also the Calvinian Doctrines to the discredit of the state of the Church of England in King Edwards time the great grief of the Martyrs and other godly men in the reign of Queen Marâ— and to the raising of most unquenchable combustions in all parts of the Church under Queen Elizabeth It was not long after the setling of the Liturgie before Whitehead left the Ministry of the English Congregation which Cox obtained for Mr. Horn whom he knew to be a man both of courage constancy And that being done he left the Congregation and so withdraws himself to â—ralsburge there to enjoy the company of Peter Martyr with whom he was intimately acquainted while he lived in Christ-Church By his departure a new gap is opened to another dissention Some words had passed at a supper intended rather for increase of charity than the breach of friendship betwixt Horn and Ashâ—ey Horn the chief Pastor of the flock and Ashâ—ey a Gentleman of good note in the Lay part of it Some three dayes after being the 16th of January Ashleyâ—is is cited to appear at the house of one of the Elders to answer for some words which he had spoken in contempt of the Ministry But from the Elders he appeals to the Congregation amongst whom he prevails so fat that they send a message by two of their company to the Pastor and Elders requiring them to proceed no further in the cause Horn being backed by Chambers the publick Treasurer excepts against this message as decreed at a private Conventicle not by the general suffrages of the Congregation and thereupon resolves to stand to that Authority which formerly had been conferred on him and the rest of the Elders by the Rules of their Discipline Ashley and his adhâ—rents on the other side declare their former private meeting not to be a â—onventicle protest against the Pastor and Elders as an adverse party and therefore not in a capacity to sit as Judges in the present case and set themselves upon the making of a Book of Discipline for the curbing the exorbitant power for such they thought it of the Pastor and Elders The Pastor and Elders thereupon forsake their Offices and on the 5th of February being the next day of publick meeting take place amongst the rest as private persons The Congregation full but the Pulpit empty which put the rest upon a humour of electing others to take the publick charge upon them The noise of these disorders awakes the Magistrates who command Horn and Chambers to forbear the congregation until further Order and afterwards restoring them to their former authority by publick Edict were contradicted in it by Ashley's party who having got some power into their hands were resolved to keep it In the mean time a Book of Discipline had been drawn and tendered to the Congregation on the â—4th of February According to the Rules whereof the supreme power in all Ecclesi astical causes was put into the hands of the Congregations and the disposing of the publick monies committed to the trust of certain Officers by the name of Deacons This makes the breach wider than before Horn and his party labouring to retain the old the other to establish the new Discipline of their own devising The Magistrates not able to agree the difference dispatch their Letters unto Sâ—ralsburge of the 3d. of April desiring Dr Cox and Dr. Sandys together with Robert Bertie Esq to undertake the closing of the present rupture To their arbitrement each party is content to submit the controversie but differ in conclusion in the terms of their Reference Much talk and no small scandal groweth upon these divisions not made the less by the Pen-combats between Horn and Whitehead In the end a form of reconciliation is drawn up by some of the English who more endeavoured the peace of the Church than the interess of either party But those who stood for the new Discipline being grown the stronger refused to submit themselves to any establishment by which the power of the diffusive body of the Congregation might be called in question Whereupon Horn and Chambâ—rs depart to Stralshurge from whence Chambers writ his Letters to them of the 20th of June and after of the 30th of July but to no effect They had before proceeded to the election of some new Ministers March the 22d Against which though Horn and his opposed yet they concluded it for the present on the 29th and now they mean to stand unto the conclusion let Horn and Chambers go or tarry as best pleased themselves Such were the troubles and disorders in the hurch of Franckfort occasioned first by a dislike of the publick Liturgy before which they preferred the nakedness and simplicity of the French and Genevian Churches and afterwards continued by the opposition made by the general body of the Congregation against such as were appointed to be Pastors and Rulers over them Hence the beginning of the Puritan faction against the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church that of the Presbyterians against the Bishops of Episcopal Government and finally that also of the Independents against the superintendency of the Pastors and Elders The terrible effects whereof will appear hereafter if God shall give me means and opportunity to carry on the History of those disturbances which have been raised by the Pâ—ritans or Presbyterians against the Orders of this Church and the peace of Christendome But sorrows seldome go alone the abberrations from the Government and Form and Worship established in the Church of England drew on and alteration also in point of Doctrine Such of the English as had retired into Geneva imploy themselves in setting out a new Translation of the Bible in the English Tongue which afterwards they published with certain marginal Notes upon it most of them profitable for the understanding of the Text but so that some were heâ—eâ—odox in point of Doctrine some dangerous and seditious in reference to the Civil Magistrate and some as scandalous in respect of Episcopal Government From this time the Calvinian Doctrine of Predestination began to be dispersed in English Pamphlets as the only necessary Orthodox and saving truth Knox publisheth a book Against an adversary of God's predestination wherein it is declared That whatsoever the Ethnicks and ignorant did attribute to Fortune by Christians is to be â—ssigned to God's heavenly providence that we 〈◊〉 to judge nothing to come of Fortune but that all cometh by the determinate counsel of God and finally that it would be displeasing unto God if we should esteem any thing to proceed from any other and that we do not only behold him as the principal cause of all things but also the author appointing all things to the one or the other by his only counsel After comes out a Book first written in French and afterwards by some of them translated into English which they called A brief Declaration of the Table of predestination in which it is put down
been necessary in point of State that so great a Princess should not die without some of her Bishops going before and some comming after Her funeral solemnized at Westminster with a Mass of Reqâ—iem in the wonted form on the 13th of December then next following and her body interred on the North side of the Chapel of King Henry the seventh her beloved Grandfather I shall not trouble my self with giving any other character of this Queen than what may be gathered from her story much less in descanting on that which is made by others who have heaped upon her many gracious praise-worthy qualities of which whether she were Mistress or not I dispute not now She was indeed a great Benefactresse to the Clergy in releasing them of their Tenths and First-fruits but she lost nothing by the bargain the Clergy paid her back again in their Bills of Subsidies which growing into an annual payment for seven years together and every Subsidy amounting to a double Tenth conduced as visibly to the constant fillâ—ng of the Exchequer as the payment of the Tenths and First-fruits had done before That which went clearly out of her purse without retribution was the re-edifying and endowment of some few Religious Houses mentioned in their proper place she also built the publick Schools in the University of Oxon for which commemorated in the list of their Benefactors which being decayed in tract of time and of no beautiful structure when they were at the best were taken down about the year 1612. in place whereof but on a larger extent of ground was raised that goodly and magnificent Fabrick which we now behold And though she had no followers in her first foundations yet by the last she gave encouragement to two worthy Gentlement to add two new Colleges in Oxon to the former number Sir â—homas Pope one of the Visitors of Abeys and other Religious Houses in the time of King Henry had got into his hands a small College in Oxon long before founded by the Bishop and Prior of Durham to serve for a Nursery of Novices to that greater Monastery with some of the Lands thereunto belonging and some others of his own he erected it into a new Foundation consisting of a President twelve Fellows and as many Scholars and called it by the name of Trinity College A College sufficiently famous for the education of the learned and renowned Selden who needs no other Tâ—tles of honor than what may be gathered from his Books and the giving of eight thousand Volumes of all sorts to the Oxford Library Greater as to the number of Fellows and Scholars was the Foundation of Sir Thomas White Lord Mayor of London in the year 1553. being the first year of the Queen who in the place where formerly stood an old House or Hostel commonly called Barnards Inne erected a new College by the name of St. John Baptists College consisting of a President fifty Fellows and Scholars besides some Officers and Servants which belonged to the Chapel the vacant places to be filled for the most part out of the Merchant Taylors School in London of which Company he had been free before his Mayoralty A College founded as it seems in a lucky hour affording to the Church in less than the space of eighty years no fewer than two Archbishops and four Bishops that is to say Doctor William Laud the most renowned Archbishop of Canterbury of whom more else-where Doctor Tobiâ— Matthews the most reverend Archbishop of York Doctor William Juxon Bishop of London and Lord Treasurer Doctor John Bucheridge Bishop of Elie Doctor Rowâ—and Serchfield Bishop of Bristol Doctor Boyl Bishop of Cork in the Realm of Ireland Had it not been for these Foundations there had been nothing in this Reign to have made it memorable but onely the calamities and misfortunes of it ECCLESIA RESTAVRATA OR THE HISTORY OF THE REFORMATION of the CHURCH OF ENGLAND CONTAINING The Beginning Progress and Successes of it the Counsels by which it was conducted the Rules of Piety and Prudence upon which it was Founded the several Steps by which it was promoted or retarded in the Change of Times FROM The first Preparations to it by King HENRY the Eight untill the Legal Settling and Establishment of it under Queen ELIZABETH TOGETHER With the Intermixture of such Civil Actions and Affairs of State as either were Co-incident with it or related to it BY PETER HEYLYN LONDON Printed for H. Twyford T. Dring J. Place W. Palmer to be sold in Vine-Court Middle-Temple the George in Fleet-street Furnival 's Inne-Gate in Holborn and the Palm-Tree in Fleet-street MDCLXI To the Most Sacred MAJESTY OF KING CHARLES THE SECOND Most Gracious Sovereign IT was an usual Saying of King JAMES Your Majestie 's most Learned Grand-Father of Blessed Memory that Of all the Churches in the World He knew not any which came nearer to the Primitive Pattern for Doctrine Government and Worship then the Reformed Church of England A Saying which He built not upon Fancy and Affection onely but on such Just and Solid Reasons as might sufficiently endear it to all Knowing Men. The Truth and Certainty whereof will be made apparent by the following History which here in all Humility is offered to Your Majestie 's View It is Dread Sir an History of the Reformation of the Church of ENGLAND with all the Various Fortunes and Successes of it from the first Agitations in Religion under HENRY the Eight which served for a Preamble thereunto until the Legal Settling and Establishment of it by the great Queen ELIZABETH of Happy Memory A Piece not to be Dedicated to any other then Your Sacred Majesty who being rais'd by God to be a Nursing-Father to this part of His Church may possibly discharge that Duty with the Greater Tenderness when You shall finde upon what Rules of Piety and Christian Prudence the Work was carryed on by the first Reformers Which being once found it will be no hard matter to determine of such Means and Counsels whereby the Church may be restored to her Peace and Purity from which She is most miserably fallen by our late Distractions It cannot be denyed but that some Tares grew up almost immediatly with the Wheat it self and seem'd so specious to the Eye in the Blade or Stalk that they were taken by some Credulous and Confiding Men for the better Grain But still they were no more then Tares distinguished easily in the Fruits the Fruits of Errour and False Doctrine of Faction Schism Disorder and perhaps Sedition from the LORD' 's good Seed And being of an aâ—ter sowing a Supersemination as the Vulgar reads it and sown on purpose by a Cunning and Industrious Enemy to raise an Harvest to himself they neither can pretend to the same Antiquity and much less to the Purity of that Sacred Seed with which the Field was sown at first by the Heavenly Husband-man I leave the Application of this Parable to the following History and shall
and his Preaching before the King till March next following and then we may hear further of him And thus we have the first beginning of that Opposition which hath continued ever since against the Liturgie it self the Cap and Surplice and other Rites and Vsages of the Anglican Church Which Differences being thus begun were both fomented and increased by the Pragmaticalness of John à Lasco Opposite both in Government and Forms of Worship if not perhaps in Doctrine also to the Church of England For John à Lasco not content to enjoy those Privileges which were intended for the use of those Strangers onely so far abused His Majestie 's goodness as to appear in favour of the Zuinglian or Calvinian Faction which then began more openly to shew it self against the Orders of the Church For first he publisheth a Book entituled Forma ratio totius Ecclesiastici Ministerii Wherein he maintains the Use of Sitting at the Holy Communion contrary to the Laudable Custome of the Church of England but much to the Encouragement of all those who impugned her Orders A Controversie unhappily moved by Bishop Hooper concerning the Episcopal Habit was presently propagated amongst the rest of the Clergy touching Caps and Surplices And in this 〈◊〉 John à Laâ—co must needs be one not onely countenancing those who refused to wear them but writing unto Martin Bucer to declare against them For which severely reprehended by that Moderate and Learned Man and all his Cavils and Objections very solidly Answered which being sent to him in the way of Letter was afterwards Printed and dispersed for keeping down that Opposite Humour which began then to overswell the Banks and threatned to bear all before it And by this Passage we may rectifie a Mistake or a Calumny rather in the Altare Damascenum The Authour whereof makes Martin Bucer Peremptory in refusing to wear the Square Cap when he lived in Cambridg and to give this simple Reason for it That he could not wear a Square Cap since his Head was Round But I note this onely by the way to shew the Honesty of those men which erected that Altar and return again to John à Lasco who being born in Poland where Sitting at the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper had been used by the Arians who looking no otherwise on Christ then their Elder Brother might think it was no Robbery at all to be equal with Him and sit down with Him at His Table what he learned there he desired might be Practiced here the better to conform this Church to the Polish Conventicles As for the other Controversie about Caps and Surplices though it found no Encouragement from Martin Bucer yet it received no small countenance from Peter Martyr For in a Letter of his of the first of July inscribed Vnto a nameless Friend who had desired his Judgement in it he first declares according to the very Truth That being indifferent in themselves they could make no man of themselves to be either Godly or Vngodly by the use or forbearance of them but then he addeth That He thinks it most Expedient to the Good of the Church that they and all others of that kind should be taken away when the next convenient Opportunity should present it self And then he gives this Reason for it That Where such Ceremonies were so stifly contended for which were not warranted and supported by the Word of God there commonly men were less sollicitous of the Substance of Religion then they were of the Circumstances of it But he might well have spared his Judgement which had so visibly appeared in his dayly Practice For he hath told us of himself in one of his Epistles bearing Date at Zurick the fourth of November 1559. being more then five years after he had left this Kingdom That He had never used the Surplice when he lived in Oxford though he were then a Canon of Christ-Church and frequently present in the Quire So that between the Authority of Peter Martyr on the one side and the Pragmaticalness of John à Lasco on the other many were drawn from their Obedience to the Rules of the Church for the time then present and a ground laid for more Confusions and Disturbances in the time to come The Regular Clergy in those days appeared not commonly out of their own Houses but in their Priests Coats with the Square Cap upon their Heads and if they were of Note and Eminency in their Gowns and Tippets This Habit also is decryed for Superstitious affirmed to be a Popish Attire and altogether as unfit for Ministers of the Holy Gospel as the Chimere and Rochet were for those who claimed to be the Successours of the Lord's Apostles So Tyms replyed unto Bishop Gardiner when being asked Whether a Coat with Stockings of divers Colours the upper part White and the nether-stock Russet in which Habit he appeared before him were a fit Apparel for a Deacon which Office he had exercised in this Church he sawcily made Answer That his Vesture did not so much vary from a Deacon's as his Lordships did from that of an Apostle The less to be admired in Tyms in that I finde the like aversness from that Grave and Decent Habit in some other men who were in Parts and Place above him For while this Controversie was on Foot between the Bishops and Clergy about wearing Priests-Caps and other Attire belonging to their Holy Order Mr. John Rogers one of the Prebends of Saint Paul's and Divinity-Reader of that Church then newly returned from beyond the Seas could never be perswaded to wear any other then the Round Cap when he went abroad And being further pressed unto it he declared himself thus That he would never agree to the point of Conformity but on this Condition that if the Bishops did require the Cap and Tipper c. then it should also be decreed that all Popish Priests for a Distinction between them and others should be constrained to wear upon their Sleeves a Chalice with an Host upon it The like aversness is by some ascribed also to Mr. John Philpot Arch-Deacon of Winchester not long before returned from beyond the Seas as the other was and sâ—ffering for Religion in Queen Marie's Days as the other did Who being by his place a Member of the Convocation in the first of Queen Mary and required by the Prolâ—cutour to come apparelled like the rest in his Gown and Tippet or otherwise to forbear the House chose rather to accept of the last Condition then to submit unto the former But there was some thing else in the first Condition which made him unwilling to accept it and that was That He must not speak but when he was commanded by the Prolocutour Which being so directly against the Customes of the House and the Privileges of each Member of it he had good reason rather to forbear his Presence then to submit himself and consequently all the rest of the Members to so
intercepted or molested by the Ships of England were Shipwracked as before was said on the Coast of Ireland Nothing else Memorable in this King's Reign which concerned that Kingdom and therefore I have lai'd it altogether in this Place and on this Occasion But we return again to England where we have seen a Reformation made in Point of Doctrine and settled in the Forms of Worship the Superstitions and corruptions of the Church of Rome entirely abrogated and all things rectified according to the Word of God and the Primitive Practice nothing defective in the Managing of so great a Work which could have been required by equal and impartial Men but that it was not done as they conceived it ought to have been done in a General Council But first we finde not any such Necessity of a General Council but that many Heresies had been suppressed and many Corruptions removed out of the Church without any such Trouble Saint Augustine in his fourth Book against the two Epistles of the Pelagians cap. 12. speaks very plainly to this Purpose and yet the Learned Cardinal though a great Stickler in behalf of General Councils speaks more plain then he By whom it is affirrmed that for seven Heresies condemned in seven General Councils though by his leave the seventh did not so much suppress as advance an Heresie an huudred had been quashed in National and Provincial Councils The Practice of the Church in the several Councils of Aquilia Carthage Gangra Milevis c. make this plain enough all of them being Provincial or at least but National and doing their own Work without Help from others The Church had been in an ill Condition had it been otherwise especially under the Power of the Heathen Emperours when such a Confluence of the Prelats from all Parts of the World would have been construed a Conspiracy against the State and drawn Destruction on the Church and the Persons both Or granting that they might assemble without any such Danger yet being great Bodies moving slowly and not without long time and many Difficulties and Disputes to be rightly Constituted the Church would suffer more under such Delay by the spreading of Heresie then receive Benefit by this Care to suppress the same So that there neither is or can be any such Necessity either in Order to the Reformation of a National Church or the Suppressing of particular Heresies as by the Objectours is supposed Howsoever taking it for granted that a General Council is the best and safest Physick that the Church can take on all Occasions of Epidemical Distempers yet must it be granted at such times and in such Cases onely when it may conveniently be had For where it is not to be had or not had conveniently it will either prove to be no Physick or not worth the taking But so it was at the time of the Reformation that a General Council could not conveniently be assembled and more then so it was impossible that any such Council should assemble I mean a General Council rightly called and constituted according to the Rules lai'd down by our Controversers For first they say It must be called by such as have Power to do it Secondly That it must be intimated to all Christian Churches that so no Church nor People may plead Ignorance of it Thirdly That the Pope and the four chief Patriarchs must be present at it either in person or by Proxie And lastly That no Bishop be excluded if he be known to be a Bishop and not Eâ—xcommunicated According to which Rules it was impossible I say that any General Council should be assembled at the time of the Reformation oâ— the Church of England It was not then as when the chief four Patriarchs together with their Metropolitan and Suffragan Bishops were under the Protection of the Christian Emperours and might without Danger to themselves or to their Churches obey the Intimation and attend the Service the Patriarchs with their Metropolitans and Suffragans both then and now languishing under the Power and Tyranny of the Turk to whom so general a Confluence of Christian Bishops must needs give matter of Suspicion of just Fears and Jealousies and therefore not to be permitted as far as he can possibly hinder it on good Reason of State And then besides it would be known by whom such a General Council was to be assembled if by the Pope as generally the Papists say He and his Court were looked on as the greatest Grievance of the Christian Church and it was not probable that he should call a Council against himself unless he might have leave to pack it to govern it by His own Legats fill it with Titular Bishops of His own creating or send the Holy Ghost to them in Cloak-Bag as he did to Trent If joyntly by all Christian Princes which is the Common Tenent of the Protestant Scholes what Hopes could any man conceive as the Times then were that they should lay aside their particular Interesses to enter all together upon one design Or if they had agreed about it what Power had they to call the Prelats of the East to attend the Business and to protect them for so doing at their going home So that I look upon the hopes of a General Council I mean a General Council rightly called and constituted as an empty Dream The most that was to be expected was but a meeting of some Bishops of the West of Europe and those but of one Party onely as such were excommunicated and that might be as many as the Pope should please being to be excluded by the Cardinal's Rule Which how it may be called an Oecumenical or General Council unless it be a Topical-Oecâ—menical a Particular-General as great an Absurdity in Grammar as a Romaeu-Catholick I can hardly see Which being so and so no question but it was either the Church must have continâ—ed without Reformation or else it must be lawfull for National particular Churches to Reform themselves And in that case the Church may be Reformed per partes part after part Province after Province as is said by Gerson Further then which I shall not enter into this Dispute this being enough to Justifie the Church of England from doing any thing Unadvisedly Unwarrantably or without Example That which remains in Reference to the Progress of the Reformation concerns as well the Nature as the Number of such Feasts and Fastâ— as were thought fit to be retained Determined and Concluded on by an Act of Parliament to which the Bishops gave their Vote but whether Predetermined in the Convocation must be left as doubtfull In the Preamble to which Act it is Declared That At all times men are not so mindfull of performing those Publick Christian Duties which the true Religion doth require as they ought to be and therefore it hath been wholesomly provided that for calling them to their Duties and for helping their Infirmities that some certain Times and Days should be appointed wherein
