confirm the Synodical decrees Sentences and Judgments of Ecclesiastics b Ibid. l. 3. c. 4. r. 8. 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 c Bp. Br. Works Tom. 1. p. 88. 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 d Ibid. p. 76. 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 * Educ p. 98. 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 e Ibid. p. 156. 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 f E I K. 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Adv. To the Pr. of Wales 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 g Ibid. cap. 17. 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 Judgment 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 h Adv. to the Pr. of Wales that the best Profession of Religion is that of the Church of England adds I would have your own Judgment 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 requuired 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 i Serm. of the right of Assemblies 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
c. But this it is for people to meddle in Controversie at an Age when they have forgot their Grammar Notwithstanding therefore this Aristarchus We still retain the Liberty of believing and obeying only such things which be defined according to God's Word For which we are much blamed in the Conclusion of this Discourse * p. 260. In rejection of the Churche's Judgment saith he let none think himself secure in relying on the Testimony of his Conscience or judgment But what reason soever he may have to undervalue the Testimony of a good Conscience we think it advisable from St. Paul * 1 Tim. c. 1. v. 19. to hold faith and a good conscience which some having put away concerning faith have made Ship-wrack Of whom are But saith he let none think himself secure in any of these things so long as his Conscience witnesseth still to him this one thing namely his Disobedience and Inconformity to the Church-Catholic But our Consciences do not witness to us any disobedience to the Church-Catholic but only to that Church which falsly praetends to be Catholic He means to the Major part of the Guides thereof But the cause has not yet been decided by Poll that we should know which side has the Majority Let him know that his Condition is very dangerous when he maketh the Church-Guides of his own time or the major part thereof incommunicable-with in their external profession of Religion There was a time then when to believe the Consubstantiality of the Son was a dangerous Condition and this perhaps made Pope Liberius externally to profess Arrianism When for the maintaining of his Opinions he begins to distinguish and divide between the doctrine of the Scripture and the Doctrine of the Church But why not distinguish where the Church her self distinguishes and saith Christ indeed in the Scriptures instituted so but I institute otherwise as in the case of denying the Cup. Between the Doctrines of the Catholic Church of the former ages and of the Catholic Church of the present But here again the Church her self distinguishes when She tells us that * Conc. Const Sess 13. licet in primitiva Ecclesia sub utraque specie Sacramentum reciperetur Yet now the contrary Custom habenda est pro lege quam non licet reprobare Between the Church's orthodoxness in Necessaries and non-necessaries to Salvation If there be no difference betwixt these why doth a * Guide in Controv. Disc 1 c. 6. par 56. Friend of the Author tell us of an Obedience of Assent in the one but of Non-contradition only in the other When he begins to maintain the Autority of an Inferior Ecclesiastical Judge against a Superior But what if this be only where the Inferior Judge agrees tho' not with his immediate Superior yet with the Supreme Or of a minor part of the Church-Guides against a Major But that is not a case yet fairly decided When they grant that God hath given them beside the Scriptures guides of their Faith But those Guides themselves to be guided by the Scripture And that they have in their judgment departed from those Guides i. e. the major part of them But this we would have prov'd Which in a Court consisting of mapy is the legall Judge Guides and Judges are different things but we hope when this Court sits the Judges will consult the Scripture the Statute they are to go by and if they judge according to that they will judge well These are the Doctrines of blind-Obedience which this Author so studiously inculcates For sice Doctrines are taught us different from Scripture we are advis'd to use another way of discerning Doctrines then what the Gospel prescribes Our Saviour bids us Mat. 16.6.12 Beware of the leaven i. e. the doctrine of Pharisee's tho' sitting in Moses his Chair We are now advis'd to embrace all the doctrines of those that sit in the Chair of S. Peter Christ bids us * Mat. 24.4 Take heed that no man deceive us tho' coming in his Name We are now told that they who come to us in the Name of Christ cannot deceive us St. Paul saith * Gal. 1.8 that If an Angel from Heaven preach to us any other Doctrine then that which he preach'd Let him be accurs'd Now if we do not embrace whatever a Patriarch from the West preaches tho' never so contrary to the Gospel we are concluded under an Anathema The Apostles tell us