sate at the Helm of the most Dignified Churches and steered the Conclusions of Divine Truth were more rigid upon this Theme than they that hold the same Sees in these Days They were so literal in the sense of those words Job 6.53 Except ye eat the Flesh of the Son of Man and drink his Blood you have no Life in you that an Infant Baptized was presently admitted to the Sumption of the Sacred Elements That believing People in danger to be separated from their Pastors in time of Persecution were suffered to reserve the Consecrated Bread and to eat it reverently at Home These Customs are utterly melted away into disuse and the latter overthrown by a Curse in the first Council of Toledo At this Day your Canons enjoyn no more But that every faithful Man and Woman partake of Christs Body once a Year at Easter And how gentle are your Casuists in their Copious Relaxations upon the Obligation to this Canon You shall hear but one speak Navarr Enchirid. Cap. 21. Every Notorious Cause excuseth those that receive not once a Year And it is allowed to be a Notorious Cause if danger to lose Life or Hmour or Fortunes doth distein a Christian Therefore a Woman that hath a Child at her Breast is dispens'd with for the Sucklings sake And a Widow in some places who keeps the fashion to mourn a twelve-month at Home before she appears in publick Nay Caution is made to absolve them that are raggedly or meanly apparell'd and would be ashamed to have the Eyes of some cast upon them in their homely Garments You cannot go lower unless you could throw less than one Ace upon a Dye Excuses you see are cheap because that Sacrament is not rated so dear as if it were taken or not taken upon the price of Salvation 225. And now that your Lordship may undergo no longer Penance to hear me upon this Subject I will dispatch with the Consideration of your Sacrament of Penance For whose use and necessity the Priests contend more than the People And if we of the Reformed Clergy had not set before our Eyes the Naked Simplicity of the Gospel rather than our own Interests and Emolument we would never have ridden that stiff-headed Beast the Multitude without this Bridle The Power of the Keys do you call it And so ye may For the Locks of all Secrets fly open before it and every Mans Coffers are at the Command of the Confesson Confession of all Sin especially the most to be blush'd at though lodged in the darkest Cellar of the Heart is a heavy Burden Yet any wise Man will resolve not to be shame-faced but to endure that which he must bear by a rigid and peremptory Law If there be no remedy as the Confessors say but either reveal your Sin even to all their Minutes and Circumstances and obtein Sacerdotal Absolution or never look Christ in the Face I cannot then blame your Brethren to say Give us Ghostly Fathers or else we die But hold there I will spread your own Doctrine impartially before you Your severest Writers say That Confession of wasting and mortal Sins is to be made to a Priest upon the Commandment of Christ Such a Law they have fixed partly by Consequences partly by their Exposition of the Text. Now it is fit to hear what may be said upon this Law when the Case is removed into a Court of Equity I move then in the behalf of a Sinner Is he bound as soon as he hath committed a mortal Sin with all competent Celerity to confess that he may be absolv'd Not so says the Chancery of Divinity Let him prostrate himself before the Knees of the Poenitentiary once a Year and rehearse his Crimes Is that resolved Scripture Is Confession once a Year of Divine Right No says old Navarr there is no Divine express Word that chargeth the Penitent when and how often to come to that Sacrament but by Human Authority all Offenders are obliged thereunto once a Year I move once more at the Bar of Favour Is that Canon as inflexible as the Laws of the Medes and Persians Or will it admit of Relaxation Why not says Azorius Lib. 7. Moral Cap. 40. Quod quisque fidelium semel quotannis confiteatur Ecclesia Imperavit Et Autoritate Pontificiâ potest quis eximi à lege annuae Confessionis One Exception by all Votes is admitted That a Person born dumb shall not have his Sins reteined for want of Confession Cajet Sacerd. Lib. 3. Cap. 6. And are not their Mouths stopt as if they were dumb-born in whose Vicinage nay in whose Country none of Holy Orders out of that Tribe ought to be found by the Laws to take their Confession Or will it come to one effect if they put down such faults as they call to mind they have committed in writing And so send this blotting Paper to them that have the Tutelage over them in such Cases This Trick wants not those that applaud it Especially among the Jesuits who I think would teach Pigeons to carry such Messages to and fro since they would have all the Work in their own Hands and cannot be in all places But your sounder Divines condemn that Device Either because the Circumstances of Sins which alter Cases exceedingly cannot be Interrogated so well in conveyance of Letters Or least the Offendor while his Letter is under the Messengers dispatch should relapse into his former Sin and abuse the Grace of Absolution Or principally because that which is under a Mans Hand is permanent and if it miscarry it may