THE DOCTRINE OF THE Church of England Concerning the Independency of the CLERGY ON THE LAY-POWER AS To those Rights of theirs which are purely Spiritual reconciled with our Oath of Supremacy AND THE Lay-Deprivations OF THE Popish-Bishops in the beginning of the Reformation By the Author of The Vindication of the depriv'd Bishops LONDON Printed MDCXCVII THE CONTENTS § I. THE Independancy of Bishops on the State pretended to be contrary to the Oath of Supremacy P. I. § II. And contrary to the Principles on which the Popish Bishops were deprived and our present Succession depends P. III. § III. The Authority of the Primitive Catholick Church is greatâ— then that of any Modern particular one P. IV. § IV. Even with regard to our particular Church Our behaviour signifies more Love and Concern for her than that of our late Brethren does P. VII § V. We shew our greater Love to our Churcâ— particularly in not yeilding so easily as they do that she should lose her Rights on any Te 〈…〉 P. IX § VI. What we do is perfectly consistent with the Authorized explication of the Supremacy vested in the King P. XI § VII Archbishop Cranmers Opinions in Henry the VIII's and Edward the VI's time perfectly destructive of all Spiritual Authority P. XII § VIII Archbishops Cranmers Authority in these matters none at all P. XV. § IX It is not for the Interest of the Church of Reformation that his Authority in these things should be regarded P. XVII § X. His Opiniens in this matter no more agreable to the Sense of our present Adversaries than to 〈◊〉 P. XXI § XI The Supremacy and Title of Head when first assumed by Henry the VIII consistent with our Doctrine P. XXIII § XII When the King gave the encroaching Commission to Cromwell it was not yet agreeable to the true Sense of the 〈◊〉 P. XXV § XIII The Appeal allowed from the Archbishops to the Kings Commissioners in Chancery no Argument of any Spiritual Power derived from the King P. XXVII § XIV The Supremacy explained 26. H. VIII 1. not contrary to our Doctrine in this Cause P. XXVIII § XV. The Supremacy as explained 37. H. VIII 17. full to our Adversaries purpose and the sense of Archbishop Cranmer P. XXX § XVI The same notion of the Spuremacy continued also under King Edward the VI. P. XXXIII § XVII King Henry the VIII's Reign by no means to be allowed for an Age of Precedents P. XXXV § XVIII Queen Elizabeth explained the Supremacy in a sense consistent with our principles P. XXXIX § XIX That Explication discharges us now from any Obligation to believe Archbishop Cranmers Principles P. XLI § XX. What the Queen requires we can Sincerely undertake and in a Sense fully answering the Imposition of the Leg 〈…〉 ors P. XLIII § XXI The Queens Injunction excuses us from Swearing to the Supremacy over Spiritual Persons in Causes purely Spiritual P. XLVI § XXII This Injunction of Queen Elizabeth still in force P. L. § XXIII The Explication in the Injuctions Authorize by our Church in her XXXVII Article P. LI. § XXIV The same Explication of the Injunctions confirmed by Act of Parliament P. LIII § XXV It is rather supppsed than contradicted by the 2 Canon P. LV. § XXVI The Practice of the Supremacy to our times no Argument of the Imposed Sense of the Legislators against us P. LVIII § XXVII The Objection proposed that our present Protestant Succession seems to depend on the validity of the Deprivation of the last Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical P. LX. § XXVIII The Lay-Deprivations of those Popish Bishops who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power does not by any jast consequence effect our present Case P. LXI § XXIX The Popish Bishops were of another Communion and therefore needed no other Deprivation than that of the Lay-Magistrate P. LXIII § XXX This Doctrine agreeable exactly to the Sense and Practice of Antiquity P. LXVI § XXXI If the Popish Bishops had had a better Title yet that could not have illegitimated Successors any longer than their own Lives P. LXVIII § XXXII If the Popish Bishops then had the better Title yet their discontinuance of their Succession has made their Title worse now P. LXXI § XXXIII Present Settlements give Right where no better Rights is injured by them P. LXXII § XXXIV This is proved from the Donatist and Luciferian Disputes P. LXXIV § XXXV They who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power might yet keep their better Title P. LXXX THE DOCTRINE OF THE Church of England Concerning the Iudependecy of the Clergy on the Lay-Power as to those Rights of theirs which are purely Spiritual reconciled with our Oath of Supremacy and the Lay-Deprivaons of the Popish Bishops in the beginning of the Reformation § I. SINCE the finishing of the former Discourse I have been warned of one Prejudice ogainst the Doctrine delivered in it concerning the Independancy of Church-Power on the State very necessary to be removed in order to the preparing our late Brethren for an impartial consideration of what we have to say in it's defence That is that as our Case of Protestant Bishops set up in opposition to other Protestant Bishops deprived by an incompetent Authority is new so our Principles on which our Plea in reference to the Schism is grounded are also charged with Novelty if not with regard to the Doctrine of the first and purest Ages of the Christian Church yet at least with regard to the Doctrine of our late common Mother the Church of England and with regard to that later Antiquity which is derivod no higher than the beginning of our Reformation from Popery It is therefore pretended that our Doctrine concerning the undeprivableness of the Bishops by the Lay-Power is inconsistent with the Supremacy asserted to our Princes in all Causes as well as over all Persons that it is therefore inconsistent not only with all the Lay Acts by which the Supremacy has been asserted but also with all those Acts of the Church by with she also hath concerned her self in this Dispute with the xxxvii Article and the Injunction of Queen Elizabeth owned by an Act of Parliament in her Reign for an Authentical Interpretation of the Supremacy with the Doctrine of the Homilies and the several Injunctions of the Ecclesiasticks for explaining and recommending the same Doctrine to the Belâ—ef and Consciences of their Auditors particularly with the Second Canon which Excommunicates all those who deny the Supremacy in any of those branches wherein it was allowed either to Jewish or Christian Princes and with all those Legal Oaths for maintaning it which have been taken not only by the generality of the Laity but the Ecclesiasticks also as many of them as have been admitted to any eminent station in the Ecclesiastical Government Not now to descend so low as a particular enumeration of the suffrages of our most celebrated Writers It