that they * 2 Cor. 1.24 have no Dominion over our Faith but their Successors exercise a Despotic power in requiring a servile Obedience to all their Dictates S. Paul's practise was to * Gal. 2.11.14 withstand Peter to the face When he saw that he walk'd not uprightly according to the truth of the Gospel but St. Peter's Successor pleads that in no case he may be withstood because it is impossible but that he should walk uprightly in the truth of the Gospel The inspir'd Divine bids us * Rev. 18.4 Come out of Babylon that we may not partake of her Sins Our modern Theologists advise us to come back into * Babylonia apud Joannem Romanae urbis figura est Tertul. adv Marc. l. 3. c. 13. Roma quasi secunda Babylonia est Aug. de Civit. Dei l. 18. c. 2. Babylon for that She only is impeccable Imprimatur GILB IRONSIDE Vice-Can Oxon. Octob. 19. 1687. REFLECTIONS ON THE HISTORICAL PART OF Church-Government PART V. He that is first in his own cause seemeth just but his Neighbor cometh and searcheth him Prov. 18.17 OXFORD Printed at the THEATER Anno 1687. The Introduction THE Pamphlet proposes to relate the English Reformation and to examine the lawfulness of it Now from an Examiner we might justly expect Argument and from a Relator Truth How he argues I find consider'd by the Animadverter Two small defects he has been charg'd with 1st That he proceeds upon dubious or false Premises 2ly That were they granted his Conclusions would not follow It is my business to examine his Narrative which yet is not so purely Historical but that it is perplex'd with dispute For it is peculiar to this Author that when he should reason he barely affirms as if he was writing an History but when it is his business to relate being conscious that the stream of Autority is against him he is forc'd to dispute it out as if he was proving a Problem But his arguing is such as the Cause would bear and his History such as it necessarily requires The former has gain'd him no great credit with the Men of Reason and this I doubt will little recommend him to the Honest and Ingenuous But I forbear to prejudge the cause and desire nothing may be farther charg'd on him than it is prov'd I pretend to no Critical skill in the History of the Reformation and I am beholden to the Author that I need it not His prevarications lie so open that a Novice in History may
be past by them It was not the Doctrine of the Catechism or Articles which was here question'd but the false ascription of the Catechism to the Synod Now the Articles being undeniably genuine they content themselves only to condemn the Doctrine of them but the Catechism being suppos'd illegitimate they subscribe both against it's Doctrine and Autority Nor could Philpot have pleaded as our Author would have had him that the Synod's composing the Articles justified the Act of the Delegates composing the Catechism since this might indeed warrant the Doctrine of the Catechism but not the entitling it to the Synod He saith all the Historians that he hath seen are silent concerning these Articles In this dispute concerning the Articles Dr. Heylin is twice mention'd and two several Books of his refer'd to in those very pages where he mentions these Articles In his a Heylin's Hist p. 121. History He thinks them debated and concluded on by a Grand Committee on whom the Convocation had devolv'd their power and esteems it not improbable that these Articles being debated and agreed upon by the said Committee might also pass the Vote of the whole Convocation though we find nothing to that purpose in the Acts thereof which either have been lost or never were registred I add or being once Registred were expung'd In his Reformation justified a Ref Justif § 4. He positively affirms that the Clergy in Synod 1552. did compose and agree upon a book of Articles Neither therefore is Dr. Heylin silent herein nor is he one of the Historians which this Author never saw Dr. Burnet is another Historian whom either this Editor had seen or ought not to have publish'd this Relation till he had first consulted him He peremptorily affirms b Bur. V 2. p. 195. that in the Year 1552. the Convocation agreed to the Articles of Religion that were prepar'd the year before But our Author has still another Objection in reserve that the Arch-Bishop Cranmer to whom it would have been an excellent Defence to have shew'd these Articles to have been subscrib'd by a full Synod yet pleaded no such thing That Reverend Martyr pleaded that the Opinions which he maintain'd were the Doctrines of the Scripture and Primitive Church that the rejection of the Pope's Supremacy the fundamental Heresie of which he was accus'd was the Unanimous Act of the whole English Clergy and Nation and which his very Judges had solemnly sworn to Now if this Plea could avail nothing in his Defence it must have been a weak Plea to have insisted on Articles past in a Synod call'd by himself and over which he by reason of his Archiepiscopal Autority had great Influence This dispute is concluded with a shrewd Remark which our Author raises from a passage of Dr. Heylin The Dr. observes that this Book of Articles was not confirm'd by any Act of Parliament whence he concludes that the Reform'd Religion cannot be call'd a Parliament Religion Hence this Author gathers that neither