Entertainment that follows P. 84. He proposes this Question Whether the Prince should be allow'd a Power to alter or improve what a Synod has defin'd to add to or take from it and thus he resolves it Sure I am that this Princes have done and so I think they have Authority to do For since the Legislative Power is lodg'd in their hands so that they may make what Laws or Constitutions they think fit for the Church as well as the State since a Synod in matters relating to Discipline is but a kind of Council to them in Ecclesiastical Affairs whose Advice having taken they may still act as they think fit seeing lastly a Canon drawn up by a Synod is but as it were Matter prepar'd for the Royal Stamp the last forming of which as well as enforcing whereof must be left to the Princes Iudgment I cannot see why the Supreme Magistrate who confessedly has a Power to confirm or reject their Decrees may not also make such other Use of them as he pleases and correct improve or otherwise alter their Resolutions according to his Own Liking before he gives his Authoty to them †P. 85. He is speaking here I confess of the Power of the Prince at large without pointing his words particularly on England but since he asserts this Power to every Prince and does not except Ours it is manifest he means him as much as if he had particularly mention'd him And this he himself is not shy of owning for before the End of this Chapter he in plain terms tells us that by Our Own Constitution the King of England has all that Power over Our Convocation that ever any Christian Prince had over his Synods †P. 98. And goes on afterwards ⸪ P. 136. to shew that H. the VIII did this very thing in 1536 correcting and amending with his Own Hand the Articles of Religion then drawn up before they were publish'd He does not indeed expresly Iustify this Act of H. the VIII but which is all one he mentions it without a word to shew that he disapprov'd it I will be bold to say that were this single Doctrine true the Late King might have gone a great way toward subverting our Religion without breaking in upon the Constitution or doing any thing Illegal He might have assembled the Clergy and commanded their Iudgment upon such and such Points and then alter'd their Resolutions to his Own Liking and so have set up Rank Popery under the Countenance of a Protestant Convocation Especially if he had call'd this other Principle of Dr. W's into his Aid Some of our Princes he says have not only prescrib'd to our Convocations what they should go about but have actually drawn up before hand what they thought Convenient to have established and have requir'd them to approve of it without submitting it to their Iudgments whether they approv'd of it or not ‖ P. 110. Which Fact also he gives us as a Right without insinuating the least Dislike of it And a very Convenient Right it is for Princes that meditate New Schemes of Church Government Twelve Years ago enforc'd by the Pen of a Parker or a Cartwright it might have done great Service it would have helpt on all the Pious Designs then upon the Anvil and if the Asserter of it had not been a Bishop to be sure it would have made him one Can such Doctrines ever be Serviceable I say not Grateful to This Government which would have ruin'd our Establish'd Religion under the Former But his Conclusions are not worse than his way of coming at them which is in this and in every case first by shewing what has been practis'd by the Emperors and other Absolute Princes and by asserting the same Power to belong to Our King as a King not by vertue of the particular Laws and Usages of this Realm but by the Right of Sovereignty in general †See Appeal p. 111.112 upon which he expresly owns himself to found the Authority of our Princes in Matters Ecclesiastical †See Appeal p. 111.112 and says therefore as we have heard that they have the same Power over Our Convocations that ever any Christian Prince had over his Synods And accordingly makes it the whole Business of his second Chapter that is of a Fourth part of his Book to set out the Powers exercis'd by Absolute Princes and particularly by the Roman Emperors over their Synods in order to warrant the Use of like Powers here at home I know not how this Doctrine may relish now but in the 7th * Mr. Nicholson See Hist. Libr. part 3. p. 177. according to his Exactness in Dates places this 3 io Iacobi whereas the Book it self was not set out till two Years afterwards as if he had seen any Edition of it he might from the Date of the Preface have known But he unluckily met with a false Print to this purpose in the Posthumous part of Spelman 's Glossary in Voce Tenura and he is always an Implicit Transcriber Year of