as has put the Defenders of the Church rather on Excuses than Defences A plain token they would rather have wished it otherwise if the Lay Powers who had introduced this custom would have given leave None have been more zealous in this particular than our modern Latitudinarians a Party which has been of late as taking among our Lay Nobility and Gentry as among the Ecclesiasticks themselves Accordingly there has been a shift found that the censures adjudged by the Lay Civilians should be published by Presbyters that so the Censures themselves might seem to proceed from the purely Spiritual Authority The like care is taken in the Canons made in the time of King James the I. that when a Sentence of Deprivation or Deposition is to be pronounced against a Minister it be pronounced by the Bishop himself with the assistance of his Chancellor the Dean if they may conveniently be had and some of the Prebendaries if the Court be kept near the Cathedral Church or of the Archdeacon if he may be had conveniently and two others at the least grave Ministers and Preachers to be called by the Bishop when the Court is kept in other places The less these things agree with the Private not as I have shewn imposed sense of the Legislators in that Act which was by asserting directly the Right of such Authorized Lay Doctors for inflicting such Consuâ—es to assert consequently the Right of the King though a Layman also for being a Fountain and Original of all Spiritual Power the more they shew the sense of our late Princes and all that are concerned in the Practice of these Lay Judges in Spirituals now since these Canons are Authorized that this Practise as it is continued now cannot argue any design of the Legislators to oblige Persons who take the Oath to mean any such â—enchroaching notion of the Supremacy But let the most that can be be made of this Argument from Practise it is notwithstanding certain that as none but allowed Practise can be fairly suppos'd to prove the sense of Authority so that Practise which is most agreeable to allowed Doctrines and Explications has the fairest Pretensions to be taken for allowed And such Practise I have shewn to be in favour of ours rather than our Adversaries Opinions by shewing that we take no more liberty than what we were allowed to take by Authorized Explications § XXVII BUT there will be no need of proving Archbishop Cranmer ' s Principles to be the Doctrine of our times if our present succession cannot be maintained without defending them And that is thought to be our present Case For an Invalidity in the Original must affect all those later Orders that are derived from the same faulty Original For if the first Ordainer could convey no Power to the Person Ordained by him neither can the second who has himself received no Power give any Power to a third nor that third for the same reason to a fourth nor much less to any remoter degree of distance from the same Original If therefore the Deprivation of the Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical was invalid then their Protestant Successors in the same Sees yet full if the Deprivation was invalid were not second Bishops but none by the Doctrine of St. Cyprian ' s Age defended by us which will affect all the Titles since derived from those Successors It is thought to affect the Right of all who have succeeded them in the same Sees who deriving their Right from the first Successors then have no better Right than they had from whom they derived all they pretend to have and therefore can have none if the others had none to give them Nor is it thought only to affect them but all those other Bishops also who have been since Consecrated into other Sees by those who being themselves no Bishops could no more Consecrate Bishops into other Sees than keep up a Succession in their own Either therefore we must allow the validity of that first Lay Deprivation or we cannot in our Adversaries Opinion defend any Right in our present deprived Fathers For if they have any our Adversaries think it must be founded on the validity of that Lay Deprivation of the Popish Bishops which could not otherwise legitimate the Title of their first Predecessors of the Reformation For unless this Act of the State was entirely valid they think their Title must fall to the ground And if a Lay Deprivation could vacate Sees for the first Predecessors of our Fathers now concerned our Adversaries think the like Lay Deprivation may now also vacate our present Fathers Sees so as to legitimate Successors in them But if we should upon that supposed Invalidity of the Lay Deprivation of the Popish Bishops make the first Protestant Bishops in the same Sees uncapable of receiving the Episcopal Power then they think we cannot assert our deprived Fathers ever to have had any Right even before the Deprivation And then it will be of no consequence whether this Lay Deprivation be valid or not We cannot in that Case as they think pretend any Right our Fathers can have now though the Lay Deprivation had been as invalid as we conceive it to be § XXVIII I need not here insist on the Royal Commissions taken out by Bishop Bonner and as many as followed his Example for their Spiritual Power in the licentious Stile of Archbishop Cranmer Yet