to His Power since 't is plain so long as a Man lives and speaks he hath still power to say No For it cannot be said in this Case that the Church may be as it were ravisht from the King and then He may be no more guilty of the Crime than Lucretia was in her Rape for though a chaste Body may suffer Ravishment yet the strength of a Tarquin cannot possibly reach to Man's Will or Assent Now in all promissory Oaths made for the benefit of that Party to whom we swear 't is a Rule with Divines That they of all others do most strictly bind except then allow when Remission is made Consensu illius cui facta est promissio So although the King swear to the People of England That He will keep and preserve their Laws yet if upon their common desires these Laws be either abrogated or altered 't is clear that Oath binds no farther because a Remission is made by their own consent who desired that Promise from Him And upon this ground 't is true the King swears to observe the Laws only in Sensu composito so long as they are Laws but should this desire either to alter or abrogate either Law or Priviledge proceed from any other but from them alone to whose benefit He was sworn 't is plain by the Rules of all Justice that by such an Act or Desire His Oath receives no remission for the foundation of this Promissory is the Oath He was sworn to and it cannot be remitted but by them alone for whose sakes it was taken so that when in the second Part of the first Clause and more plainly in the fifth He swears a benefit unto the Bishops alone in behalf of them and their Churches 't is apparent this Oath must perpetually bind except a remission can be obtained from the Bishops themselves and their Churches He was sworn to This then must be confessed to be the sense of the Oath that when the King hath first sworn in general to grant keep and confirm the Laws and Customs of the People of England He farther yet swears to the Clergy to preserve their Laws and Priviledges and since these are not able to make a Negative in Parliament so that the Clergy may be easily swallowed up by the People and by the Lords therefore in a more particular manner they have obtained an Oath to be made unto them by the King which being for their particular benefit it cannot be remitted without their express Consent So that although an Act of Parliament being once passed by the Votes of the King and both Houses it doth Sir as you have told me our Lawyers say bind the whole People of England yea the whole People as it includes the Clergy too yet it concerns the King by vertue of His Oath to give His Vote to no such Act as shall prejudice what He hath formerly sworn unto them except He can first obtain their express Consent that He may be thereby freed from His Juratory Obligation It may be said perhaps That in the Consent given by both Houses of Parliament the Consent of the Clergy is tacitly implied and so it is say our Lawyers as you have told me Sir in respect of the Powers obligatory which an Act so passed obtains upon them for they affirm That it shall strongly bind the Clergy as if they themselves had in express terms consented to it although Bishops being debarr'd from the Votes in Parliament and neither they nor their inferiour Clergy having made choice of any to represent them in that great Council their Consent can be in no fair sense said to be involved in such Acts as are done as well without their Representative Presence as their Personal But the Question is Whether such tacit Consent though it be indeed against their express Wills can have a Power remissory to the King to absolve Him of His Oath He that affirms it must resolve to meet with this great Absurdity that although besides His general Oath to all the People of England His Majesty be in particular sworn ot the Rights of the Clergy yet they obtain no more benefit by this than if He had sworn only in general which is as much as to say that in this little Draught Oaths are multiplied without necessity nay without signification at all And that the greatest part of the first and the whole fourth Clause are nothing else but a more painful Draught of superfluous Tautologies For His yielding to the two first Lines swears Him to keep and to confirm the Laws and Customs of the whole People of England which word People includes those of the Clergy too and so in general their Laws and Customs are confirm'd no doubt in these words and so confirm'd that they cannot be shaken but at least by their tacit Consent in Parliamentary way And since the King condescends to afford to their Rights a more particular Juratory Tye there is no doubt but it binds in a way too that 's more particular so that His Majesty cannot expect a remission of this Oath without the Consent clearly expressed For as when the King swears to keep the Laws of the whole People in general He can by no means acquire a remission of this Oath but by the express Consent of the People So when in particular He swears unto the Laws and Customs of the Clergy this Oath must needs bind until it be remitted in an express Form either by the whole Clergy themselves or by some Body of Men at least that represents the Clergy quatenus a Clergy