King James the I. as high as Prerogative then ran it did not I am sure go down well with the Parliament for then Dr. Cowel's Interpreter was censur'd by the Two Houses as asserting several Points to the overthrow and destruction of Parliaments ond of the Fundamental Laws and Government of the Kingdom And One of the Articles charg'd upon him to this purpose by the Commons in their Complaint to the Lords was as Mr. Petyt †Miscell Parl. p. 66. says out of the Journal this that follows 4thly The Doctor draws his Arguments from the Imperial Laws of the Roman Emperors an argument which may be urg'd with as great reason and with as great Authority for the reduction of the State of the Clergy of England to the Polity and Laws in the Time of those Emperors as also to make the Laws and Customs of Rome and Constantinople to be binding and obligatory to the Citys of London and York The issue of which Complaint was that the Author for these his Outlandish Politicks was taken into Custody and his Book condemn'd to the Flames Nor could the Dedication of it to his then Grace of Canterbury save it who did not think himself concern'd to countenance whatever Doctrine any Indiscreet Writer should take the Liberty to ascribe to him He that thinks a Prince Absolute in Spirituals thinks him no doubt as Absolute in Temporals and will when a Proper time shall come not stick to say so Dr. W. has given some significant Hints that way in the words already produc'd from him for what else can he mean by the Legislative Powers being lodg'd in the Princes hands so that he may make what Laws he pleases for the Church as well as the State if we consider him to speak as he does of the Prince exclusively to the Three Estates of the Realm And when he adds therefore a few Lines afterwards that a Canon is
some Late Writers pretending to answer the Letter to a Convocation Man particularly by the Author of a Letter to a Member of Parliament and by Dr. Wake in his Book intitled The Authority of Christian Princes over their Ecclesiastical Synods asserted c. This Book being written by a Person of some Station in the Church and as is pretended under the Cover of a Great Authority deserves to be examined with a more than ordinary care which accordingly I have resolved to bestow upon it Dr. Wake indeed has a Peculiar Talent at enlarging on a Controversie the shortest Point when it comes under his Fruitful Pen immediately improves into a Volume I shall not so far follow his Example as to trace all he has said step by step and Page by Page and take every Opportunity that he has given me of laying open his misapplied Reading and mistaken Reasonings That would be an Endless Task which I have no leisure for neither does the Cause require it nor would the Reader bear it I shall endeavour therefore as much as I am able to shorten this Debate and in order to it shall first of all make some General Reflections upon his way of managing it wherein I shall shew how very little there is in his Tedious Work that really concerns the Point disputed and how much of it is written against no body and for no End in the World that I can see but the Pleasure of Emptying his Common-Place-Book I may very aptly apply to him what Bishop Andrews said of a much Greater Adversary Etsi nobis lis nulla de Regiâ in Ecclesiasticis Potestate tamen exorari non potest Tortus quin in Campum exeat istius Controversiae ubi quaestio nobis nulla de eâ re ostendat tamen nobis Testes minimè necessarios Explicare scilicet voluit Opes suas ostendere quae habebat in Adversariis suis. Habebat autem ad hanc rem nonnulla si incidisset alicubi Iam quia non incidit occasionem arripit non valdè idoneam ea quoquo modo proferendi Vult enim Lectorem videre quà m Cupressum pingat eleganter * Tortura Torti p. 169 I shall not I hope be thought impertinent in displaying these Impertinences of his which I shall do in as narrow a compass and under as few Heads of Observation as the variety of the matter will admit of And I. I observe that Dr. Wake has put himself to a great deal of needless pains to prove a Point which he might if he pleased have taken for granted that every Christian Prince and Ours in particular has an Ecclesiastical Supremacy and that the Clergy are not by a Divine Right intitled to transact Church-affairs in Synods as they please and as often as they please without any regard to the Civil Christian Power that they live under Many of those numerous Instances he has produced of Princes intermedling with Church-matters here at home or abroad are designed only to assert this Great Truth which however is a Point that he needed not to have laboured so heartily because no Church of England man ever denied