as in justice he is bound he is not to be reputed a Schismatick If men might not be saved by a general and implicite repentance they were in a woful condition for who can tell how oft he offendeth Cleanse thou me from my secret faults And if by general and implicite repentance why not by general and implicite faith why not by general and implicite obedience So as they do their uttermost indeavours to learn their duties and are ready to conform themselves when they know them God looks upon his creatures with all their prejudices and expects no more of them then according to the talents which he hath given them If I had books for that purpose I might have cited many Lawes and many Authors to prove that the final separation from Rome was made long before the reformation of the Church of England But it is a truth so evident and so undeniable by all these who understand our affaires that I seem to my self to have done overmuch in it already I do expect that it should be urged by some that there was a double separation of the Church of England from Rome The former from the court of Rome The second from the Church of Rome The former in point of discipline The latter in point of Doctrine The former made in the daies of Henry the Eighth The other in the daies of Edward the sixth That if the Protestants were not guilty of the former yet certainly they were guilty of the later To this I give two answers first that the second separation in point of Doctrine doth not concern this question Whether the Church of England be Schismatical but another whether the Church of England be Haereticall or at least Heterodox for every error doth not presently make an haeresy which cannot be determined without discussing the particular differences between the Church of Rome and the Church of England It is an undeniable principle to which both parties do yeeld firm assent that they who made the first separation from the primitive pure Church and brought in corruptions in faith Leiturgy or use of the Sacraments are the guilty party Yea though the separation were not local but onely moral by introducing errours and innovations and making no other secession This is the issue of our controversie If they have innovated first then we are innocent and have done no more then our duties It is not the separation but the cause that makes a Schismatique Secondly I answer that as Roman Catholicks not Protestants were the authors of the Separation of England from the Court of Rome so the Court of Rome it self not Protestants made the Separation of England from the communion of the Church of Rome by their unjust and tyrannical censures excommunications and interdictions which they thundred out against the Realm for denying their spiritual Soveraignty by divine right before any reformation made by Protestants It was not Protestants that left the communion of the Church of Rome but the Court of Rome that thrust all the English Nation both Protestants and Roman Catholicks together out of their doores and chased them away from them when Pope Paul the third excommunicated and interdicted England in the daies of Henry the eighth before ever any reformation was attempted by the Protestants In that condition the Protestants found the Church and Kingdom of England in the daies of Edward the sixth So there was no need of any new separation from the communion of the Church of Rome The Court of Rome had done â—hat to their hands So to conclude my first Proposition Whatsoever some not knowing or not weighing the state of our affaires And the Acts and Records of those times have rashly or ignorantly pronounced to the contrary it is evident that the Protestants had no hand either in the separation of the English Church from the Court of Rome or in their separation from the Church of Rome The former being made by professed Roman Catholicks the later by the Court of Rome it self both before the reformation following in the dayes of Edward the sixth both at a time when the poor Protestants suffered death daily for their conscience upon the six bloody Articles CHAP. IV. That the King and Kingdom of England in the separation from Rome diâ— make no new Law but vindicate their ancient Liberties THe second Conclusion upon examination will prove as evident as the former that Henry the eighth and those Roman Catholicks with him who made the great separation from the Court of Rome did no new thing but what their predecessors in all ages had done before them treading in the steps of their Christian Ancestors And first it cannot be denyed but that any person or Society that hath an eminent reputation of learning or prudence or piety or authority or power hath ever had and ever will have a great influence upon his or their neighbours without any legal Jurisdiction over them or subjection due from them Secondly it is confessed that in the primitive times great was the dignity and authority of the Apostolical Churches as Rome Antiâ—ch Ephesus Hierusalem Alexandria which were founded by the Apostles themselves And that those ancient Christians in all their differences did look upon the Bishops of those Sees as honourable Arbitrators and faithful Depositaries of the genuine Apostolical traditions especially wherein they accorded one with another Hence is that of Tertullian Constat omnem doctrinam quae cum illis Ecclesiis Apostolicis matricibus et originalibus conspi at c. Whatsoever doctrine agrees with those Apostolical original mother Churches is to be reputed true And in this sense and no other Saint Cyprian a great admirer and imitater both of the matter and words of Tertullian whom he honoured with the title of his Master doth call the Church of Rome a Matrix and a root But if the tradition varied as about the observation of Easter between Victor Bishop of Rome and Polycrates Bishop of Ephesâ—s the one prescribing from St. Peter and S. Paul the other from S. Iohn The respective Churches did conform themselves to their Superiours or if they were free as the Britannique Churches were to their own judgment or to the example of their neighbour Churches or kept them to the tradition delivered unto them by their first converters As in this very controversie about Easter and some baptismal rites the Brittish and Scottish Bishops alwaies adhered to the Eastern Church A strong presumption that thence they received the faith and were not subordinate to the Patriarchal See of Rome But yet all this honourable respect proceeded from a free prudential compliance without any perpetual or necessary subjection Afterwards some Churches lost some gained the place and dignity of Apostolical Churches either by custome so Ephesus lost it or by the Canons of the Fathers so Constantinople did get it or lastly by Imperial priviledges so Iustiniana and Carthage obtained it Thirdly it
