THE Church OF England TRULY Represented According to Dr. Heylins History of the Reformation In Justification Of her Royal Highness the Late Dutchess of YORKS Paper Induantur qui detrahunt mihi pudore operiantur sicut diploide confusione sua Psal. 108. v. 28. LONDON Printed for the Author and Sold by Matthew Turner near Turn-stile in Holbourn 1686. THE Church Of England TRULY Represented c. THe Ignis Fatuus of Reformation struck by Collision out of the lustful and violent desires of King Henry the Eighth and the opposition made to them by the Pope The Riches of Abbeys and Monasteries still administring new matter unto it all the reign of that unhappy Prince grew to the Prodigy of a Comet in the immature years of his Son King Edward the Sixth by many Acts of Spoil and Rapine even to a high degree of Sacriledge on Chanteries Bishopricks Hospitals and Churches and wandering as in Exile all the time of Queen Mary about Zurick Basil Geneva but chiefly about Frankfort is thus again usher'd into the Land by that great Luminary of his Church Dr. Heylin to be refin'd of the filth it had drawn unto it from the Lakes in the Alpes and to be new moulded and formed into a Church by Queen Elizabeth to make good here Legitimation She says he knew full well that her Legitimation and the Popes Supremacy could not stand together and that she could not possibly maintain the one without a discarding of the other And what follows we more feelingly know than Dr. Heylin viz. That the Answer of the Pope according to his accustomed vigour That the Kingdom of England was held in Fee of the Apostolick See that she could not succeed being Illegitimate that he could not contradict the Declarations of Clement the Seventh and Paul the Third That it was a great boldness to assume the Name and Government of it without him was not only the foundation of the Church of England but also of all the Distractions and Miseries this poor Land has suffer'd from that day to this And all this upon a frivolous account of a pretended Donation of this Kingdom to the Pope by King Iohn the usurper which had been equally frivolous had he been never so lawfull a King But what a Bottom is this to build a Church upon And to forsake the Communion of a Church professed so many hundreds of years and established by so many Laws in the Nation because forsooth the Queens Legitimation and the Pope's Supremacy could not stand together We read that the Gates of Hell shall never prevail against the Church of Christ But had the Pope and the Queen known how to have adjusted their differences this Ignis Fatuus had been extinguisht in the Lake of Geneva and the Church of England had never been seen nor heard of in the world And will any man in his wits repose his hopes of salvation in a Church that came from so bare an accident so meer a chance as this midwived into the world by a Maiden Queen to make good her Legitimation Moreover we read that Christ will be with his Church to the end of the world But I pray when did he begin to be with this Church was it when the Queen had made good her Legitimation She has not done it yet But as Dr. Heylin well observes Bacon was not to be told of an old Law-maxime That the Crown takes away all defects Which it seems in the language of the Law was a Tantamount to a Legitimation and on this Tantamount was first erected the Crown and on that the Church as tho' the Law-makers ever meant that that odd scrap of Law should be extended to Legitimate whom the Law had illigitimated which if so might as well have legitimated the Rebellion of Oliver Cromwel had he clapt the Crown on his head and made him a lawful King tho he had been a Bastard into the bargain And now I think here is enough said of the fundamental and final Cause of the Church of England viz. The Pope's accustomed Rigour and the Queens legitimation I will now proceed to consider the Embryo of this Church in the rest of her Causes according to Dr. Heylin and then I hope I shall have truly Represented her according to her best and most beloved Historian I find no greater Enemies to Reformations than Reformers each Reformer like the Ape in the story thinking his own Brat the fairest would have no Reformation stand good but his own and therefore reviles and flouts at the rest as whimseys and phancys as indeed they are no better nor his own neither Who ever saw more bitter scolding than between the Lutherans the Zuinglians and the Calvinists the worst of men cannot be represented greater Villains than they represent each other and if a man considers them rightly he will find no other truth but This in all their Volums and yet some of them are very voluminous too In like manner does the Presbyterian revile and flout at the Church of England in his Cobler of Gloucester and serves Her up to his Readers in whole Cart loads of debauched Ministers and prophane Bishops But indeed the Church of England reviles and ridicules the Presbyterian with much more wit and far greater