rather to their condemnation do eat and drink the Sign or Sacrament of so great a thing XXX Of Both Kinds 32 The Cup of the Lord is not to be denyed to the Lay People For both the parts of the Lords Sacrament by Christs Ordinance and Commandment ought to be ministred to all Christian People alike _____ XXX Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Crosse. The Offering of Christ once made is the perfect Redemption Propitiation and Satisfaction for all the sins of the whole World both Original and Actual and there is none other Satisfaction for sin but that alone Wherefore the Sacrifices of Masses in which it was commonly said that the Priests did offer Christ for the quick and the dead to have remission of pain or guilt were fables and dangerous deceits XXXI Of the one Oblation of Christ finished upon the Crosse. The offering of Christ once made is the perfect Redemption c. were blasphemous fables and 33 dangerous deceits XXXI A single Life is imposed on none by the Word of God Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by God's Law either to vow the estate of a single life or to abstain from Marriage XXXII Of the Marriage of Priests Bishops Priests and Deacons are not commanded by Gods Law c. Therefore it is lawful also for them 34 as for all other Christian men to marry at their own discretion as they shall judge the same to serve better to godlinesse XXXII Excommunicated Persons are to be avoided That person which by open Denunciation of the Church is rightly cut off from the unity of the Church and Excommunicated ought to be taken of the whole multitude of the faithful as an Heathen and Publican untill he be openly reconciled by Penance and received into the Church by a Judge which hath authority thereunto XXXIII Of Excommunicated Persons how they are to be avoided That person which by open Denunciation of the Church c. XXXIII Of the Traditions of the Church It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies be in all places one and utterly like for at all times they have been divers and may be changed according to the diversities of Countries Times and mens Manners so that nothing be ordained against Gods Word Whosoever through his private judgment willingly and purposely doth openly break the Traditions and Ceremonies of the Church which be not repugnant to the Word of God and be ordained and approved by common Authority ought to be rebuked openly that others may fear to do the like as he that offendeth against the common Order of the Church and hurteth the Authority of the Magistrate and woundeth the Consciences of the weak Brethren XXXIV Of the Traditions of the Church It is not necessary that Traditions and Ceremonies c. Every particular or National Church 35 hath Authority to ordain change or aboâ—ish Ceremonies or Rites of the Church ordained onely by Man's Authority so that all things be done to edifying XXXIV Of the Homilies The Homilies lately delivered 36 and commended to the Church of England by the Kings Injunctionâ— do contain a godly and wholsome Doctrine and fit to be embraced by all men and for that cause they are diligently plainly and distinctly to be read to the People XXXV Of Homilies The second Book of Homilies the several Titles whereof we have joyned under this Article doth contain a godly and wholsome Doctrin and necessary for the times as doth the former Book of Homilies which were set forth in the time of Edward the sixth and therefore we judge them to be read in Churches by the Ministers diligently and distinctly that they may be understood of the People The names of the Homilies Of the Right use of the Church Of Repairing Churches Against the Peril of Idolatry Of Good Works c. XXXV Of the Book of Common Prayer and other Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England The Book lately delivered to the Church of England by the Authority of the King and Parliament 37 containing the manner and form of publick Prayer and the ministration of the Sacraments in the said Church of England as also the Book published by the same Authority for Ordering Ministers in the Church are both of them very pious as to â—uth of Doctrine in nothing contrary but agreeable to the wholsome Doctrine of the Gospel which they do very much promote and illustrate And for that cause they are by all faithful Members of the Church of England but chiefly of the Ministers of the Word with all thankfulness and readiness of mind to be received approved and commended to the People of God XXXVI Of Consecration of Bishops and Ministers The Book of Consecration of 38 Archbishops and Bishops and ordering of Priests and Deacons lately set forth in the time of King Edward the sixth and confirmed at the same time by Authority of Parliament doth contain all things necessary to such Consecration and Ordering Neither hath it any thing that of it self is superstitious and ungodly And therfore whosoever are Consecrated or ordered according to the Rites of that Book since the second year of the afore-named King Edward unto this time or hereafter shall be Consecrated or ordered according to the same Rites we decree all such to be rightly orderly and lawfully Consecrated and Ordered XXXVI Of the Civil Magistrates The King of England is after Christ 39 the Supream Head on Earth of the Church of England and Ireland The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Civil Magistrate is ordained and approved by God and therefore are to be obeyed not onely for fear of wrath but for conscience sake Câ—vil or temporal Laws may punish Christian men with death for heinous and grievous offences It is lawful for Christian men at the commandment of the Magistrate to wear Weapons and serve in the Wars XXXVII Of the Civil Magistrates The Queens Majesty hath the chief Power in this Realm of England and other her Dominions unto whom the chief Government of all Estates of this Realm whether they be Ecclesiastical or Civil in all cases doth appertain and is not nor ought to be subject to any Forein Jurisdiction Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government 40 by which Titles we understand the minds of some slanderous folks to be offended We give not to our Princess the Ministry either of Gods Word or of the Sacraments the which thing the Injunctions lately set forth by Elizabeth our Queen do most plainly testifie but that onely Prerogative which we see to have been given always to all godly Princes in holy Scriptutes by God himself that is that they should rule all Estates committed to their charge by God whether they be Ecclesiastical or Temporal and restrain with the Civil Sword the stubborn and evil doers The Bishop of Rome hath no Jurisdiction in this Realm of England The Laws of this Realm may punish Christian men with death
of Worcester to which See 〈◊〉 Day and Heath were again restored The like course also followed for the depriving of all Deaâ—â— Dâ—gnâ—â—â—â—â—â—s and Parochial Ministers who had succeeded into any of those preâ—erments during the Reign of the two last Kings the old incumbeâ—ts whereof were then â—ound living and able to supply their places Which though it could not be objected against Dr Cox either in râ—ference to his Deâ—nry of â—hrist Church or that of 〈◊〉 both which he held at the same time yet being brought unto the Marshalâ—ey on the 5th of 〈◊〉 he was unjustly spoiâ—ed of both to make room for Dr Richard Marshall in the one and Dt Hugh Weston in the other And all this done without so much as any shew of legal processe or the conventing of the persons whom it did concern or any satisfaction given unto the Laws which in some cases favour possession more than right so strangely violated But greater was the havock which was made amongst them when there was any colour or pretence of Law as in the case of having wives or not conforming to the Queens pleasure in all points of Religion conâ—idering how forward and pragmatical too many were to run before the Laws in the like particular The Queen was zealous in her way and by her interesse strongly byassed to the Church of Rome But it concerned her to be wary and not to presse too much at once upon the people which generally were well affected to the Reformation Of this she had a stout experiment within very few dayes after her first entrance into London For so it hapned that Dr Bourn Arch-Deacon of London and one of the Prebends of St Paul's preaching a Sermon at the Crosse on the 13th of August inveighed in favour of Bishop Bonner who was present at it against some proceedings in the time of the late King Edward Which so incensed the people that suddenly a great tumult arose upon it some pelting him with stones others crying out aloud pull him down pull him down and one who never could be known flinging a dagger at his head which after was found sticking in a post of the Pulpit And greater had the mischief been upon this occasion if Mr Bradford and Mr Rogers two eminent Preachers in the time of King Edward and of great credit and esteem with the common people had not endeavoured to appease the enraged multitude and with great difficulty secured the Preacher in the School adjoining By reason of which tumult an Order was taken by the Lords of the Counâ—il with the mayor and Aldermen of London that they calling the next day following a Common Council of the City should thereby charge every housholder to cause their children and Apprentices to keep their own Parish Churches upon the Holy dayes and not to suffer them to attempt any thing to the violating of the common peace Willing them also to signifie to the said Assembly the Queens determination uttered to them by her Highnesse the 12th of August in the Tower Which was that albeit her Grace's conscience was staid in matters of Religion yet she gratiously meant to compel or strain other mens otherwise than God should as she trusted put into their hearts a perswasion of that truth which she was in through the opening of his word unto them by godly vertuous and learned Preachers that is to say such Preachers only as were to be hereafter licenced by the Queen's authority But yet for fear that these instructions might not edifie with the common people Order was taken for preventing the like tumult on the Sunday following At what time the Sermon was preached by Dr Watson who afterwards was Bishop of Lincoln but Chaplain only at that time to the Bishop of Winchester For whose security not only many of the Lords of the Council that is to say the Lord Treasurer the Lord Privy Seal the Earl of Bedford the Earl of Pembrook the Lords Wentworth and Rich were severally desired to be there present but Gerningham Captain of the Guard was appointed with two hundred of his stourest Yeomen to stand round about him with their Halberts The Mayor had also taken Order that all the Companies in their Liveries should be present at it which was well taken by the Queen And because the comming of the Guard on the one side affrighted some and the Order of the Lords above mentioned had restrained others from comming to those publick Sermons it was commanded by the Lord Mayor that the Ancients of all Companies should give attendance at those Sermons for the time to come lest otherwise the Preachers might be discouraged at the sight of so thin an Auditory The safety of those publick Preachers being thus provided for by the Lords of the Council there next care was that nothing should be preached in private Churches contrary to the Doctrine which was and should be â—aughâ— at the Cross by them which were appointed to it Whereupon it was further Ordered that every Alderman in his Ward should forthwith send for the Curates of every Church within their Liberties and warn them not only to forbear preaching themselves but also not to suffer any other to preach or make any open or solemn reading of Scripture in their Churches unless the said Preachers were severally licensed by the Queen To which purpose Letters were directed also to the Bishop of Norwich and possibly to all other Bishops in their several Diocesses But nothing more discovers the true state and temper of the present time than a Proclamation published by the Queen on the 18th of August The Tenor of which is as followeth The Queen's Highnesse well remembring what great inconvenience and dangers have grown to this her Reaâ—m in timesâ— past through the diversities of opinions in Questions of Religion and hearing also that now of late sithence the beginning of her most gratious Reign the same contentions be again much revived through certain false and untrue reports and rumoâ—rs spread by some evil-disposed persons hath thought good to give to understand to all Her Highnesse's most loving subjects her most grrtious pleasure in manner following First Her Majesty being presently by the only goodness of God setled in her just possession of the Imperial Crown of this Realm and other Dominions thereunto belonging cannot now hide that Religion which God and the world knoweth she hath ever proâ—essed from her infancy hitherto Which at her Majesty is minded to observe and maintain for her self by God's grace during her time so doth her Highness much desire and would be glad the some were of all her subjects quietly and charitably entertain'd And yet she doth signifie unto all her Majestie 's loving subjects that of Her most gratious disposition and clemency Her Highness mindeth not to â—ompel any Her said subjects thereunto until such time as further Order by common assent may be taken therein Forbidding nevertheless all her subjects of all degrees at their perils to move seditions or stir
grave and buried in a common dunghil About the same time also such strangers as were gathered together into the Church of John Alasco not only were necessitated to forbear their meetings but to dissolve their Congregation and to quit the Countrey Such a displeasure was conceived against them by those which governed the affairs that it was no small difficulty for them to get leave for their departure and glad they were to take the opportunity of two Danish ships and to put themselves to sea in the beginning of winter fearing more storms in England than upon the Ocean And so farwel to John Alasco It was an ill wind which brought him hit her and worse he could not have for his going back The like haste made the French Protestants also And that they might have no pretence for a long stay command was sent unto the Mayor of Rie and Dâ—ver on the 16th of September to suffer all French Protestants to cross the seas except such only whose names should be signified unto them by the French Ambassadors But notwithstanding these removes many both Dutch and French remained still in the Kingdom some of which being after found in Wiat's Army occasioned the banishing of all the rest except Denizens and Merchants only by a publick Edict At which time many of the English departed also as well Students as others to the number of 300. or thereabouts hoping to find that freedome and protection in a forein Country which was denied them in their own The principal of those which put themselves into this voluntary exile were Katherine the last wife of Charls Brandon Duke of Suffoâ—k Robert Bertye Esquire husband to the Dutchess the Bishops of Winchester and Wells Sir Richard Morison Sir Anthony Cook and Sir John Cheek Dr Cox Dr Sanays and Dr Grindall and divers others of whom we shall hear more hereafter on another occasion Of all these things they neither were not could be ignorant in the Court of Rome to which the death of Edward had been swiftly posted on the wings of fame The newes of the succession of Queen Mary staid not long behind so much more welcome to Pope Julius 3d. who then held that See because it gave him some assurance of his re-admission into the power and jurisdiction of his predecessors in the Realm of England For what less was to be expected considering that she was brought up in the Catholick Religion interessed in the respects of her mother and Cosen in the first degree unto Charles the Emperour In the pursuance of which hopes it was resolved that Cardinal Pole should be sent Legate into England who being of the Royal blood a man of eminent learning and exemplary life was looked on as the fittest instrument to reduce that Kingdome The Cardinal well knowing that he stood attainted by the Lawes of the Land and that the name of Henry was still preserved in estimation amongst the people thought it not safe to venture thither before he fully understood the state of things He therefore secretly dispatcheth Commendonius a right trusty Minister by whom he writes a private Letter to the Queen In which commending first her perseverance in Religion in the time of her troubles he exhorteth her to a continuance in it in the days of her happiness He recommended also to her the salvation of the souls of her people and the restitution of the true worship of God Commendonius having diligently inform'd himself of all particulars found means of speaking with the Queen By whom he understood not only her own good affections to the See Apostolick but that she was resolved to use her best endeavours for re-establishing the Religion of the Church of Rome in all her Kingdomes Which being made known unto the Cardinal he puts himself into the voyage The newes whereof being brought to Charls who had his own design apart from that of the Pope he signified by Dandino the Pope's Nuncio with him that an Apostolick Legate could not be sent into England as affairs then stood either with safety to himself or honour to the Church of Rome and therefore that he might do well to defer the journy till the English might be brought to a better temper But the Queen knowing nothing of this stop and being full of expectation of the Cardinals coming had called a Parliament to begin on the 10th of October In which she made it her first Act to take away all Statutes passed by the two last Kings wherein certain offences had been made High Treason and others brought within the compass of a Premunire And this she did especially for Pole's security that neither he by exercising his Authority nor the Clergy by submitting to it might be intangled in the like snares in which Cardinal Wolsie and the whole Clergy of his time had before been caught It was designed also to rescind all former Statutes which had been made by the said two Kings against the jurisdiction of the Pope the Doctrine and Religion of the Church of Rome and to reduce all matters Ecclesiastical to the same estate in which they stood in the beginning of the Reign of the King her Father But this was looked upon by others as too great an enterprise to be attempted by a woman especially in a green estate and amongst people sensible of those many benefits which they enjoyed by shaking off their former vassalage to a forein power It was advised therefore to proceed no further at the present than to repeal all Acts and Statutes which had been made in derogation to the Doctrine of the Church of Rome in the time of her brother which being passed in his minority when all affairs were carried by faction and strong hand contrary to the judgement of the best and soundest part of the Clergy and Laity might give a just pretence for their abrogation till all particulars might be considered and debated in a lawful Synod According to which temperament the point was carried and the Act pass'd no higher than for Repeaâ—ing certain Statutes of the time of King Edward by which one blow she felled down all which had been done in the Reformation in seven years before For by this Act they took away all former Statutes for Administring the Communion in both kinds for establishing the first and second Liturgie for confirming the new Ordinal or form of consecrating Archbishops and Bishops c. for abrogating certain Fasts and Feastivals which had been formerly observed for authorizing the marriage of Priests and Legitimation of their children not to say any thing of that Statute as not worth the naming for making Bishops by the King's Letters Patents and exercising their Episcopal jurisdiction in the King's name only So that upon the matter not only all things were reduced to the same estate in which they stood at Edward's coming to the Crown but all those Bishops and Priests which had maried by authority of the former Statutes were made uncanonical and consequently obnoxious to
in the Latin tougue 12. That all such holy-dayes and fasting-dayes be observed and kept as were observed and kept in the latter time of King Henry the 8. h. 13. That the laudable and honest Ceremonies which were wont to be used frequented and observed in the Church be hereafter frequented used and observed and that children be Christned by the Priest and confirmed by the Bishop as heretoâ—â—â—e hath been accustoâ—ed and used 14. Touching such persons as were heretofore promoted to any Orders after the new sort and 〈◊〉 of Oâ—ders considering they were not Ordered in very deed the Bishop of the Diocesse finding otherwise sufficient ability in these men may supply that thing which wanted in them before then according to his discretion admit them to minister 15. That by the Bishop of the Diocesse an uniform doctrine be set forth by Homâ—lies or otherwise for the good instruction and teaching of all people And that the said Bishop and other persons aforesaid do compel the parishioners to come to their several Churches and there devoutly to hear divine Service as of reason they ought 16. That they examine all Schoolmasters and Teachers of children and finding them suspect in any wise to remove them and place Catholick men in their rooms with a special commandment to instruct their children so as they may be able to answer the Priest at the Masse and so help the Priest at Masse as hath been accustomed 17. That the said Bishops and all other the persons aforesaid have such regard respect and consideration of and for the setting forth of the premises with all kind of vertue godly living and good example with repressing also or keeping under of vicâ— and unthriftinesse as they and every of them may be seen to favour the restitution of 〈◊〉 Religion and also to make and honest account and reckoning of their office and câ—re to the honour of God Our good contentation and profit of this Our Realm and the Dominions of the same The generality of the people not being well pleased before with the Queen's proceedings were startled more than ever at the noise of these Articles none more exasperated than those whose either hands or hearts had been joyned with Wiat. But not being able to prevail by open army a new device is found out to befool the people and bring them to a misconceit of the present government A young maid called Elizabeth Crofts about the age of eighteen years was tutored to counterfeit certain speeches in the wall of a house not far from Aldersgate where she was heard of many but seen of none and that her voice might be conceived to have somewhat in it more than ordinary a strange whistle was devised for her out of which her words proceeded in such a tone as seemed to have nothing mortal in it And thereupon it was affirmed by some of the people great multitudes whereof resorted dayly to the place that it was an Angel or at least a voice from Heaven by others that it could be nothing but the Holy Ghost but generally she pass'd by the name of the Spirit in the wall For the interpreting of whose words there wanted not some of the confederates who mingled themselves by turns amongst the rest of the people and taking on them to expound what the Spirit said delivered many dangerous and seditious words against the Queen her mariage with the Prince of Spain the Mass Confession and the like The practice was first set on foot on the 14th of March which was within ten days after the publishing of the Articles and for a while it went on fortunately enough according to the purpose of the chief contrivers But the abuse being searched into and the plot discovered the wench was ordered to stand upon a scaffold neer St Paul's Cross on the 15th of July there to abide during the time of the Sermon and that being done to make a publick declaration of that lewd imposture Let not the Papists be from henceforth charged with Elizabeth Barton whom they called the Holy made of Kent since now the Zuinglian Gospellers for I cannot but consider this as a plot of theirs have raised up their Elizabeth Crofts whom they called the Spirit in the wall to draw aside the people from their due Allegiance Wiat's Rebellion being quenched and the Realm in a condition capable of holding a Parliament the Queen Convenes her Lords and Commons on the 2d of April in which Session the Queens mariage with the Prince of Spain being offered unto consideration was finally concluded and agreed unto upon these conditions that is to say That Philip should not advance any to any publick office or dignity in England but such as were Natives of the Realm and the Queens subjects That he should admit of a set number of English in his houshold whom he should use respectively and not suffer them to be injured by foreiners That he should not transport the Queen out of England but at her intreaty nor any of the issue begotten by her who should have their education in this Realm and should not be suffered but upon necessity and good reasons to go out of the same not then neither but with the consent of the English That the Queen deceasing without children Philip should not make any claim to the Kingdom but should leave it freely to him to whom of right it should belong That he should not change any thing in the Lawes either publick or private nor the immunities and customes of the Realm but should be bound by oath to confirm and keep them That he should not transport any Jewels nor any part of the Wardrobe nor alienate any of the revenues of the Crown That he should preserve our Shipping Ordnance and Muâ—ition and keep the Castles Forts and Block Houses in good repair and well maned Lastly That this Match should not any way derogate from the League lately concluded between the Queen and the King of France but that the peace between the English and the French should remain firm and inviolate For the clearer carrying on this great business and to encourage them for the performance of such further services as her occasions might require the Queen was pleased to increase the number of her Barons In pursuance whereof she advanced the Lord William Howard Cosen German to Thomas Duke of Norfolk to the Title of Lord Howard of Essingham on the 11th of March and elected him into the Order of the Garter within few months after whose son called Charls being Lord Admiral of England and of no small renown for his success at the Isle of Gades was by Queen Elizabeth created Earl of Nottingham Anno 1589. Next to him followed Sir John Williams created Lord Williams of Tame on the 5th of April who dying without Issue Male left his Estate though not his Honors betwixt two daughters the eldest of whom called Margaret was married to Sir Henry Norris whom Queen Elizabeth created Lord Norris of