is not to be doubted of but that after the year six hundred after that Pope Boniface had quitted his Patriarchal dignity by assuming a more lofty title of universal Bishop The succeeding Popes by the connivence leave or consent of our Kings did sometimes more sometimes lesse upon pretence of their universal Jurisdiction by degrees thrust in their sickle into the Ecclesiastical affaires of England Whosoever shall ponder duly with what a depth of prudence the Roman Court hath mesnaged all occasions and occurrences to the advantage and advancement of that See and consequently to the improvement of their own authority whosoever shall weigh seriously with what art and cunning the Papacy as it now is was tacked into the Church contrary to wind and weather and how their beginning of unity was scrued up to an omnipotence and universality of power whosoever shall duly consider what advantage they made to that See and therein to themselves by the onely countenancing of Phocas his base and bloody murther or of Charles Mà rtel his more glorious and successeful revolt will not wonder to observe how they did watch their times when we had Princes of weak Judgments or necessitous or superstitious or of unjust or Litigious titles to wind themselves into Britain Nay rather he will admire that they did not radicate themselves more deeply and more firmly therein which without doubt they had effected but for their exorbitant rapines whilest they thought that like Foxes they might prey most boldly farthest from their own Kennel Anglia verè hortus noster deliciarum puteus inexhaustus est ubi multa abundant multa de multis extorqueri possunt That England indeed was his garden of delight a Well that could not be drawn dry And where many things did abound out of much much might be extorted But first this intrusion was manifest usurpation and tyranny This was the Gangrene of the Church which no subsequent possession or submission could warrant no tract of time or prescription sufficiently confirm Quod ab initio fuit invalidum tractu temporis non convalescit That which is not onely unjust but invalid in its beginning can never be made valid by the empty pretense of a following custome or prescription Neither do I find in truth that any of the petite Saxon Kings or their Subjects though some of them indebted to S. Gregory for their first conversion and all of them much weakned by their Sevenfold division for at first of Seven Kings there was but onely one who was a Christian namely the King of Kent Neither was it any of his progeny who did afterwards unite the Heptarchy into a Monarchy much lesse that any of the succeeding Kings of England or of great Brittain united did ever make any Solemne formal or obliging acknowledgment of their submission to the Bishop of Rome But on the contrary when Austin first arrived in England he staied in Isle of Thanet untill he knew the Kings pleasure and offered not to preach in Kent until he had the Kings License for him and his followers to preach throughout his Dominions So not onely their Jurisdiction but even the exercise of their pastorall function within that Realm was by the Kings leave and Authority The donation and resignation of King Iohn whereby he went about to make a free Kingdom servile and feudatary to the Pope did concern the Crown more then the Miter and was soon hissed out of the world to the perpetual shame and infamy of such mercenary Pastors yet to obtain this Ludibrious act the power of the Keyes was abused and the Kingdom of England stood interdicted by the space of six years and three Months The Popes in later times had some power in England of courtesy not of Duty but never that omnipotence which they gaped after Sometimes they sent their Nuncios or Legates into England So they did of old into other Patriarchates Sometimes they admitted appeales from England to Rome So they did of old from Africk Sometimes they excommunicated the English Subjects So did Pope Victor long since excommunicate all the Asiaticks But neither Asia nor Africk for all that did acknowledge the Popes Jurisdiction On the other side sometimes their Legates were not permitted to enter into the Realm or after their arrival thrust out of the Realm unless they woâ—ld give caution by oath for their good demesnour Sometimes their Bulls and excommunications were slighted or damned and they who procured them soundly punished for their labours Sometimes all appeales to Rome were prohibited under most severe penalties and their decrees rejected All this while our Kings and Bishops called Councells the one under civil punishments the other under Ecclesiastical made Ecclesiastical lawes and constitutions in their Synods and Parliaments yea expresse constitutions against the Court of Rome it self with as much tartnesse and vehemency as King Henry the Eighth And with this onely difference that they indeavoured to draw the people out of the Popes clawes at home and he thought it more expedient to throw the Pope over the Brittish Sea once for altogether The old and lawful Patriarchal power of the Roman Bishops within their own destricts had been renounced long before by themselves Their new universal Monarchy erected by themselves was not capable of prescription or if it had yet such a dubious unquiet possession as the Popes did hold in England at the mercy and discretion of the right owners was not sufficient to make a legal prescription or to justifie their pretended title or to render them bonae fidei possessores lawful and conscionable possessours This is that which I am now to demonstrate in this second ground The most famous I had almost said the onely appellant from England to Rome that we read of before the Conquest was Wilfride Arch-Bishop of York who notwithstanding that he gained sentence upon sentence at Rome in his favour And notwithstanding that the Pope did send expresse Nuncios into England on purpose to see his sentence executed yet he could not obtain his restitution or the benefit of his sentence for six years during the Raignes of King Egbert and Alfrede his son Yea King Alfrede told the Popes Nuncios expresly That he honoured them as his Parents for their grave lives and honourable aspects but he could not give any assent to their Legation Because it was against reason that a person twice condemned by the whole Councel of 〈◊〉 English should be restored upon the Popes Letter If they had believed the Pope to be their competent Judge either as universal Monarch or so much as Patriarch of Brittaine or any more then an honourable Arbitrator which all the Patriarchs were even without the bounds of their proper Jurisdictions how comes it to passe that two Kings successively and the great Councels of the Kingdome and the other Arch-Bishop Theodore with all the prime Ecclesiasticks and the flower of the English Clergy did so long and so
