the Objectors and then endeavour by a clear and satisfactory answer to discover the weakness and vanity of them both III. The former objection Whereas in the Oath of Supremacy the supreme power Ecclesistical is acknowledged to be in the King alone and by the Statute of 1. Eliz. All jurisdictions and preeminencies Spiritual and Ecclesiastical within the Realm of England are restored to the Crown as the ancient right thereof and forever united and annexed thereunto the Bishops claiming their power and jurisdiction to belong unto them as of divine right seemeth to be a manifest violation of the said Oath and Statute and a real diminution of the Regal power in and by the said Oath and Statute acknowledged and confirmed For whatsoever power is of divine right is immediatly derived from God and dependeth not upon any earthly King or Potentate whatsoever as superiour thereunto These two tearms to be from Heaven and to be of Men being used in the Scriptures as terms opposite and inconsistent and such as cannot be both truly affirmed of the same thing IV. The latter objection Setting aside the dispute of jus divinum and whatsoever might be said either for or against the same the very exercising of Episcopal jurisdiction in such a manner as it was with us the Bishops issuing out their Summens giving Censures and acting every other thing in the Ecclesiastical Courts in their own and not in the Kings name seemeth to derogate very much from the Regal power in the point of Ecclesiastical Soveraignty For whereas the Judges in the Kings Bench Common Plees and other common-law-Common-Law-Courts do issue out their Writts and make all their Iudgments Orders Decrees c. in the Kings name thereby acknowledging both their Power to be depending upon and derived from the Kings authority and themselves in the exercise of that Power to be but his Ministers sent and authorzied by him and so give him the just honour of his Supremacy temporal The Bishops on the other side exercise a spiritual power or jurisdiction in their own names and as it were by their own authority without any the least acknowledgment of the effluxe or emanation of that power or jurisdiction from the King Which custome as it had undoubtedly its first rise and after-growth from the exorbitant greatness of the Bishops of Rome who have usurped an unjust authority as well over Kings and Princes as over their Fellow-Bishops laboured all they could to lessen the authority of Kings especially in matters Ecclesiastical so is the continuance thereof no otherwise to be esteemed then as a rag or relique of that Anti-Christian tyranny which was retained as some other things also of evil consequence were in those imperfect beginnings of Reformation when the Popes power was first abrogated under King Henry the Eighth But it was afterwards in a more mature and perfect reformation taken in to consideration in the Raign of King Edward the Sixth and remedy provided there-against by an Act of Parliament made in the first year of his Raign Wherein it was enacted that all Summons Citations and other Processes Ecclesiastical should be made in the Kings name and with the style of the King as it is in Writts original and judicial at the Common Laws and that the Teste thereof only should be in the name of the Bishop V. It is true indeed that this Statute of King Edward was within a few years after repealed and so the old usage and form again restored primo Mariae and hath ever since so continued during the Raigns of the said Queen of Queen Elizabeth of K. Iames and of his Majesty that now is until this present Parliament without any alteration or interruption But the repealing of the Statute of primo Edw. 6. and the reception of the former usage insuing thereupon ought not to be alleaged by the Bishops or to sway with any Protestant inasmuch as that repeal was made by Queen Mary who was a professed Papist and who together with that form of proceeding in the Ecclesiastical Courts restored also the whole Popish Religion whereof that was a branch Neither ought the un-interrupted continuance of the said form under Queen Elizabeth and the succeeding Kings whether it happened through inadvertency in the State or through the incessant artifices and practises of the more active Bishops some or other whereof had alwayes a prevalent power with those Princes in their several Raigns to hinder but that as the said manner of proceeding was in the said first year of Edward 6. by the King and the three Estates in Parliament adjudged to favour the usurped power of the Bishops of Rome and to trench upon the Kings just and acknowledged authority in matters Ecclesiastical as by the preamble of the said Act doth sufficiently appear so it ought to be still no otherwise esteemed then as a branch of the Papal usurpation highly derogatory to the honour of the King and the rights of his Crown This is as I conceive the sum of all that hath been and the utmost of what I suppose can be said in this matter THE II. SECTION In answer to the former Objection I. WHereunto I make answer as followeth To the former Objection I say first that it is evidently of no force at all against those Divines who for the maintenance of Episcopacy lay their claim under another notion and not under that of Ius Divinum Which expression for that it is by reason of the ambiguity thereof subject to be mistaken and that captious men are so willing to mistake it for their own advantage might