and not only as they are involved in that great Body of the People So that he that presumes to persuade His Majesty to pass any Act in prejudice of the Ecclesiastical Body to whom He is thus sworn without their express Consent first obtained counsels Him that which is both injurious to his Fellow Subjects nay which is indeed a most damnable wickedness against the very Soul of the King SIR As I conceive it is now plain enough That if the Parliament should destroy the Episcopal Order and take away the Lands of the Church the Houses in that Act will run themselves into two Sins and His Majesty into three And upon this Supposition the Epistler and I have agreed I do not think saith he that Convenience or Necessity will excuse Conscience in a thing in it self unlawful And before that he calls the contrary the Tenent of the Romanist or Iesuited Puritan only I will beseech him for his own Souls sake to consider how great a Scandal he hath given to Mankind in defence of such Sins as these For I conceive that Durand offended more in holding that Fornication was no Sin against the Law natural than Sechem did who was only under that Law in his lust upon old Iacob's Daughter for Fraudem legi facere saith the Civilian is worse than Legem violare It argues a more unsubject-like disposition for a Man to put Tricks and Fallacies upon his Princes Laws than to run himself into a downright Violation And God we know is a King I am a great King saith the Lord of Hosts and a King in whose hands is a vengeance 'T is true SIR we are thus put into a very sad Condition when the only Option that seems left us now is either to chuse Sin or Ruine but yet if well us'd 't is a Condition glorious a Condition in which all that Noble Army of Martyrs stood before they could come at Martyrdom And if in preparation of mind we thus lay our Lives down at the Feet of Christ I am undoubtedly persuaded it is the onely way to preserve them for this Word of God is the Lord of Hosts too and for his Glories sake he oft effects to save them who have lost both their strength and hopes But to you Sir whom I know so well such Persuasions as these are needless I rest Your very Faithful Servant FINIS M. I. 3. 8. Hagg. 1 4. 6. Mat. 25. Aquin. 22. Acts 1. Gell. l. 11. l. ult F. l. v. 1. Lev. 27. 13. Deut. 27. 17. 1646.
A DISCOURSE OF EPISCOPACY AND SACRILEGE By way of LETTER Written in 1646. By Richard Steward D. D. Clerk of the Closet to King Charles the First Never before Printed LONDON Printed for Thomas Dring at the Harrow next Chancery-Lane End in Fleet-street 1683. The PREFACE HE that will Reflect upon the last four Years will scarce believe a Prefatory Apology needful for Printing this Discourse If at present the Madness of the People be in some Measure stilled I think it not ill-timed for I have taken the Advantage of a lucid Interval and have offered them Reason when they have Recovered their Senses though not their Temper It is with them as it is with the restless Ocean Posito flatu inquietum Mare So now though the Popular Breath of a pretended Patriot does not blow hard upon the Nation yet the giddy Multitude remain unsettled and are in great danger of a Relaps into the like Lunacy This Letter was writ 't is true in 46 but it is exactly Calculated for 82. For of late we have only Transcribed those Times as if we intended to Copy out the Iniquities of our Fore-Fathers We are now full of Murmurings and Repinings the Natural Product of Ease and Plenty being almost tired with too long a Happiness as if we had deflowred our Felicity For though we cry out so loud of Grievances they are most like that of the Effeminate Sybarite who Seneca says Saepius questus est quod foliis Rosae duplicatis incubuisset We do not complain because we are really hurt but because we are too delicate I may boldly Challenge the tenderest Person of the Discontented Party to shew me one Princes Reign since the Conquest in which the People of England have sat under the shadow of their own Vines with less Disturbance But they that make the greatest noise are Men that have been rejected by the Government or else Persons that would be silenced by Preferment and would willingly lose their Tongues with a silver Quinzy There is a pleasant Story in the History of Great Britain of Gondemar the Spanish Embassador and a Lady very applicable to our Times In those Days there were some Ladies who pretended to be Wits had fair Nieces or Daughters which drew great Resort to their Houses and where Company meet the Discourse is commonly of the Times These Ladies Gondemar sweetned with Presents that were too sour in their Expressions He Lived at Ely-House in Holborn his Passage to the Court was ordinarily through Drury-Lane and that Lane and the Strand were the Places where most of the Gentry Lived and the Ladies as he went knowing his Times would not be wanting to appear at their Balconies or Windows to Present him their Civilities and he would watch for it and as he was carried in his Litter or bottomless Chair the easiest Seat for his Fistula he would strain himself as much as an Old Man could do to the Humblest Posture of Respect One day passing by the Lady Jacobs House in Drury-Lane