Dominions Witnesse the lawes of Ercombert Ina Withred Alfrede Edward Athelstan Edmond Edgar Athelred Canutus and Edward the Confessor among whose lawes one makes it the office of a King to govern the Church as the Vicar of God Another implyes a power in the King and his Judges to take cognisance of wrong done in Ecclesiastical Courts It was to this Holy King Edward the Confessor that Pope Nicholas the second by his bull for him and his Successours granted this ensuing priviledge to the Kings of England for ever Namely the Advocation and protection of all the Churches of England and power in his stead to make just Ecclesiastical constitutions with the advise of their Bishops and Abbats This grant is as full or fuller then that which Vrban the second made to Roger Earl of Sicily from whence the Kings of Spain at this day do not onely Challenge but enjoy in a manner all Ecclesiastical power in Sicily If the Pope had ever had any such right as he pretends this onely Bull were sufficient to justifie our Kings But they injoyed this very power from the beginning as an essential flower of their Crownes without any thanks to the Pope To make just Ecclesiasticall constitutions in the Popes stead saith the Bull. To govern the Church as the Vicar of God saith the law of the Land The Bishops of Rome have ever been very kind in granting those things which were none of their own and in making deputations and delegations to them who stood in no need of their help being lawfully invested before hand by another title in that power and dignity which the Popes pretended out of their goodnesse to confer upon them but in truth did it onely for the reputation of their See and for maintaining the opinion of their own Grandeur Whether the deputation were accepted or not they did not much trouble themselves So they dealt with 〈◊〉 president in the Councell of Nice So they dealt with the Patriarch of Iustiniana Prima so they served Good King Edward and many others This Legislative power in Ecclesiastical causes over Ecclesiasticall persons the Norman Kings after the conquest did also exercise from time to time with the advice and consent of their Lords spiritual and temporal Hence all those Statutes concerning Benefices Tythes Advowsons Lands given in Mortmain prohibitions consultations praemunires quare Impedits priviledge of Clergy extortions of Ecclesiasticall courts or officers and regulating their due fees wages of Priests Mortuaries Sanctuaries Appropriations and in summe all things which did belong to the externall subsistence regiment and regulating of the Church and this in the raigns of our best Kings long and long before the reformation Othobone the Popes Legate under Vrban the fifth would have indowed Vicars upon appropriated Rectories but could not But our Kings by two Statutes or Acts of Parliament did easily effect it With us the Pope could not make a Spiritual corporation but the King The Pope could not exempt from the Jurisdiction of the ordinary but the King who by his charter could convert Seculars into Regulars The Pope could not grant the Priviledge of the Cistercians and other orders to be free from the payment of Tyths but the King The Pope could not appropriate Churches but the King we find eight Churches appropriated to the Abby of Crowland by the Saxon Kings three Churches appropriated to the Abby of Battell by the Conquerour and twenty by Henry the first to â—â—e Church of Sarisbury The King in his great Councel could make void the certificates of Ordinaries in cases of Ecclesiasticall cognisance and command them to absolve those persons who were judged by his authority to be unjustly excommunicated The Pope could not translate an Arch Bishoprick or a Bishoprick but the King The disposition of Ecclesiastical preferments upon lapse accrued not to the Pope but to the King a plain evidence that he was the Lord Paramount And the King onely could incurre no lapse Nullum tempus occurrit Regi because the law supposed that he was busied about the weightie affaires of the Kingdom The revenewes of a Bishoprick in the vacancy belonged not unto the Pope but to the King which he caused to be restored sometimes from the time of the first vacancy sometimes from the time of the filling of the Church with a new Incumbent according to his good pleasure The Canons of the Pope could not change the Ecclesiastical Lawes of England but the King whose lawes they were He had power in his great Councel to receive the canons if they were judged convenient or to reject them and abrogate them if they were judged inconvenient When some Bishops proposed in Parliament the reception of the Ecclesiastical Canon for the Legitimation of Children born before marriage without such a reception the Canon was of no force in England All the Peers of the Realm stood up and cryed out with one voice Nolumus leges Angliae mutari We will not have the lawes of England to be changed The King and Parliament made a Legislative exposition of the Canon of the Councel of Lyons concerning Bigamy which they would not have done unlesse they had conceived themselves to have power according to the fundamental constitutions of the kingdom either to receive it or reject it Ejus est legem interpretari cujus est condere He that hath authority to expound a law Legislatively hath power to make it The King and Parliament declared Pope Vrban to be the right Pope in a time of Schisme that is in relation to England their own Kingdom not by determining the titles of the Popes but by applying the matter to the one and substracting it from the other All these are so many evidences that when Popery was at the highest the Bishops of Rome had no such absolute Ecclesiasticall Soveraignty in the Church and Realm of England And that what power they exercised at any time more then this was by connivence or permission or violent usurpation And that our Primates had no forraign Superiour Legally established over them but onely the King as he was the Supream head of the whole body politick To see that every one did his duty and injoyed his due right Who would not suffer one of his Barons to be excommunicated from Rome without his privity and consent No Legate de latere was allowed by the law in England but the Archbishop of Canturbury And if any was admitted of courtesy he was to take his oath to do nothing derogatory to the King and his Crown If any man did denounce the Popes excommunication without the assent of the King by the law he forfeited all his goods Neither might any man appeale to Rome without the Kings License In the year 1420 the Pope translated the Bishop of Lincolne to York But the Dean and Chapter absolutely refused to admit him and justified their refusal by the Laws of the Land And