be produc'd afterwards to his sorrow and vexation by the Secular Power Therefore this Rule must be the Coronis of all this Dispute That he that hath not a Competent External Judge to confess his Sins unto may quiet his Conscience when he confesseth them to none but GOD. 226. What say you now my Lord Doth Salvation necessarily depend upon your Septemfluous Sacraments Or do they depend all upon the Administration of the Priests O Sir King David was cosen'd for believing his Son Amnon who pretended he could eat nothing unless his Sister Tamar dress'd it But somewhat about Sacramental Confessions hangs yet in my Teeth and I shall not speak it but spit it out It is so reasonable that I bespeak you not to be offended He that takes it ill it is at his own adventure Salus populi suprema Lex esto We must first look to common safety And they that think to build upon the Ruines of it will find a false Foundation I hope Court us not suffer Confessors to creep into Corners among us For they profess they will not discover Treason plotted against the King and Kingdom if it be disclosed under that Privy Seal Nay it hath appeared by Examinations by Witnesses by Letter under their own Hands by all sorts of Proofs that they did not reveal it when they knew the fatal Hour was at Hand to blow up our Sovereign the
qualifying of themselves for Civil Employments And another sort of Gentlemen termed Forenses who were Pleaders at the Bar and Trained up in real Causes he makes the former more Innocent and Harmless a great deal then the latter and yields hereof the principal Reason Nos enim qui in foro verisque litibus terimur multum malitiae quamvis nolimus addiscimus For we saith he That are bred in Real Quirkes and personal Contentions cannot but Reserve some Tang thereof whether we will or no. These Reasons though they please some Men yet God be Praised if we do but Right to this Noble Profession they are in our Common-Wealth no way concluding or Demonstrative For I make no question but there are many Scores which profess our Laws who beside their Skill and Practice in this kind are so Richly enabled in all Moral and Intellectual Endowments Ut omnia tanquam singula persiciant that there is no Court of Equity in the World but might be most safely committed unto them I leave therefore the Reason of this Alteration as a Reason of State not to be Fathom'd by any Reason of mine and will say no more of my Calling in the General 85. Now when I reflect upon myself in particular Quis sum ego aut quis Filius Ishai What am I or what can there be in me in Regard of Knowledg Gravity or Experience that should afford me the least Qualification in the world for so weighty a Place Surely if a Sincere Upright and well-meaning Heart doth not cover Thousands of other Imperfections I am the unfittest Man in the Kingdom to supply the Place And therefore must say of my Creation as the Poet said of the Creation of the World Materiam noli quaerere nulla fuit Trouble not your Heads to find out the Cause I confess there was none at all It was without the least Inclination or thought of mine own the immediate work of God and the King And their Aâ—ions are no ordinary Effects but extraordinary Miracles What then Should I beyond the Limits and Duty of Obedience despond and refuse to make some few years Tryal in this place Nor Tuâ—s O Jacobe quod optas Explorare labor mihi jussa capessere fas est I will therefore conclude this Point with the Excuse of that Poet whom the Emperor Gratian would needs enforce to set out his Poem whether he would or no. Non habeo ingenium Caefar sed jussit habebo Cur me posse negem posse quod ille putet I am no way fit for this great Place but because God and the King will have it so I will endeavour as much as I can to make my self fit and put my whole confidence in his Grace and Mercy Qui neminem dignum Eligit sed eligendo dignum facit as St. Austin speaks And so much of my Calling now I come unto my Carriage in this Place 86 It is an Observation which Tully makes In causis dicendis effugere solebat Antonius ne succederet Crasso Antonius was ever afraid to come after Crassus a most Eloquent and Powerful Orator And the greatest discouragement I find in this Place is that I am to come after after indeed nec passibus aequis my two immediate Predecessors the one of 〈◊〉 Excellent in most things the other in all things But both of them so bred in this Course of Life Ut illis plurimarum reruni agitatio frequens nihil esse ignotum patiobatur as Pliny speaks of the Pleaders of his time It were too much to expect at my bands a Man bred in other Studies that readiness or quickness of dispatch which was effected by them Lords both of them brought up in the King's Courts and not in the King's Chappel My Comfort is this That Arriving here as a Stranger I may say as Archimedes did when he found these Geometrical Lines and Angles drawn every where in the Sands of AEgypt Video vestigia humana I see in this Court the Footsteps of Wise Men many Excellent Rules and Orders for the managing the same the which though I might want Learning and Knowledg to invent if they were not thus offer'd to my hands yet I hope I shall not want the Honesty to Act and put in Execution These Rules I will precisely