it not the Man he writes against I am sure who says only and what he says I shall not fear to say after him that the Civil and Spiritual Powers are distinct in their End and Nature Lett. to a Conv. Man pp. 17 18. and therefore ought to be so in their Exercise too The One relates to the Peace Order Health and Prosperity of the Man in this Life as a Sociable Creature the other concerns his Eternal State and his Thoughts Words and Actions preparative thereto The first is common to all Societies whether Pagan or Christian the Latter can rightly be exercised among Christians only and among them not as inclosed within any Civil State or Community but as Members of a Spiritual Society of which Iesus Christ is the Head who has also given out Laws and appointed a standing Succession of Officers under himself for the Government of this Society And these Ministers of his did actually govern it by these Powers committed to them from him for near 300 years before any Government was Christian. From whence says he it follows that such Spiritual Iurisdiction cannot be in its nature necessarily dependent on the Temporal for then it could never have been lawfully exercised till Kings States and Potentates became Christian. And agen in another place This Power having been claimed and exercised by the Apostles and their Successors without any Regard nay in Opposition to the Heathen Temporal Authority is therefore we say not necessarily in its own nature dependent on such Authority †P. 19 20. Than which Reasoning nothing certainly can be more just nor could that Writer have expressed himself with more Caution and Guard upon so nice an Occasion Dr. Wake seems here to have apprehended him as if he had affirm'd that Princes have nothing to do in Church-matters the Management of which lyes without their Sphere and no ways depends on Their Authority But no Man living could have struck this sense out of his words that was not either very Blind or very willing for some small End or other to misunderstand him Cannot this mighty Controvertist distinguish between Denying the Exercise of Ecclesiastical Power to be necessarily dependent on the Temporal and affirming it to be necessarily independent upon it Does he not see a difference between saying that the Church may subsist without the State and that the State has nothing to do in the Government of the Church If he does not he ought to forbear tampering in Disputes of this kind till his Judgment is better and his Head clearer But if seeing this difference he yet resolved to take no notice of it either because he had made Collections some time of his Life about the Supremacy and was resolved to take this Opportunity of giving himself the Credit of them or because he saw it would be of use to him to have the Writer he appears against represented under as Invidious Colours and his Opinions loaded with as much weight as was possible if this were the Case it must be allowed him that there was some little Art tho' I think no very great share of Honesty in his Management 'T is true the Letter to a Convocation-man immediately after the last words I transcribed from it adds And if we should say further that this Society has an Inherent and Unalterable Right to the Exercise of this Power it would be no more than what every Sect or Party among us claims and practises c. But Dr. Wake could not with any colour lay hold of this Passage as asserting the Independency of the Church on the State for besides that it is only a way of arguing drawn from other Mens Principles it is a few Lines afterwards expresly retracted and qualifyed But this says he is what at the present we neither do nor need say Notwithstanding which Dr.
their Care and an Opportunity by that means of exerting their Power to the Good Ends for which it was design'd And They who shall represent him as Disaffected on this account do not sure consider what a kind of Compliment they make to Those for whose Interests they pretend to be so warmly concern'd Disaffection to the Government as the Charge is commonly manag'd is a Word only made use of by those that are in favor to keep others out it is a Reproach taken up on purpose to justify premeditated Designs of oppressing Men For so the Soldier said that the Countryman whistled Treason when he had resolved to plunder him For my part I am not shy of Owning to Dr. Wake my naked Thoughts on this Head and he may make what Use he thinks fit of them If then to be a True Lover of England its Monarchy and Episcopacy if to have the Utmost Esteem for the Heroick Qualitys and Matchless Merits of our Prince and to think no Instance of Respect and Duty that Subjects can pay him too great while they take care to