Selected quad for the lemma: england_n

Word A	Word B	Word C	Word D	Occurrence	Frequency Band	MI	MI Band	Prominent
england_n	act_n	king_n	law_n	5,822	5	4.7877	4	true

Text snippets containing the quad

ID	Title	Author	Corrected Date of Publication (TCP Date of Publication)	STC	Words	Pages
A36249	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.	Dodwell, Henry, 1641-1711.	1697 (1697)	Wing D1813; ESTC R10224	66,791	94

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

them indeed a liberty of remonstrating But what can even that avail them when they neither have power to enter their Remonstrances on any Records or to oblige their Adversaries upon their pleading such Records not to suffer such violences to be Precedents for future practice § V. THUS if our common Mothers Authority be urged by our Adversaries as an Argument of their good will to her I cannot see how they can in that regard pretend to rival us They may indeed tell us that our Mother has by her own Act and Deed in the surrendry of the Clergy in King Henry the VIII ths time devested her self of that Authority which before that surrendry was justly her due Whatever the belief of this would signifie to shew our good will to her I am sure we might by doing as the Objectors do better signifie our good will to our selves if we could consistently with our Duty to her qualifie our selves for the favours of the Invaders of her Rights and Priviledges as far as gratifying flesh and blood can be taken for consulting our own Interests But still methinks it should be a greater Argument of our good will to our common Mother to be unwilling that she should on any terms be deprived of whatever was once her due Still it would become well-wishers to her not to be too easie in believing such a cession of Rights though by her self till it were well proved and proved still to be obliging Still it would become well-meaning Children to be willing to contribute as much as lay in them to recover such Rights at any rate of inconvenience to themselves that may be less to the Publick than the loss of such Rights of so great importance for the Publick Interests of Souls And all worldly inconveniences would be reputed less by generous and affectionate Judges of the Publick Interests Such would still be favourable Auditors of what might be produced for discharging her from such Obligations of Conscience which if still in force may make it unlawful now to retrieve and challenge her lost Rights They would be ambitious of prudent and lawful occasions of testifying their love to her at the expence of worldly losses when they might be once secured from any danger of sin in incurring them I am sure it must needs argue more love and good-will to be so Nor could they think it imprudent to retrieve publick Spiritual Rights by losses only private and temporary Especially where there might be the least appearance of Duty that might oblige them to it That very Duty would over-rule loving and dutiful Children beyond all worldly and carnal considerations to the contrary Much more it would do so when the Duty incumbent were pretended of so great importance as this here is by us as that without it we could not have a Church or a Communion any longer than it should please the Civil Magistrate that without it we could have no Principles that might cement us under a Spiritual Government in a state of Persecution at least that might oblige us to do so as most certainly Christ has done When these things were pretended they would at least let us know what might satisfie them if it could not us how these consequences intolerable to a true lover of the Church and Religion might be avoided And till they could do so they could not think the considerations hitherto insisted on by them of an irresistible force c. sufficient to make amends for so abominable consequences But hitherto they have not signified that solicitude for avoiding such consequences which would certainly have become them as hearty lovers of Religion Nor have they attempted any thing on their part for a re-union with such as differ from them in things which would be as much their interest as ours for us all to be unanimous in if they really took the subsistence of our Church and our Communion for our common Interests How then can they even in this regard of their so easily yielding in matters of so intolerable consequence pretend to rival our good will to our common Church and Communion § VI. BUT we must not suffer even our good will to our Mother to mislead us into any Acts of undutifulness to her though it were on pretence of saving her Uzzah laid hold on the Ark with a good design when he thought it in danger of falling Yet God struck him dead upon the place for venturing on his own judgment to shew his zeal for him beyond what was allowable to his Station So among the Romans Fabius Rullianus with great difficulty escaped punishment for venturing on his private Judgment though with as probable a prospect and as great success as his General himself Papirius Cursor could have desired and that for fear of the many ill consequences that might follow on it for the future if such a Fact had been by its impunity recommended to posterity for a precedent But I have already shewn that not to be our case here We do not oppose our private Judgments to any Authority at all But we oppose the publick Judgment of a greater to that of a lower Authority Yet we have no need of insisting on that Plea at present We can fairly reconcile our sense in this affair with the imposed Sense of our dear Mother the Church of England even as established by Law and with the full design of the Legislators as far as that can be gathered from the Cases in prospect of which the Laws were made and with Authentical Interpretations of the meaning of the Legislators themselves allowed by both Powers concerned in them as well the Civil which has imposed them by Civil as the Spiritual which has done the same by Spiritual coercions I know not what our Adversaries themselves can desire more And I cannot but look on it as a peculiar over-ruling Providence that this is capable of being performed in a Reformation wherein the Ecclesiasticks have been so manifestly overborn by the Laity and a Laity headed by a Prince so impatient of restraint as Henry the VIII was Who could expect that where the encroachers made themselves Judges in their own Case and the true Proprietors were forced to submissions and surrendries of their Rights the determinations could be just and equal on both sides § VII IN Henry the VIII th time under whom the Oath of Supremacy was first introduced the Invasions of the Sacred Power were most manifest Yet so that even then they appear to have been Innovations and Invasions But who can wonder at his success considering the violent ways used by him So many executed by him for refusing the Oath The whole Body of the Clergy brought under a Premunire for doing no more than himself had done in owning the Legatine Power of Cardinal Wolsey and sined for it and forced to submissions very different from the sense of the majority of them He did indeed pretend to be advised by some of the