Command or permission And after permission onely by authority of the King and not by authority of the Pope to shun confusion and mixture of Jurisdictions 10. Neither the King nor his Realm nor his Officers can be excommunicated or interdicted by the Pope nor his Subjects absolved from their Oath of Allegiance 11. The Pope cannot impose Pensions in France upon any benefices having cure of soules nor upon any others but according to the Canons according to the expresse condition of the resignation or ad redimendum vexationem 12 All Bulls and Missives which come from Rome to France are to be seen and visited to try if there be nothing in them prejudicial in any manner to the estate and liberties of the Church of France or to the Royal authority 13 It is lawful to appeal from the Pope to a future Councel 14 Ecclesiastical persons may be convented judged and sentenced before a secular Judge for the first grievous or enormious crime or for lesser offences after a relapse which renders them incorrigible in the eye of the Law 15. All the Prelates of France are obliged to swear feaâ—ty to the King and to receive from him their investituâ—es for their fees and manours 16. The Courts of Parliament in case of appeales as from abuse have right and power to declare null void and to revoke the Popes Bulls and Excommunications and to forbid the execution of them when they are found contrary to sacred decrees the liberties of the French Church or the prerogative Royal. 17. Generall Councels are above the Pope and may depose him and put another in his place and take cognisance of appeals from the Pope 18. All Bishops have their power immediately from Christ not from the Pope and are equally successours of Saint Peter and the other Apostles and Vicars of Christ. 19. Provisions reservations expectative graces c. have no place in France 20. The Pope cannot exempt any Church Monastery or Ecclesiastical body from the Jurisdiction of their Ordinary nor erect Bishopricks into Archbishopricks nor unite them nor divide them without the Kings Licence 21. All those are not hereticks excommunicated or damned who differ in some things from the doctrine of the Pope who appeal from his decrees and hinder the execution of the ordinances of him or his Legates These are part of the liberties of the Gallicane Church The ancient British Church needed no such particular priviledges since they never knew any forreign Jurisdiction The English British Church which succeeded them in time in place and partly in their members and holy orders ought to have injoyed the same freedom and exemption But in the daies of the Saxon Danish and Norman Kings the Popes did by degrees insinuate themselves into the mesnagery of Ecclesiastical affaires in England Yet for many ages the English Church injoyed all these Gallicane priviledges without any remarkable interruption from the Roman Court. As in truth they do of right by the Law of nature belong to all Sovereign Princes in their own Dominions Otherwise Kingdomes should be destitute of necessary remedies for their own conservation And in later ages when the Popes having thrust in their heads did strive to draw in their whole bodies after the whole Kingdome opposed them and made Lawes against their several grosse intrusions as we have formerly seen in this discourse And never quitted these English as well as Gallicane liberties untill the Reformation But perhaps we may find more loyalty and obedience to the Court of Rome in the Catholick King Not at all Whatsoever power King Henry or any of his Successours did ever assume to themselves in England as the Political Heads of the Church the same and much more doth the Catholique King not onely pretend unto but exercise and put in practice in his Kingdome of Sicily both by himself by his Delegates whom he substitutes with the same authority to judge and punish all Ecclesiastical crimes to excommunicate and absolve all Ecclesiastical persons Lay-men Monks Clerks Abbats Bishops Archbishops yea and even the Cardinals themselves which inhabit in Sicily He suffers no appeals to Rome He admits no Nuncio's from Rome Atque demum respâ—ctâ— Ecclesiasticae Iurisdictionis neque ipsam Apostolicam sedem recognoscere hâ—bâ—re superiorem nisi in casu praevenâ—ionis And to conclude he acknowledgeth not any superiority of the Sâ—e of Rome it sâ—lf but onely in case of prevention What saith Baronius to this He complains bitterly that praetensa Apostolica authoritate contra Apostolicam ipsam sedem grande piaculum perpetratur c. Vpon pretence of Apostolique authority a grievous offence is committed against the Apostolick See the power whereof is weaknâ—d in the Kingdome of Sicily the authority thereof abrogated the Iurisdiction wronged the Ecclesiastical Lawes violated and the rights of the Church dissipated And a little after he declaimes yet higher Quid in ad ista dixeris lector What wilt thou say to this Reader but that under the name of Monarchy besides that one Monarch which all the faithful have ever acknâ—wledged as the onely visible Head in the Church Another head it risen up and brought into the Kingdome of Sicily for a Monster and a prodigy c. But for this liberty which he took the King of Spain fairly and quietly without taking any notice of his Cardinalitian dignity caused his books to be burned publickly It will be objected That the King of Spain challengeth this power in Sicily not by his Regal authority as a Sovereign Prince but by the Bull of Vrbanus the second who constituted Roger Earl of Sicily and his heires his Legates à latere in that Kingdome whereby all succeeding Princes do challenge to be Legati nati with power to substitute others and qualifie them with the same authority But first if the Papacy be by Divine right what power hath any particular Pope to transfer so great a part of his office and authority from his Successours for ever unto a Lay-man and his heires by way of inheritance If every Pope should do as much for another Kingdom as Vrbanus did for Sicily the Court of Rome would quickly want imployment Secondly if the Bull of Vrbanus the second was so available to the succeeding Kings of Sicily which yet is disputed whether it be authentick or not whether it be full or defective and mutilated why should not the Bull of Nicholas the second his predecessour granted to our Edward the Confessour and his Successours be as advantagious to the succeeding Kings of England why not much rather seeing that they are thereby constituted or declared not Legates but Governours of the English Church in the Popes place or rather in Christs place seeing that without all doubt Sicily was a part of the Popes ancient Patriarchate but Britaigne was not And lastly seeing the situation of Sicily so much nearer to Rome renders the Sicilians more capable of receiving Justice from thence then the English