Lord Mayor of that City And that from thenceforth all such censures as concerned Tithes might be heard and determined by the Ordinary as in other places To all which Propositions the Bishops cheerfully consented and so adjurned the Convocation from St. Pauls to Westminster that they might have the better opportunity of consulting the Lord-Cardinal in the businesse of whom it was no hard matter to obtain the second and by his power to secure the Clergy in the first but as for the removall of the Cognisance of the London Tithes from the Lord Mayor unto the Bishops there was nothing done that Statute still remaining as before it did to the continual impoverishing and vexation of the City Clergy Nothing else memorable in this Convocation but the comming in of the two new Bishops which had never voted there before Purefew the Bishop of St. Asaph being translated unto Hereford in the former year had made such havock of the Patrimony of the Church of St. Asaph that it lay void above a twelve month before any became Suter for it But being a Bishoprick though impoverished and consequently a step to some richer preferment it was desired and accepted by Mr. Thomas Goldnel a right zealous Romanist consecrated Bishop hereof in the beginning of October Anno 1555. not many days before the opening of the Parliament and Convocation And being Bishop here he procured many Indulgences and other Graces from the Pope then being for all such persons of each sex as went on Pilgrimage or for health to St. Winifrids Well The like havock had been made of the Lands and Patrimony of the Church of Bangor by Buckley the present Bishop of it preferred unto this See Anno 1541. and continuing on it till this year who not content to alienate the Lands and weaken the Estate thereof resolved to rob it of its Bells for fear perhaps of having any Knell rung out at the Churches Funetal And not content to sell the Bells which were five in number he would needs satisfie himself with seeing them conveyed on shipboard and had searce given himself that satisfaction but he was pâ—esently struck blind and so continued from that time to the day of his death To whom succeeded Doctor William Glyn a Cambridge man but one of the Disputants at Oxford who received his Episcopal Consecration if I guesse aright on the same day with Bishop Goldneâ— And now it will be time to look back on Cranmer whom we left under a Citation to the Court of Rome without which nothing could be done for by an antient privilege no Judgment could be past upon the person of a Metropolitan before the Pope have taken cognisance of the cause and eighty days had seemingly been given to Crâ—nmer for making his appearance in the Court of Rome And though the Pope knew well enough as well the Archbishops readiness to appear before him if he were at liberty as the impossibility of making any such appearance as the case then stood yet at the end of the said eighty days he is pronounced by the Pope to be contumacious and for his contuâ—acy to be Degraded Excommunicated and finally delivered over to the Secular Magistrate According unto which Decree a second Commission is directed to Edmond Bonner Bishop of London and Thâ—mas Thoriby Bishop of Ely to proceed to the Degradation of the said Archbishop In which Commission it was said with most horrible falshood That all things had been so indifferently examined in the Court of Rome that is to say as well the Articles laid unto his charge as the Answers which he made unto them together with the Allegations Witnesses and Defences made or produced by the Counsel on either side so that nothing had been wanting which was necessary to his just defence According to which supposition the said two Bishops being commanded to proceed against him caused him to be Degraded on the 14 th of February notwithstanding that he appealed from the Pope and them to a General Council and caused the said Appeal to be drawn and offered in due form of Law During the interval between his degradation and the time of his death great pains was taken by some learned men in the University to perswade him to a Retractation of his former Opinions in which unhappy undertaking no man prevailed so far as a Spanish Ftier by whom it was suggested to him How acceptable it would be to the King and Queen how pleasing to the Lords who most dearly loved him and how gainfull to himself in regard both of his soul and his temporal being assuring him or at least putting him in good hope that he should not onely have his life but be restored again to his antient dignity and that there should be nothing in the Realm which the Queen would not easily grant him whether it pleased him to make choice of Riches and Honors or otherwise should desire the sweet retirements of a private life without the charge and trouble of a publick Ministery and all this to be compassed without putting himself to any more pains than the subscribing of his name to a piece of paper which was made ready for his hand By these temptations and many others of the like alluring and deceitfull nature he suffered himself to be prevailed upon so far as to sign the Writing in which were briefly comprehended the chief points of Doctrine defended in the Church of Rome and by him formerly condemned both in publick and private The obtaining whereof occasioned great joy amongst the Papists and no lesse sorrow and astonishment in the hearts of those who cordially were affected to the Reformation But all this could not save him from being made a sacrifice to revenge and avarice The Queen had still a vindicative spirit against him for the injury which she conceived had been done to her mother and the Cardinal who hitherto had enjoyed the profits of the See of Canterbury as an usu-fructuary was altogether as solicitous for getting a right and title to them as the sole Proprietary No way to pacifie the one and satisfie the desires of the other but by bringing him when he least looked for it to the fatall Stake And to the fatall Stake they brought him on the 21 of March when he had for some time flattered himself in a conceit like the King of Amaleck that the bitternesse of deaâ—h was past Finding the contrary he first retracts his Retractarion and after punisheth that hand which had subscribed it by holding it forth into the flame and suffering it to be consumed before the rest of his body had felt the fire The residue of his body being burnt to ashes his heart was found entire untouched in the midst of the sinders Which possibly may serve as a witnesse for him that his heart stood fast unto the Truth though with his hand he had subscribed some Popish Errors Which whether it were done out of human frailty on the hope of life or out of a
vain about it In these distractions some of the Franckfort Schismaticks desire that all divine Offices might be executed according to the order of the Church of Geneva which Knox would by no means yield unto thinking himself as able to make a Rule for his own Congregation as any Calvin of them all But that the mouths of those of Stralsburge and Zuriâ—k might be stopped for ever he is content to make so much use of him as by the authority of his judgment to disgrace that Liturgy which those of Zurick did contend for He knew well how he had bestirred himself in quarrelling the first Liturgy of King Edward the 6th and nothing doubteth but that the second though reviewed on his importunity would give him as little satisfaction as the other did To this intent the Order of the English Liturgy is drawn up in Latine transmitted to him by Knox and Whittingham by this infallible judgment to stand or fall The Oracle returns this answer on the 31 of January In Liturgia Anglâ—cana qualem mihi describitis multas vidâ—o tolerabiles ineptias That in the Book of England as by them described he had observed many tolerable fooleries Whiâ—h last words being somewhat ambiguous as all Oracles are he explicates himself by telling them That there wanted much of that purity which was to be desired in it that it contained many relicks of the dregs of Popery that being there was no manifest impiety in it it had been tolerated for a season because at first it could not otherwise be admitted But howsoever though it was lawful to begin with such beggarly rudiments yet it behoved the learned grave and godly Ministers of Christ to endeavour farther and set forth something more refined from filth and rustinesse This being sent for his determinate sentence unto Knox and Whittingham was of such prevalency with all the rest of that party that such who â—ormerly did approve did afterwards as much dislike the English Liturgy and those who at the first had conceived onely a dislike grew afterwards into an open detestation of it Those who before had been desirous that the Order of Geneva should be entertained had now drawn Knox and Whittingham unto them Mr. John Fox the Author of the Acts and Monuments contributing his approbation amongst the rest But in the end to give content to such as remained affected to the former Liturgy it was agreed upon That a mixt Form consisting partly of the Order of Geneva and partly of the Book of England should be digested and received till the first of April consideration in the mean time to be had of some other course which should be permanent and obliging for the time to come In this condition of affairs Doctor Richard Cox the late Dean of Christ-Church and Westminster first Schoolmaster and after Almoner to King Edward the sixth putteth himself into Franckfort March 13. accompanied with many English Exiles whom the cause of Religion had necessitated to forsake their Country Being a man of great learning of great authority in the Church and one that had a principal hand in drawing up the Liturgy by Law established he could with no patience endure those innovations in it or rather that rejection of it which he found amongst them He thereupon first begins to answer the Minister contrary to the Order there agreed on and the next Sunday after causeth one of his company to go into the Pulpit and read the Letany Against which doings of his Knox in a Sermon the same day inveigheth most bitterly affirming many things in the Book of England not onely to be imperfect but superstitious For the which he is not onely rebuked by Cox but forbidden to preach Wherewith Whittingham being much offended deals with some of the Magistrates from whom he procureth an Order of the 22 of March requiring That the English should conform themselves to the Rules of the French Knox had not long before published a seditious Pamphlet entituled An Admonition to Christians containing the substance of some Sermons by him preached in Engâ—and in one of which he affirmed the Emperor to be no lesse an enemy to Christ that the â—yrant Nero. For this and several other passages of the like dangerous nature he is accused by Cox for Treason against the Emperor the Senate made acquainted with it and Knox commanded thereupon to depart the City who makes hâ—s Farewel-Sermon on the 25th of March and retires himself unto Geneva Following his blow Cox gets an order of the Senate by the means of another of the Glaâ—berges by which Whittingham and the rest of his faction were commanded to receive the Book of England Against which order Whiâ—tingham for a time opposeth encouraged therein by Goodman who for the love of Knox with whom afterwards he associated in all his practices had left the grave soâ—iety of those of Stralsbâ—rge to joyn himself unto the Sectaries of 〈…〉 But finding Cox to be too strong for them in the Senate both they and all the rest who refused conformity resolved to betake themselves to some other place as they shortly did Cox thus made Master of the field begins to put the Congregation into such order as might preserve the face and reputation of an English Church He procures Whitehead to be chosen for the principal Paâ—â—or appoints two Ministers for Elders and four Deacons for aâ—â—istants to him recommends Mr. Robert Horn whom he had drawn from Zurick thither to be Hebrew-Reader Mullings to read the Greek Lecture Trahern the Lecture in Divinity and Chambers to be Treasurer for the Contributions which were sent in from time to time by many godly and wellâ—affected persons both Dutch and English for the use of that Church Having thus setled all things answerable to his own desires he gives an account thereof to Calvin subscribed by fourteen of the chief men in that Congregation partly excusing themselves that they had proceeded so far without his consent and partly rejoycing that they had drawn the greatest part of that Church to their own opinions Calvin returns his Answer on the last of May which puts his party there on another project that is to say to have the whole business referred to some Arbitrators equally chosen on both sides But Cox was already in possession great in esteem with the chief Magistrates of the City and would by no means yield to refer that point which had already been determined to his advantage With these debates the time is taken up till the end of August at what time Whiâ—tingham and the rest of the faction take their leave of Franckfort Fox with some few others go to Basil but the main body to Geneva as their Mâ—ther-City where they make choice of Knox and Goodman for their constant Preachers under which Ministry they reject the whole frame and fabrick of the Reformation made in England conformed themselves wholly to the fashions of the Church of Geneva and therewith entertain
for a principal Aphorism that in like manner as God hath appointed the end it is necessary also that God should appoint the causes leading to the same end but more particularly that by vertue of God's will all things are done yea even those things which are evil and execrable In another book Entituled Against a privy Papist it is maintained more agreeably to Calvin's Doctrine That all evil springeth of Gods Ordinance and that Goâ—s predestination was the cause of Adam's fall and of all wickednesses And in a fourth book published by Robert Crowley who afterwards was Rector of the Church of St Giles's nere Cripple-gate Entituled The confutation of 13 Articles c. it is said expresly That Adam being so perfect a creature that there was in him no lust to sin and yet so weak that of himself he was not able to withstand the assault of the subtil Serpent that therefore there can be no remedy but that the only cause of his fall must needs be the predestination of God In which book it is also said That the most wicked persons that have been were of God appointed to be even as wicked as they were and finally that if God do predestinate man to do things rashly and without any deliberation he shall not deliberate at all but run headlong upon it be it good or evil By which defenders of the absolute decree of reprobation as God is made to be the Author of sin either in plain terms or undeniable consequence so from the same men and the Genevian Pamphlets by them dispersed our English Calvinists had borrowed all their grounds and principles on which they build the absolute and irrespective decree of Predestination contrary to the Doctrine publickly maintained and taught in the time of King Edward Anno Reg. Mar. 4. A. D. 1556 1557. IT is now time that we set sail again for England which we left flaming with the fire of Persecutions and the whole body of the State not a little inflamed with a spirit of treason and sedition the last ill spirit well allayed by the execution of the chief Conspirators the other fire not quenched by the blood of the Martyrs which rather served as oyle to nourish than as water to extinguish the outragiousness of it But the Queen hoped to salve the matter on her part by some works of piety as the restoring of such Church Lands as were in the Crown for the endowment of some new Convents of Moncks and Friers But first she thought it necessary to communicate her purpose unto some of the Council and therefore calling to her the Lord Treasurer Paulet Inglefield Master of the Wards Rochester Comptrouler of her Houshold and Master Secretary Peter who seemed to be most concerned in it by their several places she is said to have spoken to them in these following words Yâ—u are here oâ— Our Counsel and We have willed you to be be caâ—led to Us to the intent you might hear of me my conscience and the resolâ—tion of my mind concerning the Lanas and Possessions as well of Monasteries as of other Churches whatsoever being now presently in my possession First I do consider that the said Lands were taken away from the Churches aforesaid in time of Schism and that by unlawful means such as are contrary both to the Law of God and of the Church For the which cause my conscience doth not suffer me to detain them And therefore I here expresly refuse either to claim or retain the said Lands for mine but with all my heart freely and willingly without all paction or condition here and before God I do surrender and relinquish the said lanâ—s and possessions or inheritances whatsoever and do renounce the same with this mind and purpose that order and disposition thereof may be taken as shall seem best liking to our most holy Lord the Pope or else his Legate the Lord Cardinal to the honour of God and wealth of this our Realm And albeit you may obâ—ect to me again that conâ—idering the State of my Kingdom the dignity thereof and my Crown Imperial cannot be honourably maintained and furnished without the possessions aforesaid yet notwithstanding and so she had affirmed before when she was bent upon the restitution of the Tenths and first Fruits I set more by the salvation of my soul than by ten such Kingdomes and therefore the said possâ—ssiâ—ns I utterly refuse here to hold after that sort and title and give most hearty thanks to Almâ—ghâ—y God which hath given me an husband likewise minded with no lesse good affection in this behalf than I am my self Wherefore I charge and command that my Chancellor with whom I have conferred my mind in this matter befâ—re and you four to morrow do resort together to the most Reverend Lord Legate and do signifie to him the premises in my Name and give your attendance upon him for the more full declaration of the State of my Kingdom and of the aforesaid possessions accordingly as you your selves do understand the matter and can inform him in the same Upon this opening of her mind the Lords perceived it would be to no purpose to perswade the contrary and therefore thought it requisite to direct some course wherein she might satisfie her desires to her own great honour and yet not alienate too much at once of the publick Patrimony The Abby of Westminster had been founded in a Convent of Benedictines or black Monks by King Edward the Confessor valued at the suppression by King Henry the 8th at the yearly sum of 3977. pounds in good old rents Anno 1539. At what time having taken to himself the best and greatest part of the Lands thereof he founded with the rest a Collegiat Church consisting of a Dean and secular Canons Benson the last Abbot being made the first Dean of this new erection To Bâ—nson succeeded Dr Cox and to him was substituted Dr Weston in the first of this Queen And being preferred unto the place by her special favour 't was conceived to be no hard matter to perswade him to make a surrendry of his Church into the hands of the Queen that so it might return to its former nature and be erected into a Convent of Benedictines without any charge unto the Crown And this they thought would be the easier brought to pass because by the preferment of Dr Owen Oglâ—thorp to the See of Carlisle the Deanâ—y of Windsor would be void which was considered as a sufficient compensation if bestowed on Weston for his surrendry of the other But they found a greater difficulty in it than was first imagin'd Weston appearing very backward in conforming to the Queens desires partly out of a dislike which he had of the project he being one that never liked the profession of Monkery and partly out of an affection which he had to the place seated so opportunely for the Court and all publick businesses But at the last he yielded to that opportunity which
Church and whether any of them do say the divine Service or dâ— minister the Sacraments in the English tongue contrary to the usual order of the Church Of which sort also were the first of those touching the Laity viz. Whether any manner of persons of what estate degree or condition soever they be do hold maintain and affirm any Heresies Errors and erronious Opinions contrary to the Laws Ecclesiastical and the unity of the Catholick Church Which general Article was after branched into such particulars as concerned the Carnal presence of Christ in the Sacrament the reverent esteem thereof the despising of any of the Sacramentals and the decrying of Auricular Confession by the word or practice And somewhat also of this sort was the 17th Article by which it was enquired Whether any of the Priests or Clergy that having been married under the preâ—ence of Lawful Matrimony and since reconciled do privily resort to their pretended wives or that the said women do privily resort to them Nothing material or considerable in all the rest but what hath been in use and practice by all the Archbishops Bishops and other Ecclesiastical Judges in the Church of England since the first and best times of Queen Elizabeâ—h all of them seeming to have took their pattern from this reverend Prelate 's and to have precedented themselves by the Articles of his Visitation In two points onely he appeared to be somewhat singular and therefore found no followers in the times succeeding the first whereof was The Registring of the names of the Godfathers and Godmothers as well as of the child Baptized which why it should be laid aside I can see no reason the Rubrick of the Church allowing none to perform that office before they have received the holy Communion The second was an Enquiry whether the Parsons Vicars and Curats were diligent in teaching the Midwifes how to Christen children in time of necessity according to the Canons of the Church which seemed sufficiently necessary to be put in practice as long as Baptism was permitted to Midwives or any other persons not in holy Orders But though he seemed more favouâ—able than any of the rest of the Bishops towards those which were living he was content to exercise the utmost of his power upon those that were dead nor was he without hope that by the punishment and disgrace of those which were not sensible of eiâ—her he might be thought to manifest his greatest zeal towards the maintenance of the Doctrins of the Church of Rome as if he had inflicted the like censures on them when they were alive This prompts him to a Visitation of the University of Cambridge partly to rectifie the Statutes of it which in many points were thought to stand in need of a Reformation but principally to exercise some more than ordinary rigour on the dead bodies of Martin Bucer and Paulus Fagius Of these the first having been the publick Reader in Divinity in the time of King Edward was solemnly interred in the Church of St. Maries the other having been Hebrew-Reader at the same time also was buried in the Church of St. Michael In order to this Visitation he Delegates one Ormanete an Italian honored with the title of the Popes Daâ—ary Doctor Cuthbert Scot then newly consecrated Bishop of Chester Doctor Watson Mr. of St. John's College and Lord Elect of Lincoln and Doctor Christopherson Master of Trinity Colledge and Dean of Norwich Lord Elect of Chichester and Doctor Henry Cole Provost of Eaton College and Dean of St. Pauls With these were joyned as Commissioners Doctor Andrew Pern Master of Peterhouse and Vice-chancellor some Doctors of Divinity Sir James Dâ—er then the Recorder of the Town and certain others in the name of the King and Queen It must be some great business doubtlesse that must require so many hands and exercise the wits of so many persons Bishops Deans Doctors in Divinity Canonists common Lawyers Knights and Gentlemen But what the business was and how little it required such preparations we are next to see The Cardinals Commissioners came to Cambridge on the 9th of January where they found the rest ready to receive them and the next day they interdicted the two Churches above mentioned for daring to entertain the dead bodies of such desperate Hereticks I pretermit the eloquent speech made by Stoaks the University-Orator the Answer thereunto by Sâ—ot then Bishop of Chester the Latine Sermon preached by Peacock against Sects and Hereticks together with the Solemn Mass with which this weighty businesse was to take beginning Which preparations being past over a Petition is presented to the Cardinals Delegates in the name of the Vice-chancellor and Heads of the University for taking up the bodies of the said Martin Bucer and Panlus Faglus to the end that some legal proceedings might be had against them to the terrour of others in regard of those many dangerous and heretical Doctrines by them formerly taught The Petition being granted and the dead bodies condemned to be taken out of their graves a publick Citation is set up at St. Mary's Church the Market-place and the common Schools requiring the said Martin Bucer and Paulus Fagius or any other in their names or in their behalf to appear before the Lords Commissioners on Monday the 18th of that Month to answer to such Articles as then and there should be objected against them But the dead bones not being able to come unless they were carried and no body daring to appear as their Proctor or Advocate they might have been taken pro confessis but that the Court was willing to proceed by Witnesses and to that end they took the Depositions of several persons touching the Doctrine taught by the said two Hereticks and then upon mature deliberation they condemned them of Heresie ordered them to be taken out of their graves degraded from all holy Orders and delivered to the secular Magistrate Of all this an account is given to the Cardinal-Legat who is desired to take some course that the ordinary Writ de comburendo Haereticâ— for the burning of Hereticks might be taken out and sent unto the Mayor of Cambridge without which nothing could be done in order to the execution of the rest of the Sentence The Writ accordingly comes down and Saturday the sixth day of February is appointed for the burning of the two dead bodies which being taken out of their graves and laid in their coffins on mens shoulders are carried to the marketâ— place with a guard of men well armeâ— and weaponed for fear of making an escape chained unto several posts as if still alive the wood and fire put to them and their bodies burned together with as many of their Books as could be gotten which were cast into the same flames also And because one University should not mock the other the like cruelty was also exercised upon the dead body of Martyr's wiâ—e at Oxford a godly grave and sober matron while she lived and to the