peradventure without loss of Truth or prejudice to the Cause bâ— with as much prudence laid aside aâ— used as in this so in sundry other disputes and controversies of these Times II. If it shall be replyed that then belike the Proctors for Episcopacy are not yet well agreed among themselves by what title they hold and that is a shrewd prejudice against them that they have no good title For it is ever supposed he that hath a good title knoweth what it is and we are to presume the power to be usurped when he that useth it cannot well tell how he came by it I say therefore secondly that the difference between the Advocates for Episcopacy is rather in the different manner of expressing the same thing then in their different judgement upon the substance of the matter The one sort making choise of an expression which he knoweth he is able to make good against all gainsayers if they will but understand him aright the other out of wariness or condescension forbearing an expression no necessity requiring the use of it which he seeth to have been subject to so much mis-construction III. For the truth is all this ado about Ius divinum is in the last result no more then a meer verbal nicety that term being not alwayes taken in one and the same latitude of signification Sometimes it importeth a divine precept which is indeed
bring down the Regal Power and set up their own 3. That upon these very grounds the custome was altered by Act of Parliament and a Statute made 1. Ewd. VI. howsoever since repealed and discontinued that all Processes Ecclesiastical should be made in the Kings name and not in the Bishops V. As to the first point true it is that the manner used by the Bishops in the Ecclesiastical Courts viz. in issuing out Summons Citations Processes giving Iudgments c. in their own names and not in the Kings is different from the manner used in the Kings Bench Exchequer Chancery and sundry other Courts But that difference neither doth of necessity import an independency of the Ecclesiastical Courts upon the King nor did in all probability arise at the beginning from the opinion of any such independency nor ought in reason to be construed as a disacknowledgement of the Kings authority and Supremacy Ecclesiastical For VI. First there is between such Courts as are the Kings own immediate Courts and such Courts as are not a great difference in this point Of the former sort are especially the Kings Bench and Chancery as also the Court of Common Pleas Exchequer Iustices of Goal-delivery c. In the Kings Bench the Kings themselves in former times have often personally sate whence it came to have the name of the Kings Bench neither was it tyed to any particular place but followed the Kings Person At this day also all Writs returnable there run in this style Coram nobis and not as in some other Courts coram Iustitiariis nostris or the like and all judicial Records there are styled and the Pleas there holden entred Coram Rege and not coram Iustitiariis Domini Regis Appeals also are made from inferiour Iudges in other Courts to the King in Chancery because in the construction of the Lawes the Kings Personal Power and Presence is supposed to be there and therefore Sub-poena's granted out of that Court and all matters of Record passed there run in the same style Coram Rege c. Forasmuch as in the Iudges in these two Courts there is a more immediate representation of the Kings Personal power and presence then in the Iudges of those other Courts of Common Pleas Exchequer c. Which yet by reason of his immediate virtual power and presence are the Kings immediate Courts too In regard of which his immediate virtual power although the style of the Writs and Records there be not Coram nobis Coram Rege as in the former but onely Coram Iustitiariis Coram Baronibus nostris c. yet inasmuch as the Iudges in those Courts are the Kings immediate sworn Ministers to execute justice and to do equal right to all the Kings people in his name therefore all Processes Pleas Acts and Iudgements are made and done in those Courts as well as in the two former in the Kings name But in such Courts as do not suppose any such immediate Representation or presence of the Kings either personal or virtual Power as that thereby they may be holden and taken to be the Kings own immediate Courts the case is far otherwise For neither are the Iudges in those Courts sworn the Kings Iudges to administer Justice and do right to the Kings subjects in his name and stead nor do they take upon them the authority to cite any person or to give any sentence or to do any act of Jurisdiction in the Kings name having never been by him authorized so to do Of this sort are amongst others best known to them that are skilled in the Laws of this Realm all Courts-Baron held by the Lord of a Manner Customary Courts of Copyholders c and such Courts as are held by the Kings grant by Charter to some Corporation as to a City Borough or Vniversity or els by long usage and prescription of time In all which Courts and if there be any other of like nature Summons are issued out and Iudgements given and all other Acts and Proceedings made and done in the name of such persons as have chief authority in the said Courts and not in the name of the King So as the styles run thus A. B. Major civitatis Ebor. N. M. Cancellarius Vniversitatis Oxon. and the like and not Carolus Dei gratia c. VII Upon this ground it is that our Lawyers tell us out of Bracton that