that â—aught them this lesson certainly their prudence to prevent dangers was very commendable A third custome was that the revenues of all Ecclesiastical dignities belonging to the Kings demeisne during the vacancy were to be received by the King as freely as the rents of his own demeisnes Tell me who was then the Patron and Political Head of the Church A fourth Custome was that when an Arch-Bishoprick Bishoprick Abbacy or Priory did fall void the election was to be made by such of the principal dignitaries or members of that respective Church which was to be filled as the King should call together for that purpose with the Kings consent in the Kings own Chappell And there the person elected was to do his homage and fealty to the King as to his Liege Lord. That later form of Dei Apostolicae sedis gratia had taken no root in England in those daies The rest are of the same nature as that Controversies concerning Advowsons ought to be determined in the Kings Court Benefices belonging to the Kings patronage could not be appropriated without his grant When a Clergy man was accused of any Delinquency the Kings Court ought to determine what part of his accusation was of Civil and what part of Ecclesiastical cognisance And the Kings Justice might send to the Ecclesiastical Court to see it ordered accordingly None of the Kings Servants or Tenants that held of him in capite might be excommunicated nor their Lands interdicted before the King was made acquainted When it was questioned whether a Tenement were of Ecclesiastick or Lay fee the Kings Justice was to determine it by the oathes of twelve men All Ecclesiasticall persons who held any possessions from the King in capite were to do suit and service for the same as other Barons did and to joyn with the Kings Barons in the Kings Judgments untill it came to sentence of death or diminution of member To this memorial all the Nobility and Clergy of the English Nation did swear firmly in the word of truth to keep all the customes therein contained and observe them faithfully to the King and his heires for ever Among the rest Thomas Becket the Archbishop of Canterbury himself was carried along with the crowd to take this Oath Though shortly after he fell from it and admitted the Popes absolution By the Statute of Carlile made in the daies of Edward the first it was declared That the holy Church of England was founded in the estate of Prelacy within the Realm of England by the Kings and Peeres thereof And that the several incroachments of the Bishop of Rome specified in that Act did tend to the annullation of the state of the Church the disinheriting of the King and the Peeres and the destruction of the Lawes and rights of the Realm contra formam collationis contrary to the disposition and will of the first founders Observe in the estate of Prelacy not of Papacy within the Realm not without it By the Kings not by the Popes of whose exorbitant and destructive usurpations as our Ancestors were most sensible so they wanted neither will nor power to remedy them To corroborate this Law by former presidents and thereby to shew that our Kings were ever accounted the right Patrons of the English Church King Edelwalk made Wilfride Bishop of the South Saxons now Chichester King Alfrede made Assertie Bishop of Sherburn And Oenewulphus Bishop of Winchester Edward the Confessor made Robert Archbishop whom before from a Monk he had made Bishop of London Thus the Saxon Kings in all ages bestowed Bishopricks without any contradiction The Norman Kings followed their example No sooner was Stigand dead but William the Conquerour elected Lanfrank Abbat of Saint Stephens in Caen to be Archbishop William Rufus upon his death-bed elected Anselme to be Archbishop of Canterbury And untill the daies of Henry the first the Popes never pretended any right nor laid any claim to the Patronage of the English Churches The Articles of the Clergy do prescribe that elections be free so as the Kings conge d'eslire or License to elect be first obtained and afterwards the election be made good â—y the Royal assent and confirmation And the Statute of provisors Our Soveraign Lord the King and his heires shall have and enjoy for the time the collations to the Archbishopricks and other dignities elective which be of his Advowry such as his progenitors had before free election was granted Sith the first elections were granted by the Kings progenitors upon a certain form and condition as namely to demand License of the King to choose and after choise made to have his Royal assent Which condition not being kept the thing ought by reason to return to its first nature Further by the same Statute of provisors it is declaratively enacted That it is the right of the Crown of England and the Law of the Realm that upon such mischiefs and dammages happening to the Realm by the incroachments and oppressions of the Court of Rome mentioned in the body of that Law The King ought and is bound by his oath with the accord of his people in Paâ—liament to make remedy and Law for the removing of such mischiefs We find at least seven or eight such Statutes made in the Raigns of several Kings against Papal provisions reservations and collations and the mischiefs that flowed from thence Let us listen to another Law The Crown of England hath been so free at all times that it hath been iâ— no earthly subjection but immediately subjected to God in all things touching its regality and to no other and ought not to be submitted to the Pope Observe these expressions free at all times free in all things in no earthly subjection immediately subjected to God not to be submitted to the Pope And all this in Ecclesiastical affaires for of that nature were all the grievances complained of in that Law as appears by the view of the Statute it self Then if the Kings of England and the representative body of the English Church do reform themselves according to the word of God and the purest Patterns of the primitive times they owe no account to any as of duty but to God alone By the same statute it is enacted That they who shall procure or prosecute any popish Bulls and excommunications in certain cases shall incurre the forfeiture of their estates or be banished or put out of the Kings protection By other statutes it is enacted That whosoever should draw any of the Kings Subjects out of the Realm to Rome in plea about any cause whereof the cognisance belongeth to the Kings Court or should sue in any forrain court to defeat any judgment given in the Kings court That is by appealing to Rome they should incur the same penalties The body of the Kingdom would not suffer Edward the first to be cited before the Pope Henry the sixth by the Councel of Humphry
