granting that all authority of jurisdiction spirituall is derived from the King as supreme head of the Church of England although that title by that name be not now assumed in the stile Imperiall and that all Courts Ecclesiasticall within this Realme be kept by no other authoritie either forreine or within this Realme but by authority of the kings most excellent majestie as is averred in the sayd Preamble of King Edwards statute yet this if rightly understood would never hurt the Bishops or advantage you But my reason is because that whensoever the king grants out his Conge d' peslier for the election of a Bishop and afterwards doth passe his royall assent to the said election send his Mandate to the Metropolitan for consecration of the party which is so elected he doth withall conferre upon him a power to exercise that jurisdiction which by his consecration done by the kings especiall Mandate he hath atteined to And this may also serve for answere to your other cavill but that Bishops may not hold their courts or visitations without letters Patents from the king For were there such a law as there is no such yet were the Prelates safe enough from your Praemunire because the Royall assent to the election and Mandat for the consecration passing by broad seale as the custome is inable them once consecrated to exercise what ever jurisdiction is by the Canon incident to Episcopall power No neede of speciall letters Parents for every Act of jurisdiction as you idly dreame No more than if a man being made a Iustice of the Peace under the broad seale of England and having tooke his oath as the law requires should neede for every speciall Act some speciall warrant or any other kinde of warrant than what was given him in the generall when first made a Iustice And yet I trow the King is the immediate fountaine also of all temporall power and no man dare execute authority but from and by him Touching his Majesties supremacie more than in answere to your clamours I shall say nothing at this present as neither of this place nor purpose It is an Argument of great weight fit rather for a speciall treatise than an occasionall replication Only I will be bold to tell you that if the kings supremacy were not more truely and sincerely without any colour or dissimulation as the Canon hath it defended by my Lords the Bishops than by such as you it would be at a losse ere long and setled on the vestrie wherein you preside For wot you what King Iames replied on the like occasion When Dr. Reynolds in the Conference at Hampton Court came in unseasonably once or twice with the Kings Supremacie Dr. Reynolds quoth the King you have often spoken for my supremacie and it is well But know you any here or any elsewhere who like of the present Government Ecclesiasticall that finde fault or dislike with my supremacie And shortly after putting his hand unto his hat his Matie sayd My Lords the Bishops I may thanke you that these men doe thus pleade for my Supremacie They thinke they cannot make their party good against you but by appealing unto it as if you or some that adhere unto you were not well affected towards it But if once you were out and they in place I know what would become of my supremacie No Bishop no King as before I sayd How like you this Mass Burton is not this your case Mutato nomine de ie fabula narratur You plead indeed for the Kings supremacie but intend your owne The next great crime you have to charge upon the Bishops is that they doe oppresse the kings Leige people against law and conscience How so Because as you informe us Prohibitions are not got so easily from the Courts of Iustice as they have beene formerly and being gotten finde not such entertainement and obedience as before they did This you conceive to be their fault and charge them that by stopping the ordinary course of law the Kings people are cut off from the benefit of the Kings good lawes so as it is become very geason and a rare matter to obteine a Prohibition against their illegall practises in vexing and oppressing the kings good subjects Nay they are growne so formidable of late as if they were some new generation of Giants that the very motion of a Prohibition against a Prelate or their proceedings in the high Commission makes the Courts of Iustice startle so as good causes are lost and Innocents condemned because none dare pleade and judge their cause according to the Kings Lawes whereby wee ought all to be governed p. 69.70 My Masters of the Law and my Lords the Iudges will conne you little thankes for so soule a slander greater then which cannot be laid on the profession or the Courts of Iustice What none dare pleade nor none dare judge according to the Lawes So you say indeed And more then so in your addresse unto the Iudges What meane's say you that difficulty of obtaining prohibitions now adayes whereby the Kings innocent Subjects you are an innocent indeed God helpe you should be relieved against their unjust molestations and oppressions in the Ecclesiastical Courts and high Commission What meaneth that consternation of spirit among Lawyers that few or none can be found to pleade a cause be it never so just against an oppressing Prelate and are either menaced or imprisoned if they doe p. 29. Hoc est quod palles Is this the thing that so offends you that prohibitions are restrained or not sent out so frequently from the Courts of Law as of late they were to the diminishing if not annulling the authority of the Court Christian I trow you are the onely Clergie-man that complaines of this Or if there be more such they be such as you who onely make a property of the civill Courts by them to scape their censures in the Ecclesiasticall Were you so innocent as you would have us thinke you rather should rejoyce for the Churches sake that Prohibitions flie not out so thicke as they have done formely to the great oppression of the Clergie in their suites and businesses especially in those which did concerne the Patrimony of the Church their tithes And if my Lords the Iudges are with more difficulty mooved to send abroad their Prohibitions then were their predecessours in the place before them it is a pregnant evidence of their great love to justice Nor can it but be counted an honour to them to leave every Court to that which is proper to it and for the which it was established And God forbid the Church should aske or doe any thing that should incroach upon them or invade any of their rights What doth this greeve your conscience also Good Sir consider with your selfe what mischiefes Clergie-men were put to when they could scarce commence a suite but prohibitione cautio est a Prohibition was sent out to stop the course of his proceedings
raile against the times to cry downe all the orders of holy Church and to distract the people with needlesse controversies in despight of his Maiesties Declaration which he cared not for or would interprete for his purpose And had this happinesse withall that whatsoever he said there did instantly become Gods truth and therefore not to be suppressed by Prince or Prelate The Presse which was devised at first for the advancement and increase of learning was by him made a meanes to disperse his pasquills that they might flye abroad with the swifter wing and poyson mens affections whom he never saw And howsoever some of his unlicenced Babels were guilty of sedition and tended to incense the Commons against the King yet being dedicated to the Parliament As himselfe relates it P. 45. he came off bravely and brought his adversaries to a non-plus Fortunate man one of the sonnes no question of the young white henne to whom both Presse Pulpit prostitute themselves and yet account it as an honour that hee hath abused them Too fortunate indeed had it so beene carried But not long after this brave man of Armes that dares encounter with Goliah as hee boasts himselfe received the foile being first suspended for his preaching and afterward imprisoned and brought into the High Commission for his printing as hee relates the story p. 52. Oh but by Gods great blessing and the Kings good Lawes he was fetch 't off those shelves where else as he complaineth he had suffered shipwracke by a Prohibition P. 53. for that hee was beholding to his friend Mast Prynne who both aduised him to it had led the way and having Layton's valour in admiration thought it a farre more Noble suffering to lose one eare or two by sentence in the Starre-Chamber then lend an eare to the censure of the High Commission so fared it with his learned Counsaile whose punishment might have perswaded him to more moderate courses but that he had a strong desire to fill up the measure of his iniquities and having beene a stickler in the same cause with him conceived it most agreeable to the rule of fellowship that he must suffer with him also Tully indeed did so resolve it Ut qui in eadem causa fuerunt in eadem item essent fortuna and certainly it was very fit that it should be so nor was it possible to stay him being once resolved only he wanted opportunity for the accomplishment of his designes which the last Gun-powder day did present unto him that day being by him thought most proper for their execution whom he had long before condemn'd and meant to blow up now without helpe of Powder In that more mercifull indeed than Faux or Catisby they purposing to blow up the three estates together he but at once The place designed for this dispatch that which he had so long abused the Pulpit the way of bringing it about that which hath alwaies served his turne on the like occasions a seditious Sermon wherein he had drawn up together what ever spirit of malice he had found disâ—â—rsed in al or any of those scurrilous and pestilent Pamphlets which had bin published to the world since Martins time of purpose to defame the Clergy and inflame the people his own store being added to it Nor did he thinke it was enough thus to disgorge his stomacke of purpose to excite his audience against their superiors and startle them with dreadfull feares as if hoth tyranny and Popery were likely in short time to be thrust upon them that was an undertaking fit for private persons whose gifts might be confined to one place or Parish For his part he was now the generall Superintendent of all the Churches the forlorne hope the Centinell perdue of the whole brother-hood and therefore the most choyce and materiall poynts of the Declamation like the Enclyclicall Epistles of the elder times must briefely be summed up and scattered all abroad the Kingdome as Newes from Ipswich Nay lest one title of his word should fall to ground the Declamation presently must become a Libell and was by him thought fit to have been printed as soone as spoken for the generall god as he assures us of all his Majesties loving Subjects throughout the Kingdome and printed at the last it was and with a monstrous impudence dedicated to his Maiesty and Copies of the same given forth as he saith himselfe in hope that it might come at last to his Maiesties hands Two things there were especially which did embolden him thus to preach and publish his owne personall quarrells as the truth of God First an opinion of some extraordinary calling from above the same perhaps that Hacket was possessed with in Queene Elizabeths reigne This he avoweth in his Epistle to the King I heartily thanke my Lord Jesus Christ who hath accounted mee faithful called me forth to stand in his case and to witnesse it before the World by publishing my said Sermons in Print c. And in that directed to the true-hearted Nobility where he speaks more plainly Certainly I am one of the watch-men of Israel though the meanest yet one that hath obtained mercy to bee faithful Nor have I inconsiderately or rashly rushed upon this businesse but have been by a strong hand drawn into it Yea my Lords know assuredly that Christ himselfe my great Lord Master hath called me forth to be a publike witnesse of this great cause who will certainly maintaine both it and me against all the Adversaries of God and the King The second was a confidence that no man durst to question so great a prophet greater then which was never raised up from the dead to preach to Dives and his brethren And this he lets us know in his Apologie p. 7. I never so much as once dreamed saith he that impiety and impudencie it selfe in such a Christian state as this is and under such a gratious Prince durst ever thus publikely have called me in question and that upon the open stage c. No marvell if so strange a calling seconded by so strong a confidence spurred him bravely on and made him lift up both his voice and hand against what ever is called God and how know wee but that in some of his spirituall raptures he might faine an hope that his dread name should be as famous in the stories of succeeding times as Muntzers or King John of Leidens But these imaginations failed him too as his Court-hopes did For contrary to what he dreamt such filthy dreamers S. Jude speakes of Vpon the Third of December next ensuing a Pursuivant as he tells the storie served him with letters missive from the high Commission to appeare before Doctor Duck at Cheswick then and there to take his oath to answere to such Articles as were laid against him Bold men that durst lay hands upon a Prophet of such an extraordinary calling who if his power had been according to his spirit would have
