firmiter inhibendo quod sicut Baronias suas quas de Rege tenent diligunt nullo modo praesumant concilium tenere de aliquibus quae ad Coronam pertinent vel quae personam Regis vel Statum suum vel Statum concilii sui contingunt scituri pro certo quod si fecerint Rex inde capiet se ad Baronias suas c. By which Record together with other the premisses it may appear that the Kings by their Ancient right of Prerogative had sundry wayes power over the Bishops whereby to keep them in obedience and to secure their Supremacy from all peril of being prejudiced by the exercise of Episcopal Iurisdiction XXXV Yet in order to the utter abolishing of the Papal usurpations and of all pretended forraign power whatsoever in matters Ecclesiastical within these Realms divers Statutes have been made in the Raign of King Henry the Eighth and since for the further declaring and confirming of the Kings Supremacy Ecclesiastical Wherein the acknowledgement of that Supremacy is either so expresly contained or so abundantly provided for as that there can be no fear it should suffer for lack of further acknowledgement to be made by the Bishops in the style of their Courts Amongst other First by Statute made 25. H. 8. 19. upon the submission and petition of the Clergy it was enacted that no Canons or Constitutions should be made by the Clergy in their Convocation without the Kings licence first had in that behalfe and his royal assent after and likewise that no Canon c. should be put in execution within the Realm that should be contrariant or repugnant to the Kings Prerogative Royal or the Customes Lawes or Statutes of the Realm Then Secondly by the Statute of 1. Eliz. cap. 1. all such Ecclesiastical Iurisdictions Priviledges Superiorities and Pre-eminences as had been exercised or used or might be lawfully exercised or used by any Ecclesiastical power or authority was declared to be for ever united and annexed to the Imperial Crown of this Realm And Thirdly it was also in the same Statute provided that the Oath of Supremacy wherein there is contained as full an acknowledgement of the Kings Ecclesiastical Suprenacy as the wit of man can devise should be taken by every Archbishop and Bishop c. which hath been ever since duely and accordingly performed XXXVI Lastly from receiving any prejudice by the Bishops and their Iurisdiction the Regal power is yet farther secured by the subordination of the Ecclesiastical Laws and Courts to the Common Law of England and to the Kings own immediate Courts For although the Ecclesiastical Laws be allowed by the Laws of this Realm and the proceedings in the Ecclesiastical Courts be by the way of the Civil and not of the Common Law yet are those Laws and proceedings allowed with this limitation and condition that nothing be done against the Common Law whereof the Kings prerogative is a principal part nor against the Statutes and Customes of the Realm And therefore the Law alloweth Appeales to be made from the Ecclesiastical Courts to the King in Chancery and in sundry cases where a cause dependeth before a Spiritual Iudge the Kings prohibition lyeth to remove it into one of his Temporal Courts XXXVII Having so many several ties upon the Bishops to secure themselves and their Regal authority from all danger that might arise from the abuse of the Ecclesiastical Power and Iurisdiction exercised by the Bishops in their Courts by the ancient prerogative of their Crown by the provisions of so many Statutes and Oaths by the remedy of the Common Law the Kings of England had no cause to be so needlesly cautelous as to be afraid of a meere formality the Style of a Court. Especially considering the importance of the two Reasons expressed in the Statute of King Edward as the onely grounds of altering that Style not to be such as would countervaile the Inconvenience and Scandal that might ensue thereupon XXXVIII For whereas it was then thought convenient to change the Style used in the Ecclesiastical Courts because it was contrary to the form used in the Common-Law-Courts within this Realm which is one of the Reasons in the said Statute expressed it might very well upon further consideration be afterwards thought more convenient for the like reason to retain the accustomed Style because otherwise the forme of the Ecclesiastical Courts would be contrary to the form of other Civil-Law-Courts within the Realm as the Admiralty and Earle-Marshals Court and of other Courts of the Kings grant made unto Corporations with either of which the Ecclesiastical Courts had a nearer affinity then with the Kings Courts of Record or other his own immediate Courts of Common Law Nor doth there yet appear any valuable reason of difference why Inconformity to the Common Law-Courts should be thought a sufficient ground for the altering of the forms used in the Ecclesiastical Courts and yet the like forms used in the Admiralty in the Earle-Marshals Court in Courts Baron in Corporation-Courts c. should notwithstanding the same inconformity continue as they had been formerly accustomed without alteration XXXIX If any shall alledge as some reason of such difference the other Reason given in the said Statute viz. that the form and manner used by the Bishops was such as was used in the time of the usurped power of the Bishop of Rome besides that therein is no difference at all for the like forms in those other aforesaid Courts were also in use in the same time there is further given thereby great occasion of Scandal to those of the Church of Rome And that two