follow without the least deslexion at all until Experience shall Teach me better Every thing by the Course of Nature hath a certain and regular motion The Air and Fire move still upward the Earth and Water fall downward The Celestial Bodies whirl about in one and the self same Course and Circularity and so should every Court of Justice Otherwise it grows presently to be had in Jealousie and Suspicion For as Vel. Paterculus Observes very well In iis homines extraordinaria reformidant qui modum in voluntate habent Men ever suspect the worst of those Rules which vary with the Judges Will and Pleasure I will descend to some few particulars 87. First I will never make any Decree That shall Cross the Grounds of the Common or Statute Laws for I hold by my Place the Custody not of mine own but of the King's Conscience and it were most absurd to let the King's Conscience be at Enmity and Opposition with his Laws and Statutes This Court as I conceive it may be often occasion'd to open and confirm but never to thwart and oppose the Grounds of the Laws I will therefore omit no Pains of mine own nor Conference with the Learned Judges to furnish my self with competency of Knowledg to keep my Resolution in this Point Firm and Inviolable Secondly I shall never give a willing Ear to any Motion made at this Bar which shall not apparently tend to further and hasten the bearing of the Cause The very word Motion derived a movendo to move doth teach us that the hearing is Finis perfectio terminus ad quem the End Perfection and proper Home as it were of the matter propounded If a Counsellor therefore will needs endeavour as Velleius Writes of the Gracchi Optimo ingenio pessime uti to make that bad Use of a good Wit as to justle a Cause out of the King's High-way which I hold in this Court to be Bill Answer Replication Rejoynder Examination and Hearing I will ever Regard it as a Wild Goose Chase and not a Learned Motion The further a Man Runs out of his Way the further he is from home the End of his Journy as Seneca speaks so the more a Man Tattles beside these Points the further it is from the Nature of a Motion Such a Motion is a Motion Per Antiphrasin ut mons a non movendo It tends to nothing but certamen ingenii a Combat of Wit which is Infinite and Endless For when it once comes to that pass some will sooner a great deal loose the Cause then the last Word Thirdly I would have no Man to conceive that I come to this Place to overthrow without special Motives the Orders
were living But though they are all under Earth Faith forbid that their Names should be abused to a wrong Report To keep History uncorrupt from such baseness 't is daintily observ'd out of the Poets by Salmasius Clymac p. 819. Apud orcum defunctae animae jurare dicuntur ne quid suos quos in vitâ reliquerint contra fas adjuvent The Souls departed take an Oath not to help their surviving Friends against Justice But no such Protestation needs in this Cause There is a Petition to be produced written with the Hand of Dr. Walker a Gentleman living and well known wherein His Majesty is minded that he had cancell'd this Complaint and had given his Royal Hand to confirm it What could be more sure Yet it turn'd to nothing the Wound was never suffer'd to heal by the daily Whispering of Bishop Laud diligent in the King's Ear. You may read of one in Suetonius's Caligula Cui ad insaniam Caius favebat So the King suffer'd this Prelate in excess of Power to turn and return Causes as he would and was obnoxious by the bewitching of his Tongue to facility of Perswasions to grant and retract as he possest him Which was seen too late in this excellent Passage of His Majesty in 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 I wish I had not suffer'd mine own Judgment to be overborn in some things more by others Importunities than their Arguments As Erasmus wrote honestly to a mighty Monarch Harry the Eighth Ep. p. 74. Eximia quaedam inter mortales res est Monarcha sed homo tamen And with much liberty our Poet Johnson in his Forrest p. 815. I am at feud With that is ill tho' with a Throne endu'd The Faults of the Blessed Charles were small yet some he had who having assured Lincoln he should never be question'd again about the matter brought against him by Lamb and Sibthorp yet remitted it to the Star-chamber The Defendant conceived it would spend like a Snail or the untimely Fruit of a Woman but when he found himself deceiv'd and that the Cause was glowing hot in Prosecution he sought the King's Clemency Quaedam enim meliùs fugiuntur quà m superantur it is in Erasm Ep. p. 18. He thought it better to fly the Trial than to get the Cause and he put up this which follows into the Hands of His Majesty The Humble Petition and Submission of John Bishop of Lincoln c. THAT although he is innocent from any Crime committed against your Majesty in thought word or deed yet abhorring as he finds by Presidents all other Bishops of this Realm have done Placitare cum Domino rege to have any Suit with his Sovereign Lord Master and Patron he casts himself in all humility at Your Majesties Feet and implores your Royal Mercy and Clemency Non intrare in judicium cum servo tuo coveting to ascribe his Deliverance to Your Majesties Clemency