these will afford a sufficient reason for the validity of the Lay Deprivations of as many as concerned themselves in such Commissions which notwithstanding will not be applicable to the Case of our Fathers now For by taking these Commissions from the King they might in Law be supposed to have renounced the better Title they had to their Spirituals from Christ and his Apostles If this be true they could thence-forward have no more Power than what the Lay Magistrate could confer upon them Euher therefore they did really receive Power from the Magistrate or they received none If they did receive Power from him then no doubt what Power he could give them of that he was able by the same Right to deprive them If they received none all that can be gathered from the Invalidity of the Lay Deprivation is only that it must leave them in the same Right in which it found them If therefore they had no Power before the Lay Deprivation it is no matter whether the Lay Deprivation were valid or not As they lost no Power by an Invalid Deprivation so neither to be sure could they gain any by it Having none before they had none to be deprived of and therefore could have none that could oblige the Consciences of Subjects to stand by them against even an Invalid Deprivation But this cannot be pretended to be our present Fathers Case They have not God be prais'd betrayed their better Title to their Spirituals by taking out a Commission from a Power which had no Right to
could hinder the Bishops and the People too who were rightly informed concerning the nature of the Spiritual Society from judging Consecration necessary for obtaining that Power which is purely Spiritual And it 's being thought necessary by the Bishops was enough to oblige the Consecrating Bishops to give and the Consecrated Bishops to receive that Spiritual Power which in their Opinion could not be had otherwise then by their Consecration And intending to give and receive it what could hinder their Intentions from the usual Success when the same Solemnities were used by Persons equally Authorized to give it with those who had been used to give it formerly Nor could the Magistrate expect that to gratify him they shou'd defraud themselves of any Priviledges or Powers received by their Ancestors and convey'd as before from Persons empower'd to administer the Solemnities and Rites of Consecration Such a Singular obsequiousness and self-denial is this He could not I say either in Conscience or Equity pretend to expect unless He had secur'd it in express Terms and exacted a particular Profession a Profession that might make it inconsistent with the Bishops Veracity to give or receive the usuall Power as by the same Solemnities and Authority it had been given and received by their Ancestors Rather on the contrary the Permission of the samâ— Solemn Rites and the same Authority in administring them as before without any new Security against the usual effect is an Argument the Prince left it to their Liberty to intend the giving and receiving the same Spiritual Power from CHRIST as had been usually conveyed by the same Ministry He therefore contented him self with the Security given him by the Patents that from whomsoever they received the Right of being Bishops in regard to Conscience yet they should not be Bishops in Law intitled to Baronies and revenues any longer than he pleased This being so it will follow that what they did before Deprivation was valid in Conscience and in Law also but what they did afterwards though that might also be valid in Concsience yet it was not to be vaild in Law Our first Consecrations were of the former sort and therefore were not the less valid in Conscience for having the accession of a validity in Law Thus our first Consecrations might derive a Title to our Present Fathers in Conscience not deprivable at the pleasure of the Civil Magistrate with regard to Conscience GOD awaken the zeal of our late Fathers and Brethern for asserting these Rights in Conscience which are so essential to their being our Fathers and our Brethren and for the Religion and Communion of our late common Churches in these Kingdoms And may our common LORD plead the Cause of his distressed and deserted Spouse THE END The Independency of Bishops on the Sate pretended to be contrary to the Oath of Supremacy * Injunct Q. Eliz. An. 1559. 5 †Eliz. 1. In App. to Bishop Burnet's 〈◊〉 of Refor And contrary to the Principles on which the Popish Bishops were deprived and our present Succession depends The Authority of the Primitive Catholick Church is greater than that of any modern particular one * P. 14. †Defence of the Church of England p. 20 21 22. Even with regard to our particular Church our behaviour signifies more love and concern for her than that of our late Brethren does We shew our greater 〈◊〉 to our Church particularly in not yielding so 〈◊〉 as they do that she should lose bee Rights on any terms What we do is perfectly consistent with the Authorized explication of the Supremacy vested in the King Arch-â—p Cranmers Opinions in 〈◊〉 cury the VIII and Edw. the VI. time perfectly destructive of all Spiritual Authoâ—â—â— See those Papers published by Bishop Stallingfleet Iren. c. ult and by Bishop Burnet Hist. of Resor Part. I. Collect. n. XXI B. III. Part II. Collect. Num. 2. Archbishâ—p Câ—â—â—mer's Au 〈…〉 〈◊〉 these matter noâ— at all Vol. I. Book III p. 267. It is not for the Interest of the Church or the Reformation that his Authority iâ— these things should be regarded Part. I. B. III. p. 204. Part. II. B. II. p. 243. His Opinions in this matter no more agreeable to the sense of our present Adversaries than to ours P. I. B. III. p. 267. The Supremacy and Title of Head when first assumed by Henry the VIII consistent with our Doctrine 24 Hen. VIII 12. When the King gave the encroaching Commission to Cr 〈…〉 it was not 〈◊〉 â—greeable to the tru 〈…〉 of the Legis 〈…〉 Vol. I. B. III. R. 278. The Appeal allowed from the Archbishops to the Kings Commissioners in Chancery no Argument of any Spiritual Power derived from the King 25 H. VIII 10. The Supremacy explained 26 H. VIII 1. not contrary to our Doctrine in this Cause Addend to the First Vol. Num. V. The 〈◊〉 as explained in 37 H. VIII 17. full to our Adversaries purpose and the sense of Archbishop Cranmer 25 II. VIII 〈◊〉 19. The same Notion of the Supremacy continued also under King Edw. the VI. Bishop Burnet Vol. II. Col. B. II. The Kings Re 〈…〉 Pap. 2. King Henry the VIIIths Reign by no means to be allowed for an Age of Precedents Queen Elizabeth explained the Supremacy in a Sense conâ—stent with our Principles Bishop Burnet p. 11. B. 111. Col. num 2. 