conclude with this Address to Almighty God That as He hath restored Your Majesty to the Throne of Your Father and done it in so strange a manner as makes it seem a Miracle in the Eyes of Christendom so He would settle You in the same on so sure a Bottom that no Design of Mischievous and Unquiet Men may disturb Your Peace or detract any thing from those Felicities which You have acquired So prayeth Dread Sovereign Your Majestie 's most obedient Servant and most Loyal Subject PETER HEYLYN To the Reader READER I Here present thee with a Piece of as great variety as can be easily comprehended in so narrow a compass the History of an Affair of such Weight and Consequence as had a powerful Influence on the rest of Christendome It is an History of the Reformation of the Church of England from the first Agitations in Religion under HENRY the Eight untill the final settling and establishing of it in Doctrine Government and Worship under the Fortunate and most Glorious Reign of Queen ELIZABETH Nor hast thou here a bare Relation onely of such Passages as those Times afforded but a discovery of those Counsels by which the Action was conducted the Rules of Piety and Prudence upon which it was carryed the several steps by which it was promoted or retarded in the Change of Times together with the Intercurrence of such civil Concernments both at home and abroad as either were co-incident with it or related to it So that We may affirm of this present History as Florus doth of his Compendium of the Roman Stories Ut non tam populi unius quam totius generis humani that is to say That it contains not onely the Affairs of one State or Nation but in a manner of the greatest part of all Civil Governments The Work first hinted by a Prince of an undanted Spirit the Master of as great a Courage as the World had any and to say truth the Work required it He durst not else have grapled with that mighty Adversary who claiming to be Successour to St. Peter in the See of Rome and Vicar-General to Christ over all the Church had gained unto himself an absolute Sovereignty over all Christian Kings and Princes in the Western Empire But this King being violently hurried with the transport of some private Affections and finding that the Pope appeared the greatest Obstacle to his desires he first divested him by degrees of that Supremacy which had been challenged and enjoyed by his Predecessours for some Ages past and finally extinguished His Authority in the Realm of England without noise or trouble to the great admiration and astonishment of the rest of the Christian World This opened the first way to the Reformation and gave encouragement to those who enclined unto it To which the King afforded no small Countenance out of Politick Ends by suffering them to have the Bible in the Englishâ—ongue â—ongue and to enjoy the benefit of such Godly Tractates as openly discovered the Corruptions of the Church of Rome But for his own part he adhered to his old Religion severely persecuted those who dissented from it and dyed though Excommunicated in that Faith and Doctrine which he had sucked in as it were with his Mother's Milk and of the wâ—ich he shewâ—d himself so stout a Champion against Martin Luther in his first Quarrels with the Pope Next comes a Minor on the Stage just mild and gracious whose Name was made a Property to serve turns withall and his Authority abused as commonly it happeneth on the like occâ—sions to his own undoing In his first year the Reformation was resolved on but on different ends endeavoured by some Godly Bâ—shops and other Learned and Religious Men of the lower Clergy out of Judgment Conscience who managed the Affair according to the Word of God the Practice of the Primitive Times the general current and consent of the old Catholick Doctours but not without an Eye to such Foreign Churches as seemed to have most consonancy to the antient Forms Promoted with like Zeal and Industry but not with like Integrity and Christian Candour by some great men about the Court who under colour of removing such Corruptions as remained in the Church had cast their â—yes upon the spoil of Shrines and Images though still preserved in the greatest part of the Lutheran Churches and the improving of their own Fortunes by the â—hantery-Lands All which most sacrilegiously they divided amongst themselves without admitting the poor King to his share therein though nothing but the filling of his Coffers by the spoil of the one and the encrease of his Revenue by the fall of the other was openly pretended in the Conduct of it But separating this â—bliquity from the main Intendment the Work was vigorously carryed on by the King and his Councellours as appears clearly by the Doctrinals in the Book of Homilies and by the Practical part of Christian Pâ—ety in the first Publick Liturgie confirmed by Act of Parliament in the second and third year of this King and in that Act and which is more by Fox himself affirmed to have been done by the especial aid of the Holy Ghost And here the business might have rested if Catvin's Pragmatical Spirit had not interposed He first began to quarrel at some passages in this Sacred Liturgâ—e and afterwards never left solliciting the Lord Protectour and practising by his Agents on the Court the Countrey and the Universities till he had laid the first Foundation of the Zuinglian Faction who laboured nothing more then Innovation both in Doctrine and Discipline To which they were encouraged by nothing more then some improvident Indulgence granted unto John A-Lasco Who bringing with him a mixt multitude of Poles and Germans obtained the Privilege of a Church for himself and his distinct in Government and Forms of Worship from the Church of England This gave a powerful animation to the Zuinglian Gospellers as they are called by Bishop Hooper and some other Writers to practise first upon the Church who being countenanced if not headed by the Earl of Warwick who then began to undermine the Lord Protectour first quarrelled the Episcopal Habit and afterwards inveighed against Caps and Surplices against Gowns and Tippets but fell at last upon the Altars which were left standing in all Churches by the Rules of the Liturgie The touching on this String made excellent Musick to most of the Grandees of the Court who had before cast many an envious Eye on those costly Hangings thâ—t Massie Plate and other rich and preâ—ious Utensils which adorned those Altars And What need all this waste said Judas when one poor Chalice onely and perhaps not that might have served the turn Besides there was no small spoil to be made of Copes in which the Priest officiated at the Holy Sacrament some of them being made of Cloth of Tyssue of Cloth of Gold and Silver or embroidered Velvet the meanest being made of Silk or Sattin with
said Church to have been deceived in that what he before had taught them and to be sorry for delivering such Doctrine to them But these men might pretend some Warrant from the King's Injunctions which they might conceive it neither fit nor safe to oppose and therefore that it was the wisest way to strike Sail betimes upon the shooting of the first Warning-Piece to bring them in But no man was so much before hand with Authority as one Doctour Glasier who as soon as the Fast of Lent was over and it was well he had the Patâ—ence to stay so long affirmed publickly in a Sermon at Saint Paul's Cross That The Lent was not ordained of God to be Fasted neither the Eating of Flesh to be forborn but that the same was a Politick Ordinance of men and might therefore be broken by men at their pleasures For which Doctrine as the Preacher was never questioned the Temper of the Times giving Incouragement enough to such Extravagancies so did it open such a Gap to Carnal Liberty that the King found it necessary to shut it up again by a Proclamation on the sixteenth of January commanding Abstinence from all Flesh for the Lent then following But there was something more then the Authority of a Minour King which drew on such a General Conformity to these Injunctions and thereby smoothed the way to those Alterations both in Doctrine and Worship which the Grandees of the Court and Church had began to fashion The Lord Protectour and his Party were more experienced in Affairs of State then to be told That All great Counsels tending to Innovation in the Publick Government especially where Religion is concerned therein are either to be back'd by Arms or otherwise prove destructive to the Undertakers For this cause he resolves to put himself into the Head of an Army as well for the security of His Person and the Preservation of his Party as for the carrying on of the Design against all Opponents And for the Raising of an Army there could not be a fairer Colour nor a more popular Pretence then a War in Scotland not to be made on any new emergent Quarrel which might be apt to breed suspicion in the Heads of the People but in Pursuit of the great Project of the King deceased for Uniting that Realm by the Marriage of their young Queen to His onely Son to the Crown of England On this pretense Levies are made in all parts of the Kingdom great store of Arms and Ammunition drawn together to advance the service considerable Numbers of Old Souldiers brought over from Bulloign and the Peeces which depended on it and good Provision made of Shipping to attend the Motions of the Army upon all occasions He entertained also certain Regiments of Walloons and Germanes not out of any great Opinion which he had of their Valour though otherwise of good Experience in the Wars but because they were conceived more likely to enforce Obedience if his Designs should meet with any Opposition then the Natural English But in the first place Care was taken that none of the neighbouring Princes should either hinder his Proceedings or assist the Enemy To which end Doctour Wotton the first Dean of Canterbury then Resident with the Queen Dowager of Hungary who at that time was Regent of the Estates of Flanders for Charls the Fifth was dispatched unto the Emperour's Court there to succeed in the place of Doctour Bonner Bishop of London who together with Sir Francis Bryan had formerly been â—ent Embassadours thâ—ther from King Henry the Eighth The Principal part of his Employment besides such matters as are incident to all Ambassadours was to divert the Emperour from concluding any League with France contrary to the Capitulations made between the Emperour and the King deceased but to deal with him above all things for declaring himself an Enemy to all of the Scotish Nation but such as should be Friends to the King of England And because some Remainders of Hostility did still remain between the English and the French notwithstanding the late peace made between the Crowns it was thought fit to sweeten and oblige that People by all the acts of Correspondence and friendly Neighbourhood In Order whereunto it was commanded by the King's Proclamation That Restitution should be made of such Ships and Goods which had been taken from the French since the Death of King Henry Which being done also by the French though far short in the value of such Reprisals as had been taken by the English there was good hope of coming to a better understanding of one another and that by this Cessation of Arms both Kings might come in short time to a further Agreement But that which seemed to give most satisfaction to the Court of France was the performance of a solemn Obsequie for King Francis the First who left this Life on the twenty second day of March and was Magnificently Interred amongst His Predecessours in the Monastery of Saint Dennis not far from Paris Whose Funerals were no sooner Solemnized in France but Order was given for a Dirige to be sung in all the Churches in London on the nineteenth of June as also in the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul in the Quire whereof being hung with black a sumptuous Herse had been set up for the present Ceremony For the next day the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury assisted with Eight other of the Bishops all in their Rich Mitres and other their Pontificals did sing a Mass of Requiem the Funeral Sermon being preached by Doctour Ridley Lord Elect of Rochester who if he did his part therein as no doubt he did could not but magnifie the Prince for His Love to Learning Which was so great and eminent in Him that He was called by the French L' pere des Arts des Sciences and The Father of the Muses by some Writers of other Nations Which Attributes as He well deserved so did He Sympathize in that Affection as he did in many other things with King Henry the Eighth of whose Munificence for the Encouragements of Learning we have spoke before This great Solemnity being thus Honourably performed the Commissioners for the Visitation were dispatched to their several Circuits and the Army drawn from all parts to their Rendez-vous for the War with Scotland Of which two Actions that of the Visitation as the easiest and meeting with a People which had been long trained up in the Schole of Obedience was carried on without any shew of Opposition submitted to upon a very small Dispute even by some of those Bishops who were conceived most likely to have disturbed the business The first who declared his aversness to the King's Proceedings was Dr. Stephen Gardiner Bishop of Winchester who stomaching his being left out of the Lift of the Council appeared more cross to all their doings then other of his Order For which being brought before their Lordships and not giving them such satisfaction as they looked for from
the Grant of the said Chanteries Free-Chapels c. came to take Effect In the mean time It will not be amiss to shew that these Chanteries consisted of Salaries allowed to one or more Priests to say daily Mass for the Souls of their deceased Founders and their Friends Which not subsisting on themselves were generally Incorporated and United to some Parochial Collegiate or Cathedral Church No fewer then 47. in Number being found and Founded in Saint Paul's Free-Chapels though Ordained for the same Intent were Independent of themselves of stronger Constitution and Richer Endowment then the Chanteries severally were though therein they fell also short of the Colleges which far exceeded them both in the Beauty of their Building the number of Priests maintained in them and the Proportion of Revenue allotted to them All which Foundations having in them an Admixture of Superstition as Pre-supposing Purgatory and Prayers to be made for Deliverance of the Soul from thence were therefore now suppressed upon that Account and had been granted to the late King upon other Pretences At what time it was Preached at Mercers-Chapel in London by one Doctour Cromer a Man that wished exceeding well to the Reformation That If Trentals and Chantery-Masses could avail the Souls in Purgatory then did the Parliament not well in giving away Colleges and Chanteries which served principally for that purpose But if the Parliament did well in dissolving and bestowing them upon the King which he thought that no man could deny then was it a plain Case that such Chanteries and private Masses did confer no Relief on the Souls in Purgatory Which Dilemma though it were unanswerable yet was the matter so handled by the Bishops seeing how much the Doctrine of the Church was concerned therein that they brought him to a Recantation at Saint Paul's Cross in the June next following this Sermon being Preached in Lent where he confessed himself to have been seduced by naughty books contrary to the Doctrine then received in the Church But the Current of these Times went the other way and Cromer might now have Preached that safely for which before he had been brought into so much trouble But that which made the greatest Alteration and threatened most danger to the State Ecclesiastical was the Act entituled An Act for Election of Bishops and what Seals and Styles shall be used by Spiritual Persons c. In which it was Ordained for I shall onely repeat the Sum thereof That Bishops should be made by the King's Letters Patents and not by the Election of the Deans and Chapters That all their Processes and Writings should be made in the King's Name onely with the Bishop's Teste added to it and sealed with no other Seal but the King 's or such as should be Authorised and Appointed by Him In the Compounding of which Act there was more Danger couched then at first appeared By the last Branch thereof it was plain and evident that the Intent of the Contrivers was by degrees to weaken the Authority of the Episcopal Order by forcing them from their Strong-hold of Divine Institution and making them no other then the King's Ministers onely His Ecclesiastical Sheriffs as a man might say to execute His Will and disperse His Mandates And of this Act such use was made though possibly beyond the true intention of it that the Bishops of those Times were not in a Capacity of conferring Orders but as they were thereunto enpowered by especial Licence The Tenour whereof if Sanders be to be believed was in these words following viz. The King to such a Bishop Greeting Whereas all and all manner of Jurisdiction as well Ecclesiastical as Civil flows from the King as from the Supreme Head of all the Body c. We therefore give and grant to thee full Power and Liceâ—ce to continue during Our Good Pleasure for holding Ordination within thy Diocess of N. and for promoting fit Persons unto Holy Orders even to that of the Priest-hood Which being looked on by Queen Mary not onely as a dangerous Diminution of the Episcopal Power but as an Odious Innovation in the Church of Christ â— She caused this Act to be repealed in the first Year of Her Reign leaving the Bishops to depend on their former claim and to act all things which belonged to their Jurisdiction in their own Names and under their own Seals as in former Times In which Estate they have continued without any Legal Interruption from that time to this But in the first Branch there was somewhat more then what appeared at the first sighâ— For though it seemed to aim at nothing but that the Bishops should depend wholly on the King for their preferment to those great and eminent Places yet the true Drift of the Design was to make Deans and Chapters useless for the time to come and thereby to prepare them for a Dissolution For had nothing else been intended in it but that the King should have the sole Nomination of all the Bishops in His Kingdoms it had been onely a Reviver of an Antient Power which had been formerly Invested in His Predecessour's and in all other Christian Princes Consult the Stories and Records of the Eâ—der Times and it will readily appear not onely that the Romane Emperours of the House of France did nominate the Popes themselves but that after they had lost that Power they retained the Nomination of the Bishops in their own Dominions The like done also by the German Emperours by the Kings of England and by the Antient Kings of Spain the Investiture being then performed Per Annulum Baculum as they used to Phrase it that is to say by delivering of a Ring together with a Crosier or Pastoral Staff to the Party nominated Examples of which Practice are exceeding obvious in all the Stories of those Times But the Popes finding at the last how necessary it was in order to that absolute Power which they ambitiously affected over all Christian Kings and Princes that the Bishops should depend on none but them challenged this power unto themselves declaring it in several Petit Councels for no less then Simony if any man should receive a Bishoprick from the Hands of his own Natural Prince From hence those long and deadly Quarrels begun between Pope Hildebrand and the Emperour Henry the Fourth and continued by their Successours for many years after From hence the like Disputes in England between Pope Vrban the Second and King William Rufus between Pope Innocent and King Iâ—hn till in the end the Popes prevailed both here and elsewhere and gained the point unto themselves But so that to disguise the matter the Election of the future Bishop was committed to the Prior and Convent or to the Dean and Chapter of that Cathedral wherein he was to be Installed Which passing by the Name of Free Elections were wholly in a manner at the Pope's Disposing The Point thus gained it had been little to their Profit if they had