And whereas your most Excellent Majesty having in the fourth year of your happy Reign received the Opinion of the four Lords Committees concerning these very self-same Charges did in your Majesties Gallery at Whitehall admit this Defendant brought in by the Right Honourable the Lord Treasurer one of the said Committees to kiss your Majesties Hand and did use unto him this Defendant in the presence and hearing of the said Right Honourable Lord these gracious words That your Majesty was pleased to forgive all that was past and would esteem of this Defendant according as he should deserve by his Service for the time to come He most humbly beseecheth your most Excellent Majesty that according to that so gracious Remission and Absolution no further Prosecution at your Majesties Suit may be used against him concerning the said Charges all which he doth the rather hope for from your Majesty because he is a Bishop that hath endeavoured not to live scandalously in his Calling and hath formerly had the Favour from Almighty God with his own Hands to close your Majesties Father's Eyes and to have written and drawn up that Commission and Contract for your Majesties Marriage whereupon ensued to this Kingdom a most unvaluable Blessing and heartily prayeth that God who hath delivered your Majesty from your late Sickness may bless you in all Health Happiness and Prosperity So far the Petition I will not teach the Reader what Sallads to pick out of it but only the Herb of Grace that the Bishop kist the King's Hand upon the assurance of his Peace that the Offence which was taken was buried and should never rise up in Judgment more Nihil periculi Soloni à Pisistrato Diog. Laert. Now who ever liked Julian the Cardinal that made Ladislaus K. of Polonia break his League with the Turk And who will defend B. L. that made his Soveraign break his word with his Subject It was he and none else that put in an unseasonable Bar to hinder Lincoln the fulness of the Benefit I know none that had the nearest part in B. L's Favour that can deny it And let them turn it about as they will is it possible they should excuse it 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 It is Theodoret's Ep. 2. Children see no uncomeliness in their Parents But although they will see no ill in the Person they must in the Fact For what a Trespass is this in Justice to punish that which was forgiven Let the King do Righteous Judgment like God in whose Throne he sits before whom this holds inviolable Peccata dimissa nunquam redeunt No not original Sin when remitted in Baptism it shall not be imputed to them any more that are damned for actual Crimes whereof they did not repent So Grotius cites it out of Prosper in Matth. c. 18. v. 34. Extinctam semel obligationem non reviviscere sed propter postrema crimina affici The most that seems to be against this Rule but falls in with it is this That when former Sins are forgiven and new ones are superadded the latter shall be punish'd the more for the ungratefulness of the Sinner Non quod jam remissa puniantur sed quod sequens peccatum minùs graviter punâ—retur si priora remissa non fuissent says Maldonat My Sentence is at the last of all with Syracides c. 29.3 Keep thy word and deal faithfully revoke not your Kindness pluck not up the Seeds of a Benefit which you had sown with your own Hand It is worse to turn Mercy than Justice into Wormwood 111. Destiny is unavoidable A Bill is filed in the Star-Chamber and prosecuted for the King for Revealing his Councils The Defendant made him ready for his Answer and plyed the King with Petitions together in Parody like Virgil's Aeneas Et se collegit in arma Poplite subsidens At first he tried Bishop Laud if he would be so generous as to heal the Wound that he had made and anointed him with the Weapon-Salve of remembrance of Friendship past and protestation of the like for ever he courted him to
the body v. 20. but now are they many Members yet but one Body v. 21. And the eye cannot say unto the hand I have no need of thee nor again the head unto the feet I have no need of you So far our brave Speaker and all this is exscribed faithfully out of his own Copy Let another take his room and let him that is wisest perform it better The Success was that he laid the Bill asleep for five months for I confess that by over-sight I have not kept the just order of time for it should have been referred to the middle of May before the King went into Scotland and was in a trance by the charm of this Eloquence till November after which shews how like he was to Athanasius Nazian in Orat. pro codem 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Athanasius was an Adamant not to be broken with violent blows and a Load-stone to draw them to him that were of a contrary Opinion Now mark the Partiality upon which the Speaker much insisted That the Lords would grant Interest to noble Persons in Holy Orders to act in Secular Affairs but to none beside As Grotius fits it with a passage Annal. p. 5. Castellani quantumcunque usurpent ipsi libertatem in aliis non serunt The Castilians are great encroachers upon liberty for themselves but will not tollerate it in any beside To the main Cause I yield that that was easie to be defended on the Clergies part as learned Saravia shews de Christian Obed. p. 169. not only from Moses's Law but from the Custom general of the most orderly among the Heathen Gaulish Druids Persian Magi Egyptian Heirophants and so forth by induction from all places to make it amount even to a natural Law that Priests were no where excluded from honourable Imployments in Secular Affairs I will appose two Quotations for it and very remarkable The first from the Judgment of the Scottish Presbytery R. Spotswood Hist p. 299. 