A TREATISE OF THE OATH OF SUPREMACY Printed in the YEAR 1679. THE Words of the Oath I A. B. do utterly testifie and declare in my conscience that the Kings Majesty is the only Supream Governor of this Realm and of all other His Highnesses Dominions and Countries as well in all Spiritual or Ecclesiastical things or causes as Temporal And that no Forreign Prince Person Prelate State or Potentate hath or ougbt to have any Jurisdiction Power Superiority Pre-eminence or Authority Ecclesiastical or Spiritual within this Realm And therefore I do utterly renounce and forsake all Forreign Jurisdictions Powers Superiorities and Authorities And do promise that from henceforth I shall bear Faith true Allegiance to the Kings Highness His Heirs and lawful Successors and to my power shall assist and defend all Jurisdictions Priviledges Pre-eminencies and Authorities granted or belonging to the Kings Highness His Heirs and Successors or united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm So help me God and by the Contents of this Book Introduction 1. THe Oath of Supremacy has long been thought by the generality of Catholicks Inconsistent with Faith both for what it affirms of the King and denies of the Pope And truly who considers only the Words as they ly naked there without seeking to inform himself what they mean of any thing but the bare sounds has reason at first sight to check at it I am apt to believe that every body does not look farther at least I my self did not a great while and therefore thought of it as others did 2. Yet it seemed strange that the most Learned of the Church of England should freely take it without scruple and at the same time Irreprehensibly affirm both of the Kings Power and the Popes what Catholicks therefore refuse the Oath because they think it denies I perceived they must of necessity understand it otherwise than We did For to suspect that either of us proceed otherwise than according to our conscience They in Taking and VVe in Refusing is not either for a Charitable or Reasonable Man I would not handsomly unriddle when a mistake there must needs be on one side how the mistake should ly on theirs or which way they should misunderstand an Oath of their own making In short I knew not what to make of it and while I had no Key to the Lock but the bare words could not easily open it For still those words seemed Irreconcilable to Truth and to that Truth which they profess as well as that which I believe 3. Upon farther search things appeared somthing otherwise I found that what those Learned Men mean when they swear and which they think the VVords of the Oath mean is not only sutable to what they believe themselves but likewise to what we believe and I found there is more Reason than I imagined to believe that the words of the Oath do indeed mean as they judge they do and not as VVe thought VVhat occurs to me I thought a seasonable Charity to communicate to others lest by seeking to avoyd one Error we fall into many 4. For as we are on the one side obliged to prefer a good Conscience before all Worldly respects so we are obliged on the other to obey our Soveraign and his Laws where with a good conscience we can No Man can justify the refusal of an Oath tendred by Lawful Authority without a sufficient Reason The Reason why we have refused this Oath is because we apprehended it Inconsistent with Faith And that is undoubtedly a sufficient Reason if the apprehension be true but if it be not we are left in the Lurch If the Oath as some think do not renounce the Faith of all Catholicks but only the Opinions of some and those both false and pernicious to refuse it is not to preserve but to scandalize our Faith with the imputation of obliging us to things by the Wisdom of the Nation judg'd Intolerable It is to confirm the bad opinion which some have of us that our Religion is indeed Inconsistent with the security of the Commonwealth In a word what we took for Religion would prove Faction 5. Before I speak of the Oath it self it will be convenient to observe that divers priviledges have at divers times been granted by the Piety of Princes to the Church and Church-Men when being long used and their origin either forgotten or dissembled have at length been commonly enough lookt upon and claimed as the proper and inherent Right of the Church Among these is the right of holding Judiciary Pleas and Courts proceeding like Secular Courts to Sentence even of Temporal and Corporal Punishments as Fines Imprisonment c. and Executing their Sentences by their own Officers unless in case of Death for which whether for Form or Substance the Prachiam Seculare was usually call'd upon These Courts were settled by little and little and their Power was sometimes more sometimes less which variety remains to this day as the Secular Power in several Nations concurs more or less with them But it became at last the general Practise that Ecclesiastical Persons should appear only in these Courts for all causes and the Laity for some chiefly such as had relation to the Law of God The Judges there being either Ecclesiastical Men themselves or acting by Commission from them the Courts got the Name of Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Courts the matters determinable in them of Ecclesiastical or Spiritual