given formerly that their favours might not be perverted against the Interests of the Lay Power by which they had been originally granted Thus it appears had than Acts of Parliament were really true concerning all the Jurisdiction of the Spiritual Courts concerning the seculars annexed to Spirituals And even in the Spiritual Causes in which the Spiritual Judges had a Right Antecedently to the grants of Princes yet the Right of punishing refractory Persons with Temporal Coercions was the Prince's and truly derived from the grants of the Lay Magistrates So that indeed all Parts of the Spiritual Jurisdiction had some thing of Original Secular Right and therefore resumable by Princes so far as they should judge it necessary for their own Preservation And so far it was necessary to resume it and justifiable too as it was necessary for reducing Spiritual Persons to their Original due Subjection in Temporals for which the Temporals annexed to Spirituals were abundantly sufficient For this would perfectly reduce them to the same subjection under which they were before those favours were granted by the Secular Magistrate And more than that he cannot justly challenge as his due These therefore are the only Spiritual Causes that can be meant in the Oath by this explication of Queen Elizabeth and will in some sense reach all Spiritual Jurisdiction and all Spiritual Causes as there was a mixture of both Powers in the Proceedings of the Spiritual Courts of those times And this is the Explication of the word Spiritual given as I remember by Sir John Davyes in Lalor ' s Case But this will not justifie the Magistrates assuming what never belonged to him his intermeddling with matters of Faith and with Crimes not barely as Crimes injurious to the State but as Scandals to our Religion Much less will it justifie his presuming to give Commissions for inflicting Spiritual Censures From the belief of the allowableness of these things the Queens Explication will fully discharge us Yet without these things he can never pretend to a Power of depriving our Bishops of their Spiritual Power nor of absolving us from our duty to them as over us in the Lord. § XXII NOR is there any reason to doubt of the sufficiency of this Explication of the Queen for satisfying our Consciences in this Age as well as in that wherein these Injunctions were first set forth I am very well aware of the pretences of the violent Party concerning the Canons of 1640. which yet our ablest and most impartial Lawyers think to be still in force Indeed the whole Supremacy in Ecclesiasticals has been by all the Acts made in favour of it vested in the King without the least mention of the Secular States And accordingly the Prince ' s Act in such affairs has been always thought sufficient for giving Authority to them without any confirmation in Parliament And that not only for his own time but for ever till a Revocation of it by the same Power by which it was established Who doubts but the XXXIX Articles and the Canons made in year MDCIII are still good Ecclesiastical Law Yet what Authority have they to make them so besides the Regal confirmation of Queen Elizabeth for the former and of King James the I. for the later Nor was it counted material for this purpose whether any Parliament was sitting or not when the Prince was pleased to ratifie such Ecclesiastical proceedings Indeed I see no reason why it should be counted necessary that a Parliament should be at the same time when the Parliament was not necessary for their confirmation The Act for the Kings Authority in confirming Constitutions Ecclesiastical 25 Hen. VIII 19. requires no more confirmation than that of the King And King James the I. grounds his confirmation of the Canons on that Act which yet none thinks extinguished with his Person There might have been more pretended for the necessity of a Parliament sitting at the same time with the Convocation antiently than can be now Then the Clergy acted Parliamentarily and had their Members in both Houses Yet not so but that even then we have had several Synods distinct from the Parliament Now the Convocation even in Parliament time is notwithstanding a distinct Body and a distinct Assembly from it since the Clergy have been excluded from the lower House and the Bishops sit in the upper House rather on account of their Baronies than their Spiritual Jurisdiction And their meeting and acting wholly depends on the Pleasure of the Prince and is not confined to Parliament times in the Act now mentioned I see not therefore why the Injunctions may not be counted Ecclesiastical Law still on the account of the Regal Authority by which they were set forth and why the explication given in them of the Oath of Supremacy may not still be allowed as a good Authority If it be requisite that the Oath have a certain Sense the Explication of the Oath cannot be esteemed a more temporary thing than the Oath it self is This at least will be reasonable that this Sense be taken for the true Sense of the Oath till it be contradicted and another substituted instead of it by the same Authority § XXIII AND yet though this should not hold we have all the confirmation of this Particular of the Injunctions that we need desire The grant of the Supremacy to the King in the Act now mentioned under Henry the VIII was grounded on the surrendry of the Clergy as appears from the Preamble of the Act it self What therefore was surrendred by the Clergy that same was the power that by the Act was vested in the Crown But concerning the Sense of the surrendry none can be supposed more competent Witnesses than the Body by which the surrendry was made Especially when the Act by which the Oath is explained by the Clergy is not only allowed but Authorized by the Regal power to which the surrendry was made Upon this account we we have reason to believe the Explication so given to be the sense of both parties concerned in the surrendry and to be as well accepted by the Prince as given by the Clergy which should alone be sufficient to satisfy all the reasonable Scruples that can be in this matter At least the Judgment of our Church must needs be satisfactory and a sufficient Authority to explain her own sense in this matter and to shew what liberty may be allowed a Member of our Church in it consistently with the principles of his Communion and his pretentions of being a Member of it and withall how other Acts of the same Church are to be interpreted And the sense of our Church of England both concerning the Oath and the now-mentioned Injunction is manifest in her xxxviith Article So she there teaches us Where we attribute to the Queens Majesty the chief Government by which Titles we understand the minds of some dangerous folks to be offended we give not to our Princes the ministring