new orders or bringing in new fashions never knowne before If you have any other pedegree as perhaps you have from Wiclif Hus the Albigenses and the rest which you use to boast of keepe it to your selfe Non tali auxilio the Church of England hath no neede of so poore a shift Nor did shee ever think it fit further to separate herselfe from the Church of Rome either in doctrine or ceremonie then that Church had departed from herselfe when shee was in her flourishing and best estate and from Christ her head And so King Iames resolved it at Hampton Court That which remaineth touching the poison which the spirit hatt ruleth in the aire hath infused into the chaire of the Hierarchae and your distinction betweene nominall and reall grace for which I make no question but you doe hugge your selfe in private is not worth the answering I shall produce your raylings as I goe along but not confute them as knowing little credit to begotten by contending with you and farre lesse by scolding But where you seeme to be offended with the Bishops â—hat they should stile themselves the Godly holy Fathers of the Church I hope you know the title is not new nor first used by them All ages and all languages have so entituled them The Gretians everused to stile them 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the Latines Reverendos in Christo Patres the English our Reverend fathers in God all of them as of common course you cannot but know it As for that patch which followes after viz. the Pillars of our faith and your conceit upon them both of Caterpillers and stepfathers those you may heare amongst the scoffes reviling and reproachfull termes which with a prodigall hand and a venemous penne you cast upon them every where in your severall Pasquills to which now I hasten To begin therefore where we left for fathers you have made them Step-fathers for Pillars Caterpillers their houses haunted and their Episcopall chaires poysoned by that spirit that bear's rule in the ayre These we have told you of before goe on then They are the limbs of the beast even of Antichrist taking his very courses to beare and beate downe the hearing of the Word of God whereby men might bee saved p. 12. Their feare is more towards an Altar of their owne invention towards an image or crucifixe towards the sound and syllables of Iesus than towards the Lord Christ. Pag. 15. Miscreants 28. the traines and wiles of his the dragons dog-like flattering tayle pag. 30. New Babel-builders 32. blind watchmen dumbe doggs plagues of soules false prophets ravening wolves theeves and robbers of soules which honorary attributes you bestow upon them from the Magdeburgians pag. 48. Either for shame mend your manners or never more imprison any man for denying that title of succession which you so bely by your unapostolicall practise pag. 49. If the Prelats had any regard either to the honour of God and of his word or to the setled peace of the kingdome as they have but little as appeareth too palpably by their practises in disturbing and disordering all pag. 63. The Prelates actions tend to corrupt the kings good peoples hearts by casting into them feares and jealousies and sinister opinions towards the king as if he were the prime cause of all those grievances which in his name they doe oppresse the kings good subjects withall pag. 74. These factors for Antichrist practise to divide kings from their subjects and subjects from their kings that so betweene both they may fairely erect Antichrists throne againe pag. 75. Antichristian mushromes pag. 83. They cannot be in quiet till res novas moliendo they may set up Popery againe in her full equipage 95. tooth and nayle for setting up of Popery againe 66. trampling under their feete Christs kingdome that they may set up Antichrists throne againe p. 99. According to that spirit of Rome which breatheth in them by which they are so strongly biassed to wheele about to their Roman Mistresse pag. 108. the Prelates confederate with the Priests and Iesuits for rearing up of that religion pag. 140. by letting in a forraigne enemie which these their practises and proceedings pretend and tend unto pag. 75. The Prelates make the mother Cathedralls the adopted daughters of Rome their concubines whereon to beget a new bastard generation of sacrificing idolatrous Massepriests throughout the land p. 163. Nothing can now stay them but either they will breake all in peeces or their owne necke p. 164. All this sir in your Pulpit-pasquill So also in your Apologie Iesuited Polypragmaticks and sonnes of Belial and in the newes from Ipswich Luciferian Lord Bishops Execrable traytors devouring wolves with many other odious names not fit to be used by Christians Finally in your Pulpit libell you seriously professe that you are ashamed that ever it should bee sayd you have lived a minister under such a Prelacie p. 49. Great pittie sir you had not lived a little in king Edgars time amongst whose Lawes it was ordeined that that mans tongue should be cut out which did speake any slanderous or infamous words tending to the reproach of others Hitherto for the generalls And there are some particulars on which you spend your malice more than all the rest you descant trimmely as you thinke in the Newes from Ipswich on my Lord of Canterbury with your Arch-pietie Arch-charitie if Belzebub himselfe had beene Arch-Bishop Arch-Agent for the devill and such like to those A most triumphant Arch indeed to adorne your victories His costly and magnificent enterteinment of the king at Oxford you cry out against in your sayd Pulpit libell for a scurrilous enterlude made in disgrace of that which is the greatest beauty of our religion to wit true pietie and learning and will him in this shrift to confesse how unseemely it was for him that pretendeth to succeed the Apostles p. 49. You taxe a certaine speech of his as most audacious and presumptuous setting his proud foote on the kings lawes as once the Pope did on the Emperours necke p. 54. in marg and tell him that the best Apologie hee can make is that his tongue did runne before his wit and that in the flames of his passion he had sacrificed his best reason and loyaltie p. 55. You tell us also that the republishing of the booke for sports with some addition was the first remarkable thing which was done presently after the Lord of Cant. did take possession of his Grace-shippe pag. 59. that with his right hand hee is able to sweepe downe the third part of the starres in heaven p. 121. Having a Papall infallibility of spirit whereby as by a divine oracle all questions in religion are finally determined pag. 132. However in your generall charges I left you to runne riot and disperse your follies according as you would your selfe yet now you are fallen on a particular and a particular as eminent in vertue as hee is in place you may perhaps
admitted The high Commissioners neither parties in the cause nor Adversaries to the Person of the Appellant The Bishops no usurpers of the Jurisdiction belonging to the King The Oath of Supremacie not derogatorie to Episcopall power Objections against the Oath Ex Officio with an answere to them Other objections against the Proceedings in the high-Commission answered Of giving forth a Copie of ones Sermon upon Oath Sedition how it may be punishable in the High Commission Archbishop Whitgifts name abused and his words mis-reported by H. B. HItherto Mass Burton wee have laid you open by the way of an Historicall narration though all Historicall narrations be offensive to you for the sake of one and consequently spake only of you in the third Person as hic et ille But being now employed in the Examiners Office I must deale with you as if Coram in the second Person which I perswade my self will better sort with your ambition the second Person if you remember so much of your Accidens being more worthy then the third And first I would faine know what mooved you to appeale unto His Majestie at your first conventing before you had just grievance or an unjust sentence Your conscience sure accused you and pronounced you guiltie and told you what you should expect in a legall triall and on the other side your presumption flattered you that being an Old Courtier though worn out of favour you might have some friend there to promote your suite Sir you forget it seemes what is related in the conference at Hampion Court in the self same case My L. of London moved his M tie that then was K. James of B. memory that Pulpits might not be made Pasquils Pray sir mark this well wherin every humorous or discontented fellow might traduce his Superiors This the King very gratiously accepted exceedingly reproving that as a lewd custom threatning that if he should but heare of such a one in a Pulpit He would make him an example this is just your case And that if any thing were amisse in the Church Officers not to make the Pulpit a place of personall reproofe but to let His Majestie heare of it yet by degrees First let complaint be made unto the Ordinarie of the place from him to goe to the Archbishop from him to the Lords of the Counsell and from them if in all these places no remedie is found to his own self which Caveat His Majestie put in for that the Bp. of London had told him that if he left himself open to admit of all complaints neither His Majestie should ever be quiet nor his under Officers regarded seeing that now already no fault can be censured but presently the delinquent threatneth a complaint to the King Here is a long gradation and that after censure but you will venter on the King per saltem not by faire degrees and that not only before censure but before any grievance to be complained of The King would quickly have his hands full were that course allowed of and wee must needs conceive him God as well by nature as resemblance it being impossible he should have any spare time left either to eare sleepe or refresh his Spirits or whatsoever other businesse doth concern this life or shew him mortall But wee must needs conceive there was some speciall reason in it which might induce you to cry out before you were hurt more then the matter of the Articles which were read vnto you or your own guiltie conscience which had precondemned you Yes sure for you except against as well the incompetencie of the Judges as the illegall manner of proceedings in the high Commission The Judges you except against excepting those honorable Nobles Judges Counsellers of state which are seldome there as parties in the cause and adversaries to your person for the causes sake p. 6. parties because you have traduced them for Innovators and Adversaries for the reasons which hereafter follow Suppose them parties and what then Then by the Lawes of God and nature as also by the Common Canon and Civill Lawes they are prohibited from being Judges This is the first Crutch your Appeale halts with and this will faile you For howsoever it be true in ordinary course that no man can be Judge in his own cause there where the cause concernes himself in his own particular yet it is otherwise in a body aggregate or a publick person Suppose in time of Parliament a man should taxe that great assembly with some grievous crime should the whole body be disabled from proceeding with him Or that a man should raise some odious scandall on my Lords the Judges should he escape unpunished because there is none else to judge him Or that some sawcie fellow behaves himself audaciously and Contra bonos more 's before the Justices on the bench at their Quarter Sessions should not the Bench have power to bind him to his good behaviour Or that a man within the Liberties of London should say a fig for my Lord Major might not my Lord Major clap him in the Counter And yet the Parliament and the Judges and the Justices and the Lord Major of London are asmuch parties in these cases as the Arch-Bishops Bishops Chancellors and the rest of the High Commission are by you said and only said to be in the other For that they are not parties wee shall see anon when wee shall come to cleere them of those imputations which in a furious zeal you have laid upon them That which you next attempt is to prove them Adversaries and Adversaries to your person for the causes sake Good Sir what see you in your self that you should think such great and eminent men should beare malice to you Tullie a wiser man then you and a better Orator as I take it and in more credit with the common people though you grieve to heare it might have taught you better Non video nec in vita nec in gratia nec in hac mea mediocritate quid despicere possit Antonius Was it not you sweet Sir that did Protest thus roundly of my LL. the Bishops I speake not this God is my witnesse out of any base envy to their Lordly honor and pompe which is so far beneath my envy Poore soul are those great persons and their honors beneath your envie and is your person a fit marke for theirs Diogenes and your self two magnanimious Cynicks You know the story wel enough and can best applie it Calco Platonis fastum sed mafore fastu Yea but they are the Adversaries of your person for the causes sake Say then the Adversaries of the cause let your person goe as a contemptible thing that provokes no Adversary Yet wee will take you with us to avoid exceptions and see what proofe you have to make them Adversaries to your person for the causes sake And first they are your Adversaries because the Adversaries of those trueths by you delivered in