matters or causes and their Power of Ecclesiastical or Spiritual Power But 6. When things had gone thus Time out of mind and People saw them constantly act not by renewed Commissions as Subordinate Officers use to do but by a Right of their own a Right charily preserved by them and freely confest by every body els as undoubtedly it was both by a good Title at first and a quiet possession of many Hundred Years it came to be thought at last that this Right of theirs was given them with their Character by God whereas in Truth it proceeded from the condescendence of Pious Men and as all Humane things are subject to change may by the same Power which gave it on just occasion be taken away 7. In the mean time the Notion of Spiritual when applyed in the Law to Power Judge Court Matter Cause or Thing has generally relation to these External Courts The word is ordinarily taken so in our common Language but there seldome otherwise and when we find it in the Law we must expect it should signify as it uses to do in the Law not as it does in Philosophy or Controversy or Ascetics It is so well known that I know not whether it be not idle to mention the different Significations which the same words have in different Occasions For example who thinks of the Theological vertue when he is to swear Faith to his Prince who of a Stone or Tree when he hears of a Body not in Philosophy but Physick and when a Man
the Eighth nor any of his Legislators did ever endeavour to deprive the Bishop of Rome of the Power of the Keys or any part thereof either the Key of Order or the Key of Jurisdiction I mean Jurisdiction purely Spiritual which hath place only in the inner Court of Conscience and over such Persons as submit willingly Nor did ever challenge or endeavour to assume to themselves either the Key of Order or the Key of Jurisdiction purely Spiritual All which they deprived the Pope of all which they assumed to themselves was the External Regiment of the Church by Coactive Power to be exercised by Persons capable of the Respective Branches of it This Power the Bishops of Rome never had or could have justly over their Subjects but under them whose Subjects they were And therefore when we meet with these Words or the like That no Forreign Prelate shall exercise any manner of Power Jurisdiction c. Ecclesiastical with this Realm it is not to be understood of Internal or purely-Spiritual Power in the Court of Conscience or the Power of the Keys we see the contrary practised every day but of External and Coactive Power in Ecclesiastical Causes in Foro contentioso And that it is and ought to be so understood I prove clearly by a Proviso in one main Act of Parliament and an Article of the English Church Which Act and Article have been produced above The Bishop continues They that is the Parliament profess their Ordinance is meerly Political What hath a Political Ordinance with Power purely Spiritual They seek only to preserve the Kingdom from Rapine c. And then having produced the Article he concludes You see the Power is Political the Sword is Political all is Political Our Kings leave the Power of the Keys and Jurisdiction purely Spiritual to those to whom Christ hath left it Nothing can be more express than this so clear a Testimony of so Judicious a Bishop touching the King's Supremacy in matters Ecclesiastical acknowledged by Oath 42. Again the same Bishop thus further adds Wheresoever Ibid. p. 169. our Laws do deny all Spiritual Jurisdiction to the Pope in England it is in that Sense that we call the Exterior Court of the Church the Spiritual Court They do not intend at all to deprive him of the Power of the Keys or of any Spiritual Power that was bequeathed him by Christ or by his Apostles when he is able to prove his Legacy To conclude omitting a World of other Passages to the same effect he saith We have not renounced the Substance Ibid. p. 219. of the Papacy except the Substance of the Papacy do consist in Coactive Power 43. And that we may see this still continues the Sense of the Protestant Church and consequently of the State even to this day Mr. Falkner of Lynn Regis in his Book entituled Christian Loyalty so lately Printed that it was Antedated 1679 and dedicated to the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury Page 200. gives us the Sense of this Oath in these Words This Oath tending according to the Designe of that Statute by which it was Establish't to restore to the Crown its Antient Jurisdiction that Authority which is chiefly rejected thereby is such as invaded or oppos'd the Royalty of the King and particularly that which claimeth any Supreme Cognizance of Ecclesiastical Affairs as if they were not under the Care of the Temporal Power or that pretendeth to any other Authority above and against the Just Rights of the Crown 44. Now that such Authors especially the Three first so Universally read by all Learned-Men in their respective Times and doubtless amongst others by Thousands learned in the Law should pass without any the least Reprehension for interpreting the Oath and our Laws wrong in case they had in such their Declarations and Expositions declin'd from the true Sense of the Lawgivers nor be discountenanc't by those respective Princes as diminishing the Extent of their Power or by the