preserve their Own Rights and Priviledges if to preferr the True Interests of the Protestant Religion and the Preservation of our Civil Libertys to all other Considerations and for these among other Ends to pray heartily for the Continuance of our Present Government both in Church and State if these be Instances and Marks of Disaffection then the Author of these Papers must own himself disaffected and not otherwise No the Imputation is more justly to be laid at Their Door who are for such New Methods and Practises as naturally tend to alienate the Hearts and Affections of Subjects and make Governments uneasy who blast great Numbers of Good Men with Ill Names and endeavour to make them what they are not disaffected by so representing and using them as if they were And at the same time that they would have others thought Unwilling to serve the Crown take care effectually to disable themselves from serving it by forfeiting all the Credit and Interest they have among their Brethren For what can the Clergy think of such Men as bend all their Wit and Skill to dress up Schemes for suppressing their Parliamentary Assemblys and even their Summons for rendring their Body as such Useless to the State and by consequence Contemptible in a word for introducing the Portuguese Model of Church Government by which a late Author tells us †Account of the Court of Portugal p. 22. the attendance of the Lower Orders is excus'd and their Bishops with the Assistance of the Pope act for them and conclude them Can any Member of the Church that has his Eyes open think such Men Friends to it or so treat them and speak of them as if they were How is it to be expected that this Management should work on the Inferior Clergy What else can it produce in them but Distrusts Uneasinesses Complaints and Endeavors of Righting themselves as they are able The Projectors of such Schemes may fancy them proper Methods of laying Mens Passions asleep but will in the End find that they are the sure Ways of raising them Nothing will by this Means be Effectually laid asleep but the Churches Parliamentary Meetings and it is well if the Dose given them be not so strong as to make them sleep their Last Does it at all soften the severity of this Usage to tell the Clergy That it is really for their true Interest and Service if they would but understand it That they are a Number of Men too Warm Indiscreet and Unpractis'd in Business to be saâ—ely trusted together and were they indulged the Liberty they claim would soon ruin themselves by the use of it These are Dr. W's Thoughts upon the matter and are they not decent ones This is not only oppressing but insulting Men the Reason given for the Usage is more provoking than the Usage it self If under a Sense of these Injurys I have not so temper'd my Pen every where but that an Hard Word may now and then have escap'd me I need no Excuse for it Dr. Wake 's way of Dealing would I am sure have justify'd much rougher Returns than any I have made him But what ever of this kind the Reader meets with he may assure himself that it sprung not from any the least mixture of Private Prejudice or Resentment For I have no Quarrel with Dr. Wake but on a Publick Account On the contrary the Good Services he did against Popery enclin'd me always to wish well to him and to esteem him Or had I wished him ill yet I would never have taken this way of expressing it for Petavius †Petavius Croio responsurum se negat ideò quod novit Annua augeri semper Ministris contra quos scribitur Grot. Epist 1742. has taught me long ago that to write against some Men is the Way only to have their Pensions doubled And the Experience of later Times than his has shew'd that it is possible to write a Man out of Reputation into Preferment Much less can I be suppected to have engag'd in this Design out of Interest The way to That is not by appearing in behalf of Councils which as Johannes Major †Johannes Major c. XVIII Comment in Evang. Matth. Versùs finem aït Nemini mirum videri debere quod Plures Papam esse supra Concilium quam contrà Concilium supra Papam esse doceant cum Papa det Dignitates Beneficia Ecclesiastica Concilium verò det nihil Richer de Conciliis well observed meet but seldom and have no Dignitys to dispose of No it is neither from these nor any such Low Inducements as these that I have enter'd on this Work but from a Desire only of Perpetuating to the Church the Use of her Parliamentary Assemblies and of that Free Debate which is inseparable from such Assemblys Both which Rights were in great Danger of being lost by Popular Misapprehensions and a Discontinuance In the management of this Argument I have chiefly had an Eye to what Dr. Wake has advanc'd