year proceeds in which there was nothing to be found but Troubles and Commotions and Disquiets both in Church and State For about this Time there started up a sort of men who either gave themselves or had given by others the Name of Gospellers of whom Bishop Hooper tells us in the Preface to his Exposition on the Ten Commandments That They be better Learned then the Holy Ghost for they wickedly attribute the Cause of Punishment and Adversity to God's Providence which is the Cause of no Ill as he himself can do no ill and of every Mischief that is done they say it is God's Will And at the same time the Anabaptists who had kept themselves unto themselves in the late King's Time began to look abroad and disperse their Dotages For the preventing of which Mischief before it grew unto a Head some of the Chiefs of them were convented on the second of April in the Church of Saint Paul before the Arch-Bishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of Westminster Doctour Cox Almoner to the King Doctour May Dean of that Church Doctour Cole Dean of the Arches and one Doctour Smith afterwards better known by the Name of Sir Thomas Smith And being convicted of their Errours some of them were dismissed onely with an Admonition some sentenced to a Recantation and others condemned to bear their Faggots at Saint Paul's Cross. Amongst which last I finde one Campneys who being suspected to incline too much to their Opinions was condemned to the bearing of a Faggot on the Sunday following being the next Sunday after Easter Doctour Miles Coverdale who afterwards was made Bishop of Exâ—ter then preaching the Rehearsal Sermon which Punishment so wrought upon him that he relinquished all his former Errours and entred into Holy Orders flying the Kingdom for the better keeping of a good Conscience in the Time of Queen Mary and coming back again with the other Exiles after Her Decease At what time he published a Discourse in the way of a Letter against the Gospellers above-mentioned In which he proves them to have laid the blame of all sins and wickedness upon God's Divine Decree of Predestination by which men were compelled unto it His Discourse answered not long after by John Veron one of the Preâ—ends of Saint Paul's and Robert Crowley Parsons of Saint Giles's near Cripplegate but answered with Scurrility and Reproach enough according to the Humour of the Predestinarians And now the Time draws on for putting the New Liturgie in Execution framed with such Judgment out of the Common Principles of Religion wherâ—in all Parties do agree that even the Catholicks might have resorted to the same without Scruple or Scandal if Faction more then Reason did not sway amongst them At Easter some began to officiate by it followed by others as soon as Books câ—â—ld be provided But on Whitsunday being the day appointed by Act of Parliament it was solemnly Executed in the Cathedral Church of Saint Paul by the Command of Doctour May for an example unto all the rest of the Churches in London and consequently of all the Kingdom In most parts whereof there was at the first a greater forwardness then could be rationally expected the 〈◊〉 men amongst the Papists conforming to it because they 〈…〉 in the maine no not so much as in the Canon of the 〈…〉 Latine Seâ—vice And the unlearned had good reason to be pleased 〈…〉 in regard that all Divine Offices were Celebrated in a Tongue whic◠〈◊〉 understood whereby they had means and opportunity to become acqâ—aintâ—â— with the châ—eâ— Mysteries of their Religion which had been before 〈◊〉 sâ—cret frâ—m â—hem But then withall many of those both Priests and Bâ—shops who â—peâ—â—y had Officiated by it to avoid the Penalty of the Law did Celebrate their private Masses in such secret places wherein it was not easie to discover their doings More confidently caâ—ried in the Church of St. Paul in many Chapels whereof by the Bishop's sufferance the former Masses were kept up that is to say Our Ladies Mass the Apostles Mass c. performed in Latine but Disguised by the English names of the Apostles Communion and Our Ladies Communion Which coming to the knowledg of the Lords of the Council they addâ—â—ssed their Letters unto Bonner Dated the twenâ—y fourth of June and Subscribed by the Lord Protectour the Lord Chancellour Rich the Earl of Shrewsbury the Lord St. John Chief Justice Mountague and Mr. Cecil made not long after one of the Secretaries of State Now the Tenour of the said Letters was as followeth AFter Hearty Commendations having very credible notice that within that your Cathedral Church there be as yet the Apostles Mass and Our Ladies Mass and other Masses of such peculiar name under the defence and nomination of Our Ladies Communion and the Apostles Communion used in private Chapels and other remote places of the same and not in the Chancel contrary to the King's Majesties Proceedings the same being for that misuse displeasing unto God for the place Pauls in example not tolerable for the fondness of the name a scorn to the Reverence of the Communion of Christ's Body and Blood We for the Augmentation of God's Glory and Honour and the Consonance of His Majestie 's Lawes and the avoiding of Murmur have thought good to will and Command you that from henceforth no such Masses in this manner be in your Church any longer used but that the Holy Blessed Communion according to the Act of Parliament be Administred at the High Altar of the Church and in no other places of the same and onelâ— at such time as your High Masses were wont to be used except some number of People desire for their necessary business to have a Communion in the Morning and yet the same to be executed at the Chancel on the High Altar as it is appointed in the Book of the Publick Servicâ— without Cautele or Digression from the Common Order And herein you shall not onely satisfie Our Expectation of your Conformity in all Lawfull things but also avoid the murmur of sundry that be therewith justly offended And so We bid your Lordship farewell c. These Commands being brought to Bonâ—er he commits the Execution of them to the Dean and Chapter not willing to engage himself too far upon either side till he had seen the Issue of such Commotions as were then raised in many Parts of the Kingdom on another occasion Some Lords and Gentlemen who were possessed of Abbey-Lands had caused many inclosures to be made of the waste Grounds in their several Mannours which they conceived to be as indeed it was a great advantage to themselves and no less profitable to the Kingdom Onely some poor and indigent people were offended at it in being thereby abridged of some liberty which before they had in raising to themselves some inconsiderable profit from the Grounds enclosed The Lord Protectour had then lost himself in the love of the Vulgar by his severe if not
Shifts on his part and much patience on theirs he is taken pro confesso on the twenty third and in the beginning of October deprived of his Bishoprick To whom succeded Doctour Nicholas Ridley Bishop of Rochester a Learned Stout and Resolute Prelate as by the Sequel will appear not actually translated till the twelâ—th of April in the year next following and added not long after to the Lords of the Council The necessary Execution of so many Rebels and this seasonable Severity against Bishop Bonner did much facilitate the King's Proceedings in the Reformation As certainly the Opposition to Aâ—thority when it is suppressed both makes the Subject and the Prince more absolute Howsoever to make sure Work of it there passed an act of Parliament in the following Session which also took beginning on the fourth of November for taking down such Images as were still remaining in the Churches as also for the bringing in of all Antiphonaries Missalls Breviaries Offices Horaries Primers and Processionals with other Books of False and Superstitious Worship The Tenour of which Act was signified to the Subject by the King's Proclamations and seconded by the Missives of Arch-Bishop Cranmer to the Suffragan Bishops requiring them to see it put in execution with all Care and Diligence Which so secured the Church on that side that there was no further Opposition against the Liturgie by the Romish Party during the rest of this King's Reign For what can any workman do when he wants his Tools or how could they Advance the Service of the Church of Rome when the Books by which they should officiate it were thus taken from them But then there started up another Faction as dangerous to the Church as opposite to the Publick Liturgie and as destructive of the Rules of the Reformation then by Law established as were those of Rome The Arch-Bishop and the rest of the Prelates which co-operated with him in the Work having so far proceeded in abolishing many Superstitions which before were used resolved in the next place to go forwards with a Reformation in a Point of Doctrine In Order whereunto Melancthon's coming was expected the year before but he came not then And therefore Letters were directed by the Archâ—Bishop of Canterbury to Martin Bucer and Peter Martyr two Great and Eminent Divines but more addicted to the Zuinglian then the Lutheran Doctrines in the point of the Sacrament Martyr accordingly came over in the end of November and having spent some timewith the Arch-Bishop in his House at Lambeth was dispatched to Oxford where he was made the King's Professour for Divinity and about two years after made Canon of christ-Christ-Church In his first Lectures he is said by Sanders if he may be credited to have declared himself so much a Zuinglian in that point as to give great offence to Cranmer and the rest of the Bishops but afterwards upon notice of it to have been more moderate and to conform his Judgment to the Sense of those Learned Prelates Which whether it be true or not certain it is that his Readings were so much disliked by some of that University that a publick Disputation was shortly had betwixt him and some of those who disliked his Doings in which he publickly maintained these two Propositions 1. That the Substance of the Bread and Wine was not changed and 2. That the Body and Blood of Christ was not Carnally and Bodily in the Bread and Wine but united to the same Sacramentally And for the better Governing of the Disputation it was appointed by the King that Doctour Cox Chancellour of that University assisted by one Mr. Morrison a right Learned man should preside as Judges or Moderatours as we call them by whom it was declâ—red in the open Scholes that Martyr had the upper hand and had sufficiently answered all Arguments which were brought against him But Chadsey the chief of the Opponents and the rest of those who disputed with him acknowledged no such Satisfaction to be given unto them their party noising it abroad according to the Fate of such Dispuâ—ations that they had the Victory But Bucer not coming over at the same time also he was more earnestly invited by Pet. Alexander the Arch-Bishop's Secretary whose Letters bear Date March 24. which so prevailed with him at the last that in June we finde him here at Canterbury from whence he writes to Peter Martyr who was then at Oxford And being here he receives Letters from Calvin by which he was advised to take heed of his old fault for a fault he thought it which was to run a moderate course in his Reformations The first thing that he did at his coming hither as he saith himself was to make himself acquainted with the English Liturgie translated for him into Latine by Alexander Alesius a Learned Scot and generally well approved of by him as to the main Frame and Body of it though not well satisfied perhaps in some of the particular Branches Of this he gives account to Calvin and desires some Letters from him to the Lord Protectour with whom Câ—lvin had already began to tamper that he might finde the greater favour when he came before him which was not till the Tumults of the time were composed and quieted Having received a courteous entertainment from the Lord Protectour and being right heartily welcomed by Arch-Bishop Cranmer he is sent to take the Chair at Cambridg Where his first Readings gave no such distast to the Learned Academicks as to put him to the necessity of challenging the Dissentients to a Disputation though in the Ordinary Form a Disputation was there held at his firstâ—coming thither concerning the Sufficiency of Holy Scripture the Fallibility of the Church and the true Nature of Justification But long he had not held the place when he left this life deceasing on the nineteenth of January 1550. according to the computation of the Church of England to the great loss and grief of that University By the chiefest Heads whereof and most of the Members of that Body he was attended to his Grave with all due Solemnity of which more hereafter But so it was that the Account which he had given to Calvin of the English Liturgie and his desiring of a Letter from him to the Lord Protectour proved the occasions of much trouble to the Church and the Orders of it For Calvin not forgetting the Repulse he found at the hands of Cranmer when he first offered his Assistance had screwed himself into the Favour of the Lord Protectour And thinking nothing to be well done which either was not done by him or by his Direction as appears by his Letters to all Princes which did but cast an eye towards a Reformation must needs be meddling in such Matters as belonged not to him He therefore writes a very long Letter to the Lord Protectour in which approving well enough of set Forms of Prayer he descends more particularly to the English Liturgy in canvasing whereof he
Christians should cease from all other kinde of Labours and apply themselves onely and wholely unto such Holy Works as properly pertain to True Religion that the said Holy Works to be performed upon those Days are more particularly to hear to learn and to remember Almighty God's great Benefits his manifold Mercies his inestimable Gracious Goodness so plentifully poured upon all his Creatures rendring unto him for the same our most hearty thanks That the said Days and Times are neither to be called or accounted Holy neither in the Nature of the time or day nor for any of the Saints sakes whose Memories are preserved by them but for the Nature and Condition of those Godly and Holy Works with which onely God is to be Honoured and the Congregation to be Edified That the Sanctifying of the said Days consisteth in separating them apart from all prophane uses and Dedicated not to any Saint or Creature but onely to the Worship of God That there is no certain time nor definite number of days appointed by Holy Scripture but that the appointment of the time as also of the days is left to the Liberty of Christ His Church by the Word of God That the days which from thenceforth were to be kept as Holy days in the Church of England should be all Sundays in the Year the Feast of the Circumcision the Epiphany the Purification of the Blessed Virgin c. with all the rest recited at the end of the Calender in the publick Liturgy That the Arch-Bishops Bishops c. shall have Authority to punish the Offenders in all or any of the Premisses by the usual censures of the Church and to impose such penance on them as to them or any of them shall seem expedient and finally that notwithstanding any thing before declared it shall and may be lawfull for any Husbandman Labourer Fisherman c. to labour ride fish or work any kind of work on the foresaid Holy days not onely in the time of Harvest but at any other time of the year when need shall require with a Proviso for the Celebrating of St. Georg's Feast on the two and twenty three and twenty and four and twentieth Days of April yearly by the Knights of the Right Honourable Order of the Garter or by any of them Which Declaration as it is agreeable in all points to the Tenour of approved Antiquity so can there nothing be more contrary to the Doctrine of the Sabbatarians Which of late time hath been Obtruded on the Church Then for the number of the Fasts It is Declared that from that time forwards every Even or Day going before any of the aforesaid Days of the Feasts of the Nativity of Our Lord of Easter of the Ascension of our Lord Pentecost of the Purification and the Annunciation of the aforesaid Blessed Virgin of All-Saints of all the said Feasts of the Apostles other then of St. John the Evangelist and of St. Philip and Jacob shall be fasted and Commanded to be kept and observed and that none other Even or Day shall be Commanded to be Fasted For Explication of which last Clause it is after added that the said Act or any thing therein contained shall not extend to abrogate or take away the Abstinence from Flesh in Lent or on Fridays and Saturdays or any other appointed pointed to be kept for a Fasting-Day but onely on the Evens of such other Days as formerly had been kept and observed for Holy and were now abrogated by this Act. And for the better suppressing or preventing of any such Fasts as might be kept upon the Sunday it was Enacted in the same according to the Practice of the Elder Times that when it shall chance any the said Feasts the Eves whereof are by this Statute to be kept for Fasting-Days to fall upon the Munday that then the Saturday next before shall be Fasted as the Eve thereof and not the Sunday Which Statute though repealed in the first of Queen Mary and not revived till the first year of the Reign of King James yet in Effect it stood in Force and was more punctually observed in the whole time of Queen Elizabeth 's Reign then after the Reviver of it Such course being taken for the due observing of Days and Times the next care was that Consecrated Places should not be Prophaned by Fighting and Quarrelling as they had been lately since the Episcopal Jurisdiction and the Ancient Censures of the Church were lessened in Authority and Reputation And to that end it was Enacted in this present Parliament that if any Persons whatsoever after the first day of May then next following should quarrel chide or brawl in any Church or Church-yard he should be suspended ab ingressu Ecclesiae if he were a Lay-man and from his Ministration if he were a Priest that if any Person after the said time should smite or lay violent hands upon another he should be deemed to be Excommunicate ipso facto and be excluded from the Fellowship and Company of Christ's Congregation and finally that if any Person should strike another with any weapon in the Church or Church-yard or draw his sword with an intent to strike another with the same and thereof be lawfull convicted he should be punished with the loss of one of his Ears c. A seasonable severity and much conducing to the Honour both of Church and State There were some Statutes also made for taking away the benefit of Clergy in some certain Cases for making such as formerly had been of any Religious Order to be Heritable to the Lands of their Ancestours or next of Kindred to whom they were to have been Heirs by the Common Law for Confirming the Marriages of Priests and giving them their â—ives and Children the like Capacities as other Subjects did enjoy whereof we have already spoke in another place There also passed another Act that no Person by any means should lend or forbear any Sum of Mony for any manner of Vsury or encrease to be received or hoped for above the sum lent upon pain to forâ—eit the sum so lent and the encrease and to suffer imprisonment and make fine at the King's pleasure But this Act being found to be prejudicial to the â—rade of the Kingdom first discontinued of it self and was afterwards repealed in the thirteenth year of Queen Elizabeth This Parliament ending on the fifteenth of April gave time enough for Printing and Publishing the Book of Common-Prayer which had been therein Authorised the time for the Officiating of it being fixed on the Feast of All-Saints then next ensuing Which time being come there appeared no small Alteration in the outward Solemnities of Divine Service to which the people had been formerly so long accustomed For by the Râ—brick of that Book no Copes or other Vestures were required but the Surplice onely whereby the Bishops were necessitated to forbear their Crosses and the Prebends of St. Paul's and other Churches occasioned to leave off their
circumstances and Punctillioes before laid down This stilled the clamour for the present though it brake out again forty years after and was again stilled by the care and industry of the right Reverend Dr. Bâ—amhall Lord Bishop of Derry in a Book Entituled The Church of England defended against some scandalous and fabulous â—â—pâ—tations cast upon her c. Which cavil for it is no better being thus refelled the other objections of the Adversaries will be easily answered though Barlow and Scory were deprived of their Episcopal Sees yet first the justice and legality of their deprivation was not clear in Law and secondly they neither were nor could be deprived of their Episcopal character which remained in them undefaced as before it was And whilst the character remained they were in a capacity of performing all Episcopal Offices to which they should be called by their Metropolitan or any higher Power directing and commanding in all such matters as concerned the Church And as for Suffragans by which title Hodgskins is Commissionated for the Consecration they were no other than the Chore-Epâ—scopi of the Primitive times Subsidiary Bishops ordained for easing the Diocesan of some part of his burthen By means whereof they were enabled to perform such offices belonging to that sacred function not limited to time and place by the ancient Canons by which a Bishop was restrained in some certain acts of Jurisdiction to his proper Diocess Of this sort there were twenty six in the Realm of England distinguished by the names of such principal Towns as were appointed for their title and denomination The names and number whereof together with the jurisdiction and preheminences proportioned to them the Reader may peruse in the Act of Parliament made in the â—6th year of King Henry the 8th No sooner was this solemnity ended but a new mandate comes for the Confirmation of Dr. Barlow in the See of Chichester and Dr Scory to the See of Hereford to which they had been severally elected in August last And though the not restoring of them to their former Sees might seem to juâ—â—ifie the late Queen Mary in their deprivation yet the Queen wanted not good reasons for their present removal not that she did consult therein her own power and profit as is thought by some but studied rather their content and satisfaction than her own concernments For Baâ—low having wasted the revenue of the Church of Wells could not with any comfort behold a place which he had so spoiled and Scory having been deprived of the See of Chichester under pretence of wanting a just title to it desired not to be put upon the hazard of a second ejction But as for Coverdale he did not only wave the acceptation of Oxon but of any other Church then vacant He was now 72 years old and desired rather to enjoy the pleasure of a private life than be disquieted in his old age with the cares of Government And somewhat might be also in it of a disaffection not to the Calling but the Habit which is to be believed the rather because he attended not at the Consecration in his Cope and Rocher as the others did but in a plain black Coat reaching down to his Ankles And now the rest of the Episcopal Sees begin to fill for on the 21 of the same December Dâ— Edmond Gâ—indall was consecrated to the See of London Dr. Râ—chard Cox to that of Ely Dr. Edwin Sandys to the Church of Worcester Dr. Rowland Merick unto that of Bangor On the 21 of January then next following Dr. Nicholas Bullingham was by the like consecration made Bishop of Lincoln the right learned Mr. John Jewel who afterwards accepted the degree of Doctor Bishop of Sarisbury Dr. Thomas Young Bishop of St. Davids and Mr. Râ—chard Davis Bishop of St. Asaph The 24th of March was honoured with the Consecration of three other Bishops that is to say of Mr. Thomas Bentham to the See of Coventry and Lichfield of Mr. Gilbert Barclay to the See of Wâ—lls and of Dr. Edmund Guest to that of Rochester On the 14th of July comes the consecration of Dr. William Alley to the Church of Exon and that of Mr John Parkhurst to the Church of Norwich on the first of September By which account we find no â—ewer than sixteen Sees to be filled with new Bishops within the compass of the year men of ability in matter of learning and suâ—h as had a good report for the integrity of their lives and conversations Nor was it long before the rest of the Episcopal Sees were supplied with new Pastors as shall be shewn hereafter in due time and place The Queens commission of sarvey had not crossed the Trent which possibly may be the reason why we find no new Bishops in the Province of York and Wâ—nchâ—ster must afford one Michaelmas rent more to the Queens Exchequer before the Lord Treasurer could give way to a new incumbent And now we may behold the face of the Church of England as it was first setled and established under Queen Elizabeth The Government of the Church by Archbishops and Bishops according to the practice of the best and happiest times of Christianity These Bishops nominated and elected according to the Statute in the 26th of King Henry the 8th and consecrated by the Ordinal confirmed by Parliament in the 5th and 6th years of King Edward the 6th never appearing publickly but in their Rochets nor officiating otherwise than in Copes at the Holy Altar The Priests not stirring out of doors but in their square Caps Gowns or Canonical Coats nor executing any divine Office but in their Surplice avestment set apart for Religious services in the Primitive times as may be gathered from St Chrysostome for the Eastern Churches and from St Hierom for the Western The Doctrine of the Church reduced unto its ancient purity according to the Articles agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1552. The Liturgy conform to the Primitive patterns and all the Rites and Ceremonies therein prescribed accommodated to the honour of God and increase of piety The Festivals preserved in their former dignity observed with their distinct Offices peculiar to them and celebrated with a Religious couâ—cuâ—â—â— of all sorts of people the weekly Fasts the holy time of Lent the Embrâ—â—◠〈◊〉 together with the Fast of the Rogation severely kept by a forbearance of all â—ind of flesh not now by vertue of the Statute as in the time oâ— King Edward but as appointed by the Church in her publick Calender before the Book of Common Prayer The Sacrament of the Lords Supper celebrated in most reverend manner the Holy Table seated in the place of the Altar the people making their due reverence at their first entrance into the Church kneeling at the Communion the Confession and the publick Prayers standing up at the Creed the Gospels and the Gloria Patri and using the accustomed reverence at the name of Jesus Musick retained in all such Churches