well as you Pope Boniface tels us of Saint Peter that he was taken in consortium individuae Trinitatis and doubtlesse you deride him for it yet in effect you take as much unto your selfe Gods cause and yours are so alike of such neere kinne to one another that they are hard to be distinguished Our Saviour Christ hath no advantage of you but that hee was the first-begotten and therefore is your elder brother As for the King according to the Puritan tenet he 's but a Minister of the State onely a sworne Bailiffe of the Common wealth and to be called unto accompt when the people please the Saints i. e. your selfe and such as you being kings indeed to whom the earth belongs of right and the fulnesse of it and at whose feete in case the Presbyterian discipline were once established all Kings and Princes of the world must lay downe their scepters Huic disciplinae omnes orbis Principes Monarchas fasces suos submittere parere necesse est As your friend Travers stated it in his booke of Discipline Yes marry Sir now I perceive there 's somewhat in it why Gods cause Christs the King and yours are so linked together So farre we have gone after you or with you rather to see how you could justifie your Appeale as it related to the incompetencie of the Iudges wee must next looke upon you whilest you pleade your cause as it reflects upon the illegality of their proceedings And this you branch into two parts also for you are excellent at making a division the one generall which concernes their usuall practise in all other cases the other particular in your owne case p. 11. It had beene fitter sure you had left out the generall and fallen on the particular onely for in such things which are you say their usuall practise what cause have you to make appeale more then other men And should all other men take liberty to decline the Court that would dislike their course and manner of proceedings his Majesty might quickly call in the Commission as an vnnecessary thing of no use at all This therefore onely was put in to beget an Odium to that Court and buzze into the peoples heads who if once seasoned with your leaven are apt to credit it that the proceedings there are contrary to pieâ—y to law to charity and utterly against the liberty of the Kings good subjects But being put in we must doe what we can to rase it out againe and therefore speake what is it that you are agrieved at in their usuall practise Your first exception is against the oath ex officio in which you say they doe transgresse in three particulars first in regard it is exacted of the delinquent before a copy of the Articles or Libell is exhibited unto him and secondly in that the deponent is not permitted to have a copy of the Articles before he doth depose unto them that he may answer to them by advise of Counsell both which you say are contrary unto the practise of all the other Courts of Iustice Thirdly in that the oath exacted is contrary both unto faith and charity to faith in that an oath so taken must needes be taken for a rash oath and so against the nine and thirtieth Article of the Church of England to charity in that it makes a man to accuse his brother and betray himselfe and so against that generall maxime nemo tenetur prodere seipsum p. 11. and 12. This is the summe of what you say for that which followes of putting in Additionals to the information on the discovery of new matter was not worth the saying and all this is no more but quod dictum prius that which hath formerly beene alledged and already answered your learned Counsell furnished you with these particulars when you were both delinquents in that Court together and he might doe it easily without much study They were collected before hee was borne and by some that had as evill will to the Church as he and spred abroad amongst that party in Queene Elizabeths time but very learnedly refelled by Dr. Cosin then Deane of the Arches to whom for brevities sake I might well referre you Yet since your libell is made publicke and dispersed abroad I will in briefe lay downe such answers as are made by him to your severall cavils adding a little of mine owne and one thing specially for your satisfaction which he could not know of In answer to the first he tels you if you would have learned that though the Articles or Libell be not exhibed inscriptis before the oath yet that the generall heads are signified and opened to the party criminall which was observed as you confesse in your particular For you informe us in the beginning of your Apologie that the occasion of your Appeale was upon the reading of certaine Articles unto you by the Register of the Court before Doctor Duck and by his appointment who thereupon tendred unto you an oath to answer to the said Articles This was as much favour as could be showne you and more then needed The reason why the Articles are not given in scriptis is chiefely upon observation that some of those to whom that favour hath beene showne have used it onely as a meanes to instruct their confederates for the concealing or the disguizing of the truth a thing of dangerous consequence in punishment of Schismes Heresies and such other things which this Court takes notice of themselves upon perusall of the Articles remaining still as obstinate in the refusall of the oath as they were before Nor is it generally contrary to the practise of the Common-law as it is pretended the grand inquest taking an oath before the Iudges that they shall diligently inquire and truely present all offenders against any such point as shall be given them in charge and yet the charge not given till the oath be taken As to the second touching the advise of Counsell to draw up the answer that 's universall neither in law nor practise For on inditements at the common law upon life and death there is no counsell given the party to draw up his answer And in proceedings in the Starre-chamber Chancery and Court of requests however they commence suites there by bill and answer yet when they come to interrogatories the parties first take oath to answer truely to the points and then the Interrogatories are proposed unto them peece by peece in the Examiners office Besides that in such Cases as principally doe concerne the high Commission it hath not beene thought sit to admit of Counsell for drawing up an answer unto the Articles objected the better to avoide delaies and that foule palliating of schismes and errors which might thence arise As for the first part of the third exception it 's true that vaine and rash swearing is condemned by the nine and thirtieth Article but then it resteth to be proved that taking of an oath to answer to
Title Sir I hope you know your owne words in your doughtie dialogue betweene A. and B. you know the proverbe Fronti rara fides the fowlest causes may have the fairest pretences For whereas you entitle it for God and the King you doe therein as Rebells doe most commonly in their insurrections pretend the safety of the King and preservation of Religion when as they doe intend to destroy them both The civill warre in France raised by the Duke of Burgundy and Berry against Lewis the eleventh was christned by the specious name of Le bien Public for the Common-wealth but there was nothing lesse intended then the common good And when the Iewes cryed Templum Domini Templum Domini they did but as you doe abuse the people and colour their ambition or their malice choose you which you will with a shew of zeale So that your Title may be likened very fitly to those Apothecaries boxes which Lactantius speakes of quorum tituli remedium habent pixides venenum poysons within and medecines writ upon the Paper So for your Text we will repeat that too that men may see the better how you doe abuse it My sonne feare thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change For their calamity shall arise suddenly and who knoweth the ruine of them both Prov. 24.21 22. A Text indeed well chosen but not well applyed For had you looked upon your selfe and the Text together and followed the direction which is therein given you you had not so long hunted after Innovations as for these many yeares it is knowne you have and so might possibly have escaped that calamitie which is now like to fall upon you But it 's the nature of your humour as of some diseases to turne all things unto the nourishment of the part that is ill affected Meane while you make the Scriptures but a nose of wax as Pighius once prophanly called it by wresting it maliciously to serve your turnes and so confirme the vulgar Papists in contempt of that which were it not for you and such as you they might more easily bee induced both to heare and reverence Now for the method of your Sermon I meane to call it so no more though you observe no method in it but wander up and downe in repetitions and tautologies as your custome is I must thus dispose it The passages therein either of scandall or sedition I shall reduce especially unto these two heads those which reflect upon the Kings most excellent Majestie and those which strike directly against the Bishops That which reflects upon the King either relates to his authoritie or his actions That which doth strike against the Bishops is to be considered as it is referred either unto their place or to their persons or finally to their proceedings and these proceedings are againe to bee considered eyther in reference to their Courts and behaviour there or to their government of and in the Church and carriage in that weighty office wherein you charge them with eight kinds of Innovations most of the generall kinds being sub-divided into several branches For a conclusion of the whole I shall present unto your selfe by way of Corollarie or resultancie out of all the premisses how farre you are or may prove guilty of sedition for that Pulpit pasquill of yours and so commend you to repentance and the grace of God In ripping up whereof as I shall keepe my selfe especially to your Pulpit-Pasquill so if I meete with any variae lectiones in your Apologie or Epistles or the Newes from Ipswich or your addresses to the Lords of the Privie Councell and my Lords the Iudges I shall use them also either for explication or for application Such your extravagancies as cannot easily be reduced to the former heads I either shall passe over or but touch in transitu This is the order I shall use First for the King you may remember what I told you was the Puritan tenet that Kings are but the Ministers of the Common-wealth and that they have no more authority then what is given them by the people This though you doe not say expresly and in terminis yet you come very neare it to a tantamont finding great fault with that unlimited power which some give to Kings and as also with that absolute obedience which is exacted of the subject One of your doctrines is that all our obedience to Kings and princes and other superiors must be regulated by our obedience to God Your reason is because the King is Gods Minister and Vice-gerent and commands as from God so for God and in God Your doctrine and your reason might become a right honest man But what 's your use Your first use is for reprehension or refutation of those that so advance mans ordinances and commandements as though they be contrary to Gods Law and the fundamentall lawes of the State yet so presse men to the obedience of them as they hold them for no better then rebells and to deserve to be hanged drawne and quartered that refuse to obey them pag. 77. So pag. 88. a second sort come here to be reproved that on the other side separate the feare of the King from the feare of the Lord and those are such as attribute to Kings such an unlimited power as if he were God Almightie himselfe so as hereby they would seeme to ascribe that omnipotency to the King which the Pope assumes and his Parasites ascribe to his holinesse So pag. 89. Thus these men crying up and exacting universall absolute obedience to man they doe hereby cast the feare of God and so his Throne downe to the ground Finally you reckon it amongst the Innovations wherewith you charge the Prelats in point of doctrine that they have laboured to make a change in the doctrine of obedience to superiours setting man so in Gods Throne that all obedience to man must be absolute without regard to God and conscience whose onely rule is the word of God pag. 126. In all which passages however you pretend the word of God the fundamentall Lawes of state and conscience yet clearely you expresse your disaffection unto the soveraignty of Princes and in effect leave them no greater power then every private man shall thinke fit to give them Besides there is a tacite implication also that the King exercises an unlimited power which cannot possibly consist with the subjects conscience the fundamentall lawes of the Kingdome or the word of God It had beene very well done of you to have told the people what were the fundamentall lawes of State which were so carefully to be preserved within what bounds and limits the authority of Kings is to be confined and to have given them a more speciall knowledge of the rule of conscience For dealing thus in generalls onely Dolosus versatur in generalibus you know who sayd it you have presented to the people a most excellent ground not onely