Protestant Church and State for reserving more to the Pope than was meant by them when they requir'd Roman Catholicks to take the Oath but on the contrary that their Works should pass without the least Controll and Censure nay be Universally receiv'd with the highest Esteem and Applause and that their Persons should be so Caressed and Advanc'd by those Princes is a Riddle past mine or any man's Solving Princes and States use not to be so supine in such Matters as to permit a wrong Sense to be impos'd upon their Laws least of all those who are not in Communion with Rome especially when their own and the Pope's Authority are concern'd And yet we must either say that such Persons in such Matters were thus strangely negligent or else be forc't to acknowledge that in the Sense of all England the Lawyers there and even of our Princes themselves that was the True and Legal Sense of the Oath of Supremacy which those eminent Authors assign'd and declar'd This Argument will have far greater Force if we add that not one Protestant Author amongst so many that have either written expresly or touch't upon that Subject was ever found who contradicted this Explication of theirs or affirm'd any Power purely Spiritual to be given the King or taken from the Pope by this Oath Which the Fancies of Mankind especially those of many several Judgments in other things and all of them averse to the Pope and the Opinions of Writers being naturally so various evidences that this Sentiment of theirs concerning the abovesaid Meaning of the Oath was not only Universally but moreover Firmly and constantly held as an undoubted Truth And let it be noted here that all these four Learned Authors speak of the Oath both as to the Affirmative and Negative Clause in it that is both of what they attribute by it to the King and deny by it to the Pope Out of which Discourse it follows that though these Testimonies taken singly do not amount to a Publick Declaration of the Sense of the Oath yet taking them conjoyntly with all their respective Qualifications and Circumstances they evidently argue that the Sense they and we affix to the Oath is agreed to by all sorts of intelligent People in England to be indeed the True Sense of it Which Universal Consent seems equivalent to any Publick Declaration whatsoever Section III. Objections Answer'd NOtwithstanding the Evidence of what we produc'd above mens Fancies Interests and Humours being various there remain diverse Scruples in the minds of many and I will endeavour to ease them of those that have come to my knowledge and seem any way Material 1. First 'T is Objected that the words of the Oath deny all manner of Power to the Pope But how could they do otherwise Had they gone about to have number'd all the particulars which they intended to Abolish besides that 't would have been extreamly tedious in an Oath especially some perhaps would have escaped their utmost diligence Had they excluded Ordinary
supremely gives them the Later Much more the Jurisdiction they have to make Temporal Laws to judge those that do against them and execute their Sentence And in this we have seen how the King as a Christian may be Judge and Teacher of Faith and that Authorized by the Law of the Land How as a King he may and ought to be Supreme Civil Judge of what Faith ought to be establish't by Law and the Supreme of those that Preach or cause People to Believe and Practice by establishing Faith its Preachers sent by Christ and their Directive Laws by Law and by giving them the Jurisdiction they may have from Law to do what Christ bid them lastly how he is the Supreme Giver of Power to make Civil Laws to Judge by them and Execute them 21. Thirdly There is in Truth more Assumed in the Objection than there is warrant for in the Act mentioned It does not appear there that the King is impower'd to judge of the Repugnance of Canons to the Law of God On the contrary it seems meant that that Matter should be left to the Clergy For why else should Sixteen of them be put into Commission Neither are the Words on which the Objection is grounded viz. That such Canons shall be retained as shall be approved to stand with the Laws of God c. the Words of the Parliament but of the Clergy themselves who cannot be thought to mean by them that the Laity should be Judges of the Law of God They are only recited by the Parliament which when it comes to do its own part uses other Expressions There are other Reasons why the King should interpose The Reason of the Act is assigned to be because Divers Constitutions c. be thought not only to be much Prejudicial to the King's Prerogative Royal and Repugnant to the Laws and Statutes of this Realm but also over-much onerous to his Highness and his Subjects Of those things who can Judge so well as the King with the Assistance of some of the Laity best versed in the Laws of the Land Again the King was to add his Authority to those Canons to make them Binding and therefore must needs know what he should Authorize and see why he should do it And this is all the Power in him which can be Collected from this Statute As for Appeals the Act indeed orders they should for lack of Justice in other Courts be made in Chancery but not determined there but by Commission to be granted by the King that all Differences of