was it a Synodal Religion because we see the Parliaments in King Edward's time corroborating the Synods in all other transactions of the Reformation Now tho' there is ground for the Drs. observation because there is never an Act which formally gives Sanction to these Articles yet there is in one of those very Acts cited from the Doctor in this Pamphlet that which quite overthrows our Author's Conclusion For in the Act for Legitimating Marriages of Priests it is said that the untrue Slanderous report of Holy Matrimony did redound to the High dishonour of the Learned Clergy of this Realm who have determin'd the same to be most Lawful by the Law of God in their Convocation as well by common Assent as by the Subscription of their Hands Which words plainly refer to the 31st of these Articles and are an Authoritative Testimony that they are the genuine Act of the Synod and had I doubt not been expung'd had the Commission of rasure extended to the Statute-Book I have insisted the longer on this particular because it is a matter of some moment and because the Author has here us'd more then ordinary Artifice I have not had the benefit of any Registers or Manuscripts nor am I skill'd in these niceties of History What has been said sufficiently overthrows all his Cavils but the Curious and the Learned are able to give a more Authentic and Solid account of this matter A Reply to Chapter the 11th THat the Reformation was restor'd by Q. Elizabeth after the extirpation of it by Q. Mary might have been said in fewer lines than this Author is pleas'd to use Paragraphs That some things were at first reduc'd without Synodal Autority I confess and that the Reformation had it's last settlement by a Synod he cannot deny The Act of the first Popish Convocation I esteem illegal because the Q. had sent and requir'd them under the pain of a Premunire not to make Canons The Canonicalness of Q. Mary's Clergy here acting depends upon his former Proofs which were not altogether Demonstrative But let their Autority be suppos'd just yet these Constitutions were repeal'd by a later Synod whose Autority must be conceded equal and therefore their Act as being the last Autoritative The stress therefore of the Controversy lies in this whether Q. Elizabeth's new Bishops were lawfully introduc'd and this depends upon the legality of the ejection of the Old The Cause of their ejection is confest to be their denial of the Oath of Supremacy and is just or unjust according as that Oath was lawful or unlawful Our Author therefore sets himself to examine that Oath where he first puts his own Exposition upon it and then attacqs it as so expounded Neither Q. Elizabeth's explication of her own Sense nor the Church's Exposition in her Articles favour his Construction Those who take this Oath are not perswaded that they abjure the Autority of a General Council or the Jurisdiction of their own National Clergy But if we accept it in that Sense which he is pleas'd to impose upon it Yet still the Strength of his Arguments depends on such Assertions as are to be supported by his four first part of Church-Government We must therefore wait the Edition of those before We can be satisfied of the Strength of these But if we may make an estimate of future performances from past there is no reason to expect any thing formidable from that Quarter For the only business of our Modern Controvertists is to rally up those scatter'd forces which have long since quitted the field to our Forefathers This Oath of Supremacy has exercis'd the Pens of the greatest Champions of both Churches and there is not a shadow of an Argument here brought against it but what has been baffled when manag'd with better skill and more Learning than this Author is Master of The Regal Supremacy in Opposition to the Papal has been asserted by our Kings James the first and Charles the first
appoint a certain place and bounds for the exercise of his Jurisdiction no Bishop by the Church-Canon can be made without the consent of his Superior the Metropolitan nor Metropolitan without the consent of the Patriarch See Chur. Gov. 1. par 9. §. who is to ordain or confirm the Metropolitans under his Patriarch-ship either by imposition of hands himself or by appointing his Ordainers at which time his Bull for authorizing the Ordainers was used to be read and by Mission of the Pall See Conc. Nic. 4. c. Can. Apost 34. Council Chalced. 27. c. and 16. Act. 8. General Council 10. c. confessed by Protestants by Dr. Field 5. l. 31. c. p. 518. and 37. c. p. 551. Without the Patriarch's assent none of the Metropolitan's subject unto them might be ordained What they bring proves nothing that we ever doubted of For we know the Bishop of Rome had the right of Confirming the Metropolitans within the Precincts of his own Patriarch-ship By Bishop Bramhal Vindic. 