to dispute but to disobey the Kings commands Now Sir I pray you what are you or by what spirit are you guided that you should finde your selfe agreeved at unlimited power which some of better understanding then your selfe have given to Kings or thinke it any Innovation in point of doctrine in case the doctrine of obedience to our superiours bee pressed more home of late then it hath beene formerly Surely you have lately studied Buchannan dejure regni or the vindiciae writ by Beza under the name of Iunius Brutus or else perhaps you went no further then Paraeus where the inferiour Magistrates or Calvin where the three estates have an authority to controule and correct the King And should the King be limited within those narrow bounds which you would prescribe him had you power he would in little time be like the antient Kings of Sparta in which the Ephori or the now Duke of Venice in which the Senate beare the greatest stroke himselfe meane time being a bare sound and an emptie name Stet magni nominis umbra in the Poets language Already you have layd such grounds by which each private man may not alone dispute but disobey the Kings commandements For if the Subject shall conceive that the Kings command is contrary to Gods word though indeede it be not or to the fundamentall lawes of state although hee cannot tell which be fundamentall or if he finde no precedent of the like commands in holy Scripture which you have made to be the onely rule of conscience in all these cases it is lawfull not to yeeld obedience Your selfe have given us one case in your Margin pag. 77. we will put the other Your reprehension is of those that so advance mans ordinances and commandements as though they be contrary to Gods Law and the fundamentall lawes of state yet presse men to obedience to them your instance is of one which was shrewdly threatned how true that is we meane to tell the world hereafter for refusing to doe that which was not agreeable to the word of God viz. for refusing to read the booke of sports as you declare it in the Margin pag. 26. whether you referre us So then the case is this The King permits his people honest recreations on the Lords day according as had beene accustomed till you and your accomplices had cryed it downe with order to the Bishops to see his declaration published in the Churches of their severall diocesses respectively This publication you conceive to bee repugnant to Gods word though none but a few factious spirits ever so conceived it and that your doctrine of the Sabbath be contrary to all antiquity and moderne Churches and therefore by your rule they doe very well that refuse to publish it It 's true indeed in things that are directly contrary to the law of God such as carry in them a plaine and manifest impietie there is no question to be made but it is better to obey God then man But when the matter chiefly resteth either in misapplying or misunderstanding the word of God a fault too incideÌ„t to ignorant unstable men to none more then to your disciples their teachers too or that the word of God be made a property like the Pharisees Corban to justifie your disobedience unto Kings and Princes your rule is then as false as your action faulty So for your second limitation that 's but little better and leaves a starting hole to malicious persons from whence to worke on the affections of the common people For put the case the King in necessary and emergent causes touching the safety of his empire demand the present ayde of all his subjects and any Tribunitian spirit should informe them that this demand is contrary unto the fundamentall lawes of state according to your rule the subject is not bound to obey the king nay he might refuse it although the busines doth concerne especially his owne preservation But your third limitation that of conscience is the worst of all For where you make the word of God to be the onely rule of conscience you doe thereby conclude expressely that neither Ecclesiasticall or Civill ordinances doe binde the conscience and therein overthrow the Apostles doctrine who would have Every soule be subject to the higher powers not for wrath onely but for conscience sake So that in case the king command us any thing for which we finde not some plaine precept or particular warrant in the word of God as if the King command all Lecturers to read the service of the Church in their â—oodes and surplices before their Lectures such his command is plainely against conscience at least the Lecturers are not bound in conscience to submit unto it because there is no speciall precept for it in holy Scripture And certainely this plea of conscience is the most dangerous buckler against authoritie which in these latter ages hath beene taken up So dangerous that were the plea allowed and all the judgements of the king in banco permitted to bee scanned and traversed in this Court of Conscience there were a present end of all obedience Si ubi jubeantur quaerere singulis liceat peunte obsequio imperium etiam intercidit as he in Tacitus If every man had leave to cast in his scruple the balance of authority would be soone weighed downe Yet since you are so much agreived at the unlimited power which some gives to Kings will you be pleased to know that Kings doe hold their crownes by no other Tenure than Dei gratia and that what ever power they have they have from God by whom Kings reigne and Princes decree justice So say the Constitutions ascribed to Clements 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 So Irenaeus also an antient father Cujus jussu homines nascuntur ejus jussu reges constituuntur And Porphyrie remembreth it amongst the Tenets of the Essees a Iewish Sect 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 that no man ever did beare rule but by Gods appointment Holding then what they have from God whose deputies they are and of whose power they are partakers how and by whom doe you conceive they should be limited doubtlesse you meane to say by the lawes of the Land But then if question be demanded who first made those lawes you must needes answere also the kings themselves So that in case the kings in some particulars had not prescribed limits unto themselves and bound their owne hands as it were to enlarge the peoples neither the people nor any lawes by them enacted could have done it Besides the law of Monarchie is founded on the Law of nature not on positive lawes and positive lawes I trow are of no such efficacie as to annihilate any thing which hath its being and originall in the law of nature Hence is it that all soveraigne Princes in themselves are above the lawes as Princes are considered in abstracto and extent of power and how farre that extent will
Declarations and the former practise and thereunto the increase of the Plague imputed His Majesties Chappell paralleld with Nebuchadnezars golden Image and Julian the Apostates Altar H. B. incourageth disobedient persons and makes an odious supposition about setting up Masse in the Kings Chappell FRom your restraint and curtailling of the Kings authoritie proceed wee to your censure of His Actions and Declarations which wee have separated from the other because in this wee have some intermixture of your invectives against the Bishops your scandalous clamours against whom in reference to their place and persons are to follow next And first wee will begin with the Petition of Right as having some resemblance to the former point on which you please to play the Commentator and spoile a good text with a factious glosse It pleased His Majestie being Petitioned amongst other things in Parliament 1628 that no Free-man and not a Free Subject as you phrase it should be imprisoned or detained without cause shewed and being brought to answere by due course of Law to passe His Royall assent to the said Petition What Comment do you make thereon That no man is to be imprisoned if hee offer bayle p. 52. You do indeed resolve it so in your own case too and fall exceeding fowle on His Sacred Majestie because your Comment or Interpretation could not be allowed of Now your case was thus During that Session you had printed a seditious Pamphlet as all yours are entituled Babell no Bethel tending to incense the Commons against the King for which being called before the High Commission order was made for your commitment And when you offered bayle it was refused you say by my Lord of London that then was affirming that the King had given expresse charge that no bayle should be taken for you That thereupon you claimed the right and Privilege of a Subject according to the Petition of Right but notwithstanding your said claime were sent to Prison and there kept Twelve dayes and after brought into the High Commission This is the case as you relate it p. 52. and 53. And hereupon you do referre it unto the consideration of the sagest whether that which he fathered on the King were not a most dangerous and seditious speech tending to possesse the by-standers and consequently all the people of the land with a sinister opinion of the Kings Justice and Constancy in keeping His solemne Covenant made with His people as in that Petition of Right And you have noted it in the margin p. 53. for a most impious and disgracefull speech to bring the people into an hard conceit of His Majestie who but a little before had signed the Petition of Right This is yet pressed againe both in the same and the next page as also in your addresse unto the Judges as if the King had violated His solemne promise made unto the people and beare down all the rights and liberties of the Subject mentioned in the said Petition by suffering or appointing a Seditious Phamphletter to be sent to prison without bayle But tell me Sir I pray you for I know not yet how you could plead the benefit of that Petition or how it could advantage you in the smallest measure It was petitioned that no Subject being a Free-man should be committed to the prison without cause shewed and being brought to answere in due course of Law Tell me of all loves how doth this concerne you or how can you complaine of being imprisoned contrary to His Majesties answere unto that Petition the cause of your commitment being shewne unto you which was that Booke of yours formerly mentioned and you being brought to answere in the High Commission according to due forme of Law as your selfe informe us Here was no matter of complaint but that you have a mind to traduce His Majestie as if he had no care of His Oathes and promises more of which treacherous Art to amate the people wee shall see hereafter Besides Sir you may please to know that your case was not altogether such as those which were complained of in the said Petition there being alwayes a great difference made between a man committed on an Ecclesiasticall and a Civill crime And I will tell you somewhat which reflects this way It appeares in the Diarie of the Parliament 4. H. 4. what time the Statute 28. Edw. 3. mentioned in the Petition which you call of right was in force and practise how that the Commons exhibited a Petion that Lollards arrested by the Statute 2· H. 4. should be bayled and that none should arrest but the Sheriffe and other lawfull Officers and that the King did answer to it Le Roys ' advisera This I am bold to let you know take it as you please Next for His Majesties Declarations you deale with Him in them as in the Petition if not somwhat worse His Majestie finding by good tokens that some such wretched instrument as your selfe had spread a jealousie amongst the Commons in that Parliament that there was no small feare of an Innovation in Religion as also that by the intemperate handling of some unnecessary questions a faction might arise both in the Church Commonwealth thought fit to manifest himself in two Declarations Of these the first related unto the Articles of Religion in this Church established wherein His Majestie hath commanded that in those curious and unhappy differences which were then on foote no man should put his owne sense or Comment to be the meaning of the Article but take it in the literall and Grammaticall sense shutting up those disputes in Gods promises as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scriptures and the generall meaning of the Articles according to them The second did containe the causes which moved His Majestie to dissolve the Parliament Anno 1628. wherin his Majestie protesteth that he will never give way to the authorising of any thing wherby any Innnovation may steale or creepe into the Church but preserve that unitie of Doctrine and Discipline established in the time of Queene Elizabeth So farre his Majestie And those his Majesties Declarations are by you either peevishly perverted in defence of your disobedience or factiously retorted on his Majestie as if not observed or scandalously interpreted as if intended principally to the suppression of Gods trueth I will begin first with that particular mentioned last of which you tel us plainly that Contzen the Jesuite in his Politicks prescribes this rule of silencing Controversies as an excellent way for the restoring of their Roman Catholik Religion in the Reformed Churches p. 114. As also from the Centuries that the Authors of corruptions and errours do labour to compose all differences with an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 or silencing of all Disputes that by such counsells the Emperor Anastasius being a favourer of the Arian heresy was moved to burie the principall heads of Controversie in an 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 and finally that the Arian Bishops