his Subjects be finally determin'd by his Authority But 't is not said nor is to be supposed that those Commissions shall be granted to the Laity where the Case concerns the Law of God For Appeals are ordered by this Act to be as was directed by a former Act of the same Parliament An. 24 H. 8. By which Act where any Cause of the Law-Divine or Spiritual Learning hapned to come in question the Body-Spiritual of the Realm is declared to be Qualifyed and to have Power to determin it and therefore to them it must needs be meant to be left To return to our Matter again Since those Parliaments evidently knew their King was neither Bishop nor Priest which even in their Thoughts was the same as not to have Power to Act in Spiritual Things by our Saviour's immediate or mediate Supernatural Mission or which is the same thing by the Power of the Keys They evidently saw he neither had nor could have any Pastoral Power purely Spiritual much less the Supreme Power of that kind what-ever the Supremacy of that kind consists in Hence they could never intend to give him what they saw he could not have given to him nor signify any such Gift or Sense by their Words in the Act or Oath But only a Gift of the above-explicated Power arising from Nature and Reason A Legal Power to exercise which as a Governor they knew he might have from them and to say that they intended to flatter him with the Acknowledgment of a Power in him which they knew was not in him is a Fault that they cannot be prov'd Guilty of especially when we remember their Proviso And so according to the Axiom Every one is to be presumed Good till he be prov'd to be Bad they ought to be acquitted 23. Wherefore upon the whole it is many wayes evident that the Words in the Affirmative Part of the Oath cannot mean any thing but Supremacy of the Sword which whether in Temporal or Spiritual Things cannot be exercis'd but by Authority deriv'd from the King And this Supremacy is so evidently His that He needed not this Act for it He has it from God and Nature and as it is inseparable from the Crown alwayes had it even when Ecclesiastical Authority was at the Highest For though the Bishops claim'd an Independent Power of their own yet as Things do not cease to be by not being acknowledged They truly acted under him and in vertue of his Allowance and subject to his Controll When-ever he pleased to interpose as the Statutes of Mortmain Provisions Premunire and the rest made in Catholick Times shew he often did His Pleasure and Laws carry'd it notwithstanding their Pretences 24. That they did mean only thus is beyond all doubt apparent by all manner of wayes by which any thing can appear And though what hath been already said out of the Oath it self and all the Acts which are any way ordered to Establish the Duties to be acknowledg'd by it seem to force a Perswasion that only Royal Power is required to be own'd by the Affirmative Clause I cannot leave this Part till I put the Reader in mind lest he should suspect these Reasons Fallacious as seeming good Ones only to my self how both Learned Protestants and the Protestant-Church understand this to be the Sense of it I alledge then that all Protestant Authors not one I think excepted agree That 't is not the Power of the Keys but of the Sword which is in the King I could name several but chuse to mention only Doctor Bramhal late Arch-Bishop of Armagh because no Body speaks or I think can speak plainer And what he sayes I take to be the Sense of the Church of England his Works being very lately Reprinted in one Volume Dedicated by the Bishop of Limric to the Arch-Bishop of Dublin In his Schism Garded p. 311 312. speaking of this Act he sayes thus In a Word there is no Power ascribed to our King but meerly Political and Coactive to see that all their Subjects do their Duties in their several Places Coactive Power is one of the Keys of the Kingdom of this World it is none of the Keys of the Kingdom of Heaven This might have been exprest in Words less subject to Exception but the Case is clear 25. Next The 37. Article of the Church of England Where we attribute to the King's Majesty the Chief Government We give not to
s Preamble speaks only of such a Power of the Pope as was by reason of its Opposition to the Prerogatives of the Crown by Catholick Kings taken from him and restor'd to the Crown And of such a one as he exercis'd with great Damage to the Nation in Causes of Appeals in several Cases and for Remedy of this Damage it is enacted That he shall have this Power of being a Judge in those Causes no longer And if it be said that in this Preamble he is spoke of at least once as a Preacher when it is said that the Clergy of this Realm were alwayes able to Judge of God's Law without him I answer This invalidates not the Argument for it is Founded in this that where any Power is deny'd him all there spoken of is Temporal VVhence is infer'd that all deny'd him is Temporal Now it is not there said the Pope cannot or shall not Judge what is God's Law when a Question may rise in England about some Point as a Preacher or one skillful in God's Law But that the Clergy is able to do it without him And thence he seems to infer that 't is needless to appeal out of this Realm to know of him what is the Law of God if there should chance to