she exposing her self for a Salutaion he was not wanting to her but she moved nothing but her Mouth gaping wide open upon him He wondred at the Ladys Incivility but thought it might be happily a Yawning fit took her at that time for trial whereof the next day he finds her in the same place and his Courtesies were again accosted with no better Expressions than an extended Mouth Whereupon he sent a Gentleman to her to let her know that the Ladies of England were more Gracious to him than to Encounter his Respects with such Affronts She Answered it was true he had Purchased some of their Favours at a dear Rate And she had a Mouth to be stopped as well as others Gondemar finding the Cause of the emotion of her Mouth sent her a Present which Cured her of that Distemper We find this Gaping-Sickness is broke out afresh in our Times but it is grown much worse for we are not only troubled with a silent extension of the Jaws but it is attended with horrid Yellings against Evil Counsellors when under that Appellation we would extort from our King his dearest Friends Neither has the King only been remotely Attacqued in his Ministers of State but the Mercenary Scriblers of the Age have Blasphemed him in their Prints What swarms of written Lampoons besides have crept abroad some writ by Wretches Cursed with a Wit too good since they employ their Talents only to commit an Ingenious Iniquity Alexander thought it too great at Priviledge for every Common Hand to Pourtraict Majesty and therefore established that Liberty by a Law to none but Famed Apelles Had he Lived in our Days when Princes sit to every drunken Poet who purposely deforms his Soveraign he had been impatient of so high an Indignity But now Treason is uttered under the strong Protection of a Rhime and he passes for the greatest Wit whose Talent 't is to fling the filthiest Dirt in the Face of Gods Anointed My Blood has oft grown warm at the repetition of a Modish Libel to see how it has tickled the Conceits of empty Fops whose Parts could reach no higher than to understand the fulsome Ribaldry For if there chanced to be any quaint Conceit that was but lost to their pert dulness and pass'd by with an Ignorant silence He that will Burlesque his Prince and suits Reproaches to the Genius of the Age must please by a gross and naked Obscenity For Men are come to that Unnatural Dyscrasie as to relish or digest nothing but Poyson and Keck and Vomit when you offer to their filthy Stomacks a wholsom and a cleanly Banquet The Strumpet-Muse of these our Modish Poets was bred up in Stews and Brothels and by her Language she betrays her Education They know not how to reach the Noble heights of a Civil well writ Poem but grow weary of unaccustomed Goodness if once they dare to undertake that Task for then their Parts are overcome being not befriended with those baser Helps of speaking those things that most Men blush to hear Unhappy is that State where Princes Faults are made the Pastime of Buffoons they are the common Calamities of the Nation and every Subject should become a Penitent when the King 's a Sinner for they provoke Heavens Vengeance by their Representative and often feel the Punishments that result from his Iniquities Quicquid delirant Reges plectuntur Achivi But if this Consideration cannot restrain this Incontinency of Rhiming but their Debauched Fancies will still make Majesty the Subject of their Droll Publick Authority it is to be hoped will Correct these Poetical Traytors and if they cannot be taught better Religion they will be forced to better Manners I must confess I have ventured to Censure this as an Immortality and as an innovated Crime of latter Ages but I find in a Modern Author it is a Christian Liberty of great Antiquity for he has run it up so high that I was in great dread that
yet might alienate their Lands but none else without their consent And I conceive it would not now prove so easie a task to bring Churchmen to such an Alienation But the Parliament may do it For saith he I am sure it will be granted that by the Laws of this Nation whosoever hath Lands or Goods hath them with this unseparable condition of limitation viz. that the Parliament may dispose of them or any part of them at their pleasure This you have told me Sir is strange Doctrine For neither the Parliament I hope he means the King in Parliament doth this as being the Supreme Power or as being Representative and so including the consent of the whole People of England If as being the Supreme Power it will follow that any absolute Prince may as lawfully do the like and yet this hath ever been held Tyrannical in the Great Turk as being against the Rules of all Justice and Humanity Indeed Samuel tells the Israelites That since they would needs change their Theocracy the immediate Government of God himself though it were into a Monarchy the best of all humane Governments Their Kings should take your Sons and your Daughters their Fields and their Vineyards c. and they shall cry and find no help Yet the best Divines think this would be most sinful and most unjust in those Kings and expresly against the Law of Moses who grants to every Man his Propriety only the Prophet