1 Eliz. 1. Injunct by Queen Esâ—z Edition by Bishop Sparrow p. 77. 78. That Explication discharges'us now from any obligation to believe Archbishop Cranmer's Principles Resor Leg. Eccl. de Excom c. 2. De offic Jurisd omn. Judic What the Queen requires we can sincerely undertake and in a sense fully answering the Imposition of the Legislators â—he Queen's Injunction excuses us from swearing to the Supremacy over Spiriritual Persons in Causes purely Spiritual This Injunction of Queen Elizabeth still in force The Explication in the Injunctions authorized by our Church in her XXXVIIth Article The same Explication of the Injunctions confirmed also by Act of Parliament 5 Elizab. 1. It is rather supposed than contradicted by the second Canon The Practise of the Supremacy to our times no argument of the imposed sense of the Legislators against us Can. 12â— The Objection proposed that our present Protestant Succession seems to depend on the validity of the Deprivation of the last Popish Bishops which was no other than Laical The Lay Deprivations of those Popish Bishops who took out Lay Commissions for their Episcopal Power does not by any just consequence affect our present Case Vid. Specimen against Bishop Burnet p. 52 53. The Popish Bishops were of another Communion And therefore needed no other Deprivation than that of the Lay Magistrate This Doctrine agreeable exactly to the Sense and Practise of Antiquity If the Popish Bishops had had a better Title yet that could not have illegitimated Successors any longer than their own Lives If the Popish Bishops then had the better Title yet their discontinuance of their Succession has made their Title worse now 〈◊〉 Settle 〈…〉 give Right â—â—ere no better â—iâ—ht is injured by them This is proved from the Donatist and Luciferian Disputes Opt. Milev cont Parmenian L. 1. Artem. Onâ—ir 〈◊〉 1. c. 14 Adv. Euciferian They who took out Lay-Commissions for their Episcopal Power might yet keep their better Title Part. II. §. LV. p. 133. Ib. p. 131.
Ecclesiasticks as appears from several of their Papers still preserved But they were only some few selected by himself never fairly permitted to a freedom and majority of suffrages And when even those few had given their opinion yet still he reserved the Judgment of their reasons to himself And to shew how far he was from being indifferent those of them who were most open in betraying the Rights of their own function were accordingly advanced to the higher degrees in his favour and were intrusted with the management of Ecclesiastical affairs None had a greater share in Ecclesiastical Counsels than Archbishop Cranmer Nor is there any who upon all the Questions proposed wherein Ecclesiastical Power was concerned does more constantly side with the Kings imperious humour against the true Rights of his own Order He allows the King the Rights even of preaching the word and administring the Sacraments and allows neither of them to the Ecclesiasticks any further than as they derived them from the Princes Lay Commissions He permitted indeed their Consecrations as he had found them by those of their own order but derives nothing of their Power from those Consecrations He makes the Ceremonies of Consecration indifferent things no way concerned in conveying the Spiritual Power That he derives wholly from their Lay Deputation He gives them a Power of preaching the Word and administring the Sacraments where the Lay Powers allow it and he allows them neither where the Secular Magistrate forbids them They must admit whom the Laws oblige them to admit and they must not excommunicate any whom the Secular Laws take into their protection The Magistrate notwithstanding his being a Lay-man may perform these offices himself if he pleased And the Ecclesiasticks notwithstanding their Consecration are not by him permitted to perform them unless the Magistrate be pleased to give them leave Nay so far he proceeds in his flattery of the Civil Magistrate that he allows no more gifts of the Holy Ghost in the laying on of the hands of the Presbytery than in the collation of any Civil Office Even in the Apostles themselves he rather excuses than commends all the exercise of their Spiritual Authority as necessitated to it by the exigency of their present Circumstances As if any necessity could excuse Usurpation As if any exercise of a Power not belonging to them could have been seconded by so visible manifestations of God himself as that was which was exercised by the Apostles Yet even their Authority he makes perfectly precarious He owns no obligation on the Consciences of the Christians of those times to obey even the Apostles themselves but ascribes their Obedience then wholly to their good will so as to leave it to their own liberty whether they would be subject or no. And why so Only because the Apostles had no Civil Empire This wholly resolves all obligation of Conscience into Civil Empire and makes it impossible for the Church to subsist as a Society and a Communion without the support of the Civil Magistrate Accordingly that same Archbishop Cranmer took out a Patent for his Episcopal Power preserved by Bishop Burnet full of a Style so pernicious to Ecclesiastical Authority He there acknowledges all sort of jurisdiction as well Ecclesiastical as Civil to have flowed originally from the Regal Power as from a Supream Head and as a Fountain and Spring of all Magistracy within