civility in her Hudibras But with too much Rigour too For she will not allow Sow-Gelders when they wind their horns to geld a Cat to cry Reform Nor an Oyster-wench to shut up shop and trudge about to cry no Bishop as tho' Sow-Gelders might not as well cry Reform the Church of England as a pack of Laymen in Parliament cry Reform the Church of Rome or as tho' an Oyster-Wench might not as well cry No Bishop as Queen Elizabeth cry No Pope How can it enter into the head of an Episcopal man that a Church of so long standing as the R. Catholick Church had been of continuance in England backt by so many Old Laws could on a suddain be lay'd aside with all her Doctrins and a new one foisted into her place with new ones without either Patriark of the West Primates of the Land or Bishops at all to it This is the case of the Church England and Dr. Heylin makes it out as clear as ever the sun shin'd at noon day He tells you that in the beginning of that Parliament 1. Eliz. Which Parliament made and establisht the Church that the Oath of Supremacy was tendered to the Bishops upon the refusal whereof they were cast out of PARLIAMENT all but Bishop Kitching who took the Oath but never was PROTESTANT notwithstanding Then it is evident that the old Bishops were not in Parliament at the devising and making of this Church He begins the 2 d. year of Queen Elizabeth with the consecrating of the new Bishops Parker and the rest then they were not in Parliament neither at the devising and making of this Church for the Church was made and establisht in the first year of Q.
Elizabeth the Church to this day dates from this first of Elizabeth as Rome did formerly ab urbe condita And therefore my Lord Chancellor Finch in an eloquent speech to the Parliament learnedly declared unto them that she was a Church now of above a hundred years standing meaning from this first of Elizabeth Then you see that Dr. Heylin has made it as clear as the sun that there were no Bishops at all at the making of this Church Men of the Gospel now tell me Are not Bishops of the Essence of God's Church no Episcopal man ever deny'd it And men of the Law tell me Are not Bishops so of the Essence of this Government that there can be no Parliament without them no Lawyer can deny it Then here is a Church set up in spite of God and in defiance to the fundamental Laws of the Land And this forsooth is your Church by Law establisht Establisht with a non obstante to the very Essence of the Government by Bishops which God set over his Church and to the Essence and foundation of thâ— Government of this Realm So that unless the deserting of one Church for lust spoil rapin and sacriledge be the setting up making and establishing of another there has been neither Church made nor setled nor establisht since the defection from the Church of Rome in England to this present time Then is it not severe that after all this ado and noise of a Church Articles Tests Laws penal and sanguinary to compel men from their consciences there should not be the least semblance or shadow of a Church to invite them unto Nor had the Queen with her Lay-Parliament any more Power or Authority by the laws of God and his Church founded on Episcopacy to make alter or establish a Church than has the Parliament of Women and the poor man that crys it up and down the Town Power or Authority to make a Religion and establish it when he had done by crying it about the streets Nor do I see how it is possible for any Episcopal man to have confidence to pretend the contrary With good Reason then did the late Dutchess of York of happy memory declare that instead of satisfaction in the History of the Reformation recommended to her for that purpose she found nothing but the description of the horridest sacriledges in the world and could find no Reason why we left the Church but for three the most abominable ones that were ever heard of amongst Christians First Henry 8 th renounces the Popes Authority because he would not give him leave to part with his wife and marry an other in her life time Secondly Edward 6 th was a Child and governed by his Vnkle who made his estate out of Church-Lands and then Queen E. who being no lawful Heiress to the Crown could have no way to keep it but by renouncing a Church that could never suffer so unlawful a thing to be done by one of her Children I confess I cannot think the Holy Ghost could be in such Counsels The Church being thus truly represented and shewed to be nothing it must necessarily follow that her Bishops and Priests are likewise nothing as to any Power or Mission they can pretend to And how shall they Preach unless they be sent For in a Bishop is required not only Ordination but also Spiritual Jurisdiction and Mission and both these are derived not from Kings or Queens but immediately from Christ by succession from the Apostles Then the Church of England being nothing and in Communion with no other Episcopal Church by what succession will her Bishops derive