roborat was the Fathers Maxime I never read of Fast and preach till you made the Canon at least till you first brought it hither if you made it not And yet because of this and such like terrible Innovations as this you flie out extremely First unto Gods most secret Counsailes affirming most unchristianly and withall most shamelesly that this restraint of preaching in infected places was the occasion that the plague increased double to any weeke since the Sicknesse beganne p. 144. that it brought with it a double increase of the plague p. 50. an extraordinary increase the very first week of the fast together with most hideous stormes c. p. 148. Sir you forget that which was taught you by the Prophet Abscondita Domino Deo nostro that secret things belong to God and wee may aske this question of you out of holy Scripture What man hath known the mind of the Lord or who hath been his Counseller Surely untill you usurped that honor by reason of that extraordinary calling which you so much brag of no man ever did Yet since you are so curious in the search of causes wil needs tell us what occasioned so great a sicknes look in the last words of the second homily of Obedience and you will find that nothing drawes down greater plagues from almighty God then murmuring rebellion against Gods Annointed Next you fall foule upon his Majesty and tell him plainly in effect but cunningly as you imagine that if he look not better to his Protestations the beauty of his royall name will bee blasted in the Annals delivered to posterity and that in them it will be said This King had no regard to sacred vowes and solemne protestations I see what Chronicles we shall have when you come to write them Caesarum contumeliis referta there 's no question of it From pulling downe of Preaching proceed wee next to setting up Idolatry which how you charge the King withall must next be shewed You tell us that the Prelates to justifie themselves in those Innovations which you unjustly lay upon them do plead the whole equipage furniture and fashion of the Kings Chappell as a pattern for all Churches in which there is an Altar and bowing towards it Crucifixes Jmages and other guises And why should Subjects be wiser then their King p. 165. To this you answer that the worship and service of God and of Christ you wil needs separate Christ from God do I what I can is not bee regulated by humane examples but by the divine rule of the Scriptures In vaine do they worship me teaching for doctrines the commandements of men p. 165. Well said the service in the Kings Chappell and that which is conforme unto it is a â—aine worship in the first place And what follows next The three Children would not bow to the Kings goodly golden Image The old Christians would not so much as offer incense in the presence of Julian the Emperour at his Altar nor at his command though he propounded golden rewards to the doers and fiery punishment to the denyers p. 166. This is plaine enough Here 's the Kings Chappell and the furniture thereof compared to Nebuchadnezars golden Image and Julians Altar by consequence the King resembled â—o those wicked tyrants I now perceive what 't was you meant when you extoll'd so highly that Parrhesia which you conceive so necessary in a child of God p. 26.27 instancing there as here in the three Children Who feared neither the Kings big looks nor furious threats and Maris Bishop of Chalcedon who comming before Julian the Apostata called him Atheist Apostata and a desertor of the faith As in Elias when he retorted King Ahabs words upon him and the stout answer which Elisha made to the King of Israel adding for close of all that it were endlesse to recite examples in this kind except to convince the cowardice of these times You would have every man it seemes as bold a Bravo as your selfe to bid defiance to the King at least to stand it out against all authority For for the proof of that brave Parrhesia which you so extoll you instance chiefly in such opposition as was made to Kings and therefore all your uses must be construed to reflect that way now your fourth use is this This makes for exceeding consolation to the Church of God especially in declining times of Apostacie in these dayes of lukewarmnesse and Apostacie in the proposall of your uses p. 128. and when the truth is openly persecuted and oppressed and idolatry and superstition obtruded in stead thereof when notwithstanding we see many Ministers of Iesus Christ to stand stoutly to their tacklings and rather then they will betray any part of Gods truth and a good conscience they will part with their ministerie liberty lively-hood and life too if need were This is that which keeps Christs cause in life This gives Gods people cause of rejoycing that they see their Captains to keep their ground and not to flie the field or forsake their colours or basely yeeld themselves to the enemie c. p. 31. They are your own words one of the pious uses which you make of your so celebrated Parrhesia that freedome and liberty of speech against Kings and Princes or whatsoever is called God which you so specially commend unto your disciples Well then here 's superstition and idolatry but is there not a feare of the Masse also Sure it seemes there is For thus you close your answer touching the equipage as you call it of the Kings chappell the fashion and furniture thereof Lastly suppose which we trust never to see and which our hearts abhorre once to imagine Masse were set up in the Kings Chappell is this a good argument why it should be admitted in all the Churches throughout the Realm of England p. 166 Why how now zealous sir what Suppositions Ifs And 's in such an odious intimation as setting up of Masse in the Kings Chappell I will not tell you any thing of my opinion in this place but keepe it till I meet you at the halfe turne in the close of all Onely I needs must tell you here you might have dealt more curteously with your Soveraigne and Patron as you stile him had you the least part of that piety which you pretend to seeing so manifestly that in Seneca's words Jllius vigilia omnium domos illius labor omnium otia illius industria omnium delicias illius occupatio omnium vacationem tueatur The Kings great care to keepe his people in wealth peace and godlinesse if considered rightly might make the vilest of us all to serve honour and humbly obey him according to Gods holy word and Ordinance But you and such as you have a speciall priviledge which I much muse you did not plead when you were questioned publickely for your misdemeanours CHAP. IV. A plaine discoverie of H. B. quarrells against the Bishops in reference to their calling and
draw it forth to defend the lawes against such innovators who as much as in them lieth divide betweene the King and the people p. 31. In that from Ipswich you and your brethren in that made it call out upon the nation generally saying O England England if ever thou wilt bee free from Pests and Iudgements take notice of these thy Antichristian prelates desperate practises innovations and Popish designes to bewaile oppose redresse them with all thy force and power Then those of the better sort O all you English Courtiers Nobles and others who have any love or sparke of religion piety zeale any tendernesse of his Majesties honour or care for the Churches Peoples or the Kingdomes safety yet remaining within your generous brests put to your helping hands and prayers to rescue our religion faithfull Ministers now suspended from the jawes of these devouring wolves and tyrannizing Lordly Prelates c. All sorts of people thus implored to promote the cause you labour to perswade the King in your Epistle Dedicatory before the Pasquill how deepely he is ingaged to close with God and his good subjects against all these innovators and disturbers of the peace and distracters of the vnity of his kingdome especially considering whose Vice-gerent he is and before whose woefull Tribunall hee must give a strict accompt how hee hath mannaged so weighty a charge in the Epistle to your Apologie Finally in your Pasquill p. 141. You tell us how it doth concerne our gracious Soveraigne our Nobles and Magistrates of the land to strengthen their hands with judgement and justice to cut of these workers of iniquity and to roote them out of the confines and limits of the Kingdome c. applying so to them a passage in the booke of prayers for the Gunpowder day intended by the Church against all such as are so treacherously affected as those traytors were Here is enough a man would thinke to effect the businesse yet this is not all For should there come a Parliament you would adventure your owne life to make sure worke on 't Assuring us that if it were a law in England as once amongst the Locrians that whosoever would propound a new law should come with an halter about his necke that if it pleased not the Senate the hangman was ready to doe his office and that if opportunity served you would come with an halter about your necke with this proposition that it would please the great Senate of this land to take into their sad consideration whether upon such woefull experience it were not both more honorable to the King and more safe for his kingdome c. That the Lordly prelacy were turned into such a godly government as might suite better with Gods word and Christs sweet yoke p. 109.110 Nay so transcendent is your malice that you propose a speedy execution of them as the only remedy to divert Gods judgements for thus you state the question in the newes from Ipswich Is it not then high time for his Majesty to hang up such Arch traytors to our faith Church Religion and such true-bred sonnes of the Romane Antichrist And anon after more expressely Certainely till his Majesty shall see these purgations rectified superstition and idolatry removed c. and hang up some of these Romish Prelates and inquisitors before the Lord as the Gibeonites once did the seaven sonnes of Saul wee can never hope to abate any of Gods Plagues c. And to the same effect in your addresse to the nobility All the world feele in what a distracted state things do stand what a cloud of divine displeasure hangs over us how ill wee thrive in our affaires c. Certainely if such be suffred to goe on thus as they doe God must needes destroy us p. 24. Finally that you may seeme to shew some compassion on them before the executioner doe his office you thus invite them to repentance Certainely hell enlargeth her selfe for you and your damnation sleepeth not if you speedily repent not p. 81. Of your Pulpit-libell Hanging and hell and all too little to appease your malice which is advanced so high that no chastizement of their persons but an utter abolition of the calling will in fine content you You may remember what you preached once at a fast in London Where pleading for reformation under Ioshua's removall of the accursed thing you told the people that the maine thing to be removed was that damnable Hierarchy of Bishops who made no matter of sincking Church and State so they might swimme in honours and worldly wealth This is the thing you aime at and so greatly long for which to effect you care not what strange course you run so you may effect it Scelus omne nefasque hac mercede placent Thus have I briefely summed together those most uncharitable and unchristian passages which every where occurre dispersed and scattered in your Pamphlets And having summed them up dare make a chalenge unto all the world to shew me if they can such a rayling Rabsakeh so sanguinarian a spirit so pestilentiall a disease in a Christian Church All the marre-Prelates and make-bates of the former times with those which have succeeded since though Masters in this art of mischiefe come so short of this that I perswade my selfe you doe condemne them in you heart as poore spirited fellowes in whom there is too much of that Christian prudence which you so deride p. 28. But I forget my first intent which was to muster up your raylings and produce them onely but not to quit you with the like though should I use you in your kinde and lay the whip on the fooles back it were a very easie errour and such as possibly might receive a faire construction Nam cujus temperantiae fuerit de Antonio querentem abstinere maledictis To speake of such a thing as you and not flie out a little were a kind of dulnesse Yet I shall hold my hand a while until we meete againe at the halfe turne where possibly I may be bold to tell you more of my opinion Meane time I hope you doe not thinke that all this barking at the Moone will make her either hide her head or chang her course or that by all this noise and clamor you can attract the Nobles Iudges Courtiers or any other to take part with you and follow those most desperate counsels which you lay before them The world is growne too well acquainted with these dotages to be moved much at them Nor could my Lords the Bishops but expect before hand what censures would be passed upon them by such tongues as yours if once they went about to suppresse your follies and to reduce the Church to that decent order from which your selfe and your accomplices have so strangely wandered Howsoever their great care deserve better recompense yet was it very proper you should doe your kinde and they may count it for an honour that such a one as your selfe