in which provision had been made for the maintenance of it or where the people could be trained up at the least to plain-song All which particulars were either established by the Lawes or commanded by the Queens Injunctions or otherwise retained by vertue of some anâ—ient usages not by Law prohibited Nor is it much to be admired that such a general conformity to those antient usages was constantly observed in all Cathedral and the most part of the Parish Churâ—hes considering how well they were presidented by the Court it self in which the Liturgy was officiated every day both morning and evening not only in the publick Chapel but the private Closet celebrated in the Chapel with Organs and other musical instâ—uments and the most excellent voices both of men and children that could be got in all the Kingdom The Gentlemen and children in their Surplices and the Priests in Copes as oâ—t as they attended the Divine Service at the Holy Altar The Altar furnished with rich Plate two fair gilt Candlesticks with Tapers in them and a massie Crucifix of silver in the midst thereof Which last remained there for some years till it was broke in pieces by Pach the Fool no wiser man daring to undertake such a desperate service at the solicitation of Sir Francis Knolles the Queens neer Kinsman by the Caries and one who openly appeared in favour of the Schism at Franckfort The antient Ceremonies accustomably observed by the Knights of the Garter in their adoration toward the Altar abolished by King Edward the 6th and revived by Queen Mary were by this Queen retained as formerly in her Fathers time which made that Order so esteemed amongst forein Princes that the Emperors Maximilian and Rodolphus the French Kings Charls the 9th and Henry the 3d. together with Francis Duke of Mont Morency though of a contrary Religion to her not to say any any thing of divers Lutheran Kings and Pâ—inces did thankfully accept of their elections into that society The solemn Sermons upon each Wednesday Friday and Sunday in the time of Lent preached by the choicest of the Clergy she devoutly heard attired in black according to the commendable custome of her Predecessors in which if any thing escaped them contrary to the Doctrine and approved Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England they were sure to hear of it for which she received both thanks and honour from her very enemies as appears by Dr. Harding's Epistle Dedicatory before his Answer to the Apology writ by Bishop Jewel Particularly when one of her Chaplains Mr. Alexander Nowel Dean of St. Pauls had spoke less reverently in a Sermon preached before her of the sign of the Cross she called aloud to him from her closet window commanding him to retire from that ungodly digression and to return unto his Text. And on the other side when one of her Divines had preached a Sermon in defence of the Real Presence on the day commonly called Good Friday Anno 1565. she openly gave him thanks for his pains and piety The Bishops and the Clergy had been but ill proficients in the school of conformity under so excellent a Mistriss if they had not kept the Church in the highest splendor to which they were invited by that great example And in this glorious posture still had lasted longer had not her Order been confounded and her Peace disturbed by some factious spirits who having had their wils at Franckfort or otherwise ruling the Preâ—byâ—ery when they were at Geneva thought to have carried all before them with the like facility when they were in England But leaving them and their designes to some other time we must next look upon the aid which the Queen sent to those of the reformed Religion in the Realm of Scotland but carried under the pretence of dislodging such French Forces as were Garrisoned there and might have proved bad neighbours to the Kingdom of England Such of the Scots as desired a Reformation of Religion taking advantage by the Queens absence the easiness of the Earl of Arran and want of power in the Queen Regent to suppress their practices had put themselves into a Body Headed by some of the Nobility they take unto themselves the name of the Congregation managing their own affairs apart from the rest of the Kingdom and in assurance of their own strength petition to the Queen Regent and the Lords of the Council that the Sacrament of the Lords Supper might be administred in both kinds that Divine Offices might be celebrated in the Vulgar tongue and that they might have the choice of their own Ministers according to the practice as it was pretended of the Primitive times The Answer hereunto was fair and gratious but rather for the gaining of time than with a purpose to grant any of the points demanded The principal Leaders of the party well followed by the common people put themselves into Perth and there begin to stand on higher terms than before they did The news whereof occasioneth Knox to leave his Sanctuary in Geneva and joyn himself unto the Lords of the Congregation At Perth he goes into the Pulpit and falls so bitterly on Images Idolatry and other superstitions of the Church of Rome that the people in a popular fury deface all the Images in that Church and presently demolish all Religious Houses within that City This hapned about the end of May Anno 1559. and gave a dangerous example to them of Couper who forthwith on the hearing of it destroyed all the Images and pulled down the Altars in that Church also Preaching at Craile he inveighed sharply against the Queen Regent and vehemently stirred up the people to joyn together for the expulsion of the French which drew after it the like destruction of all Altars and Images as was made before at Perth and Couper The like followed on his preaching at St. Andrews also the Religious Houses being pulled down as well as the Images and laid so flat that there was nothing left in the form of a building Inflamed by the same firebrand they burned down the rich Monastery of Scone and ruined that of Cambâ—skenneth demolished all the Altars Images and Covents of Religious persons in Sterling Lithgoâ— Glascough Edenburgh make themselves Masters of the last and put up their own Preachers into all the Pulpits of that City not suffering the Queen Regent to have the use of one Church onely for her own devotions Nor staid they there but being carried on by the same ill spirit they pass an Act among themselves for depriving the Queen Regent of all place and power in the publick Government concerning which the Oracle being first consulted returned this Answer sufficiently ambiguous as all Oracles are that is to say That the iniquity of the Queen Regent ought not to withdraw their hearts from the obedience due to their Soveraigns nor did he wish any such sentence to be pronounced against her but when she should change her course and submit
both Religions and finally amongst many other particulars that neither the Queen of Scots nor the French King should from thenceforth assume the Titles and Arms of England Which Articles being signed and confirmed for both Kingdoms the French about the middle of July take their leave of Scotland and the English Army at the same time set forward for Barwick being there disbanded and dismissed to their several dwellings Followed not long after by the Earls of Morton and Glencarn in the name of the rest of the Congregation sent purposely to render to the Queen their most humble thanks for her speedy prosperous assistance and to desire the continuance of her Majesties favours if the French should any more attempt to invade their Country Assured whereof and being liberally rewarded with gifts and presents they returned with joy and glad tydings to the Congregation whom as the Queen had put upon a present confidence of going vigorously on in their Reformation so it concerned them to proceed so carefully in pursuance of it as might comply with the dependence which they had upon her First therefore that she might more cordially espoâ—se their quarrel they bound themselves by their subscription to embrace the Liturgy with all the Rites and Ceremonies of the Church of England which for a time remained the onely form of Worship for the Kirk of Scotland when and by whose means they receded from it may be shown hereafter In the next place they cause a Parliament to be called in the month of August according to the Articles of the Pacification from which no person was excluded who either had the right of Suffrage in his own capacity or in relation to their Churches or as returned from their Shrevalties or particular Burroughs of which last there appeared the accustomed number but of the Lords Spiritual no more than six Bishops of thirteen with thirteen Abbots and Priors or thereabouts and of the Temporal Lords to the number of ten Earls and as many Barons By whose Authority and consent they passed three Acts conducing wholly to the advantage of the Reformation the first whereof was for abolishing the Popes Jurisdiction and Authority within the Realm the second for annulling all Statutes made in former times for maintenance of Idolatry and Superstition and the third for the punishment of the Sayers and Hearers of the Masse To this Parliament also some of the Ministers presented A Confession of the Faith and Doctrine to be believed and professed by the Protestants of the Kirk of Scotland modelled in many places by the Principles of Calvin's Doctrine which Knox had brought with him from Geneva but being put unto the Vote it was opposed by no more than three of the Temporal Lords that is to say the Earl of Atholl and the Lords Somervil and Borthwick who gave no other reason for it but that they would believe as their fathers did The Popish Prelates were silent in it neither assenting nor opposing Which being observed by the Earl-Marshal he is said to have broke out into these words following Seeing saith he that my Lords the Bishops who by their learning can and for the zeal they should have to the truth ought as I suppose to gainsay any thing repugnant to it say nothing against the Confession we have heard I cannot think but that it is the very truth of God and that the contrary of it false and deceivable Doctrine Let us now cross over into Ireland where we shall find the Queen as active in advancing the reformed Religion as she had been in either of the other Kingdoms King Henry had first broke the ice by taking to himself the Title of Supream Head on earth of the Church of Ireland exterminating the Popes authority and suppressing all the Monasteries and Religious Houses In matters doctrinal and forms of Worship as there was nothing done by him so neither was there much endeavoured in the time of King Edward it being thought perhaps unsafe to provoke that people in the Kings minority considering with how many troubles he was elsewhere exercised If any thing were done therein it was rather done by tolleration than command And whatsoever was so done was presently undone again in the Reign of Queen Mary But Queen Elizabeth having setled her affairs in England and undertaken the protection of the Scots conceived her self obliged in point of piety that Ireland also should be made partaker of so great a benefit A Parliament is therefore held on the 12th of January where past an Act restoring to the Crown the antient jurisdiction over all Ecclesiastical and Spiritual persons By which Statute were established both the Oath of Supremacy and the High Commission as before in England There also past an Act for the Uniformity of Common Prayer c. with a permission for saying the same in Latine in such Church or place where the Minister had not the knowledge of the English Tongue But for translating it into Irish as afterwards into Welsh in the 5th year of this Queen there was no care taken either in this Parliament or in any following For want whereof as also by not having the Scriptures in their native language most of the natural Irish have retained hitherto there old barbarous customes or pertinaciously adhere to the corruptions of the Church of Rome The people by that Statute are required under several penalties to frequent their Churches and to be frequent at the reading of the English Liturgy which they understand no more than they do the Mass. By which means the Iâ—ish was not only kept in continual ignorance as to the Doctrines and Devotions of the Church of England but we have furnished the Papists with an excellent Argument against our selves for having the Divine Service celebrated in such a language as the people do not understand There also past another Statute for restoring to the Crown the first fruits and twenty parts of all Ecclesiastical promotions within that Kingdom as also of all impropriat Parsonages which there are more in number than those Rectories which have cure of souls King Henry had before united the first fruits c. to the Crown Imperial but Queen Mary out of her affection to the Church of Rome had given them back unto the Clergy as before was said The like Act passed for the restitution of all such lands belonging to the Knights of St. John of Jerusalem as by that Queen had been regranted to the Order with the avoidance of all Leases and other grants which had been made by Sir Oswald Massingberd the lâ—te Lord Prior of the same Who fearing what was like to follow had voluntarily forsook the Kingdome in the August foregoing and thereby saved the Queen the charge of an yearly pension which otherwise he might have had as his Predecessors had before him in the time of King Henry During the Reign of which King a Statute had been made in Ireland as in England also for the electing and consecrating of
a most prudent Prince had formerly protested against the calling of this Council by Pope Paul the 3d. who did as much pretend to the peace of Christendome as the Pope now being that to admit a Minister of the Pope in the quality or capacity of a Nuncio inferred a â—acit acknowledgement of that supâ—emacy whereof he had been deprived by Act of Parliament that the Popes of Rome have alwaies raised great advantages by the smallest concessions and therefore that it was most expedient for the good of the Kingdom to keep him alwaies at a distance that Queen Mary in favour only unto Pâ—lâ— refused to give admittance to Cardinal Peitow though coming from the Pope in quality of a Legate a Lateâ—â—e that a great part of the people were in discontentment with the change of Religion and wanted nothing but such an opportunity to break out into action as the Nuncio's presence might afford them and therefore that it concerned the Queen to be as zealous for Religion and the weal of her people as her sister the late Queen Mary was in maintenance of Cardinal Pole and his private authority And to say truth the greatest obstacle in the way of the Nuncio's coming was partly laid in it by the indiscretion of some Papists in England and partly by the precipitancy of the Popes Ministers in Ireland For so it was that the only noise of the coming of a Nuncio from the Pope had wrought in sundry evil-disposed persons such a courage and boldness that they did not only break the Laws made against the Pope and his authority with great audacity but spread abroad false and slanderous reports that the Queen was at the point to change her Religion and alter the government of the Realm Some also had adventured further even to a practising with the Devil by conjurations charms and casting of Figures to be informed in the length and continuance of her majesties Reign And on the other side the Popes Legate being at the same time in Ireland not only joyned himself to some desperate Traytors who busied themselves in stirring up rebellion there but for as much as in him was had deprived her Majesty of all Right and Title to that Kingdom Upon which grounds it was carried clearly by the Board against the Nuncio Nor would they vary from the Vote upon the intercession of the French the Spaniard or whose displeasure was more dangerous of the Duke of Alva Nothing discouraged with the repulse which had been given to the French and Spaniard the Emperour Ferdinand must make tryal of his fortune also not as they did in favour of the Nuncio's coming but in perswading her to return to the old Religion To this end he exhorts her by his Letters in a friendly way not to relinquish the Communion of so many Catholick Kings and Princes and her own Ancestors into the bargain nor to prefer her single judgement and the judgement of a few private persons and those not the most learned neither before the judgement and determination of the Church of Christ. That if she were resolved to persist in her own opinion she should deal favourably with so many reverend and Religious Prelates as she kept in prison and which she kept in prison for no other reason but for adhering unto that Religion which himself professed and finally he intreats most earnestly that she would set apart some Churches to the use of the Catholicks in which they might with freedome exercise their own Religion according to the Rites and Doctrines of the Church of Rome To which desires she made a full and sufficient answer by satisfying him touching her merciful dealing with those Bishops whom for their obstinacy and many other weighty reasons she had deprived of their preferments in the Church And to the rest she answered That she had setled her Religion on so sure a bottome that she could not easily be changed that she doubted not but that she had many learned men in her Dominions which were able to defend the doctrine by them taught against all Opponents and that for granting any Churches to the use of the Papists it was a point so contrary to the polity and good Lawes of the Land that she desired to be excused for not yielding to it In which last she seemed to have an eye upon the Edict of the Emperour Constantine touching the meetings of the Marcionites Novatians Valentinians and other Hereticks of that age In which it was enjoined that none of them should from thenceforth hold any assemblys and that for the more certain conforming unto his Decree those Churches or other houses whatsoever they were in which they used to hold their Meetings should be demolished to the ground to the end that there might be no place in which such men as were devoted to their superstitious faction might have the opportunity of assembling together For which the Reader may consult Eusebius in the life of Constantine l. b. 3. cap. 63. But that it might appear both to him and others that she was ready to shew all just favours she laid a most severe command upon all her Officers for the full payment of all such pensions as had been granted unto all such Abbots Monks and Friers in the time of her father as were not since preferred in the Church to cures or dignities And this to be performed to the utmost farthing on pain of her most high displeasure in neglect thereof It could not be but that the governing of her affairs with such an even and steady hand though it occasioned admiration in some must needs create both envy and displeasure in the hearts of other Christian Princes from none of which she had a juster cause to fear some practice than the King of Spain or rather from the fierce and intemperate Spirit of the Duke of Alva as appeared afterwards when he was made Lord Deputy or Vice-Gerent of the Belgick Provinces They had both shewed themselves offended because their intercession in behalf of the Nuncio had found no better entertainment and when great persons are displeased it is no hard matter for them to revenge themselves if they find their adversaries either weak or not well provided But the Queen looked so well about her as not to be taken tardy in either kind For which end she augments her store of Arms and Ammunition and all things necessary for the defence of her Kingdom which course she had happily begun in the year foregoing But holding it a safer maxim in the Schools of Polity not to admit than to endeavour by strong hand to expel an enemy She entertains some fortunate thoughts of walling her Kingdom round about with a puissant Navy for Merchants had already increased their shipping by managing some part of that wealthy trade which formerly had been monopolized by the Haâ—se or Easterlings And she resolves not to be wanting to her self in building ships of such a burthen and so fit for service as might inable
her in short time not only to protect her Merchants but command the Ocean Of which the Spaniard found good proof to his great loss and almost to his total ruine in the last 20 years of her glorious government And knowing right well that mony was the â—inew of war she fell upon a prudent and present course to fill her coffers Most of the monies in the Kingdom were of forein coynage brought hither for the most part by the Easterling and Flemish Merchants These she called in by Proclamation â—â—ted the 15th of November being but two dayes before the end of this 3d. year commanding them to be brought to her Majesties Mint there to be coyned and take the stamp of her Royal authority or otherwise not to pass for current within this Realm which counsel took such good effect that monies came flowing into the Mint insomuch that there was weekly brought into the Tower of London for the space of half a year together 8000. 10000. 12000. 16000. 20000. 22000 l. of silver plate and as much more in Pistols and other gold of Spanish coins which were great sums according to the standard of those early dayes and therefore no small profit to be growing to her by the coynage of them The Genevians slept not all this while but were as busily imployed in practising upon the Church as were the Romanists in plotting against the Queen Nothing would satisfie them but the nakedness and simplicity of the Zuinglian Churches the new fashions taken up at Franckfort and the Presbyteries of Geneva According to the pattern which they saw in those mounts the Church of England is to be modell'd nor would the Temple of Jerusalem have served their turn if a new Altar fashioned by that which they found at Damascus might not have been erected in it And they drove on so fast upon it that in some places they had taken down the steps where the Aâ—tar stood and brought the Holy Table into the midst of the Church in others they had laid aside the antient use of Godfathers and Godmothers in the administration of Baptism and left the answering for the child to the charge of the father The weekly Fasts the time of Lent and all other dayes of abstinence by the Church commanded were looked upon as superstitious observations No fast by them allowed of but occasional only and then too of their own appointing And the like course they took with the Festivals also neglecting those which had been instituted by the Church as humane inventions not fit to be retained in a Church reformed And finally that they might wind in there outlandish Doctrines with such forein usages they had procured some of the inferiour Ordinaries to impose upon their several Parishes certain new books of Sermons and Expositions of the holy Scripture which neither were required by the Queens Injunctions nor by Act of Parliament Some abuses also were discovered in the Regular Clergy who served in Churches of peculiar or exempt jurisdiction Amongst whom it began to grow too ordinary to marry all such as came unto them without Bains or Licence and many times not only without the privity but against the express pleasure and command of their Parents For which those Churches past by the name of Lawlesse Churches in the voice of the people For remedy whereof it was found necessary by the Archbishop of Canterbury to have recourse unto the power which was given unto him by the Queens Commission and by a clause or passage of the Act of Parliament for the Uniformity of Common Prayer and Service in the Church c. As one of the Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical he was authorized with the rest of his associates according to the Statute made in that behalf To reform redresse order correct and amend all such Errours Heresies Schisms abuses offences conâ—empts and enormities whatsoever as might from time to time arise in the Church of England and did require to be redressed and reformed to the pleasure of Almighty God the increase of vertue and conservation of the peace and unity of the Kingdom And in the passage of the Act before remembred it was especially provided That all such Ornaments of the Church and of the Ministers thereof should be retained and be in use as were in the Church of England by authority of Parliament in the second year of the Reign of King Edward the 6th until further Order should be therein taken by authority of the Queens Majesty with the advice of her Commissioners Appointed Ordered under the Great Seal of England for Causes Ecclesiastical or of the Metropolitan of this Realm And also if there shall happen any contempt or irreverence to be used in the Ceremonies or Rites of the Church by the misusing of the Orders of the said Book of Common Prayer the Queens Majesty might by the like advice of the said Commissioners or Metropolitan Ordain or publish such further Ceremonies or Rites as should be most for the advance of Gods glory the edifying of his Church and the due reverence of Christs holy Mysteries and Sacraments Fortified and assured by which double power the Archbishop by the Queens consent and the advice of some of the Bishops Commissionated and instructed to the same intent sets forth a certain book of Orders to be diligently observed and executed by all and singular persons whom it might concern In which it was provided That no Parson Vicar or Curate of any exempt Church commonly called Lawless Churches should from thenceforth attempt to conjoin by solemnization of Matrimony any not being of his or their Parish Church without sufficient testimony of the Bains being ask'd in the several Churches where they dwel or otherwise were sufficiently licenced That there should be no other dayes observed for Holy days or Fasting dayes as of duty and commandment but only such Holy dayes as be expressed for Holy dayes in the Calendar lately set forth by the Queens authority and none other Fasting dayes to be so commanded but as the Lawes and Proclamations of the Queens Majesty should appoint that it should not be lawful to any Ordinary to assign or enjoyn the Parishes to buy any Books of Sermons or Expositions in any sort than is already or shall be hereafter appointed by publick Authority that neither the Curates or Parents of the children which are brought to Baptism should answer for them at the Font but that the antient use of Godfathers and Godmothers should be still retained and finally that in all such Churches in which the steps to the Altar were not taken down the said steps should remain as before they did that the Communion Table should be set in the said place where the steps then were or had formerly stood and that the Table of Gods Precepts should be fixed upon the wall over the said Communion Board Which passage compared with that in the Advertisements published in the year 1565. of which more hereafter make up this construction that