Duke of Glocester the Protector protested against Pope Martin and his Legate That they would not admit him contrary to the lawes and liberties of the Realm and dissented from whatsoever he did So we see plainly that the King and Church of England ever injoyed as great or greater liberties then the Gallican King and Church And that King Henry the eighth did no more in effect then his progenitors from time to time had done before him Onely they laboured to damme up the stream and he thought it more expedient to stop up the fountain of papal Tyranny not by limiting the habitual Jurisdiction of the Roman Bishop which was not in his power to do but by substracting the matter and restraining the actual exercise of it within his own dominions And it is observable that in the greatest heat of these contentions the Praelates of the Realm being present in Parliament disavowed the Popes incroachments and offered the King to stand with him in these and all other cases touching his Crown and regality as they were bound by their allegiance That is according to the law of Feâ—ds according to their homage done and according to the oath which they had taken at their Investitures into their Bishopricks Indeed of later daies during those bloudy wars between the houses of York and Lancaster the Popes sometimes invaded this undoubted right of our Kings de facto not de jure as was easie for them to do And tendered to the Bishops at their investitures another oath of their own making at first modest and innocent enough that they should observe regulas Sanctorum Patrum the rules of the Holy Fathers But after they altered the oath and falsified their Pontificall as well as their faith changing regulas Sanctorum Patrum into Regalia Sancti Petri that they should maintain the Royalties of St. Peter A shamelesse forgery and admitting them to be the interpreters of their own forms opening a gap to rob Kings of the fairest Jewels of their crownes and Bishops not onely of their Jurisdictions but also of their loyalty and allegiance to their lawful Soveraigns unlesse they take the oath with a protestation as our Arch-Bishop Cranmer did That he would not bind himself to any thing contrary to the Lawes of God or the Realm or the benefit thereof Nor yet limit himself in the reformation or Government of the Church Before which time two opposite and repugnant oathes were administred to the Bishops as Henry the eighth made it appear plainly in Parliament Many things in prudence might be done but for fear of such like alterations and incroachments Our Kings gave Peterpence to Rome as an almes But in processe of time it was exacted as a tribute The Emperours for more solemnity chose to be sworn by the Pope at Rome as the Kings of France at Rhemes and the Kings of England at Westminster And this was misinterpreted as a doing homage to the Pope Rex venit aâ—te fores jurans prius urbis honorâ—â— Post homo fit Papae sumit quo dante coronam The King doth come before the gate first swearing to the Cities state The Popes man then doth he become And of his gift doth take the Crown Poets might be bold by authority But it rested not there Good Authors affirm the challenge in good earnest And Clement the fifth in one of his Canons or Decrees doth conclude it declaramus juramenta praedicta fide litatis existere eâ— cerseâ—i debere We declare that the aforesaid oathes are and ought to be esteemed oathes of allegiance Lay these particulars together Our Kings from time to time called Councels made Ecclesiastical Laws punished Ecclesiastical persons and see that they did their duties in their callings prohibited Ecclesiastical Judges to proceed received appeals from Ecclesiastical Courts rejected the Lawes of the Pope at their pleasure with a nolumus we will not have the Lawes of England to be changed or gave Legislative interpretations of them as they thought good made Ecclesiastical corporations appropriated benefices translated Episcopal Sees forbid appeales to Rome rejected the Popes Bulls protested against his Legates questioned both the Legates themselves and all those who acknowledged them in the Kings Bench I may adde and made them pay at once an hundred and eighteen thousand pounds as a composition for their estates condemned the excommunications and other sentences of the Roman Court would not permit a Peer or Baron of the Realm to be excommunicated without their consents enjoyed the patronage of Bishopricks and the investitures of Bishops inlarged or restrained the priviledge of Clergy prescribed the indowment of Vicars set down the wages of Priests and made acts to remedy the oppressions of the Court of Rome What did King Henry the eighth in effect more then this He forbad all suites to the Court of Rome by proclamation which Sanders calls the beginning of the Schisme divers Statutes did the same He excluded the Popes Legates so did the Law of the Land without the Kings special License He forbad appeals to Rome so did his predecessors many ages before him He took away the Popes dispensations what did he in that but restore the English Bishops to their ancient right and the Lawes of the Country with the Canons of the Fathers to their vigour He challenged and assumed a political Supremacy over Ecclesiastical persons in Ecclesiastical causes So did Edward the Confessour govern the Church as the Vicar of God in his own Kingdome So did his predecessours hold their Crowns as immediately subjected to God not subjected to the Pope On the other side the Pope by our English Lawes could neither reward freely nor punish freely neither whom nor where nor when he thought fit but by the consent or connivence of the State He could neither do justice in England by the Legates without controllment nor call English men to Rome without the Kings License Here is small appearance of a good legal prescription nor any pregnant signs of any Soveraign power and Jurisdiction by undoubted right and so evident uncontroverted a title as is pretended I might conclude this my second proposition with the testimonies of the greatest Lawyers and Judges of our land Artists ought to be credited in their own Art That the lawes made by King Henry on this behalf were not operative but declarative not made to create any new law but onely to vindicate and restore the ancient law of England and its ancient Jurisdiction to the Crown There had needed no restitution if there had not been some usurpation And who can wonder that the Court of Rome so potent so prudent so vigilant and intent to their own advantage should have made some progresse in their long destined project during the raigns of six or seven Kings immediately succeeding one another who were all either of doubtful title or meer usurpers without any title Such as cared not much for the