wayes First as it is made a Reason at all and Secondly as it is applyed to the particular now in hand First whereas the Papists unjustly charge the Protestant Churches with Schism for departing from their Communion it could not but be a great Scandal to them to confirm them in that their uncharitable opinion of us if we should utterly condemn any thing as unlawful or but even forbid the use of it as inexpedient upon this onely grouud or consideration that the same had been used in the times of Popery or that it had been abused by the Papists And truly the Puritanes have by this very means given a wonderful Scandal and advantage to our Adversaries which they ought to acknowledge and repent of when transported with an indiscreet zeal they have cryed down sundry harmeless Ceremonies and customes as superstitious and Antichristian onely for this that Papists use them Whereas godly and regular Protestants think it agreeable to Christian liberty charity and prudence that in appointing Ceremonies retaining ancient Customes and the use of all other indifferent things such course be held as that their moderation might be known to all men and that it might appear to their very Adversaries that wherein they did receed from them or any thing practised by them they were not thereunto carried by a Spirit of contradiction but either cast
in his name and Right alone Whereupon his Majesties said Iudges having taken the same into their serious consideration did unanimously concur and agree in opinion and the first day of July last certified under their hands as followeth That Processes may issue out of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the name of the Bishops and that a Patent under the great Seal is not necessary for the keeping of the said Ecclesiastical Courts or for enabling of Citations Suspensions Excommunications and other Censures of the Church And that it is not necessary that Summons Citations or other Processes Ecclesiastical in the said Courts or Institutions or Inductions to Benefices or correction of Ecclesiastical offences by Censure in those Courts be in the Kings name or with the style of the King or under the Kings Seal or that their Seals of Office have in them the Kings Arms And that the Statute of Primo Edvardi Sexti cap. secundo which enacted the contrary is not now in force And that the Bishops Arch-Deacons and other Ecclesiastical persons may keep their Uisitations as usually they have done without Commission under the great Seal of England so to do which opinions and resolutions being declared under the hands of all his Majesties said Iudges and so certified into his Court of Star-Chamber were there recorded and it was by that Court further ordered the fourth day of the said moneth of July that the said certificate should be inrolled in all other his Majesties Courts at Westminster and in the High Commission and other Ecclesiastical Courts for the satisfaction of all men That the proceedings in the High Commission and other Ecclesiastical Courts are agreeable to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm And his Royal Majesty hath thought sit with advice of his Councel that a publick Declaration of these the opinions and resolutions of his Reverend and Learned Iudges being agreeable to the Iudgement and Resolutions of former times should be made known to all his Subjects as well to vindicate the legal proceedings of His Ecclesiastical Courts and Ministers from the unjust and scandalous imputation of invading or entrenching on his Royal Prerogative as to settle the minds and stop the mouths of all unquiet Spirits that for the future they presume not to censure his Ecclesiastical Courts or Ministers in these their Iust and warranted proceedings And hereof his Majesty admonisheth all his Subjects to take warning as they shall answer the contrary at their perils Given at the Court at Lyndhurst the 18. day of August in the 13. year of his Majesties Raign God save the King Imprinted at London by Robert Barker Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty and by the Assignes of Iohn Bill 1637. Primo Julii 1637. The Iudges Certificate concerning Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction May it please your Lordships ACcording to your Lordships Order made in his Majesties Court of Star-Chamber the Twelfth of May last we have taken consideration of the particulars wherein our Opinions are required by the said Order and we have all agreed That Processes may issue out of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the name of Bishops and that a Patent under the great Seal is not necessary for the keeping of the said Ecclesiastical Courts or for the enabling of Citations Suspensions Excommunications or other Censures of the Church And that it is not necessary that Summons Citations or other Processes Ecclesiastical in the said Courts or Institutions or Inductions to Benefices or Correction of Ecclesiastical offences by censure in those Courts be in the Kings name or with the Style of the King or under the Kings Seal or that their Seals of Office have in them the Kings Arms. And that the Statute of Primo Edvardi Sexti Cap. 2. which enacted the contrary is not now in force We are also of opinion That the Bishops Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical persons may keep their Visitations as usually they have done without Commission under the great Seal of England so to do Io. Bramstone Io. Finch Humfrey Davenport Will. Iones Io. Dinham Richard Hutton George