end whereof he was restored to liberty by the death of the Lady who died a prisoner in the Tower And though the Lady Francis Dutchess of Suffolk might hope to have preserved her self from the like Court-thunder-claps by her obscure marriage with Adrian Stokes who had bin Gentleman of the Horse to the Duke her husband yet neither could that save her from abiding a great part of the tempest which fell so heavily upon her and all that family that William the nephew of this Earl by Edward Viscount Beauchamp his eldest son was prudently advised by some of his friends to procure a confirmation of his grand-fathers honors from the hand of King James which without much difficulty was obtained and granted by his Majesties Letters Patents bearing date the 14th of May in the 6th year of his Reign But such was the fortune of this House that as this Earl being newly restored unto the Title of Hertford by the great goodness of the Queen incurred her high displeasure and was thereupon committed prisoner for his marriage with the Lady Katherine Gray the onely heir then living of Mary the youngest daughter of King Henry the 7th so William above mentioned being confirmed in the expectancy of his grand-fathers honors by the like goodness of King James was committed prisoner by that King for marrying with the Lady Arabella daughter and heir of Charls Earl of Lennox descended from the eldest daughter of the said King Henry Such were the principal occurrences of this present year relating to the joynt concernments of Church and State In reference to the Church alone nothing appears more memorable than the publishing of an elegant and acute Discourse entituled The Apology of the Church of England first wait in Latin by the right reverend Bishop Jewel translated presently into English French Italian Dutch and at last also into Greek highly approved of by all pious and judicious men stomached by none excepting our own English fugitives and yet not undertook by any of them but by Harding only who had his hands full enough before in beating out an answer to the Bishopâ— challenge By him we are informed if we may believe him that two Tractats or Discourses had been writ against it the one by an Italian in the Tongue of that Country the other in Latine by a Spanish Bishop of the Realm of Naples both finished and both stopped as they went to the Press out of a due regard â—orsooth to the Church of England whose honour had been deeply touched by being thought to have approved such a lying unreasonable slanderous and ungodly Pamphlet which were it true the Church was more beholden to the modesty of those Spaniards and Italians than to our own natural English But whether it were true or not or rather how untrue it is in all particulars the exchange of writings on both sides doth most plainly manifest In general it was objected That the Apology was published in the name of the Church of England before any mean part of the Church were privy to it as if the Author either were ashamed of it or afraid to stand to it that the Inscription of it neither was directed to Pope nor Emperor nor to any Prince not to the Church nor to the General Council then in being as it should have been that there was no mans name seâ— to it that it was printed without the privilege of the Prince contrary to the Law in that behalf that it was allowed neither by Parliament nor Proâ—lamation nor agreed upon by the Clergy in a publick and lawful Synod and therefore that the Book was to be accounted a famous Libel and a scandalâ—us Writing To which it was answered in like Generals by that learned Prelate That the profession of the Doctrine contained in it was offered unto the whole Church of God and so unto the Pope and the Council too if they were any part or member of the Church that if names be so necessary he had the names of the whole Clergy of England to confirm that Doctrine and Harding's too amongst the rest in the time of King Edward that for not having the Princes privilege it might easily be disproved by the Printer that it was not conceived in such a dark corner as was objected being afterwards imprinted at Paris in Latine and having since been translated into the French Italian Dutch and Spanish Toungs that being sent afterwards into France Flanders Germany Spain Poland Hungary Denmark Sweden Scotland Italy Naples and Rome it self it was tendred to the judgment of the whole Church of God that it was read and seriously considered of in the convent of Trent and great threats made that it should be answered and the matter taken in hand by two notable learned Bishops the one a Spaniard and the other an Italian though in fine neither of them did any thing in it and finally that certain of the English Papists had been nibling at it but such as cared neither what they writ nor was cared by others And so much may suffice in general for this excellent Piece to the publishing whereof that learned Prelate was most encouraged by Peter Martyr as appears by Martyr's Letter of the 24th of August with whom he had spent the greatest part of his time when he lived in Exile And happy had it been for the Church of England if he had never done worse offices to it than by dealing with that reverend Bishop to so good a purpose But Martyr onely lived to see the Book which he so much longed for dying at Zurick on the 12th day of November following and laid into his grave by the Magistrates and People of that Town with a solemn Funeral Nothing remains for the concluding of this year but to declare how the three vacant Bishopricks were disposed of if those may say to be disposed of which were still kept vacant Glocester was onely filled this year by the preferment of Mr. Râ—chaâ—d Cheny Archdeacon of Hereford and one of the Prebendaries of the Collâ—giat Church of St. Peter in Westminster who received hâ—s Episcopal consecration on the 19th of April Together with the See of Glocester he held that of Bristol in commendam as did also Bullingham his Successor that is to say the Jurisdiction with the Profits and Fees thereof to be exercised and enjoyed by them but the temporal Revenue of it to continue in the hands of some hungry Courtiers who gnawed it to the very bone in which condition it remained under the two Bishops till the year 1589. when the Queen was pleased to bestow the remainders of it together with the title of Bishop on Doctor Richard Flesher Dean of Peterborough whom afterwards she preferred to the See of London And as for Oxon it was kept vacant from the death of King the first Bishop of it who died on the 4th of December 1557. till the 14th of October 1567. at which time it was conferred on Dr. Hugh Curwyn Archbishop of Dublin
then being and therefore that he could not consent to the holding of a Convocation in that place without some Declaâ—ation to be made by the Archbishops Bishops that their holding the Convocation in the same should not be taken or intended for any violation of the rights privileges that belong'd unto it which was accordingly perform'd It was â—n the 19th day of January that these formalities were transacted at whâ—t time the Archbishops and Bishops having first had some secret communication amongst themselves about the Articles of Religion established in King 〈◊〉 time râ—quired the Prolocutor and six others of the Lower Hâ—use of Convocation to repair unto them By whom it was signified unto their Lordships that some of the Clergy had prepared certain Bills containing a specification of such matters as were conceived to be amiss in the state of the Church and that the Articles of Religion agreed upon in the Reign of King Edward the 6th had been delivered unto others to be considered of corrected and accommodated as they found it necessary Being encouraged in the last and furthered by the diligence of some of the Bishops who were employed in the same work the Articles were agreed upon publickly read before the Bishops in the Chapter-house of St. Paul on the 29th of the same month and by all of them subscribed with great unanimity The Prelates had observed some deviation from the Doctrine of King Edward's Reign which had been made by the Calviniâ—n on Zuinglian Gospellers in the Articles of Predestination Grace Free-will and final perseverance Nor could they but take notice with how little reverence the Sacrament of the Lord's Supper was administred and the Authority of the Church despised by too many of the same party also which they were willing to impute to the want of some known rule amongst them by which they were to regulate their judgments and conform their actions To which end it was thought expedient that the Book of Articles agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1552. should be revised and accommodated to the use of the Church the Queens leave being first obtained for their warrant in it In the managing of which great business I know not whether I should more admire their moderation or their wisdome Their wisdome eminent in not suffering any Outlandish Divine who might drive on a different interess from that of the Church either to vote amongst them or carry any stroke in their consultations Their moderation no less visible in declining all unnecessary determinations which rather tended to the multiplying of controversies and ingendring strifes than either unto edification or increase of piety So that they seemed to have proceeded by those very Rules which King James so much approved of in the conference at Hampton Court First in not separating further from the Church of Rome in points of Discipline or Doctrine than that Church had separated from what she was in her purest times Secondly in not stuffing the Book of Articles with all Conclusions Theological in which a latitude of judgement was to be allowed as far as it might be consistent with peace and charity and Thirdly in not thrusting into it every opinion or Position negative which might have made it somewhat like Mr. Craiges Confession in the Kirk of Scotland who with his I renounce and I abhor his detestations and abrenunciations did so amaze the simple people as the King observeth that not being able to conceive or understand all those points utterly gave over all and fell back to Popery or else remained in their former ignorance Upon which grounds as they omitted many whole Articles and qualified the expressions of some others in King Edward's book so were they generally very sparing in defining any thing which was meerly matter of moduliâ—y or de modo only As namely touching the manner of Christs presence in the Holy Eucharist the manner of effecting grace by the blessed Sacraments or of the operation of Gods grace in a mans conversion Which rules being carefully observed by all the Bishops on whose authority and consent the greatest part of the whole Work did seem to rest and all particulars agreed upon amongst themselves it was no wonder if they passed their Votes without contradiction But in taking the subscriptions of the lower house there appeared more difficulty For though they all testified their consent unto them on the said 29th of January either by words express or by saying nothing to the contrary which came all to oâ—e yet when subscription was required many of the Calvinians or Zuinglian-Gospellers possibly some also which enclined rather to their old Religion and who found themselves unsatisfied in some particulars had demurred upon it With this demur their Lordships are acquainted by the Prolocutor on the 5th of February By whom their Lordships were desired in the name of that House that such who had not hitherto subscribed the Articles might be ordered to subscribe in their own proper house or in the presence of their Lordships Which request being easily granted drew on the subscription of some others but so that many still remained in their first unwillingness An Order thereupon is made by their Lordships on the â—oth then following that the Prolocutor should return the names of all such persons who refused subscription to the end that such further course might be taken with them as to their Lordships should seem most fit After which we hear no news of the like complaints and informations which makes it probable if not concluded that they all subscribed And being thus subscribed by all they were soon after published both in English and Latine with this following Title that is to say Articles agreed upon by the Archbishops and Bishops of both Provinces and the whole Clergy in the Convocation holden at London in the year 1562. for the avoiding of diversities of opinions and establishing consent touching true Religion But what they were and wherein they agreed or differed with or from those established by King Edward the 6th shall be referred for the avoiding of all interruptions in the course of this History to a place more proper Nothing else brought to a conclusion by them but the Bill of Subsidy which having past that House was confirmed in Parliament Nothing else brought into conclusion though many things were had in deliberation On Friday the 5th of February the Bishops of Salisbury Exon St David's and Lichfield were appointed by the rest of the Prelates to examine a Catechism which it seems was presented to them But being by them remitted to the consideration of the lower house they were advertised by Day and Sampson on the 3d. of March that the said house unanimously had approved thereof And there it rested for that time and for ever after nothing being done in confirmation of it as a publick Doctrine by whomsoever it was written nor any further speech made of it in the time succeeding Which fortune also hapned to a Book of Discipline projected
13th of April And for creating the greater confidence and amity between both Princes it was not long before she sent the Lord Henry Hunsâ—on accompanied with the Lord Strange and divers Knights and Gentlemen to the Court of France to present that King with the Collar and Habit of the Garter into which Noble Order he had been elected at a General Chapter Garter the King at Arms was also sent along with them to invest him in it with all the Ceremonies and Solemnities thereunto belonging to make it the more acceptable in the sight of that people But notwithstanding these courses on the one side and the indignities put upon her by the Hugonot Princes on the other Reason of State prevailed with her not to lay aside the care of their safety and affairs For wel she knew that if the Hugonots were not incouraged under hand and the Guisian faction kept in breath by their frequent stirrings they would be either hammering some design against her in her own Dominions or animate the Queen of Scots to stand to her Title and pretensions for the Crown of England Upon which general ground of self-preservation as she first aided those of Scotland for the expelling of the French and the French Protestants from being ruined and oppressed by the House of Guise so on the same she afterwards undertook the Patronage of the Belgick Neatherlands against the tyranny and ambition of the Duke of Alva who otherwise might have brought the war to her own dores and hazarded the peace and safety of her whole Estate Having secured her self by this peace with France and being at no open enmity with the King of Spain she resolves to give her self some pleasure and thereupon prepareth for her Summers progress In the course whereof she bestowed a visit upon Cambridge on the 5th of August where she was honorably received by Mr. Secretary Cecil being then Chancellor of that University together with all the Heads of Houses and other Students attired in their Academical Habits according to their several and distinct degrees Her lodging was provided in Kings College the dayes of her abode there spent in Scholastical exercises of Philosophy Physick and Divinity the nights in Comedies and Tragedies and other pleasing entertainments On Wednesday the 7th of the same month she rode through the Town and took a view of all the Colleges and Halls the goodly Monuments of the piety of her predecessors and of so many men and women famous in their generations Which done she took her leave of Cambridge in a Latine Oration in which she gave them great encouragement to persue their studies not without giving them somes hopes that if God spared her life and opportunity she would erect some Monument amongst them of her love to Learning which should not be inferiour unto any of her Royal Ancestors In which diversion she received such high contentment that nothing could have seemed to be equal to it but the like at Oxon where she was entertained about two years after for seven days together with the same variety of Speeches Enteâ—ludes Disputations and other Academical expressions of a publick joy In one point that of Oxford seemed to have the preheminence all things being there both given and taken with so even an hand that there could be no ground for any emulation strife or discord to ensue upon it But in the midst of those contentments which she had at Cambridge were sown the seeds of those divisions and combustions with which the Church hath been continually distracted to this very day For so it hapned that Mr. Thomas Preston of Kings College and Mr. Thomas Cartwright of Trinity College were appointed for two of the Opponents in a Disputation In which the first by reason of his comely gesture pleasing pronunciation and graceful personage was both liked and rewarded by her the other receiving neither reward or commendation Which so incensed the proud man too much opinionated of himself and his own abilities that he retired unto Geneva where having throughly informed himself in all particulars both of Doctrine and Discipline wherein the Churches of that platform differed from the Church of England he returned home with an intent to repair his credit or rather to get himself a name as did Erastrotus in the burning of Diana's Temple by raising such a fire such combustions in her as never were to be extinguished like the fire of Taberah but by the immediate hand of Heaven The Genevians had already began to blow the coals and brought fewel to them but it was onely for the burning of Caps and Rochets The Common-Prayer book was so fortified by Act of Parliament that there was no assaulting of it without greater danger than they durst draw upon themselves And as for the Episcopal Government it was so interwoven and incorporated with the Laws of the land so twisted in with the Preâ—ogative of the Crown and the Regal Interess that they must first be in a capacity of trampling on the Laws and the Crown together before they could attempt the destruction of it But Caps and Typpets Rochets and Lawn sleeves and Canonical Coats seemed to be built upon no better foundation than superstitious custom some old Popish Canon or at the best some temporary Injunction of the Queens devising which could not have the power and effect of Law This Game they had in chase in King Edward's time which now they are resolved to follow both with horn and hound and hunt it to the very last But as good Huntsmen as they were they came off with loss they that sped best in it being torn by the briers and bushes through which the fury of their passion carried them in pursute of the sport Amongst which none sped worse than Sampson because none had so much to lose in the prosecution for resting obstinate in refusing to wear that habit which of right belonged unto his place he was deprived of that place by the High Commissioners to which the habit did belong So eminent a Preferment as the Deanry of Christ-church deserved a man of a better temper and of a more exemplary conformity to the rules of the Church Both which were found in Dr. Thomas Godwin Chaplain in Ordinary to the Queen advanced unto this Deanry first and after to the Bishoprick of Bath and Wells more fortunate in being father to Dr. Francis Godwin a late Bishop of Hereford never to be forgotten for his Commentaries of the English Bishops digested with such infinite pains and no less ingenuity The obstinacy of these men in matter of Ceremony prompted the Bishops to make trial of their Orthodoxie in points of Doctrine The Articles of Religion lately agreed upon in Convocation had been subscribed by all the Clergy who had voted to them subscribed not onely for themselves but in the name of all those in the several Diocesses and Cathedral Churches whom they represented But the Bishops not thinking that sufficient to secure the Church
following they were dismist with many rich Presents and an annual pension from the Queen conducted honourably by the Lord Aburgavenny to the Port of Dover and there shipped for Calais filling all places in the way betwixt that and Baden with the report of the magnificence of their entertainment in the Court of England And that the Glories of their entertainment might appear the greater it hapned that Rambouillet a French Ambassador came hither at that time upon two solemnities that is to say to be installed Knight of the Garter in the place and person of that King and to present the Order of St Michael the principal Order of that Kingdom to Thomas Duke of Norfolk and the Earl of Leicester The one performed with the accustomed Pomps and Ceremonies in the Chapel of St George at Windsor the other with like State and splendour in the Royal Chapel at Whitehall Such a well tempered piety did at that time appear in the Devotions of the Church of England that generally the English Papists and the Ambassadors of forein Princes still resorted to them But true it is that at that time some zealots of the Church of Rome had begun to slacken their attendance not out of any new dislike which they took at the service but in regard of a Decree set forth in the Council of â—rent prohibiting all resort to the Churches of Hereticks Which notwithstanding the far greater part continued in their first obedience till the coming over of that Roaring Bull from Pope Pius the 5th by which the Queen was excommunicated the subjects discharged from their obedience to the Laws and the going or not going to the Church made a sign distinctive to difference a Roman Catholick from an English Protestant And it is possible enough that they might have stood much longer to their first conformity if the discords brought into the Church by the Zuinglian faction together with their many innovations both in Doctrine and Discipline had not afforded them some further ground for the desertion For in this year it was that the Zuinglian or Calvinian faction began to be first known by the name of Puritans if Genebrard Gualier and Spondanus being all of them right good Chronologers be not mistaken in the time Which name hath ever since been appropriate to them because of their pretending to a greater Purity in the service of God than was held forth unto them as they gave it out in the Common Prayer Book and to a greater opposition to the Rites and Usages of the Church of Rome than was agreeable to the constitution of the Church of England But this Purity was accompanied with such irreverence this opposition drew along with it so much licenciousnesse as gave great scandal and offence to all sober men so that it was high time for those which had the care of the Church to look narrowly unto them to give a check to those disorders and confusions which by their practices and their preachings they had brought into it and thereby laid the ground of that woful schism which soon after followed And for a check to those disorders they published the Advertisement before remembred subscribed by the Archbishop of Canâ—erbury the Bishops of London Winchester Ely Lincoln Rochester and other of her Majesties Commissioners for Causes Ecclesiastical according to the Statute made in that behalf This was the only present remedy which could then be thought of And to prevent the like confusions for the time to come a Protestation was devised to be taken by all Parsons Vicars and Curates in their several stations by which they were required to declare and promise That they would not preach not publickly interpret but only read that which is appointed by publick authority without special Licence of the Bishop under his Seal that they would read the Service plainly distinctly and audibly that all the people might hear and understand that they would keep the Register book according to the Queens Majesties Injunctions that they would use sobriety in apparel and especially in the Church at Common Prayers according to Order appointed that they would move the Parishioners to quiet and concord and not give them cause of offence and help to reconcile them that be at variance to their utmost power that they would read dayly at the least one Chapter of the Old Testament and another of the New with good advisement to the increase of their knowledge that they would in their own persons use and exercise their Office and Place to the honour of God and the quiet of the Queens subjects within their charge in truth concord and unity as also observe keep and maintain such Order and Uniformity in all external Policy Rites and Ceremonies of the Church as by the Lawes good usages and Orders are already well provided and established and finally that they would not openly meddle with any Artificers occupations as covetously to seek a gain thereby having in Ecclesiastical Livings twenty Nobles or above by the year Which protestation if it either had been generally pressed upon all the Clergy as perhaps it was not or better kept by them that took it the Church might questionlesse have been saved from those distractions which by the Puritan Innovators were occasioned in it Anno Reg. Eliz. 8. A. D. 1565 1566. THus have we seen the publick Liturgy confirmed in Parliament with divers penalties on all those who either did reproach it or neglect to use it or wilfully withdrew their attendance from it the Doctrine of the Church declared in the Book of Articles agreed upon in Convocation and ratified in due form of Law by the Queens authority external matters in officiating Gods publick service and the apparel of the Clergy regulated and reduced to their first condition by the Books of Orders and Advertisements Nothing remaineth but that we settle the Episcopal Government and then it will be time to conclude this History And for the setling of this Government by as good authority as could be given unto it by the Lawes of the Land we aâ—e beholden to the obstinacy of Dr Edmond Bonner the late great slaughter-man of London By a Statute made in the last Parliament for keeping her Majesties Subjects in their due obedience a power was given unto the Bishops to tender and receive the oath of Supremacy of all manner of persons dwelling and residing in their several Diocesses Bonner was then prisoner in the Clink or Marshalsea which being in the Burrough of Southwark brought him within the Jurisdiction of Horn Bishop of Winchester by whose Chancellor the Oath was tender'd to him On the refusal of which Oath he is endicted at the Kings Bench upon the Statute to which he appeared in some Term of the year foregoing and desires that counsel be assigned to plead his cause according to the course of the Court The Court assigns him no worse men than Christopher Wâ—ay afterwards chief Justice of the Common Pleas that famous Lawyer Edmond