their Powers from the Apostles Do they think the Church of Rome sent them to Preach the Doctrine of the Thirty Nine Articles No it cannot be so imagin'd and therefore the Presbyterians derive their Mission extraordinarily from God by the Spirit well knowing that it were impossible for them to derive it Ordinarily by succession through the Church of Rome from Christ and his Apostles So that 't is a clear Case that the pretended Bishops of England have no Mission nor Power at all to do what they do but from lay Authority But indeed as to the Ordination it is quite an other thing for the Arian and Donatist Bishops were true Bishops as to Ordination tho by Apostacy and Heresie they had lost their Mission And Dr. Heylin pretends the like of the Bishops of the Church of England and to clear all doubts to the contrary tells us that the story of the first four Bishops of his Church being merrily ordained at the Naggs-head Tavern in Cheapside was but the invention chiefly of one Neal once Hebrew reader in Oxford and Chaplain to Bishop Bonner and Dr. Sanders and thus like an erudite Protestant learnedly and compendiously confutes them both Sanders he calls Slanders and as for the other it is enough that he was once Chaplain to Bonner and so their business is soon done He also tells us that George Abbot Archbishop of Canterbury caused several Priests and Jesuits then Prisoners in the Clink to be brought before him Who being brought to Lambeth the Twelfth of May 1613. were suffered in the presence of diverse Bishops to peruse the publick Registers and thereby to satisfy themselves in all particulars concerning the Confirmation and Consecration of Archbishop Parker Dr. Heylin is indeed a very punctual man you see he sets down exactly the day of the Month and the year this happened viz. The Twelfth of May 1613. But Bishop Parker was consecrated in the second year of Queen Elizabeth 1559. Then where were these Registers all this while Dr. Sanders Dr. Harding Dr. Stapleton even in the time of Archbishop Parker and to himself called his Consecration in question and denyed it without any Reply either from himself or any body else in his behalf Then where were at that time these same Registers But suppose these Registers true and that the Consecration was at Lambeth and the Consecration-dinner only at the Naggs-head did not multitudes of people flock to see the great solemnity of Consecrating the first four new Bishops of the Novel Church and was not the Dinner well attended on by multitudes both of men and women for they are also curious especially in Church affairs and were all these men and women dead on a suddain that none should be left alive to witness against Neal and Sanders that they saw Parker Consecrated at Lambeth Or could so great a man as Dr. Sanders have the confidence to broach such a Tale as Dr. Heylin calls it when multitudes of eye-witnesses were alive to give him the lye Had those Registers been found out in any competent time and flapt in the faces of Neal and Sanders and the rest who reproached the Church with her Naggs-head Consecration they might all have been justly called Slanderses but instead of finding such Registers the Church and State politickly combined to renew the statutes against Tellers of
false news that a poor Papist if he passed through Cheapside durst not so much as look toward that side of the street where the Naggs-head stood for fear of being punisht as a Teller of false news for the looks of a Papist in those days boaded false news as a Wash-ball in his pocket of late boded 〈◊〉 firing of the City And indeed to produce these Registers Fifty four years after the time and not before when Neal and Sanders the Vintner of the Naggs-head his wife drawers and all were dead was to as much purpose as if they had left them at Salamanca in Dr. Oates his Library to be brought over with the Forty Thousand pilgrims 1678. September the Lord knows when for Oates did not confine himself to a day as Dr. Heylin and Mason the forgeâ—â— of the Registers did But Dr. Heylin treats of this matter here en passant only and refers his Readers for their further satisfaction to the begining of his eight and last book where thus he tells his own Tale worth any mans reading Nothing remaineth but that we settle the Episcopal Government and then it will be time to conclude this History And for the settling of this Government by as good Authority as could be given unto it by the Laws of the Land we are beholding to the obstinacy of Dr. Edmund Bonner late slaughter-man of London By a statute made in the last Parliament for keeping her Majesties Subjects in due obedience a Power was given unto the Bishops to tender and receive the Oath of Supremacy to all manner of persons dwelling and residing in their several Dioceses Bonner was then prisoner in the Clink or Marshalsee which being in the Borrough of Southwark brought him within the Iurisdiction of Horn Bishop of Winchester by whose Chancellour the