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A33074 The Church of England truly represented according to Dr. Heylins history of the Reformation : in justification of Her Royal Highness the late Dutchess [sic] of Yorks paper. York, Anne Hyde, Duchess of, 1637-1671. 1686 (1686) Wing C4192; ESTC R23708 9,803 22

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all the Bishops were made in this time and all that pretend to be now Bishops are derived from them Then how sacrilegious were those Bishops that administred the Sacraments and conferred Orders whilst so many Doubts remained Whether they were truly ordained or had any lawful Jurisdiction or not And of this there can be no question nor can any man deny it But now comes the Parliament the Doubts are removed and Horn gets his Cause But how were both Parties heard No nor durst the Parliament hear what Bonner could say for himself nor what his Lawyers could say for him neither who were Eminent Men as Dr. Heylin tells us Wrey Lovelace and Ployden nor is it to be imagined that such Eminent Men would have undertaken so invidious a business to Church and State unless they had foreseen that the Cause was sure enough in their hands It is a received Maxim throughout the world that Qui judicat causa inaudita altera iniquus est Iudex He that judges without hearing both Parties is a wicked Judge But this Parliament judged without hearing both parties then this was iniquum Parliamentum iniquus Iudex a wicked Parliament wicked Judges then what are the Bishops who are no otherwise Bishops than by verdict of such Iniquity But this is not all Either those Bishops of whose Consecration there were so many Doubts were in this Parliament or not Of right they could not be there until the Doubts were removed But either they were or they were not If they were can any thing be more pleasantly ridiculous than to see the very men in question whether Bishops or not sit judging in Parliament and voting themselves to be in very deed and also by Authority hereof that is of themselves declared and enacted to be and shall be Arch-Bishops Bishops c. rightly made consecrated and ordered any thing to the contrary notwithstanding This is far worse than ask my Brother if I am a Thief In fine it is so ridiculous that for soberness sake we will suppose that those pretended Bishops did not sit in that Parliament Then was the Parliament but a pack of Laymen and what have such to do with enacting or declaring of Bishops Bishops derive their ordination and the power that follows it immediately from Christ himself by succession from the Apostles as I said before and not from King nor Queen It is a thing purely spiritual and therefore cannot fall under the cognizance of any Temporal Power So that the pretended Bishops were no more Bishops for this Act of Parliament than they were before For such a Parliament neither had power to enact them Bishops nor to declare them such so that all the former Doubts yet remain and reach our present pretended Bishops equally and as much as they did the former But it is Sacriledge for any pretended Bishop to offer to administer the Sacraments and confer Orders when but one Doubt remains whether he be rightly in Orders himself or have Authority to do it Then greater is the Sacriledge when men offer to administer the Sacraments and confer Orders when so many Doubts remain whether they be in Orders or rightly authorized to do such Acts. And now to conclude how came Dr. Heylin so well acquainted with Bishop Bonner that he should know which were his chief Pleas or what he would chiefly have insisted upon had the weighty matter been suffered to have come to a hearing Did he think the story of the Naggs-head less known to Bonner than it was to Neal and Saunders or can any man in his wits believe that the whole Power of the Realm Queen Church Parliament Council and all were in earnest afraid the weighty matter might miscarry by a County Iury either by Partiality or Insufficiency Was it impossible for the Queen and Church to have found in the whole County of Surry twelve men according to their own hearts And could not they have instructed them as far as they pleased that there could not be any fear of Insufficiency And could not they have made them wholly their own that there could be no fear of Partiality at leastwise towards Bonner And if all other means had failed could not they have brib'd and suborn'd them A more necessary Policy then when the weighty matter was at stake than ever there was occasion for the like since And does Dr. Heylin call the declining of this Tryal sound Advice Certainly when this question was started Bishops or not Bishops And that the Cause debated amongst the Iudges at Serjeants Inn was finally put upon the Issue and the Tryal of that Issue ordered to be committed to a Iury of the County of Surry it was necessary the world should be satisfied But the Queen and Church did foresee either that such things would be brought upon the stage as would be very dishonourable to both or that the pretended Bishop Horn would be cast And then whither would her Majesty have sent for Bishops to Consecrate her new Elects The Catholick Bishops would not do it and of that she had a Tryal in Kitchin The Lutherans would not do it for Dr. Heylin tells us that they would not receive English fugitives in Queen Mary's time and that they called such as dyed here then the Devils Martyrs So that the Church of England must e'en have been an Episcopal Church without Bishops And that had not been more ridiculous than it was infamous and Scandalous to have declined the Tryal That my Reader may the better remember what has been said I thus in short Recapitulate it Th● first beginning of Reformation was founded on lust it encreased by Spoil Rapine and Sacriledge it was at last new moulded and formed into a Church to Legitimate the Queen when nothing else could do it it was made and establisht a Church by a Power that had no more Authority to make and establish Churches than has the poor man with his Parliament of women which he crys about the streets Authority to make and establish Religions The pretended Bishops of this pretended Church are no Bishops at all or at the best they can but pretend to be Bishops with many doubts on their backs whether they are Bishops or not and consequently must lye under the guilt of Sacriledge for Administring the Sacraments and conferring Orders those doubts still remaining unclear'd nor possible now ever to be so For no ensuing Parliament can ever do it nor if it could were it ever possible for them to prove by what Lawfully Authorized Successor's of the Apostles they were sent to Preach the Doctrine of the Thirty Nine Articles Thus is the pretended Church of England truly represented throughout all her causes except her Material ones and those I omitted because she has none being only made up but of No's and Negatives of which hereafter In the mean time I defy any man to shew me that I have Slandered her with the least untruth in the world Had not then the good late Dutchess of York just Reason to confess that she could not think the Holy Ghost could ever be in such Counsels FINIS Heylin in pref pag. 131 pag. 275 pag. 294
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 th● 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 forge●● 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