his own Kingdom He says they who had exercised this Jurisdiction formerly for which he took out this Patent had done it only PRECARIO and that they ought with grateful minds to acknowledge this favour derived from the Kings liberality and indulgence and that accordingly they ought to yield whenever the King thought fit to require it from them And to shew what particulars of Ecclesiastical Power he meant his Patent instances the Power of ordering Presbyters and of Ecclesiastical coercion meaning no doubt that of Excommunication Nay further the same Patent gives him a Power of Executing by the Kings Authority those very things which were known to have been committed to him by God himself in the Scriptures per ultra ea quae tibi ex Sacris Literis divinitus commissa esse dignoscuntur By which we understand that no branch of Spiritual Power whatsoever was excepted Yet all this grant was to last no longer than the Kings pleasure I know not what the Lay Encroachers themselves can desire more Here is so little security for the Churches subsisting when the Secular Laws discountenance her as that she is not allowed the same liberty that other subjects have of pleading the Secular Laws already made in favour of her but is left exposed to the Arbitrary pleasure of the Prince which is thought hard in the Case of other Subjects This yoke the Politicians have lately imposed on the Church of Scotland GOD in his good time release her from it § VIII I have often wondered how the most learned Bishop Stillingfleet who first published the forementioned Papers as far as they concerned Archbishop Cranmer could think them consistent with his own Principles They are so perfectly contradictory to his Discourse concerning the Power of Excommunication subjoyned in the Second Edition of the Irenicum and indeed to the Doctrine of the Irenicum it self as far as it was consistent with it self or with any one Hypothesis For sometimes he seems to doubt whether there can be any Power properly so called without coercion or any coercion without external force As if indeed the fears of the future mischieves attending exclusion from the Priviledges of Church Communion had not been in the purest Ages of the Christian Religion more properly coercive than the fear of any evils that were in the power of the Secular Magistrate It is certain that good Christians then chose rather to suffer any thing the Magistrate could inflict than Excommunication But I more admire that such a betrayer of Ecclesiastical Rights should by our Ecclesiastical Historian of the Reformation be proposed as the Hero of his times and as Exemplary to such as might in his opinion deserve the name of Heroes still Yet he calls it a strange Commission in Bishop Bonner when he took out a Commission from the King as to his Spirituals conceived in the same terms with that of Cranmer in the particulars now mentioned He grants that Bonners inducement to take out that Commission was that it was observed that Cranmers great interest in the King was chiefly grounded on some opinions he had of the Ecclesiastical Officers being as much subject to the King as all other Civil Officers were Yet Cranmer was to be excused because that if he followed that opinion at all it was out of Conscience Why he should doubt whether he was of that Opinion I cannot guess when himself has published those very Papers of the learned Bishop Stillingfleet wherein Archbishop Cranmer does so plainly own himself of that opinion when he has also published Cranmers own
all his violences had success according to his own mind the King gave Cromwell a more ample Commission over the Bishops themselves and with Power of Spiritual Coercion answerable to the utmost rigor of these loose Opinions now mentioned And he was a person every way fitted for it As he was an intimate Friend of Archbishop Cranmer ' s so he was also a favourer of that singular Opinion which was so much for the interest of his Commission Our Historian himself takes notice of it as one of the things objected to him at his Attainder that he had said that it was as lawful for every Christian man to be the Minister of that Sacrament of the Eucharist as a Priest This clearly shews that Opinion to have been odious even then in the Consciences of the Attaindors themselves and therefore that their other Acts grounded on that and such like Opinions were not bona fide upon true conviction of Conscience Otherwise they could not have had the confidence to charge the belief of such Opinions as a Crime on him if they had in earnest believed them themselves The odiousness also of such a Power as was exercised by Cromwell appeared also in this that after him there was no Successor substituted in his place with such a Commission as his was nor any general Vicegerent appointed for executing the Kings Supremacy in Spirituals distinct from the Bishops and Archbishops However whilst his Commission held he acted to the height of what his Friend Cranmer ' s Opinion would warrant him He gave out general Injunctions for all Spiritual Jurisdictions as Bishops had done formerly for their own Dioceses He took upon him to call Bishops to an account for their administration in Spirituals Our Historian himself has inserted some of his Letters to this purpose sufficiently Imperious But however odious such general Commissions were for things beyond the Power of the Laity yet the Lay Law-makers could not be restrained from encroachments as they thought they had occasion But this they did by the degrees now intimated § XIII In the next year which was the XXVth of that King's Reign there is an Appeal allowed from the Archbishops themselves to the Kings Majesty in the Kings Court of Chancery And upon such Appeal a Commission was to be directed under the Great Seal to such Persons as should be named by the Kings Highness his Heirs or Successors which Persons so empowered were thereby Authorized to give definitive Sentences from which no further Appeal was allowed This was the very Power which had formerly been