in case of Bastardy to be certified by the Bishop no inferiour Court as London Yorke Norwich or any other Incorporation can write to the Bishop to require him to certify but any of the Kings Courts at Westminister as Common Pleas Kings Bench c. may write to him to certify in that case The reason is Because Nullus alius praeter Regem potest Episcopo demandare inquisitionem faciendam Which maketh it plain that the Kings immediate powe either personal or virtual is by the Law supposed to be present in Courts of the one sort not of the other the one sort being his own immediate Courts and the other not VIII Now that the Ecclesiastical Courts wherein the Bishops exercise their Jurisdiction are of the latter sort I doubt not but our Law-books will afford plenty of arguments to prove it beyond all possibility of contradiction or cavil Which being little versed in those studies I leave for them to find out who have leisure to search the books and do better understand the nature constitution differences and bounds of the several Courts within this Realm One argument there is very obvious to every understanding which because I shall have fit occasion a little after to declare I will not now any longer insist upon taken from the nature of the Iurisdiction of these Courts so far distant from the Iurisdiction appertaining to those other Courts that these are notoriously separated and in Common and vulgar speach distinguished from all other by the peculiar name and appellation of the Spiritual Courts But another Argument which those books have suggested I am the more willing here to produce for that it not only sufficiently proveth the matter now in hand but is also very needful to be better known abroad in the world then it is for the removing of a very unjust censure which meerly for want of the knowledge of the true cause hath been laid upon the Bishops in one particular to their great wrong and prejudice It hath been much talked on not only by the Common sort of people but by some persons also of better rank and understanding and imputed to the Bishops as an act of very high insolency that in their Processes Patents Commissions Licences and other Instruments whereunto their Episcopal Seale is affixed so oft as they have occasion to mention themselves the Style runneth ever more in the Plural number Nos G. Cantuar-Archiepiscopus Coram nobis Salvo nobis c. just as it doth in his Majesties Letters Patents and Commissions thereby shewing themselves say they as if they were his
upon it by some necessity of the times or induced for just reasons of expediency so to do XL. But then Secondly as that Reason relateth to the present business in particular the Scandal thereby given is yet greater For we are to know that when King Henry the Eighth abolished the Papal Power resuming in his own hand the ancient rights of the Crown which the Bishops of Rome had unjustly usurped he took upon himselfe also that title which he then found used by the Bishops of Rome but which none of his Progenitors the Kings of this Realm had ever used of being the Supream head of the Church within his Dominions This title continued during the Reign of his son King Edward the Sixth by whom the Statute aforesaid was made and is mentioned in that very Statute Now albeit by that title or appellation was not intended any other thing then that Supremacy Ecclesiastical which the Kings of this Land have and of right ought to have in the governance of their Realms over all persons and in all causes Ecclesiastical as well as other and which is in the Oath of Supremacy ackowledged to belong unto them yet the Papists took Scandal at the novelty thereof and glad of such an occasion made their advantage of it to bring a reproach upon our Religion as if the Protestants of England were of opinion that all Spiritual Power did belong unto the King and that the Bishops and Ministers of England had their whole power of Preaching administring the Sacraments Ordaining Excommunicating c. solely and originally from the King as the members of the body live by the influence which the Head hath into them Upon their clamours that title of Supream head and governour was taken into farther consideration in the beginning of Queen Elizabeths Raign And although that style in the true meaning thereof was innocent and defensible enough yet for the avoiding of Scandal and Cavil it was judged more expedient that the word Head should thenceforth be laid aside and the style run only Supream Governour as we see it is in the Oath of Supremacy and otherwhere ever since without mentioning the word Head according to the intimations given in the Queens Injunctions and elswhere in that behalfe And it seemeth to me very probable that for the same reason especially besides those other reasons already given it was thought fitter by Her then and by her successours hitherto that the Bishops in all their Ecclesiastical Courts and proceedings should act in their own names as formerly they had done then that the Statute of King Edward should be revived for doing it in the Kings name For the sending out processes c. in order to Excommunication and other Church-censures in the Kings name would have served marvellously to give colour and consequently strength in the apprehension at least of weaker judgements to that calumny wherewith the Papists usually asperse our Religion as if the Kings of England took themselves to be proper and competent Iudges of Censures