and of the South Saxons under Kingils their King who did unite the heptarchy into a Monarchy were converted by the preaching of Berinus an Italian by the perswasions of Oswald King of Northumberland Oswâ—ld King of Northumberland was baptized in Scotland and Religion luckily planted in that Kingdome by Aidan a Scottish Bishop Penda King of Mercia was converted and christened by Finanus Successour of Aidan by the means of a marriage with a Christian Princesse of the Royal Family of Northumberland Sigibert King of the East Angles in whose daies and by whose means Religion took root among the East Saxons was converted and christned in France All these Saxons which were converted by Britons or Scots may as justly plead for their old immunities as the Britons themselves We acknowledge Saint Gregory to have been the first that did break the ice And yet we see how small a proportion of the inhabitants of the British Islands do owe their conversion to Rome in probability not a tenth part Fourthly consider that the conversion of a Nation to the Christian faith is a good ground in equity all other circumstances concurring why they should rather submit themselves or a General Councel assign them to that See that converted them then to any other Patriarchate As was justly pleaded in the case between the Bishops of Rome and Constantinople about the right of Jurisdiction over the Bulgarians But the conversion of a Nation is no ground at all to invest their converter presently with Patriarchal authority over them or any Ecclesiastical superiority especially where too great a distance of place doth render such Jurisdiction uselesse and burthensome And most especially where it cannot be done without prejudice to a former owner thrust out of his just right meerly by the power of the sword as the British Primates were Or to the subjecting of a free Nation to a forreign Prelate without or beyond their own consent In probability of reason the Britons ought their first conversion to the Eastern Church as appeareth by their accord with them in baptismal rites and the observation of Easter Yet never were subject to any Eastern Patriarch Sundry of our British and English Bishops have converted forreign Nations yet never pretended to any Jurisdiction over them Fifthly and lastly consider That whatsoever title or right S. Gregory did acquire or might have acquired by his piety and deserts towards the English Nation it was personal and could not descend from him to such Successours who both forfeited it many waies and quickly within four or five years after his death quitted their Patriarchate and set an higher title to a spirituall Monarchy on foot whilest the most part of England remained yet Pagan when Pope Boniface did obtain of Phoeas the usurper an usurping Pope from an usurping Emperour to be universal Bishop Their Canon-shot is past that which remains is but a small volly of Muskets They adde that we have schismatically separated our selves from the Communion of our Ancestours whom we believe to be damned That we have separated our selves from our Ecclesiastical predecessours by breaking in sunder the line of Apostolical succession whilest our Presbyters did take upon them to Ordain Bishops and to propagate to their Successours more then they received from their predecessours That our Presbyters are but equivocall Presbyters wanting both the right matter and form of Presbyterial ordination To extinguish the order is more schismatical then to decline their authority And lastly that we derive our Episcopal Jurisdiction from the Crown First for our natural Fathers the answer is easie We do not condemn them nor separate our selves from them Charity requires us both to think well and speak well of them But prudence commands us likewise to look well to our selves We believe our fathers might partake of some errours of the Roman Church we do not believe that they were guilty of any heretical pravity but held alwaies the truth implicitely in the preparation of their minds and were alwaies ready to receive it when God should be pleased to reveal it Upon these grounds we are so far from damning them that we are confident they were saved by a generall repentance He that searcheth carefully into his own heart to find out his errours and repenteth truly of all his known sins and beggeth pardon for his unknown errours proceeding out of invincible or but probable ignorance in Gods acceptation repenteth of all Otherwise the very best of Christians were in a miserable condition For who can tell how oft he offendeth The second accusation of Priests consecrating Bishops is grounded upon a senselesse fabulous fiction made by a man of a leaden heart and a brazen forehead of I know not what assembly of some of our Reformers at the sign of the Nags-head in Cheapside or rather devised by their malicious enemies at the sign of the Whetstone in Popes-head-Alley Against which lying groundlesse drowsie dream we produce in the very point the authentick records of our Church of things not acted in a corner but publickly and solemnly recorded by publick Notaries preserved in publick Registers whither every one that desired to see them might have accesse And published to the world in Print whilest there were thousands of eye-witnesses living that could have contradicted them if they had been feigned There is no more certainty of the Coronation of Henry the eighth or Edward the sixth then there is of that Ordination which alone they have been pleased to question done not by one as Austine consecrated the first Saxon Prelates but by five consecrated Bishops Let them name the person or persons And if they were Bishops of the Church of England we will shew them the day the place the persons when and where and by whom and before what publick Notaries or sworn Officers they were ordained And this not by uncertain rumours but by the Acts and instruments themselves Let the Reader chuse whether he will give credit to a sworn Officer or a professed adversary to eye-witnesses or to malicious reporters upon hearsay to that which is done publickly in the face of the Church or to that which is said to be done privately in the corner of a Tavern These authentick evidences being upon occasion produced out of our Ecclesiasticall Courts and deliberately perused and viewed by Father Oldcorn the Jesuit he both professed himself clearly convinced of that whereof he had so long doubted that was the legitimate succession of Bishops and Priests in our Church and wished heartily towards the reparation of the breach of Christendome that all the world were so abundantly satisfied as he himself was Blaming us as partly guilty of the grosse mistake of many for not having publickly and timely made known to the world the notorious falshood of that empty but far spread aspersion against our succession As for our parts we believe Episcopacy to be at least in Apostolical institution approved by Christ himself in