they saâ—e in sides or lay on the ground or fell prostrate or sung Te Deum or looked toward the South or did wear Copes of Tissâ—e or Velvet with a thousand more such questions p. 446. Whereas the Church of God so well ordered with excellent men of learning and godlinesse is constrained to suffer Coblers Weavers Tinkers Tanners Cardmakers â—apsters Fidlers Gaolers and other of like profession not only to enter into disputing with her but also to climb up into Pulpits and to keep the place of Priests and Ministers c. p. 2. Or that any Bagpipers Horse coursers Jaylers or Ale basters were admitted then into the Clergy without good and long tryal of their conversation p. 162. Or that any Bishop then did swear by his honour when in his visitation abroad in the Country he would warrant his promise to some poor prisoner Priest under him or not satisfied with the prisoning of his adversary did cry out and call upon the Prince not disposed that way to put them to most cruel deaths or refused to wear a white Rochet or to be distinguished from the Laity by some honest Priests apparel p. 162. or gathered a Benevolence of his Clergy to set him up in his houshold p. 163. Or that the Communion Table if any then were was removable up and down hither and thither and brought at any time to the lower parts of the Church there to execute the Lords Supper or that any Communion was said on Good Friday or that the Sacrament was ministred then sometimes in loaf Bread sometimes in Wafers and those rather without the name of Jesus or the sign of the Crosse than with it or that at the Communion time the Minister should wear a Cope and at all other Service a Surplice only or as at some places it is used nothing at all besides his common apparel or that they used a common and prophane cup at the Communion and not a consecrated and hallowed vessel p. 162 163. Or that a solemn curse should be used on Aâ—h Wednesday or that a Procession about the fields was used in the Rogation week rather thereby to know the bounds and borders of every Parish than to move God to mercy and shew mens hearts to devotion or that the man should put the Wedding ring upon the fourth finger of the left hand of the Women and not on the right as hath been many hundred years continued p. 163. Or that the resiâ—ue of the Sacrament unreceived was taken of the Priest or of the Parish Clerk to spread their young childrens butter thereupon or to serve their own tooth with it at their homely table or that it was lawful then to have but one Communion in one Church in one day p. 164. or that the Lent or Friday was to be fasted for civil policy not for any devotion p. 165. or that the Lay people communicating did take the cup at one another hands and not at the Priests p. 166. Or that any Bishop then threw down the Images of Christ and his Saints and set up their own their wives and their childrens pictures in their Chambers and Parlours p. 164. or that being a virgin at the taking of his Office did afterwards yet commendably take a wife unto him p. 165. or that was married on Ash Wednesday or that preached it to be all one to pray on a dunghil and in a Church or that any Fryer of 60 years obteining afterwards the room of a Bishop married a young woman of nineteen years c p. 166. Thus have we seen the Church established on a sure foundation the Doctrine built upon the Prophers and Apostles according to the explication of the ancient Fathers the Government truly Apostolical and in all essential parts thereof of Divine institution the Liturgy an extract of the Primitive forms the Ceremonies few but necessary and such as tended only to the preservation of decency and increase of piety And we have seen the first Essays of the Puritan faction beginning low at Caps and Surplices and Episcopal habits but aiming at the highest points the alteration of the Government both in Church and State the adulterating of the Doctrine and the subversion of the Liturgy and form of worship here by Law established But the discovery of those dangerous Doctrines and those secret Plots and open practises by which they did not onely break down the roofe and walls of this goodly building but digged up the foundation of it will better fall within the compasse of a Presbyterian or Acrian History for carring on of whose designes since the dayes of Calvin they have most miserably imbroyled all the Estates and Kingdomes of these parts of Christendome the Realmes and Churches of Great Brittaine more than all the rest Let it suffice me for the present if I have set the Church on its proper bottom and shewed her to the world in her Primative lustre that we may see how strangely she hath been unsetled how monstruously disfigured by unquiet men whose interess is as incompatible with the rights of Monarchy as with distinction of apparrell the Government of Bishops all set formes of Prayer and whatsoever also they contend against And therefore heare I will conclude my History of the Reformation as not being willing to look further into those disturbances the lamentable effects whereof wee feele to this very day AN APPENDIX To the former BOOK CONTAINING 1. The Articles of Religion agreed upon in Convocation Anno 1562. compared with those which had been made and published in the Reign of King Edward the 6 th Anno 1552. 2. Notes on the former Articles concerning the Particulars in which they differed and the reasons of it A PREFACE to the following ARTICLES THe Lutherans having published that famous Confession of their faith which takes name from Ausbâ—rge at which City it was tendered to the consideration of Charls the 5th and the Estates of the Empire there assembled Anno 1530. In tract of time all other Protestant and Reformed Churches followed that example And this they did partly to have a constant Rule a mongst themselves by which all private persons were to frame their judgments and pâ—rtly to declare that consent and harmony which was betwixt them and the rest of those National Churches which had made an open separation from the Popes of Rome Upon which grounds the Prelates of the Church of England having concurred with the godly desires of King Edward the sixth for framing one uniform Order to be used in God's publick Worship and publish ing certain pious and profitable Sermons in the English Toung for the instruction of the people found a necessity of holding forth some publick Rule to testifie as well their Orthodoxie in some points of Doctrine as their abhorrency from the corruptions of the Church of Rome and the extravagancies of the Anabaptists and other Sectaries This gave the first occasion to the Articles of Religion published in the Reign of King Edward the sixth
called unpardonable and so affirmed to be by our Lord and Saviour _____ XVII Of Predestination and Election Predestination unto life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the world were laid he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret â—nto us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen out of Mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation as vessels made to honor Wherefore they which be endued with so excellent a benefit of God be called according to Gods purpose by his Spirit working in due season they through grace obey the calling they be justified freely they are made sons by Adoption they are made like the image of the onely begotten Jesus Christ they walk religiously in good works and at length by Gods mercy they attain to everlasting felicity As the godly consideration of Predestination and Election in Christ is full of sweet pleasant and unspeakable comfort to godly persons and such as feel in themselves the working of the Spirit of Christ mortifying the works of the flesh and their earthly members and drawing up their mind to high and heavenly things as well because it doth greatly establish and confirm their faith of eternal salvation to be enjoyed through Christ as because it doth fervently kindle their love towards God So for curious and carnal persons lacking the Spirit of Christ to have continually before their eyes the sentence of Gods Predestination is a most dangerous downfall whereby the devil doth thrust them either into desperation or into wretchlesness of most unclean livingâ— no lesse perilous than desperation Furthermore though the Decrees of Predestination be unknown to us 17 yet must we receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us in holy Scripture and in our doings that will of God is to be followed which we have expresly declared unto us in the Word of God XVII Of Predestination and Election Predestination unto life is the everlasting purpose of God whereby before the foundations of the world were laid he hath constantly decreed by his counsel secret unto us to deliver from curse and damnation those whom he hath chosen in Christ 16 out of Mankind and to bring them by Christ to everlasting salvation they are made the sons of God by Adoption they be made like the Image of His onely begotten Son Jesus Christ c. Furthermore we must receive Gods promises in such wise as they be generally set forth to us c. XVIII Everlasting Salvation to be obtained onely in the Name of Christ. They also are to be had accursed that presume to say That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth so that he be diligent to frame his life according to that Law and the light of Nature For holy Scripture doth set out unto us onely the Name of Jesus Christ whereby men must be saved XVIII Of obtaining Eternal Salvation by the Name of Christ. They also are to be had accursed that presume to say That every man shall be saved by the Law or Sect which he professeth c. XIX All men are bound to keep the Precepts of the Moral Law 18 Although the Law given from God by Moses as touching Ceremonies and Rites do not bind Christian men nor the Civil Precepts thereof ought of necessity to be received in any Common-wealth yet notwithstanding no Christian man whatsoever is free from the obedience of the Commandments which are called Moral Wherefore they are not to be heard 19 which teach that the holy Scriptures were given to none but to the Weak and brag continually of the Spirit by which they do pretend that all whatsoever they preach is suggested to them though manifestly contrary to the holy Scripture _____ XX. Of the Church The visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached and the Sacraments be duly ministred according to Christs Ordinance in all those things that of necessity are requisite to the same As the Church of Jerusalem Alexandria and Antioch have erred so also the Church of Rome hath erred not onely in their Livings and manner of Ceremonies but also in matters of Faith XIX Of the Church The visible Church of Christ is a Congregation of faithful men in which the pure Word of God is preached c. XXI Of the Authority of the Church It is not lawful for the Church to ordain any thing that is contrary to Gods Word written neither may it so expound one place of Scripture that it be repugnant to aâ—other Whereâ—ore although the Church be a witnesse and keeper of holy Writ yet as it ought not to decree any thing against the same so besides the same ought it not to enforce any thing to be believed for necessity of Salvation XX. Of the Authority of the Church The Church hath power to decree Rites and Ceremonies and Authority in Controversies of Faith 20 It is not lawful for the Church c. XXII Of the Authority of General Councils General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes And when they be gathered together forasmuch as they be an Assembly of men whereof all be not governed with the Spirit and word of God they may erre and sometimes have erred even in things pertaining unto God Wherefore things ordained by them as necessary to Salvation have neither strength nor authority unless it may be declared that they be taken out of holy Scripture XXI Of the Authority of General Councils General Councils may not be gathered together without the commandment and will of Princes c. XXIII Of Purgatory The Doctrine of the School-men concerning Purgatory Pardons Worshipping and Adoâ—ation as well of Images as of Relicts and also invocation of Saints is a fond thing vainly invented and grounded upon no warranty of Scripture but rather perniciously repugnant to the Word of God XXII Of Purgatory The Doctrine of the School-men concerning Purgatory c. XXIV No man to minister in the Church except he be called It is not lawfull for any man to take upon him the office of publick Preaching or ministring the Sacraments in the Congregation before he be lawfully called and sent to execute the same And those we ought to judge lawfully called and sent which be â—hosen and called to this work by men who have publiâ—k Authority given unto them in the Congâ—egation to call and send Ministers into the Lords Vineyard XXIII Of ministring in the Congregation It is not lawful for any man to take upon him the office of publick Preaching c. XXV All things to be done in the Congregation in such a Toung as is understood by the People It is most fit and most agreeable to to the Word of God 21 that nothing be read or rehearsed in the Congregation in a Tongue not known unto the People which Paul hath forbidden to be done unless
of the Court that for the better attaining of the Queens good grace they furnished the same at their own costs with new beds bedding and other necessary furniture in a very ample manner In which condition it continueth to this very day the Mastership of the Hospital being looked on as a good preferment for any well deserving man about the Court but for the most part given to some of their Majesties Chaplains for the encouragement of learning and the reward of their service How far the Queens example seconded by the Ladies about the Court countenanced by the King and earnestly insisted on by the Pope then being might have prevailed on the Nobility and Gentry for doing the like either in restoring their Church Lands or assigning some part of them to the like Foundations it is hard to say most probable it is that if the Queen had lived some few years longer either for love to her or for fear of gaining the Kings displeasure who was now grown too great to be disputed with if the point were questioned or otherwise out of an unwillingnesse to incur the Popes curse and the Churches censures there might have been very much done that way though not all at once For so it was that Philip having past over to Calais in the month of September Anno 1555. And the next day departing to the Emperors Court which was then at Brussels where he found his father in a resolution of resigning to him all his Dominions and Estates except the Empire or the bare title rather of it which was to be surrendred to his brother Ferdinand not that he had not a design to settle the Imperial Dignity on his Successors in the Realm of Spain for the better attaining of the Universal Monarchy which he was said to have aspired to over all the West but that he had been crossed in it by Maxiâ—ilian the eldest son of his brother Ferdinand who succeeded to his father in it and left the same hereditary in a manner to the Princes of the House of Austria of the German Rate For Charls grown weary of the world broken with warrs and desirous to apply himself to â—ivine meditations resolved to discharge himself of all civil employments and spend the remainder of his life in the Monastery of St. Justus situate among the Mountains of Extremadura a Province of the Realm of Castile In pursuance whereof having called before him the principal of the Nobility and great men of his several Kingdoms and Estates he made a Resignation of all his hereditary Dominions to King Philip his son on the 25th of October Anno 1555. having then scarce attained to the 55 year of his life to the great admiration of all the world After which act he found himself so abandoned by all his followers that sitting up laâ—e at night in conference with Seldiuâ— his brothers Embassador he had not a servant within call to light the Gentleman down stairs Which being observed by the Emperor he took the candle into his hands and would needs in his own person perform that offiâ—e and having brought him to the top of the stairs he said unto him Remember Seldius that thou hast known the Emperour Charls whom thou hast seen in the heâ—d of so many Armies reduced to such a low estate as to perform the office of an ordinary servant to his Brothers Minister Such was the greatness to which Philip had attained at the present time when the Queen was most intent on these new foundations As for the Pope he had published a Bull in print at the same time also in which he threatned Excommunication to all manner of persons without exception as kept any Church Lands unto themselves as also to all Princes Noblemen and Magistrates as did not forthwith put the same in execution Which though it did not much edifie at the present in the Realm of England yet it found more obedience and conformity in that of Ireland in which a Parliament being called toward the end of this year that is to say in the month of June Anno 1557. there past a Statute for repealing all Acts Articles and Provisions made against the See Apostolick since the 20th year of King Henry the 8th and for abolishing of several Eccelesiastical possessions conveyed to the Laity as also for the extinguishment of First-fruits and Twentieth parts no more than the yearly payment of the twentieth part having been laid by Act of Parliament on the Irish Clergy in the first and last clause whereof as they followed the example of the Realm of England so possibly they might have given a dangerous example to it in the other point if by the Queens death following shortly after as well K. Philip as the Pope had not lost all their power influence on the English Nation by means whereof there was no farther progresse in the restitution of the Abbey-Lands no more re-edifying of the old Religious Houses and no intention for the founding of any new Such as most cordially were affected to the interest of the Pope of Rome and otherwise were very perfect at their Ave Maria might love their Pater nâ—ster well but their Penny better Thus have we seen how zealously the Queen proceeded in her way towards the re-establishing of the Papal greatness Let us next look on the proceedings of the Cardinal Legat not as a Legat a latere from the Pope of Rome but as Legatus natus a Metropolitan or Archbishop of the Church of England As Cardinal-Legat he had been never forward in the shedding of blood declaring many ways his aversnesse from that severity which he saw divers of the English Bishops but especially the Butcher of London were so bent upon And when he came to act as Metropolitan he was very sparing in that kind as far as his own person was concerned therein though not to be excused from suffering the under Officers of his Diocess to be too prodigal of the blood of their Christian brethren He had been formerly suspected for a favourer of the Lutheran Doctrins when he lived at Rome and acted for the Pope as one of his Legats in the Council of â—rent Gardiner and Bonner and the rest of the sons of Thunder who called for nothing less than fire though not from heaven were willing to give out that he brought the same affections into England also and therefore somewhat must be done to keep up his authority and reputation both at home and abroad To which end he inserteth some particulars amongst the printed Articles of his Visitation to witnesse for him to the world that he had as great a care for suppressing the growth of Heresie as any Prelate in the Kingdom who would be thought more zealous because more tyrannical of which sort are the 14 15 and 17th Articles which concerned the Clergy that is to say Whether any of them do teach or preach erronious doctrine contrary to the Catholick faith and the Unity of the
without some intermissions by the King deceased and therefore to be put in Execution with the greater safety For though the young King by Reason of his tender Age could not but want a great proportion of His Father's Spirit for carrying on a work of such weight and moment yet he wanted nothing of that power in Church-concernment which either Naturally was inherent in the Crown Imperial or had been Legally vested in it by Acts of Parliament Neither could His Being in Minority nor the Writings in His Name by the Lord Protectour and the Rest of the Council make any such difference in the Case as to invalidate the Proceedings or any of the Rest which followed in the Reformation For if they did the Objection would be altogether as strong against the Reformation made in the Minority of King Josias as against this in the Minority of the present King That of Josias being made as Josephus telleth us by the Advice of the Elders as this of King EDVVARD the Sixth by the Advice of the Council And yet it cannot be denyed but that the Reformation made under King Iâ—sias by Advice of His Council was no less pleasing unto God nor less valid in the Eys of all His Subjects then those of Jeboshaphat and Hezekiah in their Riper years who perhaps acted singly on the strength of their Own Judgements onely without any Advice Now of Josias we are told by the said Historian That When He grew to be twelve years old He gave manifest Approbation of His Piety and Justice For He drew the People to a conformable Course of Life and to the Detestation and Abolishing of Idols that were no Gods and to the Service of the Onely True God of their Fore-Fathers And considering the Actions of His Predecessours He began to Rectifie them in that wherein they were deficient with no less Circumspection then if He had been an Old Man And that which He found to be Correspondent and Advisedly done by them that did He both maintain and imitate All which things He did both by Reason of His Innated Wisdom as also by the Aâ—moâ—shment and Council of His Elders in following orderly the Laws not onely in matters of Religion but of Civil Politie Which puts the Parallel betwixt the two young Kings in the Case before us above all Exception and the Proceedings of King Edward or His Council rather beyond all Dispute Now whereas Question hath been made whether the twenty fourth Injunction for Labouring on the Holy Day in time of Harvest extend as well to the Lord's Day as the Annual Festivals The matter seems to any well-discerning eye to be out of Question For in the third Chapter of the Statute made in the fifth and sixth years of King Edward the Sixth when the Reformation was much more advanced then it was at the present the Names and Number of such Holy Days as were to be observed in this Church are thus layed down That is to say All Sundaies in the year the Feasts of the Circumcision of our Lord Jesus Christ of the Epiphany c. with all the Rest still kept and there named particularly And then it followeth in the Act That it shall and may be lawfull for every Husband-man Labourer Fisher-man and to all and every other person or persons of what Estate Degree or Condition he or they be upon the Holy-Days afore-said in Harvest or at any other times in the year when necessity shall so require to Labour Ride Fish or Work any kind of work at their free-will and Pleasure any thing in this Act to the contrary notwithstanding The Law being such there is no question to be made in point of practice nor consequently of the meaning of the King's Injunction For further opening of which Truth we finde that not the Country onely but the Court were indulged the Liberty of attending business on that day it being Ordered by the King amongst other things That the Lords of the Council should upon Sundays attend the publique Affairs of this Realm dispatch Answers to Letters for good order of State and make full dispatches of all things concluded the Week before Provided alwaies That they be present at Common Prayer and that on every Sunday-Night the King's Secretary should deliver him a Memorial of such things as are to be debated by the Privy Council in the week ensuing Which Order being compared with the words of the Statute may serve sufficiently to satisfie all doubts and scruples touching the true intent and meaning of the said Injunction But as this Question was not startled till the Later Times when the Lord's Day began to be advanced into the Reputation of the Jewish Sabbath so was there nothing in the rest of the said Injunctions which required a Commentary Some words and Passages therein which seem absurd to us of this present Age being then clearly understood by all and every one whom they did concern Published and given in charge by the Commissioners in their several Circuits with great Zeal and Chearfullness and no less readily Obeyed in most parts of the Realms both by Priests and People who observed nothing in them either new or strange to which they had not been prepared in the Reign of the King deceased None forwarder in this Compliance then some Learned men in and about the City of London who not long since had shewed themselves of a contrary Judgement Some of them running before Authority and others keeping even pase with it but few so confident of themselves as to lagg behind It was Ordered in the twenty first That at the time of High Mass the Epistle and Gospel should be read in the English Tongue and That both at the Mattens and Even-Song a Chapter out of the New Testament should be also read And for Example to the rest of the Land the Complime being a part of the Evening Service was sung in the King 's Chapel on Mâ—nday in the Easter-week then falling on the eleventh of April in the English Tongue Doctour Smith Master of Whittington-College in London and Reader in Divinity at the King's-College at Oxford afterwards better known by the name of Christ-Church had before published two Books One of them written In Defence of the Mass The other endeavouring to prove That unwritten Verities ought to be believed under pain of Damnation But finding that these Doctrines did not now beat according to the Pulse of the Times he did voluntarily retract the said Opinions declaring in a Sermon at Saint Paul's Cross on Sunday the fifteenth of May that his said former Books and Teachings were not only erroneous but Heretical The like was done in the Moneth next following by Doctour Pern afterwards Master of Peter-House in Cambridge who having on Saint George's day delivered in the Parish-Church of Saint Andrew Vndershaft for sound Catholick Doctrine That the Pictures of Christ and of the Saints were to be adored upon the seventeenth day of June declared himself in the