be any doubt in case of Matrimony or Divorce for Example And it being a needless thing to appeal to him even as a Preacher and inconvenient to appeal to him as a Judge commands this not to be done And thus no Power was deny'd him where he was spoke of as a Preacher but only where he is spoken of as a Judge in those Causes as far as they depend on Human Laws Next the Statute 25 K. H. 8. cap. 20. speaks of no Power taken away but the Power of exacting Annats and First-Fruits and of Electing of Bishops which having accrew'd to him by time could not be Divine or Supernatural Power that is Power deriv'd to him or confer'd upon him Jure Divino 15. The Statute in the 25 K. H. 8. cap. 19. excludes perchance his as well as our Clergie's Power of continuing old Canon-Laws or making new Ones without the King's Approbation And the Power of making such Laws is grounded only on Human Reason shewing the Things prescribed to be convenient Of which Conveniency our Clergy and also Layity as knowing it best by living here where a thing may be Inconvenient that else-where is Convenient and not the Pope ought to be Judge VVhich is the Reason why Laws even of General Councils do not Oblige except where they are Receiv'd Hence not so much as a Just Human Authority is here taken from the Pope 16. But if it be here upon this Occasion ask'd VVhether the Clergy and Layity could in Reason and good Conscience renounce their Human Power to continue all such old Canons which the King should not approve of when as they being more in Number and more likely to be in the Right than he might judge either an Old or New Canon convenient which he might think to be inconvenient And hence whether the King in Reason and good Conscience could then and now by this Act 's being Revived and giving this same Power to the King take and keep the Power of Repealing all such Canons as he should please And consequently whether we can with a good Conscience Swear as we do in the later part of the Oath to defend this his Power if Conscientiously possest by him I answer That I believe they did according to Reason and Conscience in rather choosing the little Harm that might be in the Repealing of some good Old Canons than the great One that might proceed not only from the King's Displeasure but either from the Continuance of many former bad Canons or the Enacting of as bad New Ones or upon such other account upon which a Man may now after it is made Law upon the same or a better Motive continue to consent to the Continuation of what they did Likewise the King might as reasonably take upon him that a Law may not be continued which he dislikes as that a Bill which both Houses like may not be a Law except he likes it or as that a Law which he likes shall not be discontinu'd though both Houses that are more dislike it And this is for Publick order sake 17. The Statute 25 K. H. 8. cap. 21. speaks of no Power to be taken away but Power of dispensing in the King's Laws to the Prejudice of the Crown and impoverishing of the Subjects which Power must be of the same Nature as the Laws dispensed with 18. The last reviv'd Statute that takes any thing away is in the 28 K. H. 8. cap. 16. and it takes away only Power of giving Licences in abundance of Human Cases and among the rest the Power of putting Bishops into their Bishopricks and Priests into their Parishes and of giving them leave to do their Divine Offices VVhich though it may at first Sight look like Pastoral Power given him by Christ yet it is not For where-ever an Apostle dyed the People and Clergy of the Place had Power to choose themselves a Bishop and put him into his Bishoprick without the Pope's Consent And this Power they Exercis'd for many hundred Years all over Christendom according to the Antient Canons and Customs till partly under pretence of Respect to St. Peter's Successor but whether truly or only for that Reason is another Question it was by several Concordates between some Emperors Kings and Princes and States of Europe of one side and Popes on the other agreed There should be no Bishops allowed in their Territories but whom the Pope or Bishop of Rome should approve of Hence the Power which the Pope had that a Bishop could not or should not be put in without his Consent he got by Human Agreement and only this Power was taken here away For it is not said here that the Pope cannot or shall not perswade People to chuse themselves a Bishop that he sees want one or perswade a Bishop who hath Authority from Christ to do it to go and preach to People that want him which may belong to the Care our Saviour gave him over the Church but that they having a mind to have Bishops will have them of their own choosing and putting in and not of the Pope's as was of former Times practis'd And that this is their Sense is evident out of the History of what the Pope did before that time and of what they themselves did and hinder'd him to do afterwards Or it may be said in short that as they saw it not necessary by God's Law that the Pope should choose and give them a Bishop who were ready to do it themselves so they thought it not convenient he should and thence made a Law that he should not The Law not saying that he could not nor should not send them a Bishop in case of necessity in which case he hath Power from