Croke Tho. Trevor George Vernon Ro. Berkley Fr. Crawley Ric. Weston Inrolled in the Courts of Exchequer Kings Bench Common Pleas and Registred in the Courts of High Commission and Star-Chamber EPISCOPACY not Prejudicial to Regal Power SECT I. The two great Objections proposed I. HE that shall take the pains to inform himself rightly what power the Kings of England have from time to time claimed and exercised in Causes and over Persons Ecclesiastical as also by whom how and how far forth their said Power hath been from time to time either opposed or maintained shall undoubtedly find that no persons in the world have more freely acknowledged and both by their writings and actions more zealously judiciously and effectually asserted the Soveraign Ecclesiastical power of Kings then the Protestant Bishops and Divines whom our new Masters have been pleased of late to call the Prelatical party in the Church of England have done Yet so far hath prejudice or something else prevailed with some persons of quality in these times of so much loosness and distraction as to suffer themselves to be led into a belief or at leastwise to be willing the people should be deceived into the belief of these two things First that the Opinion which maintaineth the Ius divinum of Episcopacy is destructive of the Regal power And secondly that Episcopal Iurisdiction as it was exercised before and at the beginning of this present Parliament was derogatory from the honour of the King and prejudicial to the just Rights and Prerogatives of his Crown II. Truely they that know any thing of the practises and proceedings of the Anti-prelatical party cannot be ignorant that their aims these or whatsoever other pretensions notwithstanding are clearly to enlarge their own power by lessening the Kings and to raise their own estates upon the ruines of the Bishops And therefore howsoever the aforesaid pretensions may seem at the first appearance to proceed from a sense of Loyalty and a tenderness of suffering any thing to be continued in the kingdom which might tend to the least diminution of his Majesties just power greatness yet till their actions look otherwise then for some time past they have done the pretenders must give us leave to think that their meaning therein is rather to do the Bishops hurt then to do the King service and that their affections so far as by what is visible we are able to judge thereof are much what alike the same towards them both But to leave their Hearts to the judgement of him to whom they must stand or fall for the just defence of truth and that so far as we can help it the people be not abused in this particular also as in sundry others they have been by such men as are content to use the Kings name when it may help on their own designs I shall first set forth the two main Objections severally to the best advantage of
other sorts of men because of their Religion and their abilities above all other men to defend it On the other side the Puritanes who envied their power and some great ones about the Court who having tasted the sweet of Sacriledge in the times of the two last Kings thirsted after the remainder of their Revenues complyed either with other for their several respective ends against the Bishops Which being so it had been the foolishest thing in the world for the Bishops to have used that power or interest they had with the Queen upon whose favour or displeasure their whole livelyhood depended for the procuring of her consent to any Act to be done in favour of them that malice it self could with any colourable construction interpret either to savour of Popery or to trench upon the Royal Supremacy That Queen having both by her sufferings before and actions after she came to the Crown sufficiently witnessed to the world her averseness from Popery and being withall a Princess of a great Spirit and particularly jealous in the point of Prerogative XXIX Whence I think we may with good reason conclude that the ancient custome of the Bishops in making Summons c. in their own names after it was by the Act of Repeal 1. Mar. restored was continued by Queen Elizabeth and her successours ever since without interruption or reviving of the Statute of King Edward neither out of any inadvertency in the State nor through any importune or indirect labouring of the Bishops as by the Objectors is weakly presumed but advisedly and upon important considerations viz. that the devising of such a new way as is set forth and appointed in the said Statute was not only a needless thing and Laws should not be either made or altered but where it is needful so to do but subject also to manifest both inconvenience and Scandal XXX That it was altogether needless to change the old Custome may appear by this that all the imaginable necessity or utility of such a change could be onely this To secure the King by using his Name in their Processes c. as a real acknowledgement that their Iurisdiction is derived from him and no other that the Bishops had no intention in the exercise of their Episcopal power to usurp upon his Ecclesiastical Supremacy Which Supremacy of the King and Superiority of his Jurisdiction Authority over that which the Bishops exercised being already by so many other wayes and means sufficiently secured it could argue nothing but an impertinent jealousie to endeavour to strengthen that security by an addition of so poor and inconsiderable regard XXXI The Kings of England are secured against all danger that may accrue to their Regal power from