449. That they contended for that Priviledge that some Ministers should give Voice in Parliament in the behalf of the Church And some to assist the King in Parliament in Council and out of Council Doth the Wind blow so from the North The other taken from Ludo. Molin Paraen c 4. And he no well-willer to our Hierarchy in that Book least of all to their Consistories Deus Pastori Evangelico non detrahit jus potestatem Magistraturae nec magistratum prohibet ministerio si ad utrumque factus comparatus est But this Bill that went no further when it was first set on foot in May began to enlarge its strides and mend its Pace in the end of Autumn Either because this fiery Parliament saw that Confusion begun must be carried on with acting greater or because the King was suspected that he tamper'd with the Scots and they framed an Injury from his Neglect to leave them so long or how it was that their thoughts were whiâ—'d about with the Wheel of swift Perswasions themselves knew best but their Spleen began to shew it self with stronger fits than ever against the Clergy who were never safe so long as the Bill we have heard of was not cancell'd For the Spanish Proverb tells us That Apple is in great danger that sticks upon the prickles of an Hedge-hogg But if the Sum of the Bill had been right cast the now most noble Marquess of Dorchester and more noble because most learned told his Peers May 21. Which of your Lordships can say he shall continue a Member of this House when at one blow six and twenty are cut off This was sooth nay Sooth-saying and Prophesying but it was not attended 167. When all ways had been tried to pass this Bill of Dishonour upon the Clergy chiefly the Bishops and it hung in the House of the Lords the event methinks is like that which we read I Kings 22. v. 21. There came forth a Spirit and stood before the Lord and said I will perswade them And the Lord said Wherewith And he said I will go forth and I will be a Spirit of clamour and tumult in the mouth of all the People And the Lord said Thou shalt perswade them and prevail also Go forth and do so There had been an unruly and obsteperous concourse of the People in the Earl of Strafford's Case But a Sedition broke forth about Christmas that was ten times more mad Ludum jocumque dices fuisse illum alterum prout hujus rabies quae dabit Terent. Eunuch which took heat upon this occasion The King came to the House of Commons to demand five of their Members to Justice upon impeachment of Treason His Majesty it seems was too forward to threaten such persons with the Sword of Justice when he wanted the Buckler of Safety How far those five were guilty I have nothing to say because plain Force would not let them come to a Tryal But if they were innocent why did they not suffer their Practices to see the Light It had been more to their Honour to be cleared by the Law than to be protected against the Law And that Cause must needs be suspected which could not put on a good outside I am sure the King suffer'd extreamly for their sakes All Sectaries and desperate Varlets in City and Suburbs flock'd by thousands to the Parliament Diogenes was ask'd What was to be seen at the Olympick Sports where he had been Says he 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Laert. in Vit. Much People but few Men. But here were no Men but all Beasts who promised one another Impunity by their full body of Rebels and where there is no fear of Revenge there is little Conscience of Offence Quicquid multis peccatur inultum est Lucan The Rake-hells were chaffed to so high a degree of Acrimony that they pressed through the Court-gates and their Tongues were so lavish that they talk'd Treason so loud that the King and Queen did hear them Let the five Members be as honest as they would make them I am certain these were Traytors that begirt the King's House where his Person was with Hostility by Land and Water He that speaks of them without detestation allows them and makes way for the like Sometimes they called out for Religion sometimes for Justice Ex isto ore religionis verbum excidere aut clabi potest as Tully of Clodius pro Dom. Was the sacred term of Religion sit to come out of their Mouths Did it become them to speak of Justice Sarah cried out to Abraham The Lord judge between me and thee when her self was in the fault Gen. 16.5 Every Tinker and Tapster call'd for Justice and would let the King have none who is the Fountain of it What did the great Parliament in the mean while Give Freedom to their Rage 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Odyss 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 Their Friends in their ragged rows were too many to be childden they were more afraid of them than of the