the act it selfe to be invested in the Queene the said Episcopall authority remaining as it did and standing on the selfe same grounds as it had done formerly Which said the last part of the Argument touching the oath of supremacie taken and to be taken by every Bishop that 's already answered in the Premisses the said oath being onely framed for the abolishment of all forreine and extraordinary power not for the altering of the ordinary and domesticall jurisdiction if I so may call it in this Church established I hope the Prelates are now out of danger of the Premunire which you threatned them though you not out of danger of the Locrian law And if K. Edward the 6. helpe you not I know no remedie but that according to your owne conditions the executioner may be sent for to doe his office Now for K. Edward the 6. the case stood thus King Edward being a Minor about nine yeares old at his first comming to the crowne there was much heaving at the Church by some great men which were about him who purposed to inrich themselves with the spoyles thereof For the effecting of which purpose it was thought expedient to lessen the authoritie of those Bishops which were then in place and make all those that were to come the more obnoxious to the Court upon this ground there passed a statute 1 0 of this King consisting of two principall branches whereof the first tooke off all manner of elections and writs of Conge d'peslier formerly in use the other did if not take off yet very much abate the edge of Ecclesiasticall censures In the first branch it was enacted that from thenceforth no writ of Conge d' peslier be granted nor election of any Archbishop or Bishop by Deane and Chapter made but that the king may by his letters Patents at all times when any Arch-bishopricke or Bishopricke is voyde conferre the same on any whom the king shall thinke meete The second clause concerned the manner of proceeding from that time to be used in spirituall courts viz. that all summons Citations and other processe Ecclesiasticall in all suites and causes of instance and all causes of correction and all causes of bastardie or bigamie or de jure patronatus Probates of Testaments and Commissions of administrations of persons deceased c. be made with in the name and with the stile of the king as it is in writs Originall or Iudiciall at the Common Law c. As also that no manner of person or persons who hath the exercise of Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction use other seale of jurisdiction but wherein his majesties Armes bee ingraven c. on penaltie of running in his Majesties displeasure and indignation and suffering imprisonment at his will and pleasure The reason of this order is thus delivered in the Preamble To the second branch viz. because that all authoritie of jurisdiction spirituall and temporall is derived and deducted from the kings Majestie as supreame head of these Churches and Realmes of England and Ireland c. and that all Courts Ecclesiasticall within the said two realmes bee kept by no other power or authoritie either forreine or within the Realme but by the authoritie of the kings most excellent Majestie Which Act with every branch and clause thereof was afterwards repealed 1 of Queene Marie cap. 2. and hath stood so repealed to this very time For howsoever you pretend and all your fellow libellers insist upon it that the said statute was revived in the first yeare of K. Iames of blessed memorie and therefore that you are yet safe from the Locrian law yet this pretence will little helpe you That their assertion or pretences if examined rightly will proove to be a very poore surmise invented onely by such boutefeus as you and your Accomplices to draw the Prelates into obloquy with the common people and make your Proselytes beleeve that they usurpe a power peculiar to his sacred Majestie it being positively delivered by my Lords the Iudges with an unanimous consent and so declared by my Lords chiefe Iustices in the Starre-chamber the 14 of May now last past that the sayd Act of Repeale 1 of Queene Mary doth still stand in force as unto that particular statute by you so much pressed your desperate clamours unto the contrary notwithstanding Nor doth there want good reason why the said Statute of K. Edward was at first repealed or why the said Repeale should bee still in force For being it was enacted in that Statute that from thenceforth all Ecclesiasticall processe should bee made in the kings name and stile not onely in all suites or causes of instance bastardy bigamie Probates of Testaments c. which have much in them of a civill or a mixt nature at the lest but in all causes of correction also it came to passe that excommunication and other censures of the Church which are spirituall meerely in no sort civill were therby either quite abolished or of none effect And it continued so all King Edwards reigne to the no small increase of vice because it nourished a presumption of impunitie in the vicious person This Father Latimer complaineth of in his sermon preached before that King at Westminster Anno 1550. thus Lecherie is used throughout England and such Lechery as is used in none other place of the world And yet it is made a matter of sport a matter of nothing a laughing matter and a trifle not to be passed on nor reformed c. Well I trust it will one day be amended c. And here I will make a suite to your highnesse to restore unto the Church the discipline of Christ in excommunicating such as be notable offenders nor never devise any other way For no man is able to devise any better way than that God hath done with excommunication to put them from the congregation till they bee confounded Therefore restore Christs discipline for excommunication And that shall be a meane both to pacifie Gods wrath and indignation and also that lesse abomination shall be used than in times past hath beene and is at this day I speake this of a Conscience and I meane to move it of a will to your Grace and your Realme Bring into the Church of England open discipline of Excommunication that open sinnes may be stricken withall So farre Father Latimer What thinke you sir of this See you not reason for it now why your sayd Statute was repealed and why the sayd repeale should continue still Put all that hath beene sayd together and I can see no hopes you have to scape the penaltie of the Law by your selfe proposed but that you cry peccavi and repent your follies So farre in answere to your Cavils for Arguments I cannot call them I have beene bold to justifie the proceedings of the Bishops in their Courts Episcopall wherein there is not any thing that they usurpe upon the King or that authoritie which is inseparably annexed to the Regall diademe For
neither For at the beginning of November when you Preached that Pasquil of the Fifteene hundred there were not twice fifteen that 's not halfe your number involved in any Ecclesiasticall censure of what sort soever and not above sixteene suspended Sixtie and sixteene are alike in sound but very different in the number and of those sixteene eight were then absolved for a time of further triall to be taken of them and two did voluntarily resigne their places so that you have but six suspended absolutely and persisting so Now of the residue there was one deprived after notorious inconformitie for 12. yeeres together and finall obstinacie after sundry severall monitions eight excommunicated for not appearing at the Court and foure inhibited from preaching of the which foure one by his education was a Draper another was a Weaver and the third was a Taylor Where are the 60. now that you so cry out of I have the rather given you this in the particulars which were collected faithfully unto my hands out of the Registerie of that Diocesse that you and other men may see your false and unjust clamours the rather because it was related to me by a friend of mine in Glocestershire that it went current there amongst your Brethren that your said 60. were suspended for no other cause then for repeating the doxologie at the end of the Lords Prayer So for your other number betweene 60. and 80. suspended upon day till Christmasse or Christide as you please to phrase it upon examination of the Registers there appeare but eight and those not all suspended neither two being Excommunicated for not appearing Eighty and Eight doe come as neere in sound as Sixtie and Sixteene before but differ more a great deale in the Calculation And so much for the grand persecution in the Diocesse of Norwich How doe you find it pray you in other places Why more or lesse say you over al the Kingdom For you complaine as truly but more generally p. 27. that many Godly Ministers in these dayes are most unjustly illegally yea and incanonically also in a most barbarous and furious manner suspended excommunicated outed of their livings and deprived of all livelihood and means to maintaine themselves How just soever the cause be on the Prelates part and that there be no other means to bring things to right there where the Orders of the Church are so out of order then by the exemplary punishment of the most pervers to settle and reduce the rest yet persecution it must be if you please to call it so Such Innocent people as your selfe that runne point-blanck against the Orders of the Church cannot be censured and proceeded with in a legall way but instantly you cry out a Persecution But thus did your Fore-fathers in Queene Elizabeths time et nil mirum est si patrizent filij CHAP. VI. The foure first Innovations charged by H. B. upon the Bishops most clearely proved to be no Innovations Eight Innovations charged upon the Bishops by H. B. King James his order to young Students in Divinity made an Innovation in point of doctrine the reason of the said order and that it was agreeable to the old Canons of this Church Another Order of King James seconded by his Majesty now being with severall Bookes of private men made an Innovation of the Bishops No difference betweene the Church of Rome and England in Fundamentalls Private opinions of some men made Innovations in point of doctrine The Pope not Antichrist for any thing resolved by the Church of England The doctrine of Obedience and of the Sabbath not altered but revived explained and reduced to what it was of old No Innovation made in point of discipline A generall view of Innovations charged upon the Bishops in point of worship Bowing at the Name of Jesus praying towards the East and adoration towards the Altar no new Inventions not standing up at the holy Gospel Crosse-worship falsely charged upon the Bishops No Innovation made by the Bishops in the civill government The dignity and authority of the High-Commission AS is the persecution such are the Innovations also which you have charged upon the Bishops both yours and so both false alike Yet such a neat contriver are you that you have made those Innovations which you dreame of the cause of all that persecution which you so cry out of For in your Pasquil it is told us that we may see or heare at the least of oâ—d heaving and shoving to erect Altar-worship and Jesu-worship and other inventions of men and all as is too plaine to set up Popery againe and for not yeelding to these things ministers are suspended excommunicated c. pag. 25 And pag. 64. you ground the persecution