meerly spiritual in their own persons and the Prelates accordingly did acknowledge them so to be Thus have I shewen to the satisfaction I hope of the ingenuous and unprejudiced Reader that Episcopacy is no such dangerous creature either in the Opinion or Practice as some would make the world believe it is but that the Kings Crown may stand fast enough upon his head and flourish in its full verdure without plucking away or displacing the least flower in it notwithstanding Episcopacy should be allowed to be of Divine Right in the highest sence and the Bishops still permitted to make their Processes in their own names and not in the Kings By this time I doubt not all that are not willfully blind for who so blind as he that will not see do see and understand by sad experience that it had been far better both with King and Kingdome then now it is or without Gods extraordinary mercy is like to be in haste if the enemies of Episcopacy had meant no worse to the King and his Crown then the Bishops and those that favoured them did A POST-SCRIPT to the Reader WHereas in my Answer to the former of the two Objections in the foregoing Treatise I have not any where made any clear discovery what my own particular judgement is concerning the Jus divinum of EPISCOPACY in the stricter sense either in the Affirmative or Negative and for want of so doing may perhaps be censured by some to have walked but haltingly or at least wise with more caution and mincing then became me to do in a business of that nature I do hereby declare 1. That to avoid the starting of more Questions then needs must I then thought it fitter and am of the same opinion still to decline that Question then to determine it either way such determination being clearly of no moment at all to my purpose and for the solving of that Objection 2. That nevertheless leaving other men to the liberty of their own judgements my opinion is that EPISCOPAL GOVERNMENT is not to be derived meerly from Apostolical Practise or Institution but that it is originally founded in the Person and Office of the Messias our blessed Lord JESUS CHRIST Who being sent by his Heavenly Father to be the great Apostle HEB. III. 1. Bishop and Pastor 1 PET. II. 25. of his Church and anointed to that Office immediately after his Baptisme by JOHN with power and the Holy Ghost ACT. X. 37-8 descending then upon him in a bodily shape LUK. III. 22. did afterwards before his Ascension into Heaven send and impower his holy Apostles giving them the Holy Ghost likewise as his Father had given him in like manner as his Father had before sent him JOH XX. 21. to execute the same Apostolical Episcopal and Pastoral Office for the ordering and governing of his Church until his coming again and so the same Office to continue in them and their Successours unto the end of the world MAT. XXVIII 18 20. This I take to be so clear from these and other like Texts of Scripture that if they shall be diligently compared together both between themselves and with the following practise of all the Churches of Christ as well in the Apostles times as in the Purest and Primitive times nearest thereunto there will be left little cause why any man should doubt thereof 3. That in my Answer to the later Objection I made no use at all nor indeed could do of the Opinion of the Reverend Judges in that point nor of his Majesties Proclamation grounded thereupon For although the Proclamation had been extant Ten years before this task was imposed upon me yet I had never seen nor so much as heard of the same in all the time before nor yet in all the time since till about ten dayes ago I was advertised thereof when these Papers were then going to the Press Which since they give so much strength to the main Cause and so fully avoid the Objection I have followed the advise of some friends and caused them to be printed here withal FINIS See Stat. 25. H. 8. 20 1. Edw. 6. 2. Cok. 1. Instit. 2. Sect. 648. Stat. for the Clergy 14. â— 3. cap. 3.
in his name and Right alone Whereupon his Majesties said Iudges having taken the same into their serious consideration did unanimously concur and agree in opinion and the first day of July last certified under their hands as followeth That Processes may issue out of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the name of the Bishops and that a Patent under the great Seal is not necessary for the keeping of the said Ecclesiastical Courts or for enabling of Citations Suspensions Excommunications and other Censures of the Church And that it is not necessary that Summons Citations or other Processes Ecclesiastical in the said Courts or Institutions or Inductions to Benefices or correction of Ecclesiastical offences by Censure in those Courts be in the Kings name or with the style of the King or under the Kings Seal or that their Seals of Office have in them the Kings Arms And that the Statute of Primo Edvardi Sexti cap. secundo which enacted the contrary is not now in force And that the Bishops Arch-Deacons and other Ecclesiastical persons may keep their Uisitations as usually they have done without Commission under the great Seal of England so to do which opinions and resolutions being declared under the hands of all his Majesties said Iudges and so certified into his Court of Star-Chamber were there recorded and it was by that Court further ordered the fourth day of the said moneth of July that the said certificate should be inrolled in all other