allowed to the Pope Accordingly it is enacted that no Archbishop nor Bishop of this Realm should intermeddle with any such Appeals otherwise or in any other manner than they might have done before the making of this Act. So that as the Power of the Pope was by the former Act translated to the upper House of our own Convocation in matters wherein the King himself should be concerned so here the same Power is again translated from the Convocation to the King himself and the Power of the Convocation is transacted by a smaller number and those of the Kings nomination This did put the decision of such Cases as much in the Kings Power as himself could desire though the persons to be nominated by him had been Ecclesiasticks Yet even that confinement is not laid upon him that they should necessarily be so He was therefore at perfect liberty not to exercise any part of this Power by Lay-men any further than as the Ecclesiasticks acting herein by his Commission might be supposed to derive their Power from him who was himself a Lay-man Yet even that was capable of a better Interpretation that the Commission did not give them the Power by which they acted but only Authorized them to exert the Power they had before with impunity from the Secular Laws and with the secular support This was only dare Judices as the Praetor did to particular Causes out of those who were by the Laws qualified and empowered to be Judges in general Thus Constantine the Great did dare Judices to the Donatists Melchiades and other Gallicane Bishops who otherwise was notwithstanding very wary of encroaching on the Bishops Rights in general to judge concerning Spiritual Causes What therefore was done hitherto was fairly reconcilable to our Doctrine without asserting any Right as to Spirituals derived from the King to the Bishops which as it was given by him might consequently be deprivable by him also What the King himself did in giving such a Commission to Cromwell was a Personal Act not granted him by any express Law during the time that Cromwell possessed it and therefore cannot be any just ground for interpreting the Supremacy and the Oath concerning it with relation to Posterity but must have been extinguished with his Person though he had been more constant to it than it appears he was Much more considering that even he himself did not think it fit to continue th Office after Cromwell The same may also be observed concerning the Bishops who took out Commissions for their Spiritual Episcopal Power There being hitherto no Law obliging them to do so must make their Acts also Personal For this is sufficient to shew they were not obliged to it by any Sense of the Legislators which cannot be known but by their Laws There was not so much as Proclamation for it that might reduce it to that Law which was made in the same Reign for equalling the Kings Proclamations with Acts of Parliament though that Law had continued still in force as it is certain it has not Less than one of these will not suffice for proving us concerned in what was then done as an Argument of that Sense of the Legislators which was to oblige all Posterity till the Law was repealed by the same Authority that made it § XIV THE next Act in the XXVIth year of the same King gives him as Head of the Church of England full Power and Authority from time to time to visit repress redress reform order correct restrain and amend all such errors heresies abuses offences contempts and enormities whatsoever they be which by any manner Spiritual Authority or Jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed repressed ordered redressed corrected restrained or amended c. Here are Spiritual Causes Errors and Heresies given as Instances wherein the King might concern himself And Spiritual Power in all the kinds of it is supposed in these Corrections to be performed by the King when he is allowed to correct all sorts of abuses that might by any manner Spiritual Authority or Jurisdiction be corrected No part of the Episcopal Power is here excepted not even that of Excommunication But then it is not even yet determined whether this Spiritual Authority and Jurisdiction be supposed in them who are to be by the King obliged to exercise it or whether also the Authority was to be derived from him too If the
give them Nor did they receive their Power in Spirituals at first from any Donation of the Civil Magistrate That is an Opinion antiquated now and not likely to have been the sense of those Bishops from whom they received their Consecration Nor is it likely that our Succession depends on any who had even then betrayed his Spiritual Rights by taking out Lay Commissions Archbishop Cranmer did not live to the Consecrations of Queen Elizabeth ' s time And Bishop Bonner had nothing to do with them Nor do any who were concerned in the Consecration of our first Protestant Bishops appear in the Catalogue of those who took out the like Commissions in King Henry the VIIIths time as we may learn from the Collections of Dr. Yale mention'd by Anthony Harmer The Act of Council in the beginning of King Edward the VI concerned such especially as were least trusted as appears by the King 's own Paper These were the Popish Bishops rather than the Protestants And the Act of Parliament made for it in the later end of the same year may be capable of the like Interpretation The King had then more liberty in the execution even of Acts of Parliament than ordinary Nor is it probable that any of those who perswaded Queen Elizabeth to let alone the Title of Head and to moderate the Supremacy it self would take out such Commissions They seem generally to have been the Popish Bishops who were guilty of it I mean those of King Henry's Faction Those therefore might be deprived and their Sees vacated by Lay Deprivations and their Protestant Successors entituled to them without any Consequence that can be drawn thence to the prejudice of our present Fathers or in favour of our present Lay Deprivations § XXIX BUT we need not as I said insist on this