without neglecting however what has been offer'd on the same side from Other Pens particularly by the Author of the Letter to a Member of Parliament One who to do him right saw where the stress of the Dispute lay and endeavour'd here and there to write up to it though for want of fit Materials he was not able He has however in a Page or two of his Pamphlet said more for the Cause than Doctor Wake has done throughout his Mighty Performance which is really nothing more than a Series of Long Flat Impertinent Accounts attended with suitable Reflections but without One wise Word spoken or True stroke struck in behalf of his point from the beginning of the Book to the End of it And were it not therefore on some Other Accounts besides the mere Merit of the Work it would have deserv'd no Answer but what the Fryar in one of
of all the States of this Lond c. I desire not to be misunderstood in the Recital of these Testimonies I have no other Aim in 'em than barely to shew that the Inferior Clergy tho' meeting and consulting apart from the Parliament yet were still reckon'd to belong to it and to be in some sense and to some Purposes a Member of it and together with the Prelates of the Upper House to compose not indeed one of the Three Estates of Parliament but however an Estate of the Realm assembling joyntly with the Parliament and oblig'd by the Rules of our Constitution to attend always upon it If my Proofs may be allow'd to reach thus far and I have no manner of Mistrust but that they will I give up willingly whatever beyond this they may seem to imply which neither my Argument nor my Inclination any ways leads me to maintain It is so far from being in my Intention that it is not in my Wishes to set up a Plea for any of those Old Priviledges and Preheminences of the Clergy which are long since Dead and Buried and which I think ought never to be reviv'd even for the sake o◠the Clergy themselves who have thriven best always under a Competency of Power and Moderate Pretences The Present Rights they stand plainly possess'd of by Law are sufficient to render them useful Members of the Common-wealth within their Proper Spheres and that these Rights may be well understood and secur'd is the great and only design of these Papers To that end I have vouch'd the Precedent Passages from the Records of Parliament and Convocation not to set up any vain Pretence to the utmost of that Parliamentary Interest which the Clergy sometime had but to secure only what remains of it to them by shewing that their Separation from Parliament did not cut them off from all manner of Relation to it but that still after that their Convocations though held at a distance from the Parliament were in their own nature as well as in the Acceptance of the Crown and in the Eye of the Law Parliamentary Assemblies These Parliamentary Meetings of the Clergy were at first Congregationes or Convocationes Cleri but not therefore Concilia Provincialia Which were Extraordinary Assemblies for Church Business only for the restoring laps'd Discipline and reforming Ecclesiastical Abuses whereas the Others were originally held for Civil Purposes alone and the Common Affairs of the State And when Archbishop Stratford therefore called a Council of his Province * By a Writ dated 10 Kal. Aug. 1341. which begins thus Quamvis sit Sacris Canonibus Constitutum quod Metropolitani Archiepiscopi Primates annis singulis Legitimo Impedimento cessante pro Excessibus corrigendis Moribus reformandis debeant Provinciale Concilium celebrare the Preamble of his Letters Summonitory owns both the Obligation he was under by the Canons of Assembling them Yearly and his having omitted to do it for Eight Years last past though doubtless he had often in that time Convened the Clergy of his Province to Parliament However this Distinction held not very long the Business of Provincial Councils being in tract of time done in the ordinary Congregations of the Clergy and these and those being promiscuously stiled Convocations Till at last Provincial Councils properly so called ceased altogether and Parliamentary Convocations came into their room The Frequency and fix'd Certainty of which gave the Clergy a Regular Opportunity of doing all that for which the other Synods did but occasionally serve And when Warham therefore in 1509. did by his Own Authority call a Synod for the Redress of Abuses and Reformation of Manners his Mandate warn'd it to meet a few days after the Parliament * Parliament Met Jan. 21. Convocation Jan. 26. See Mandate in Bishop Burnet 's Collection of Records Vol. I. p. 6. and stiled it not a Provincial Council but a Convocation of the Clergy And this Word therefore afterwards in the