9. c. p. 297. What power the Metropolitan had over the Bishops of his own Province the same had a Patriarch over the Metropolitans c. Wherein then consisted Patriarchal Authority In ordaining their Metropolitans or confirming them in imposing of hands or giving the Pall c. And indeed what defence can the Church have from frequent Schisme if two or three or a few Bishops dissenting from the whole may not only make other persons of the like inclinations Bishops to govern the people with them but also may make new Metropolitans to preside over themselves But Arch-Bishop Parker was thus ordained by two Bishops of the same Province without and against the consent of the Patriarch and of the Arch-Bishops Vice-gerent side vacante the Bishop of London and of the other Metropolitan the Arch-Bishop of York Neither did he receive any Spiritual Jurisdiction at all from any Ecclesiastical Superior but meerly that which the Queen a Lay-person by these men her Delegates in this imployment did undertake according to the warrant of the Statute 1. Eliz. 1. contrary to the First and Third Thesis above to confer upon him Which Delegates of her's were none of them at that time possessed of any Diocess Barlow and Scory being then only Bishops Elect of Chicester and Hereford and Coverdale never admitted or elected to any and Hoskins a Suffragan nor had they had Diocesses could have had any larger jurisdiction save only within these at least being single Bishops could have no Metropolitical Jurisdiction which yet they conferred on Parker not on their own surely but on the Queens score And then might not she at pleasure take away and strip Parker again of all that Jurisdiction which he held only on her gift See above the First and Third Thes 4. Of their four Bishops that undertook to ordain Parker three Barlow Coverdale and Scory were upon several accounts justly before deprived or their Bishopricks and as for the fourth Hoskins the Suffragan See before §. 58.189.190 these had their office formerly taken away and never after restored Neither their authority standing good See before §. 190. is one or two Bishops a competent number for Ordination 5. The Form of the Ordination of these new Bishops as it was made in Edward the Sixth's time so it was revoked by Synod in Queen Mary's days and by no Synod afterward restored before their Ordination Revoked also by an Act of Parliament in Queen Mary's days and not by any Act restored 1. Mar. 2. c. till long after the Ordination of Queen Elizabeth's first Bishops viz. in 8. Eliz. 1. Upon Bonner's urging hereupon that the Queens were no legal Bishops § 194 And for such considerations as these it seems it was that the Queen in her Mandate to Coverdale Scory Where Concerning the Queen as Supreme in Ecclesiasticals her dispensing with the former Ecclesiastical Laws for their Ordination c. for the Ordination of her new Arch-Bishop Parker c. was glad out of her Spiritual Supremacy and Universal jurisdiction which the Parliament had either given or recognized to belong to her and had enacted also That Her Majesty might assign name and authorize any person being natural born Subjects to her Highness to exercise all manner of Spiritual Jurisdiction of which Jurisdiction one Act is that of Ordaining See 1. Eliz. 1. to dispense and give them leave to dispense to themselves with all former Church-laws which should be transgrest in the electing consecrating and investing of this Bishop The words in her Letters Patents to them are these Mandantes quatenus vos eundem in Archiepiscopum pastorem ecclesiae praedictae confirmare consecrare c. velitis Supplentes nihilominus Supremâ authoritate nostrâ regiâ si quid in vobis aut vestrum aliquo conditione statu aut facultate vestris ad praemissa perficienda desit eorum quae per leges ecclesiasticas in hac parte requiruntur aut necessaria sunt temporis ratione rerum necessitate id postulante Which Dispensation some would restrain only to these Ordainers their using of the new Ordinal before it was licensed again by a new Parliament after the repeal thereof by Parliament in Queen Mary's day Bish Bram. Consecrat of Protestant Bishop◠4. c. P. 94. But this was a scruple started afterward by Bishop Bonner and not now dreamt on Nor did the new Ordinal want sufficient Lay-licence having the Queens nor had the Parliament been defective in re-licensing it for which see ibid. Bishop Bramh. p. 96 nor are those words in the Dispensation Si quid in vobis conditione statu c rerum necessitate id postulante applicable to it And these are the words in the Instrument of Arch-Bishop Parker's Confirmation Nos c praedictam electionem Matthaei Parker in Archiepiscopum c Supremâ authoritate regiâ nobis in hac parte commissâ confirmamus Supplentes ex supremâ authoritate regiâ nobis delegatâ quicquid in nobis aut aliquo nostrum c. And notwithstanding this regal Dispensation yet afterward Divers questions to give you it in the words of the Statute 8. Eliz. 1. c. by overmuch boldness of speech and talk amongst many common sort of people being unlearned growing upon the making and consecrating of Arch-Bishops and Bishops within this Realm whether the same were and be duly and orderly done according to the Law or not give me leave here to suppose that these scrupulous people meant according to the Ecclesiastical Law for what doth the observing of the Civil Law concern them in the ordaining of their Spiritual Governors which is much tending to the slander of all the State of the Clergy being one of the greatest States of this Realm It is answered to them in the same Statute thus That the Queens Majesty in her Letters Patents c had not only used such words as were accustomed to be used by King Henry and Edward but also had put in those Letters divers