his Majesties Courts at Westminster and in the High Commission and other Ecclesiastical Courts for the satisfaction of all men That the proceedings in the High Commission and other Ecclesiastical Courts are agreeable to the Laws and Statutes of the Realm And his Royal Majesty hath thought sit with advice of his Councel that a publick Declaration of these the opinions and resolutions of his Reverend and Learned Iudges being agreeable to the Iudgement and Resolutions of former times should be made known to all his Subjects as well to vindicate the legal proceedings of His Ecclesiastical Courts and Ministers from the unjust and scandalous imputation of invading or entrenching on his Royal Prerogative as to settle the minds and stop the mouths of all unquiet Spirits that for the future they presume not to censure his Ecclesiastical Courts or Ministers in these their Iust and warranted proceedings And hereof his Majesty admonisheth all his Subjects to take warning as they shall answer the contrary at their perils Given at the Court at Lyndhurst the 18. day of August in the 13. year of his Majesties Raign God save the King Imprinted at London by Robert Barker Printer to the Kings most Excellent Majesty and by the Assignes of Iohn Bill 1637. Primo Julii 1637. The Iudges Certificate concerning Ecclesiastical Iurisdiction May it please your Lordships ACcording to your Lordships Order made in his Majesties Court of Star-Chamber the Twelfth of May last we have taken consideration of the particulars wherein our Opinions are required by the said Order and we have all agreed That Processes may issue out of the Ecclesiastical Courts in the name of Bishops and that a Patent under the great Seal is not necessary for the keeping of the said Ecclesiastical Courts or for the enabling of Citations Suspensions Excommunications or other Censures of the Church And that it is not necessary that Summons Citations or other Processes Ecclesiastical in the said Courts or Institutions or Inductions to Benefices or Correction of Ecclesiastical offences by censure in those Courts be in the Kings name or with the Style of the King or under the Kings Seal or that their Seals of Office have in them the Kings Arms. And that the Statute of Primo Edvardi Sexti Cap. 2. which enacted the contrary is not now in force We are also of opinion That the Bishops Archdeacons and other Ecclesiastical persons may keep their Visitations as usually they have done without Commission under the great Seal of England so to do Io. Bramstone Io. Finch Humfrey Davenport Will. Iones Io. Dinham Richard Hutton George Croke Tho. Trevor George Vernon Ro. Berkley Fr. Crawley Ric. Weston Inrolled in the Courts of Exchequer Kings Bench Common Pleas and Registred in the Courts of High Commission and Star-Chamber EPISCOPACY not Prejudicial to Regal Power SECT I. The two great Objections proposed I. HE that shall take the pains to inform himself rightly what power the Kings of England have from time to time claimed and exercised in Causes and over Persons Ecclesiastical as also by whom how and how far forth their said Power hath been from time to time either opposed or maintained shall undoubtedly find that no persons in the world have more freely acknowledged and both by their writings and actions more zealously judiciously and effectually asserted the Soveraign Ecclesiastical power of Kings then the Protestant Bishops and Divines whom our new Masters have been pleased of late to call the Prelatical party in the Church of England have done Yet so far hath prejudice or something else prevailed with some persons of quality in these times of so much loosness and distraction as to suffer themselves to be led into a belief or at leastwise to be willing the people should be deceived into the belief of these two things First that the Opinion which maintaineth the Ius divinum of Episcopacy is destructive of the Regal power And secondly that Episcopal Iurisdiction as it was exercised before and at the beginning of this present Parliament was derogatory from the honour of the King and prejudicial to the just Rights and Prerogatives of his Crown II. Truely they that know any thing of the practises and proceedings of the Anti-prelatical party cannot be ignorant that their aims these or whatsoever other pretensions notwithstanding are clearly to enlarge their own power by lessening the Kings and to raise their own estates upon the ruines of the Bishops And therefore howsoever the aforesaid pretensions may seem at the first appearance to proceed from a sense of Loyalty and a tenderness of suffering any thing to be continued in the kingdom which might tend to the least diminution of his Majesties just power greatness yet till their actions look otherwise then for some time past they have done the pretenders must give us leave to think that their meaning therein is rather to do the Bishops hurt then to do the King service and that their affections so far as by what is visible we are able to judge thereof are much what alike the same towards them both But to leave their Hearts to the judgement of him to whom they must stand or fall for the just defence of truth and that so far as we can help it the people be not abused in this particular also as in sundry others they have been by such men as are content to use the Kings name when it may help on their own designs I shall first set forth the two main Objections severally to the best advantage of