Submission-Act as I understand it was applied strictly to signify the Clergy's Parliamentary Meetings For otherwise it could with no colour of Truth have been affirmed as it is there That the Convocation had always been Assembled by the King 's Writ unless both the Submitters and Enacters had by the Word Convocation understood the Consults of the Clergy in time of Parliament which in some sense were held always by the King 's Writ that is by the Premunitory Clause in the Bishops Summons and let me add are so held still as good Lawyers own †Bagshaw in his Argument about the Canons and Bishop Ravis in his Paper of Reasons to Queen Elizabeth ‖ § 5. affirms and the whole Lower House did to the same Queen upon occasion solemnly declare Witness their Remonstrance in 1558 to justify the Freedom of which they in the Preamble of it suggest the several Authorities by which they Assemble The Instrument is Printed in Fuller ⸪ Ch. Hist. IX Book p. 55. but with the Omission of some words which in that part of it which we have occasion to mention may be thus supplied Nos Cantuariens Provinciae Inferior Secundarius Clerus in ano Deo sic disponente ac Serenissimae Dominae nostrae Reginae Iussu Decani Capituli Cantuariensis Mandato Brevi Parliamenti ac Monitione Ecclesiasticâ sic exigente convenientes partium nostrarum esse existimavimus c. And this Opinion also that Parliament was of which Voted the Canons of 1640. Illegal chiefly on this head because they were made in an Assembly which though it met by the Parliament Writ yet Sate and Acted after the Parliament was determined Nor were they contradicted in it by the Famous Judgment given under the Hands of his Majesty's Counsel and other Honourable Persons Learned in the Law if the Words of that Judgment be well considered which are these The Convocation being called by the King 's Writ under the Great Seal doth continue until it be dissolved by Writ or Commission under the Great Seal notwithstanding the Parliament be dissolved Troub Try Laud. p. 80. Which is all very true and yet it may be true too that such a Writ or Commission ought of course to issue from the Crown upon the Dissolution of the Parliament But this Point is not touch'd upon in the Judgement given and seems to have been purposely declined For otherwise it had been a clearer and fuller Determination of the Matter in Question if they had said That the King might by his Prerogative keep a Convocation sitting as long as he pleased notwithstanding the Dissolution of that Parliament with which it was called I will not say That the Parliament of 1660. were certainly of the same mind though it is probable they were and that this was One if not the Chief Reason why in the Act * 13 Car. II. c. 12. Restoring Ecclesiastical Jurisdiction they so particularly and by Name excepted those Canons from a Parliamentary
than the Statute it self The several Convocations in the 12 last years of H. the VIII those of E. the VI th of Q. Mary and Q. Elizabeth all for ought I can find acted without any such Commission or License in writing and the first time we meet with it on Record is in 1603 when King Iames's first Synod met to settle the Discipline of the Church in that Body of Canons which at present obtains Nor is there any Opinion I believe for the Necessity of such a License elder than this Practise at least I have not had the good fortune ever to meet with any though I have diligently sought for it 'T is true the Registers of most Convocations summon'd since this Statute were lost in the Fire of London however large Extracts out of several of them are preserv'd and compleat Transcripts of some and in none of these is there the least Footstep of any License under the Broad Seal to be seen but very plain Intimations to the contrary as I shall now by some Remarkable Passages taken from thence and from other Books and Papers of good Authority shew And if I am somewhat Larger in my Recitals of this kind than is absolutely necessary the Reader I hope will easily forgive me What does not directly tend to establish my Assertion will serve at least to give some small Light into the Methods of Proceeding usual in Convocation which the Author of the Letter to a Convocation-man rightly observes to be little known or minded And Dr. Wake who smiles at his Remark is himself a most Contemptible Instance of the Truth of it since he has ventur'd to write a Book about the Customs and Priviledges of Convocations without having perus'd the Acts of almost any One English Synod and has from the beginning to the end of his wretched Performance prov'd nothing effectually but his own profound Ignorance of the Subject he is engag'd in I shall take the Rise of my Enquirys from the Convocation which sat upon a Prorogation Nov. V. 1532. before which the Submission of the Clergy was made to the King but not yet Enacted so that though it oblig'd them not Then as a Law yet it bound them as a Promise by the Terms of which if a Commission to Treat had been then held necessary we may be sure they would not so soon after the making that Promise have treated without one And yet I find no Hint of a Commission in a Diary of that Meeting where a great many things of much less moment are set down and where it being the first time the Clergy met after they submitted had any such thing been practised we should without fail have heard of it Sess. 11. Martii 26. 