Oath was tendered unto him on the refusal of which Oath he is indicted at the Kings Bench upon the Statute to which he appeared in some Term of the year foregoing c. The second Principal Plea was this that Horn at the time the Oath was tendered was not Bishop of Winchester and therefore not impowred by the said Statute to make tender of it by himself or by his Chancellour And for the proof of this that he was no Bishop it was alledged that the form of Consecration of Archbishops and Bishops which had been ratify'd by Parliament in the time of King Edward had been repealed in the first year of Queen Mary and so remained at Horn's pretended Consecration The Cause being put off from Term to Term comes at last to be debated amongst the Iudges at Serjeants Inn by whom it was finally put upon the Issue and the Tryal of that Issue ordered to be committed to a Iury of the County of Surry But then withall it was advised that the decision of the point should rather be referred to the following Parliament for fear that such a weighty matter might miscarry by a Country Iury of whose either Partiality or Insufficiency there had been some proof made before touching the Grants made by King Edwards Bishops of which a great many were made void under pretence that the Grantors were not Actually Bishops nor Legally possessed of their several Sees According to this sound advice the business comes under consideration in the following Parliament which begun on the Thirtyeth of September where all particulars being fully and consideratly discoursed upon it was first declared that their not restoring that book to the former Power in Terms significant and express was but casus omissus And secondly that by the Statutes Fifth and Sixth of Edward the Sixth it had been added to the book of Common Prayer and Administration of the Sacraments as a Member of it or at least an Appendant to it and therefore by the first of Elizabeth was restored again together with the said book of Common Prayer intentionally at the least if not in Terminis But being that the words of the said Statute were not clear enough to remove all doubts they did therefore revive it now and did accordingly Enact That all persons that had been or should be made ordered or Consecrated Arch-Bishops Bishops Priests Ministers of God's Holy Words and Sacraments or Deacons after the form and order prescribed in the said book be in very deed and also by Authority hereof declared and enacted to be and shall be Arch-Bishops Bishops Priests Ministers of God's holy Words and Sacraments and Deacons rightly made Consecrated and ordered any Statute Law Canon or any thing to the contrary notwithstanding A bold Parliament indeed that thus generously bids defiance to all Laws and Statutes ever made in the world to all Canons ever made in God's Church and to every thing else whatsoever To good purpose then did Saint Gregory the Great and Bishop Lawd after him declare that they gave the like credit to the first four General Councils as to the four Evangelists when an English Parliament shall come and enact and declare Bishops in the form they please with a non obstante to all the Powers of Heaven and Earth or any thing to the contrary notwithstanding i. e. of Hell too But being that Dr. Heylin tells us that this business was onely fully and considerately discoursed upon in Parliament it may I hope yet bear a further discussion and canvassing You see here were many doubts whether these Bishops were rightly consecrated or not First Because the Form of Consecration made in King Edwards days was declared void and null in the first year of Queen Mary and as yet has never been allowed in the Church of Rome Secondly Because you see there was a Casus omissus and the Form of King Edward was not restored in Terms express and significant which is requisite in Law Thirdly To talk of a Statute once made null and void intentionally is non-sence For Intention will not make Law neither is it in Church affairs nor indeed is it any where else as it is in England where there are definitive Interpreters of Law and no Law Text and where there is Gospel and no definitive Interpreters of the Text. Fourthly Because the words in the said Statute were not clear enough to remove doubts Then 't is clear that there were doubts Fifthly Because the Doubts were so many that the whole Power of the Kingdom Queen Council Church and State durst not venture a tryal against a poor Prisoner notwithstanding that the business was order'd for a tryal by Serjeants Inn to see it fairly decided whether the Doubts could be removed or not for fear such a weighty matter might miscarry by a County Iury as tho' it had not been in their Power to make what Jury they pleased Sixthly Bonner tho' a Prisoner enjoyed his Revenue all this while by dint of Law that is from the first of Eliz. to the eighth of Eliz. because Horn in all this time could not prove himself a Bishop Then the Law did not look upon them as yet Bishops But