avers it should not be punishable in him they should have no remedy since being the Supreme Power it was in no Subjects hands to judge him So if the Kings in Parliament should take away the Church-Lands there is I confess no resistance to be made though the Act were inhumanely sinful or else the Parliament doth this as representing the whole People so including their consent For they who do consent can receive no injury And then I understand not which way it can now at all touch the Clergy who are neither to be there by themselves nor yet God knows by Representation Or if again they were there I would gladly know what Burgess or what Knight of a Shire nay what Clerk or Bishop do represent Christ whose Lands these are and by vertue of what Deputation Or do I believe that any Subject intends to give that Power to him that represents him in Parliament as to destroy his whole Estate except then only when the known Laws of the Land make him liable to so high a Censure But grant this Doctrine were true in Mens Lands yet sure it will not hold in Gods For since in Magnâ Chartâ that has received by Parliament at least Thirty Confirmations the Lands we now speak of are given to God and promise there made that the Church Her whole Right and Liberties should be held inviolable Surely the Kingdom must keep what she hath thus promised to God and must not now think to tell Him of implied Conditions or Limitations For 't were a strange scorn put upon Him that Men should make this grand promise to their Maker and then tell Him after so many hundred years that their meaning was to take it back at their pleasure I believe there 's no good Pagan that will not blush at this dealing and conclude That if Christians may thus use their God without doubt he is no God at all Hence it is saith he they sometimes dispose some part in Subsidies and other Taxes the Parliament disposes part of Mens Estate in Subsidy and without their consent Ergo it may dispose of all the Church-Lands though the Churchmen themselves should in down-right terms contradict it Surely Sir this Account is neither worth an Answer nor a Smile For I am sure you have oft told me That the Parliament in Justice can destroy no Man's Estate though private or if upon necessity it may need this or that Man's Lands for some Publick Use yet the Court is bound in Justice to make that Man amends Subsidies you say were imposed Salvo contenento so that a Duke may still live like a Duke and a Gentleman like a Gentleman Is 't not so with the Clergy too By your own consent indeed and not otherwise they are often imposed and payed by them but if they are burdens which they may bear Salvo contenento they are payed not out of God's Propriety by alienating his Lands but out of the Vsus Fructus they receiv'd from God and so the Name doth go on to their Successors So that to infer from any of these Usages that the Lands of Bishops Deans and Chapters may be wholly alienated from the Church is an Inference that will prevail with none but those who being led by strong passions that it should be so make very little use of the Reason He proceeds Now hence comes the mistake by reason there is not such an express Condition or Limitation in the Deed of Donation which should silence all dispute wherein it is as clear as truth that where any thing is necessarily by Law implied 't is as much as if in plain terms expressed c. No marvel if such Conditions be not expressed in Benefactors Deeds of Donation because it will make such pious Deeds most impiously ridiculous For who would not blush to tell God that indeed he gives him such Lands but yet with very clear intent to revoke them And what Christian will say that such an intent is tacitely there which were Impiety to express Nay it is apparently clear by the Curses added by such Donors upon those who shall attempt to make void their Gifts that their meaning was plain that such Lands should remain Gods For ever by Magna Charta these Gifts are confirmed unto the Church of England She shall have all Her whole Rights and Liberties inviolable and yet is there a tacite condition in that self-same Law that they may be violated No marvel if with us Men cannot trust Men if God himself must not trust our Laws and if that Charter or any else made by succeeding Princes do indeed confirm such Donations as without all doubt they do sure they must confirm them in the same Sense wherein the Donors made them for so do all other Confirmations I say in this case of a total Disinherison there cannot be in Law any such tacite Conditions or Limitations as the Epistler speaks of for I have shewed you such to be tyrannical and unjust in a private Subject's Estate therefore in Gods they are much more unjust because we are sure he cannot offend and the tyrannical and unjust meaning cannot be called the meaning of the Law The Letter goes on Besides it were somewhat strange that the Donors of the Land should preserve them in the hands of the Bishops from the power of the Parliament which they could not do in their own and give them to a greater and surer Right than they had themselves The Lay-Donor might preserve them thus in his own hands suppose him but an honest