as you call it in the Diocesse of Norwich upon the violent and impetuous obtruding of new Rites and Ceremonies monies You call upon the Bishops by the name of Iesuiticall novell Doctors to blush and be ashamed and tell them that they doe suspend excommunicate and persecute with all fury Gods faithfull ministers and all because they will not they may not they dare not obey their wicked commands which are repugnant to the lawes both of God and man p. 81. If this be true if those that bee thus dealt with bee Gods faithfull ministers and the commands imposed upon them so wicked as you say they are contrary to the lawes both of God and man and tending so notoriously to set up Popery againe you have the better end of the staffe and will prevaile at last no question Meane while you have good cause as you please to tell us to comfort your selfe and blesse the name of God in that he hath not left himselfe without witnesse but hath raised up many zealous and couragious champions of his truth I meane faithfull ministers of his word who chuse rather to lose all they have then to submit and prostitute themselves to the wicked unjust and base commands of usurping Antichristian mushromes their very not yeilding in this battel being a present victory p. 83 But on the other side if the commands of the Superior be just and pious agreeable to the orders of the Church and all pure antiquity then are your godly faithfull ministers no better then factious and schismaticall persons and you your own deare self a seditious Boutefeiu so to incourage and applaud them for standing out against authority This we shall see the better by looking on those Innovations which as you say The Prelates of later dayes have haled in by head and shoulders being besides and against the law of the land and much more the law of God p. 111. These you reduce to these eight heads viz. 1. Innovation in doctrine 2. in discipline 3. in the worship of God 4. in the Civill government 5. in the altering of bookes 6. in the meanes of knowledge 7. in the rule of faith and 8. in the Rule of manners It is a merry world mean-while when you
readeth them must margaritas e coeno legere as you told us lately Well Sir upon this generall custome of praying towards the East came in that adoratio versus Altare you complaine of though not Altaris as you charge it When men first entred into the house of God they used some lowly reverence to expresse or intimate that the place they stoode upon was holy ground and because meÌ„ diduse to pray with their faces towards the East where the Altar stoode they made their reverence that way also Why should that offend you Old people use it still both men and women though now it be interpreted as a curtesie made unto the Minister If bowing towards the Communion table or before it be offensive to you at the administration of the Sacrament I would faine know upoÌ„ what reasons or why you stomack it that men should use their greatest reverence in so great an action Thinke it you fit the Priest should take into his hands the holy mysteries without lowly reverence or that it is an Innovation so to doe Then go to schoole to B. Iewell and let him teach you Harding makes mention of some gestures which at that time the people used as viz. standing up at the Gospell and at the preface of the Masse bowing themselves downe adoring at the Sacrament kneeling at other times as when mercy pâ—rdon is humbly asked What saith the Bishop unto this he alloweth them all kneeling saith he bowing i. e. that kinde of bowing which Harding speakes of and standing up and other like are commendable gestures and tokens of devotion so long as the people understandeth what they meane and applieth them unto God If you looke higher into the use and practise of the primitive times you cannot misse a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 an honour to the Altar in Ignaltus a 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 a respect showne unto the holy table in Dionysius de Heir cap. 2. as also an adgeniculationem aris Dei a kneeling downe before Altars in Tertullians time besides what you may finde in St. Chrysostomes Liturgie to the selfe same purpose No Innovation therefore as you would have it to bow before or towards the Communion table or to pray with our faces towards the East whatsoever you tell us On then good Sir to the rest that follow and first of standing up at the Gospell and reading the second service at the Altar what are they Innovations also For standing up at the Gospell it was enjoyned expressely in the first Liturgy of K. Edward 6. and practised also though not prescribed under that now in use amongst us Bp. Iewell as you see allowes it with whom you are not worthy to be named in the same day And for the practise of it take this of Hooker Because the Gospells which are weekely reade doe all historically declare something which our Lord Iesus Christ himselfe either spake did or suffered in his owne person it hath beene the custome of Christian men then especially in token of the greater reverence to stand to utter certaine words of acclamation and at the name of Iesus to bow Which harme'esse ceremonies as he tells us there was not any man constrained to use nor was it necessary all sorts of people using them without constraint till you and your forefather Cartwright made a scruple of it The first originall hereof is by antiquity referred to Pope Anastasius who lived in the 5. Centurie therefore no Innovation surely As little Innovation is there in reading the second service at the Altar or Communion table The Rubricke of the Church appointeth that it shall be so Compare the last Rubricke before the Comunion with the first after it and you will sooner finde your selfe an Innovator in so saying then any of the Bishops in so doing Nor was it onely so appointed and not done accordingly For learned Hooker tells us in the place last cited that some parts of the divine service of the Church are such that being they serve to singular good purpose even when there is no communion administred neverthelesse being devised at the first for that purpose are at the table of the Lord for that cause also commonly reade No Innovation hitherto Mas Burton but what comes after You make a noise of Image-worship and Crosse-worship I know no such matter no such enjoyned that I am sure of nor no such practised that I can heareof If any such thing be tell me who and when or I shall take you alwayes for a very false brother that make no conscience what you say or whom you slander I hope you doe not meane by Crosse-worship the signing young children when they are baptized with the signe of the Crosse or if you doe I trow you cannot take it for an Innovation Nor neede you feare Idolatry in that Christian usage as some clamoured once The 30. Canon hath so fully removed that feare that they that feare it now must be more then mad-men Thuanus one more wise then you is of another minde by much conceiving that the cautious and restrictions in that Canon used have in a manner more abolished then confirmed the true and proper use of that antient ceremony For speaking of the Synode in London An. 1603. and of the Canons then agreed on he saith as followeth Crucis ceremonia in Baptismate retinetur et explicatur sed ita et tot adhibitis cautionibus ut sacrosancti signi reverentia omnis aboleri potius quaem confirmari videatur No Innovations all this while but such as you have falsly charged upon the Bishops of Image-worship and Crosse-worship and therefore all your feares of setting up the Masse-God as you call it are all come to nought Hitherto we have found no novelty nothing that tends to Innovation in the worship of God but a reviver and continuance onely of the antient usages which have beene practised in this Church since the reformation and were commended to it from the purest ages And here we would have left this charge but that you tell us p. 158. that all those rites and ceremonies which are to be used in our Church are by an Act of Parliament prefixed to the Communion booke restrained to those only which are expressed in the same booke Either you are a very unlucky Lawyer or a very bad Church-man For tell me I beseech you where doe you finde in all that statute that there shall be no other rites and ceremonies used in the Church then are expressed in the booke of Common prayer That all those ceremonies which are expressed in the said booke shall be observed the statute doth indeede informe you but that none other shall be added that you finde not there The contrary you may finde there if you please to looke For it is said expressely that the Queenes Majesty may by the advise of her Commissioners Ecclesiasticall or Metropolitane ordaine and publish such further ceremonies or rites as may be most for the
God So whosoever doth traduce and defame those men which are in chiefe authority under the King doe defame the King because they have their dignities and authorities from and under him And thus it was affirmed in Vdals case one of your Fathers in the faction being arraigned upon the Statute 23 Eliz. cap. 2. For when it was pretended for him that he defamed not the Queen which the law provided for but the Bishops onely it was resolved that they who spake against her Majesties supreme government in cases Ecclesiastical her lawes proceedings and all those Ecclesiasticall officers which rule under her did defame the Queeene Your case being just the same with Vdalls nor you nor any such as you have reason to perswade your selves but that your scandalous Pasquills doe as neerely concerne the King as those did the Queen or that you shall be answered alwayes edictis melioribus with pen and paper If Authority hath stooped so low this once to give way that your seditious pamphlets should come under an examination and that an Answer should be made to all the scandalous matters in the same contained I would not have you thinke it was for any other cause but that your Proselytes may perceive what false guides they follow and all the world may see how much you have abused the King and his Ministers with your scandalous clamours Which done and all those cavills answered which you have beene so long providing it is expected at their hands that they rest satisfied in and of the Churches purposes in every of the things objected and looke not after fresh Replies upon the like occasions And so I leave both you and them with those words of Solomon which you have so perverted to your wretched ends My sonne feare thou the Lord and the King and meddle not with them that are given to change for their calamity shall arise suddainely and who knoweth the ruine of them both FINIS ERRATA For Saltem p. 3. l. 9. r. Saltum p. 17. l. 2. for of r. that of il l. 12. dele And. p. 28. l. 25. for ab r. at that p. 33. l. 24. for sure r. free p. 37. l. 27. for and r. what p. 52. l. 10. for I. audr i. e. p. 53. l. 23. for by r. and by p. 70. l. 26. for Instance r. inference p. 78. l. 16. d. next for your charges p. 86. l. 1. del in p. 90. l. 20. for a. r. on a. p. 96. l. 25. for to r. of p. 104. l. 3. for will r. good will ib. l. 31. dele But. p. 105. l. 9. dele But. p. 107. l. 3. for cautio r. cautum p. 115. l. 22. dele momes p. 119. l. 12. for Ithicly r. Iphycly p. 122. l. 29. for a discourse r. their discourses p. 123 l. 23. for meete r. meate p. 127. l. 1. r. the Thesis p. 142. l. 5. for coequall r. coâ—evall p. 144. l. 20. for For as the r. And as for the. p. 146. l. 1. for Count r. court l. 11. for your r. the. p. 149. l. 2. for change r. charge p. 153. l. 4. for hereby r. verely p. 157. l. 6. for a r. as 1 Cor. 13.23 2. Pet. 2.10 Jude 16. 2. Pet. 2.12 Jude 17.18 Jude 15. De haeres c. 23. Cann 83. Orat. pro M. Marcell Ep. to the King Apolog. p. 6 Philip. 2. Pag 111. Diog. Laert. part 3. c. 15. part 3. c. 9. Tacit. in vica Agricolae Paterculus Phil. de Comiues lib. 3. cap. 15. In Rom. cap. 13. Institut lib. 4. c. ult Lucan Acts 4. Rom. 13.5 hist l. â— Lib. 7. c. 17. In Psal 10â— Hist l. 53. Rom. 13.4 Cicero Philip 2. Rom. 14. Confess â— 8 Tacit. Annal. Epistle Deâ—â—â—â—t to the king Paterculus Institut l. 4. Sect. 15. Lib. 3. cap. 3. In vit Augustini c. 8 Bishop of Elys Epistle Ded. before his treatise of the Sabbath Lucan lib. 1 Tullie Phil. 2. Lib. 4.14 Tacit. in viâ—a Agricol Epist Dedicat Can. 18. Art 3. â— 26 Lib. 5.29 Lib. 131. Statute 1. Eliz. cap. 2. Art 3. s 26 Apologie part 3 cap. 15. p. 226. v. Hooker in the Preface to his Eccl Politie The Prelats falsly charged with attributing Popish merit unto Fasting of putting downe Lectures cutting short of Sermons the prayer before the Sermon Catechizing No innovations either in the role of faith or manners (a) Instit l. 4. c. ult (b) In Rom. 13. (c) De Iure regui Holy Table p 183 speech in Starre Chamber 3 Edw. l. 33 Necessaria Responâ—io p. 83. Cont. Bellar. de Peccat origi Hist of K. H. 7. by the Vis S. Alb. Glanvilâ— l 14 Bracton l. 2. Stewes Aâ—n Holling h. p. p. 778. Deiure Reg. Marca Resp pars 2. p. 50. 1. Pet. 2.13.14 Hist l. â— Rom. 13 Sutelâ—sses Answ p. 3.