Yet for driving away I have already acknowledged the Magistrates Right to external force sufficient And that was all that was requisite in the Case of the Popish Bishops They were then notoriously of another Communion different from that of the Protestants They had burnt the Protestants as Hereticks and condemned their Doctrine as Heretical and imposed on them forms of reception and reconciliation to their own Communion as perfectly distinct from the Communion wherein they had been before So also on the other side the Protestants behaved themselves as a distinct Communion They refused their Masses and Confessions and lived in open defiance of the Popish Bishops and Canons and this by Principles Many of them suffered Martyrdom for their avowed disobedience which they cou'd not have justify'd if they had been of the same Communion So clear it was that even in Queen Mary ' s days each Party looked on the other as a different Communion This being so it plainly appeared that the Protestants did not own the Popish Bishops as Bishops of their own Communion Suppose we therefore that the Lay Deprivation as proceeding from the Lay Power only was as invalid and null with regard to Conscience as our Principles suppose it to be All that will follow thence will only be that with regard to Conscience they were still as much Bishops as they were before that is they were still to be owned for Bishops by them who had owned them formerly that is that still they were to be owned for Bishops by them who professed themselves of the Popish Communion But then as the Lay Deprivation took no Spiritual Right from them which they had before so neither could it give them any Right in Conscience which before they had not As therefore they were not Bishops of the Protestant Communion before the Deprivation so neither were they after it and therefore could not challenge any Duty as owing them from Protestants with regard to Conscience The Protestants therefore owing them no Duty in Conscience their Sees were already before the Deprivation vacant in Conscience with respect to the Protestants who might therefore without danger of Schism set up other Bishops of their own Communion in opposition to them as soon as they could do it at least as soon as the Magistrate would protect the Bishops substituted into their Sees All therefore that â—was requisite for the substitution of Protestant Bishops was the dispossessing of the Popish Bishops by force for which the Lay Magistrate who had the Right of forcing was sufficiently furnished That was exactly the Case of the expulsion of Paulus Samosatenus by the Emperor Aurelian Samosatenus had before that been deprived of his Spiritual Episcopal Rights by the Synods which had condemned and deposed him Only by the favour of Zenobia who had then the possession of Antioch he still kept possession of the Episcopal Palace till the Emperor was prevailed on to interpose his own Secular Authority in dispossessing him of the House which belonged to his Episcopal Office So it was requisite and very proper for Quâ—en Elizabeth to make use of her Secular Power for a Legal Dispossession of the Popish Bishops of the Temporals annexed to their Spiritual Office This no doubt she had a Right to do as a Lay Princess And the Effect of this Deprivation was that whatever they might still pretend as to Conscience they should notwithstanding be no more taken for Legal Bishops who should be intitled to the Honours and Priviledges and Revenues annexed by the Secular Laws to the Spiritual Function And for this the Queen's Deprivation was every way competent The Effect was a Deprivation only of their Temporals things properly belonging to the disposal of the Temporal Prince The Cause was also a Temporal Crime properly belonging to her Jurisdiction their refusing the Duty they owed her for maintaining her Temporal Jurisdiction over Spiritual Persons Yet this Lay Deprivation was necessary for making the Protestant Bishops Legal Bishops and to intitle them as such to the enjoyment of the Temporalties by the Laws annexed to their Spirituals A Legal vacancy of the Sees was as necessary to make way for a Legal Successor as a vacancy in Conscience was for a Successor with regard to Conscience And the Magistrate has a Right to make a Legal vacancy though he has none to make one with regard to Conscience nor to discharge the Spiritual Subjects from that Duty to which they are obliged in Conscience And this has been always the Practise of the Catholick Church Bishops of another Communion notoriously and professedly so were never thought to fill Sees or to need Canonical Deprivations The Catholicks in Constantinople and Antioch never scrupled the substituting a Catholick Successor whensoever the Catholick Bishop deceased though there was at the same time another Heretical Bishop and in Constantinople a Novatian Bishop also in the same See Nor did they nor the Catholick Emperors concern themselves for the Synodical Deprivation of Heretical or Schismatical Bishops after the Heresie and Schism had formed a difference in Communion Nor did they think the substituting other Bishops in such Sees without a previous Synodical