1533. this Note is inserted Tunc vertebatur in dubium an liceret disputare in Negotio Regio eò quòd Negotium pendet coram summo Pontifice indecisum Which Doubt the President remov'd by producing the Apostolick Brief that gave leave cuilibet Opiniones suas dicere Dominus Praesidens instanter rogavit omnes ut diligenter inquirerent de ista quaestione referrent quid sentirent See Ant. Brit. ad ann where the very same account is given of Stokesly ' s producing a License from the Pope but no hint of any from the King They had no doubts it seems about the Lawfulness of Treating without a Royal License which had they had it would have been mention'd here together with the Papal Leave and we may fairly therefore presume they had none In the Convocation begun Iune 9. 1536. the first in which Cromwel sat as Vice-gerent * The Bishop of Sarum tells us that Cromwell came hither as the King's Vicar-General but he was not yet Vicegerent For he sate next the Archbishop but when he had that Dignity he sat above him Nor do I find him styl'd in any Writing Vicegerent for sometime after this though my Lord Herbert says he was made Vicegerent the 18th of July this Year the same day on which the Parliament was Dissolv'd Vol. 1. p. 213. In which Paragraph there are great Marks of Haste For the Acts of this Convocation expresly call Cromwell Vicegerent as well as Vicar-General and shew that he both took place of the Archbishop and sign'd before him as he does in two Papers that passed this very Convocation and which together with the Subscriptions his Lordship has given us Vol. 1. Coll. of Rec. p. 157. p. 315. The Words of the Acts are Magister Willielmus Petre allegavit quòd ubi haec Synodus convocata â—it auctoritate illustrissimi Principis dictus Princeps Supremum Locum in dictâ Convocatione tenere debeat ac eo absente honorandus Magister Tho. Cromwell Vicarius Generalis ad Causas Ecclesiasticas ejus Vicemgerens locum ejus occupare debeat ideò petiit pradictum locum sibi assignari Ac ibidem praesentavit Literas Commissionales dicti Domini sui sigillo Principis ad Causas Ecclesiasticas sigillatas Quibus perlectis Reverendissimus assignavit sibi Locum juxta se i. e. the Place next above himself which he demanded Nor does my Lord Herbert say that Cromwell was made Vicegerent July 18th this Year but July 9th see Hist. p. 466. which is a manifest Misprint for June 9th the very day on which this Convocatâ—on was open'd and on which I suppose his Patent bore date Indeed I question whether the Powers of Vicar-General and Vicegerent were different and conveyed as my Lord of Sarum thinks by different Patents for I have seen no Good Ground any where for such a Distinction In the Collection of Records at the End of the second Part p. 303. the Bishop has given us what he calls Cromwell 's Commission to be Lord Vicegerent in all Ecclesiastical Causes But his Lordship had not time to peruse it for upon reading it he would have found that it was only the Draught of a Commission to certain Persons deputed by Cromwell to execute the Vicegerents Power in several parts of the Kingdom One of those Subordinate or Subaltern Commissions which had respect to a Superior one as his Lordship upon another occasion Vol. 2. p. 347. very properly distinguishes we are told Comparuit Dominus Prolocutor unà cum Clero exhibuit Librum sub Protestatione continentem mala Dogmata per Concionatores intra Prov. Cant. publicè praedicata This List is Printed by Fuller †P. 208. and in it the Clergy by way of Preface to their Articles Protest That they neither in Word Deed or otherwise directly or indirectly intend any thing to speak attempt or do which in any manner of wise may be displeasant unto the King's Highness c. and that they sincerely addict themselves to Almighty God his Laws and unto their said Soverign Lord the King their Supreme Head in Earth and his Laws Statutes Provisions and Ordinances made here within his Graces Realms Had any General Commission been granted them there had been no