the points proposed doth come within the compasse of rash swearing For howsoever men are sworne aforehand in the proceedings of that Court to answere truely to the things objected when they come to heare them yet they are never sworne to answer to them before they heare them And for the breach of charity and the old said saw Nemo tenetur prodere seipsum 't is answered that the oath is not exacted in things meerely secret which are left to God for de occultis ecclesia non judicat as the saying is but in such cases which are partly manifested as by bruite or fame and such like indicia in which the Church is to be satisfied And in this case and such as these the oath is tendred not to betray the party whom it doth concerne but rather if it be possible to cleare his innocency on both sides to bring truth to light which is a Iewell worth the finding Which couâ—se is also used in the Starre-chamber where the defendant is to answer even in criminall matters on his corporall oath and that not onely to the bill preferred against him but to as many Interrogatories and some crosse ones too as the Plaintifes Counsel shall devise Adde here which Doctor Cosin could not know of the resolution of King Iames of blessed memory at Hampton Court When the Lord Chancelor and after him the Lord Treasurer had spoke both for the necessity and use of the oath ex officio in diverse Courts and cases his excellent Majesty preventing that old allegation Nemo cogitur detegere suam turpitudinem said that the Civill proceedings punished onely facts but in Courts Ecclesiasticall it was requisite that fame and scandalls should be looked into That here was necessary the oath compurgatorie and the oath ex officio too and yet great moderation should be used first in gravioribus criminibus and secondly in such whereof there is a publicke fame and thirdly in distinguishing of publicke fame either caused by the inordinate demeanour of the offender or raised by the undiscreet proceeding in triall of the fact All which just cautions were observed in this proceeding against you Mass B. and therefore your appeale was causelesse as your grievance none Now for your owne case next and theÌ„ illegality of proceeding in it you have no lesse then tenne exceptions you might have spunne them out as you doe your uses to as many more These wee will summe up briefly that the world may see them and afterwards reply to such as are considerable though peradventure we may touch at all for your satisfaction First you except in reference to the matter charged upon which was sedition and so belonging to the Civill Courts and secondly against the manner of proceeding viz. first inciting you to a private house before one Commissioner alone secondly excluding your friends and neighbours that they might not heare thirdly in tendring you an oath in a matter which if true concernd your life fourthly in calling for a copy of your Sermon to be delivered upon oath fifthly in that you were suspended being absent sixthly notwithstanding your appeale seventhly and the suspension published in your owne parish Church to your intollerable disgrace and scandall eightly in taxing you of sedition in the said suspension and ninthly in denying you a Copy of the Articles and other Acts of Court whereby to perfect that appeale to his sacred Majesty Of all these tenne there are but two considerable the other eight being onely added to make up the tale to wit of the matter charged upon you which was sedition and then the tendring of an oath in the said matter being a crime which might if true concerne you in point of life For that you were convented before one Commissioner alone at his private house is no rare matter that his conventing of you being onely to tender you an oath to make true answer to those Articles which were read unto you there being a particular clause in the very Commission that any one Commissioner may give the oath to party or witnesse And why you should bring your friends and neighbours with you or being there why should you thinke to have them present at your examination is beyond my reach unlesse perhaps you were desirous to let them see how valiantly you durst out-face authority You cannot be so ignorant having had businesse in that Court before as not to know that though the party cited doe for the most part take his oath in the open Court to make true answer whensoever he is called unto it Yet the examinations are in private in some other place And so they are also in the Examiners office for the Starre-chamber Chancery and Court of Requests and all Commissions thence awarded where the Examiner and the Party the Commissioners and Deponents are alone in private remotis arbitris The calling for a Copy of your Sermon to be delivered upon oath is neither any new matter or used onely in your case it being Ordinary in the Vniversities and by the Vice-chancellours there done of common course And it seemes wonderous strange to me you should deny to give a private Copy of your Sermon when it was required of you by authority and notwithstanding publish it in Print a little after being not required As for the Example of our Saviour whose case you parallell with your owne upon all occasions who being demanded of his doctrine by the High-Priest made answer that he spake openly in the Synagogue and in the Temple and said nothing in secret and therefore they might aske the question of those that heard him that makes nothing for you And yet from hence you draw a most factious inference that no Minister ought to be put so much as to give an answer much lesse a Copy of what he publickely preached in the Church p. 15.16 The case is very different between Christ and you though you make it one he being demanded of his doctrine in the generall without particulars either time or place or any matter charged upon him you being questioned for a Sermon preached at such a time and in such a place containing such and such seditious and factious passages as were reade unto you Lesse reason have you to complaine of being suspended being absent because being warned to be there you refused to come or that you were suspended notwithstanding your appeale to his sacred Majesty since your suspension as you grant was grounded on a new contempt not the first refusall of the oath That the suspension should be published in your owne Parish Church and that therein you should be taxed of sedition was both just and necessary For if you were convented first because of your seditious Sermon and a seditious Sermon Preached to your owne Parishioners good reason that your censure should be published there where you committed your offence that so the people might beware of the like false teachers And for denying you a Copy of the Articles and other
Acts of Court I see no cause at all why you should demand them For having at the first declined the judgement of that Court by the refusall of the oath and your said Appeale and afterwards contemptuously neglected your appearance on the second summons what cause had you to expect any favour from them or to consult those Acts which you cared not for Especially considering you continued still in your disobedience and desired the Articles not to answer to them but thereby as you say your selfe to perfect your Appeale or rather as it may be thought to scatter them abroad in imperfect copies with such false answers to them as you pleased to make Your selfe and such as you have long used the art of getting the first start upon mens affections non ignari instandum famae prout prima successerint fore vniversa But come we now unto the maine of your Appeale in reference to the illegality of proceedings in your owne particular for all that hath beene answered hitherto was but the vantage as it were which you cast in out of your abundance to make up the reckoning It is pretended that being charged with sedition you were not bound to answer to it And why Because sedition is no ecclesiasticall offence against the Church but a civill against the King and State and therefore to be tried onely in his Majesties Courts of Civill Iustice and not before the High Commissioners who have no cognizance thereof Your Enthimeme doth halt extreamely For there are many matters punishable in either jurisdiction which since you are ignorant I will name you some Vsury contrary to the statute 21. Iac. c. 17. is punishable at the Common-law and it is also punishable in the Court Christian as in the 109. Canon The selfe same Canon reckoneth drunkennesse and swearing as punishable by the Ordinary upon presentment and yet are punishable by the Civill Magistrate by vertue of two severall statutes viz. 4. Iac. 5.21 Iac. and 21. Iac. 20. So for prohibited either workes or recreations on the Lords day the parties so offending are by the Statute 1 Car. c. 1. 3. Car. c. 1. to be convented and corrected by the Iustices of the Peace and yet there is a salvo there for the Ecclesiasticall jurisdiction to proceed as formerly All persons that offend against the Statute 1. Eliz. c. 2. either in depraving the Booke of Common prayer or else not using it as they ought to doe or using any other forme of prayer N. B. then is there prescribed c. are punishable either by enditement at the Common-law or by the censures of the Church According as complaint is first made unto either Court I could informe you of many such particulars were it convenient So that you see your proposition is not true in that full latitude wherein you propound iâ— viz. because sedition is to be tryed in the Courts of civill Iustice therefore in you and as it was an offence by you committed it was not to be censured in the High Commission For Sir I hope you can distinguish betweene sedition in the field or in the Market-place and a seditious Sermon for Sermon I must call it for feare of angring you in the Church or Pulpit Had you behaved your selfe seditiously in any other place no better dealing with you then by the Constable first and so on But if you preach seditiously and make the House and Ordinance of God onely a Pandar to your discontent or your ambition I hope my Lords the Iudges will not be offended if your Superiours in the Lord doe chastise you for it yet this at last you make a just gravamen upon the which you might appeale But had you thought indeed as you say you doe that the Ecclesiasticall Commssioners could take no cognizance of the crime objected to you you might with better hopes have labored for a prohibition as formerly you did upon weaker grounds then runne your selfe so hastily on a new experiment of making an Appeale when you were not grieved Lastly you pleade that being the matter charged upon you was Sedition and so if true your life might have beene called in question you were not bound to take the oath propounded to you and this you ground upon a Passage of Arch-Bishop Whitgift in the conference at Hampton Court saying as you report his words that in matter of life liberty and scandall it is not the course of that Court to require any such oath wherein you doe most shamelessely misreport the words of the said Arch-Bishop All that he said is this which will helpe you little viz. If any Article did touch the party any way either for life liberty or scandall he might refuse to answer neither was he urged thereunto He doth not say as you make him say that in those cases there recited it was not the course of that Court to require any such oath but that the party might refuse to answer to those Articles which did so concerne him It is the custome of the Court to give an oath unto the party to answer truely to such Articles as shall be propounded and the indulgence of the Court at the examination that if the party will he may chalenge any of them as not being bound by law to answer to them and his refusall if the law binde him not to answer is to be allowed You might then subtile Sir have tooke the oath and yet demurred on any such Article when you came unto it And so farre we have traced you in your Apologie wherein is nothing to be found but poore surmises which being proved onely by an Aio might have beene answered with a Nego but that I am resolved to dissect you throughly and lay you open to the world which hath so long beene seduced by you CHAP. II. The Kings authority restrained and the obedience of the subject limited within narrow bounds by H. B. with the removall of those bounds The title of the Sermon scanned and the whole divided H. B. offended with the unlimited power of Kings the bounds by him prescribed to the power of Kings both dangerous and doubtfull The power of Kings how amplified by Iewes Christians Heathens What the King cannot doe and what power is not in him by Mass Burtons doctrine The Positive Lawes of the Realme conferre no power upon the King nor confirme none to him The whole obedience of the subject restrained by H. B. to the Lawes of the Realme and grounded on the mutuall stipulation betweene King and people The dangerous sequells of that doctrine A Pravis ad praecipitia Wee are on the declining hand out of the Hall into the Kitchin from an Apologie that was full of weakenesse unto a Sermon or rather a Pasquill farre more full of wickednesse yet were we guided either by the Text or Title we might perswade our selves there were no such matter nothing but piety and zeale and whatsoever a faire shew can promise But for the