as the Vows of Wives and Maids were under the Law when made against the consent of the Husbands and Parents And the will of GOD concerning the lastingness of the Spiritual Power was manifest from the will of the Ordainers who before those Lay-Patents never intended to confer Orders for any other term than that of Life If therefore such would take upon them to exercise their Spiritual Power independently on their Patent though they might contradict the designs of those who made them take out their Patents in doing so yet having indeed Authority from GOD to do so what they did by that Authority might expect a ratification from GOD and therefore must have been valid with regard to Conscience The greater difficulty was that of the others who received their first Authority from their Patents before their Consecrations These might more plansibly be thought to receive no more Power by their Consecration than what they had already received by their Patent Especially if they had the same thoughts concerning their own Consecration as Archbishop Cranmer had that it gave them no new Power but was only a Solemnity of Investiture with the same Power which they had already a Right to by their Patent And if withall the Bishops who Consecrated them had been also of the same mind and must therefore have thought themselves obliged to give them no new Power by the Authority themselves had received not from the Prince but from Christ. But I have already shewed that even in those encroaching Reigns there was no Obligation laid on the Bishops to profess their Belief of those Impious Opinions I have shewed that at the same time that they were supposed in Practice yet their Belief was Odious and Singular and in express terms generally decried I have shewed that the most received Opinion even then was that the Right of Administring the Sacraments was derived from Christ and his Apostles and by them given only to the Church and consequently that it was only given by the Acts of Ecclesiastical Consecration These things therefore being thus believed must also have obliged them further to believe that whatever Power and Authority did follow from this Right of Administring the Sacraments could not be given by the Lay-Power but only by them who had continued the derivation of that Right of Administring the Sacraments from Christ and his Apostles These things therefore being generally believed by the Bishops might make them generally design the giving and receiving the same Power in their Consecrations which had been given and received by Consecration formerly What then could hinder even those Bishops which were Consecrated then from receiving it It was consequentially inconsistent you 'l say with those Patents by which they derived a Right of giving Orders and of inflicting Spiritual Censures from the King But it was no more so than those Patents were with those Doctrines that all Power of that kind was to be derived from Christ and his Apostles who had given it to the Church not to the Lay-Magistrate The consequence whereof must be that being mutually inconsistent they ought to be made consistent as far as is possible in Practice by Interpretation That is that one Duty be performed so far and so far only as is consistent with the performance of the other But in this way of proceeding it is unavoydable but that one of the two Duties must take place of the other so as to leave no place for the other any further than is consistent with the Interest of the Principal Duty And then there can be little doubt if an Ecclesiastick be Judge and of such only I am Speaking at present whether of the two Duties must be judged Principal If they be considered as Ecclesiasticks the Church is the Principal Body for which they ought to be concerned Consider them also as good Christians and as good Men and the same Obligation will hold still to prefer the Interests of the Church because they are indeed the greatest Interests in the Judgment of GOD and in the Judgment of Right Reason and the most immediatly and firmly obliging that which is indeed the immediate Subject of Obligations the Conscience All therefore that Persons so perswaded could promise and which the Magistrates of that Age acting against Principles might be Satisfied with as sufficiently answering his ends was to behave themselves in reference to the Magistrate so as if indeed they had no Power but what they derived from him That was to hold their places from whomsoever they had received them no longer than He was pleased they should hold them This Promise they might make as to the Temporalties that they would be no longer Legal Bishops entitled by the Secular Laws to Temporalties Tho' this was a particular Hardship put upon their Order For as for the Secular Peers the held their Peerage by Law not barely at the Pleasure of the Prince However these conditions importing no loss of Spiritual Authority the Bishops might with a safe Conscience submit to when imposed on them by unavoidable force They might also promise when they were deprived of their Temporals to quit their Spirituals also in order to the qualifying another of the same Communion to succeed them without any imputation of Schism But a general promise of this kind could not oblige them when quitting their Rights might betray the Church and make it depend precariously on the pleasure of the Magistrate However they not foreseeing this Case and not fearing it in the Circumstances then in view might make this indefinite Promise and intend really to fulfill it And whether they did well in doing so or no yet they might do it without owning the Right to Spiritual Power to be at the disposal of the Civil Magistrate Yet as long as they did not think it his Right they could not think themselves obliged in Conscience to quit their pretensions to their Spirituals barely because the Magistrate was pleased to invade them All the Obligations therefore they could have to do it must either have been from their Promise or from the present exigencies of the Case which might in their Opinion seem to require it Yet all this was consistent with an Opinion that whilst they had the Power they had it from an Authority Superior to that of the Civil Magistrate whâ—â—h till the Magistrate did deprive them might make all their Acts valid as done by a Divine Commission It is very plain withall that after the Patent was given yet the Magistrate himself took care to recommend them to Bishops for their Consecration Why so unless he believed that if he had done otherwise his Bishops would never have been taken for valid Bishops with regard to Conscience VVhy so if he had not therein designed to gratify the Ancient and Received Opinions concerning the Original of Church-Power which without such Consecration supposed them liable to so just Exceptions It was not the Magistrates fancy that Consecration gave them no new Power that