Episcopal Iurisdiction as it hath been anciently and of later times exercised in this Realm First by the extent of their Power over the persons and livelihoods of the Bishops and over the whole State Ecclesiastical as in the ancient right of the Crown which how great it was may appear by these three particulars XXXII First the Collation and Donation of Bishopricks together with the nomination of the persons to be made Bishops in case they did by their Writ of Conge d'eslier permit the formality of Election to others did alwayes belong to the Kings of this Realm both before and since the Conquest as in right of their Crown Our learned Lawyers assure us that all the Bishopricks of this Realm are of the Kings foundation that they were originally donative and not elective and that the full right of Investiture was in the King who signified his pleasure therein per traditionem baculi annuli by the delivery of a ring and a Crosier-staff to the person by him elected and nominated for that office The Popes indeed often assayed to make them elective either by the Dean and Canons of the Cathedral or by the Monkes of some principal Abbey adjoyning but the Kings still withstood it and maintained their right as far as they could or durst Insomuch as King Henry the First being earnestly sollicited by the Pope to grant the election of Bishops to the Clergy constanter allegavit saith the story and verbis minacibus he stoutly and with threats refused so to do saying he would not for the loss of his Kingdome lose the right of those Investitures It is true that King Iohn a Prince neither fortunate nor couragious being overpowred by the Popes did by Charter in the Seventeenth year of his Raign grant that the Bishopricks of England should be eligible But this notwithstanding in the Raign of King Edward the Third it was in open Parliament declared and enacted that to the King and his heirs did belong the collation of Archbishopricks c. and all other dignities that are of his Advowson and that the elections granted by the Kings his progenitors were under a certain form and condition viz. that they should ask leave of the King to elect and that after the election made they should obtain the Kings consent thereunto and not otherwise XXXIII Secondly the King hath power if he shall see cause to suspend any Bishop from the execution of his Office for so long time as he shall think good yea and to deprive him utterly of the dignity and office of a Bishop if he deserve it Which power was de facto exercised both by Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth in the beginning of their several Raigns upon such Bishops as would not conform to their Religion XXXIV Thirdly the Kings of England have a great power over the Bishops in respect of their Temporalties which they hold immediately of the King per Baroniam and which every Bishop Elect is to sue out of the Kings hands wherein they remained after the decease of the former Bishop during the Vacancy and thence to take his only restitution into the same making Oath and fealty to the King for the same upon his Consecration Yea and after such restitution of Temporalties and Consecration the King hath power to seize the same again into his own hands if he see just cause so to do Which the Kings of England in former times did so frequently practice upon any light displeasure conceived against the Bishops that it was presented as a grievance by the Arch-bishop of Canterbury and the other Prelates by way of request to King Edw. 3. in Parliament and thereupon a Statute was made the same Parliament that thenceforth no Bishops Temporalties should be seized by the King without good cause I finde cited by Sir Edward Coke out of the Parliament Rolls 18. H. 3. a Record wherein the King straightly chargeth the Bishops not to intermeddle in any thing to the prejudice of his Crown threatning them with seisure of their Temporalties if they should so do The words are Mandatum est omnibus Episcopis quae conventuri sunt apud Gloucestr ' the King having before summoned them by writ to a Parliament to be holden at Gloucester
upon it by some necessity of the times or induced for just reasons of expediency so to do XL. But then Secondly as that Reason relateth to the present business in particular the Scandal thereby given is yet greater For we are to know that when King Henry the Eighth abolished the Papal Power resuming in his own hand the ancient rights of the Crown which the Bishops of Rome had unjustly usurped he took upon himselfe also that title which he then found used by the Bishops of Rome but which none of his Progenitors the Kings of this Realm had ever used of being the Supream head of the Church within his Dominions This title continued during the Reign of his son King Edward the Sixth by whom the Statute aforesaid was made and is mentioned in that very Statute Now albeit by that title or appellation was not intended any other thing then that Supremacy Ecclesiastical which the Kings of this Land have and of right ought to have in the governance of their Realms over all persons and in all causes Ecclesiastical as well as other and which is in the Oath of Supremacy ackowledged to belong unto them yet the Papists took Scandal at the novelty thereof and glad of such an occasion made their advantage of it to bring a reproach upon our Religion as if the Protestants of England were of opinion that all Spiritual Power did belong unto the King and that the Bishops and Ministers of England had their whole power