Thirdly the King of Spain when he pleaseth and when he sees his own time doth not onely pretend unto but assume in his other Dominions that self-same power or essential right of Sovereignty which I plead for in this treatise It is not unknown to the world how indulgent a Father Vrban the eighth was sometimes to the King and Kingdom of France and how passionately he affected the interest of that Crown And by consequence that his eares were deaf to the requests and remonstrances of the King of Spain The Catholique King resents this partiality very highly and threatens the Pope if he persist to provide a remedy for the grievances of his Subjects by his own power Accordingly to make good his word he called a general Assembly of all the Estates of the Kingdome of Castile to consider of the exorbitancies of the Court of Rome in relation to his Majesties Subjects and to consult of the proper remedies thereof They did meet and draw up a memoriall consisting of ten Articles containing the chiefest abuses and innovations and extortions of the Court of Rome in the Kingdom of Castile His Majestie sends it to the Pope by Friar Domingo Pimentell as his Ambassadour The Pope returned a smart answer by Senior Maraldo his Secretary The King replied as sharply All which was afterwards printed by the special command of his Catholick Majesty The summe of their complaint was first concerning the Popes imposing of pensions upon dignities and other benefices Ecclesiastical even those which had cure of soules in favour of strangers in an excessive proportion to the third part of the full value That although benefices were decayed in many places of Spain two third parts of the true value Yet the Court of Rome kept up the Pensions at the full height That it was contrived so that the Pensions did begin long before the beneficiaries entred upon their profits insomuch as they were indebted sometimes two years pensions before they themselves could taste of the fruits of their benefices And then the charge of censures and other proceedings in the Court of Rome fell so heavy upon them that they could never recover themselves And further that whereas all trade is driven in current silver onely the Court of Rome which neither toiles nor sweats nor hazards any thing will be paid onely in Duckates of Gold not after the current rates but according to the old value That to seek for a remedy of these abuses at Rome was such an insupportable charge by reason of three instances and three sentences necessary to be obtained that it was in vain to attempt any such thing This they cried out upon as a most grievous yoak They complained likewise of the Popes granting of Coad jutorships with future succession whereby Ecclesiastical preferments were made hereditary persons of parts and worth were excluded from all hopes and a large gap was opened to most grosse Simony They complained of the Popes admitting of resignations with reservation of the greatest part of the profits of the benefice insomuch that he left not above an hundred Duckats yearly to the Incumbent out of a great benefice They complained most bitterly of the extortions of the Roman Court in the case of dispensations That whereas no dispensation ought to be granted without just cause now there was no cause at all inquired after in the Court of Rome but onely the price That a great price supplied the want of a good cause That the gate was shut to no man that brought money That their dispensations had no limits but the Popes will That for a matrimonial dispensation under the second degree they took of great persons 8000. or 12000. or 14000 Duckats They complained that the Pope being but the Churches Steward and dispenser did take upon him as Lord and Master to dispose of all the rights of all Ecclesiastical persons That he withheld from Bishops being the true owners the sole disposing of all Ecclesiastical preferments for eight monthes in the year That he ought not to provide for his own profit and the necessities of his Court with so great prejudice to the right of Ordinaries and Confusion of the Ecclesiastical order whilest he suffers not Bishops to enjoy their own Patronages and Jurisdictions They cite St. Bernard where he tells Pope Eugenius that the Roman Church whereof he was made Governour by God was the Mother of other Churches but not the Lady or Mistris And that he himself was not the Lord or Master of other Bishops but one of them They complained that the Pope did challenge and usurpe to himself as his own at their deaths all Clergymens estates that were gained or raised out of the revenue of the Church That a rich Clergyman could no sooner fall sick but the Popes Collectors were gaping about him for his goods And guards set presently about his house That by this means Bishops have been deserted upon their deathbeds And famished for want of meat to eat That they have not had before they were dead a Cup left to drink in nor so much as a Candlestick of all their goods It is their own expression That by this means Creditors were defrauded processes in Law were multiplied and great estates wasted to nothing They complained that the Popes did usurp as their own all the revenues of Bishopricks during their vacancies sometimes for divers years together all which time the Churches were unrepaired the poor unrelieved not so much as one almes given And the wealth of Spain exported into a forreign Land which was richer then it self They wish the Pope to take it as an argument of their respect to the See of Rome that they do not go about forthwith to reform these abuses by their own authâ—â—ity in imitation of other Provinces So it was not the unwarrantablenesse of the act in it self but meerly their respect that did withhold them They complained of the great inconveniences and abuses in the exercise of the Nuncio's office That it is reckoned as a curse in holy Scripture to be governed by persons of a different language That for ten Crowns a man might purchase any thing of them That the fees of their office were so great that they alone were a sufficient punishment for a grievous crime They added that self-interest was the root of all these evils That such abuses as these gave occasion to all the Reformations and Schismes of the Church They added That these things did much trouble the mind of his Catholique Majestie And ought to be seriously pondered by all Sovereign Princes qui intra Ecclesiam potestatis adeptae Culmina tenent ut per eandem potestatem disciplinam Ecclesiasticam muniant Behold our Political Supremacy They proceeded that often the heavenly Kingdome is advantaged by the earthly That Church-men acting against faith and right discipline may be reformed by the rigour of Princes Let the Princes of this world know say they that they