of Preaching administring the Sacraments Ordaining Excommunicating c. solely and originally from the King as the members of the body live by the influence which the Head hath into them Upon their clamours that title of Supream head and governour was taken into farther consideration in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Raign And although that style in the true meaning thereof was innocent and defensible enough yet for the avoiding of Scandal and Cavil it was judged more expedient that the word Head should thenceforth be laid aside and the style run only Supream Governour as we see it is in the Oath of Supremacy and otherwhere ever since without mentioning the word Head according to the intimations given in the Queens Injunctions and elswhere in that behalfe And it seemeth to me very probable that for the same reason especially besides those other reasons already given it was thought fitter by Her then and by her successours hitherto that the Bishops in all their Ecclesiastical Courts and proceedings should act in their own names as formerly they had done then that the Statute of King Edward should be revived for doing it in the Kings name For the sending out processes c. in order to Excommunication and other Church-censures in the Kings name would have served marvellously to give colour and consequently strength in the apprehension at least of weaker judgements to that calumny wherewith the Papists usually asperse our Religion as if the Kings of England took themselves to be proper and competent Iudges of Censures meerly spiritual in their own persons and the Prelates accordingly did acknowledge them so to be Thus have I shewen to the satisfaction I hope of the ingenuous and unprejudiced Reader that Episcopacy is no such dangerous creature either in the Opinion or Practice as some would make the world believe it is but that the Kings Crown may stand fast enough upon his head and flourish in its full verdure without plucking away or displacing the least flower in it notwithstanding Episcopacy should be allowed to be of Divine Right in the highest sence and the Bishops still permitted to make their Processes in their own names and not in the Kings By this time I doubt not all that are not willfully blind for who so blind as he that will not see do see and understand by sad experience that it had been far better both with King and Kingdome then now it is or without Gods extraordinary mercy is like to be in haste if the enemies of Episcopacy had meant no worse to the King and his Crown then the Bishops and those that favoured them did A POST-SCRIPT to the Reader WHereas in my Answer to the former of the two Objections in the foregoing Treatise I have not any where made any clear discovery what my own particular judgement is concerning the Jus divinum of EPISCOPACY in the stricter sense either in the Affirmative or Negative and for want of so doing may perhaps be censured by some to have walked but haltingly or at least wise with more caution and mincing then became me to do in a business of that nature I do hereby declare 1. That to avoid the starting of more Questions then needs must I then thought it fitter and am of the same opinion still to decline that Question then to determine it either way such determination being clearly of no moment at all to my purpose and for the solving of that Objection 2. That nevertheless leaving other men to the liberty of their own judgements my opinion is that EPISCOPAL GOVERNMENT is not to be derived meerly from Apostolical Practise or Institution but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messias our blessed Lord JESUS CHRIST Who being sent by his Heavenly Father to be the great Apostle HEB. III. 1. Bishop and Pastor 1 PET. II. 25. of his Church and anointed to that Office immediately after his Baptisme by JOHN with power and the Holy Ghost ACT. X. 37-8 descending then upon him in a bodily shape LUK. III. 22. did afterwards before his Ascension into Heaven send and impower his holy Apostles giving them the Holy Ghost likewise as his Father had given him in like manner as his Father had before sent him JOH XX. 21. to execute the same Apostolical Episcopal and Pastoral Office for the ordering and governing of his Church until his coming again and so the same Office to continue in them and their Successours unto the end of the world MAT. XXVIII 18 20. This I take to be so clear from these and other like Texts of Scripture that if they shall be diligently compared together both between themselves and with the following practise of all the Churches of Christ as well in the Apostles times as in the Purest and Primitive times nearest thereunto there will be left little cause why any man should doubt thereof 3. That in my Answer to the later Objection I made no use at all nor indeed could do of the Opinion of the Reverend Judges in that point nor of his Majesties Proclamation grounded thereupon For although the Proclamation had been extant Ten years before this task was imposed upon me yet I had never seen nor so much as heard of the same in all the time before nor yet in all the time since till about ten dayes ago I was advertised thereof when these Papers were then going to the Press Which since they give so much strength to the main Cause and so fully avoid the Objection I have followed the advise of some friends and caused them to be printed here withal FINIS See Stat. 25. H. 8. 20 1. Edw. 6. 2. Cok. 1. Instit. 2. Sect. 648. Stat. for the Clergy 14. â— 3. cap. 3.